One day it would be about Krishna and the gopis, from the Bhagavatham, or of the Goddess Laxmi, rising out of the milky ocean on a stalk of blue lotus, and this from the Vishnu Purana, But the story he loved most of all was of that king who having lost interest in his splendorous world, suddenly comes upon a deer with its young in the forest, and he brought the little one home, petted her and fed her, but when he died he was, of course born a deer, for remember you are reborn as your last thought be. And again, as a deer he was so wise and sparse of need, for he well remembered his past life, as king, but was born again as a man, and a Brahmin this time, a Brahmin fat and big, uncouth and repulsive, saliva dripping down his cheeks, and destiny made him, though a Brahmin by birth, a palanquin bearer of King Suvera. But so indifferent was he to everything, and bore the palanquin so unequally paced the other palanquin bearers shouted at him again and again, when finally the king himself jumps out of his palanquin, and asks in royal ire, ‘Who are you? And why do you do this to me?’ To which the palanquin bearer Brahmin replied: ‘Look, Sire, I am fat and strong, uncouth, saliva running down my face. Look, look at me, but tell me, King, am I my face, my limbs, my nose that drips this snot, am I, I? Tell me truly, who am I?’ Then he told the king of his past lives, which he remembered so well, and of the king who loved the little deer so, and of the deer he was born as, and again of the Brahmin he is now. ‘Who indeed am I?’ And boldly asked of King Suvera: ‘And how shall I denominate you, Sire? Are you your body? Who are you, king? And, what, pray is a king? Tell me, please, what is an object? Is this a palanquin? Of what wood however is it made? Do you know its name, and whence it came, and where sawed out, fixed, and made into a palanquin?’ And the Brahmin finally said, ‘Just as the universally distributed air, going through the holes of a flute, makes for the variegated melodies, with sariga, sariga notes and all that, yet all this is but one piece of bamboo. There is no I, there is no you.’ And so saying, he suddenly saw within himself then and there as if jumping out of his person — thus, he was forever freed from birth and rebirth. And so too did the king. Ranchoddoss told this story again and again to himself. He related this story to his wife, Ramaben. ‘The truth is just that, Rama.’ But she could find no satisfaction in such legendary talks. After all she was a mother. And how can a man, any man, understand that?
Some years went this way. However, Ramaben could never console herself for the loss of Sudha. When sorrow grows it can grow big as a fruit in the belly, and even pushes out thorns as a cactus does. She suffered as no one had seen people suffer. The doctors gave her radium treatment, but she died one morning, however, very peacefully. She would at least have a better life next time, decided Ranchoddoss, wiping his tears when he came back, with his brothers and sons, from the cremation grounds. One has only to get there, where there is neither birth nor evil death. Is that not so, Sudha?
And now that the two boys — Govinddoss and Vithaldoss — were married, and the elder brother and younger, Bhagavandoss and Ramadoss were both alive and prosperous, Ranchoddoss left home to seek his daughter. And he found her without difficulty in Benares. You can ask any Brahmin in Benares, where anyone else is, and somehow they will tell you, or take you to another who will tell you, all you want to know, where your daughter is, or your uncle. And he will even tell you, not only of all your ancestors, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, their names all written down in their family documents, but also of your jewellery shop on Girgaum Road, and of Panduranga Vithala, who appeared to Rukmabai, because she could not go to Pandharpur, in addition to the flute, white cow and peacock crown. All, all we know. Such indeed the Brahmins of Benares. For, remember, what you find not bad and good in Benares, you know you will see no such truths any elsewhere on earth. Here, in this most sacred city, I can tell you, whoever wants to hear that in final wisdom, there is neither virtue nor vice, for both burn like those pyres on the ghats, equally — to ash. Don’t you understand this? Even the curs here know it.
So, led by his Gujarati Brahmin guide, Ranchoddoss found Sudha in a little brick-and-mortar hall off Hanuman Ghat, where she read the Vasista Ramayana to widows and ascetics and to a few retired judges and ex-Congress ministers, and in fact to anyone who wanted to hear this great advaitic text. And as it should happen, Sudha, on that afternoon when Ranchoddoss beheld his daughter — she was reading the story of Utpala the King. She just smiled, lifting her head, when she saw him entering the hall, right at the door, yet went on steadily reading the text. You remember the story, don’t you, of how Utpala was a great King, a good and moral king, following all the eight rules of reigning a kingdom, that is — to be generous to Brahmins, to be just, be wholly devoted to his subjects, slept little, kept all the castes under the holy laws, strict with women, kindly to children, and a great worshipper of the sages. And once when he was asleep, in his Hall of Slumber, he had this strange, strange dream. He had gone off on a hunt and had wandered far, leaving all his retinue behind, and how it happened, he could not remember, but that he was lost in the depths of a forest. He came across a hut where an untouchable was curing the carcass of a bull, outside in the courtyard. When surprised to see himself there, he was on the edge of asking the untouchable, in which province or hamlet he found himself now, when he espied a maiden fair. On course he immediately fell in love with her, and married her, and in good time she bore him a son. The years passed, years on years passed, and one day, the Prime Minister appeared, and asking said: Your Highness, we have searched for you all these times. We have searched this whole vast forest. But grace be to Shiva, we have at last discovered you, and when he was, the king was, returning back to his kingdom, he woke up and found himself on his bed in the palace. It was a dream after all. But it was deeply real. He was fully awake in his dream, just as he now was. Who was he, the king in the dream? And the untouchable and the beautiful wife and the son? Who is to decide, which is real, asked Sudha lifting up her head, smiling: who indeed? The story implies only this: Those years after all were but a few hours of one night. Life is just that. Behind both is the absolute reality, Brahman. It takes but the time a thorn takes to pierce through a lotus leaf to know the truth — so Vasista, the guru, declares it to Sri Rama, understand! It is beyond Kala, time, and Desa, space. That Reality, Sri Rama, is you, is I, said Vasistha, the great sage. And of course Sri Rama understood and immediately too for he was, Sri Rama was, is the Ultimate Reality itself. The waking state and the dream state are both states equally wakeful. What is beyond that, continued Sudha, is no state: It is the I, the I, she repeated. Ranchoddoss thinking of the king and the deer, and the Brahmin and the king again, yes, that is it, she is right, he said to himself. Sudha seemed indeed to Ranchoddoss, learned and very, very wise.