King Bharata and the Deer
1 min read · Scripture story
A great king renounces his kingdom, but his attachment to a fawn binds him to be reborn as a deer — and finally as a wise brahmin who never forgets.
King Bharata gave up his throne to live as an ascetic in the forest. One day he rescued an orphaned fawn and grew to love it as his own child. So absorbed was he in caring for the deer that at the moment of his death, his mind rested on it — and so he was reborn as a deer. Even in that form he remembered his devotion, wandered the forests of sages, and at last was reborn again as Jada Bharata, a brahmin who kept perfect silence, having learned that even the purest love can bind if it is not surrendered to the divine.The lesson
Whatever we hold most tightly at the moment of death shapes the shape of what comes next.
Om · Shanti · Shanti · Shanti