This is the story of King Bharat. Lord Rushabhdev had 100 sons. King Bharat was the eldest of them. Bharat was a 'Chakravarti King'. A 'Chakravarti King' is one whose worldly wealth and glory know no bounds. All worldly pleasures are available to a Chakravarti King. His stables had a collection of many fast and skillful horses, and large team of very strong elephants. His fame spread far and wide and there was none capable of defeating him. His appearance, form and beauty were mind boggling. His body exuded great strength, vigor and power.
King Bharat was a king of kings, whose wealth, luxury, strength, and armed forces were unmatched. One day, this glorious king was sitting on this ornate throne in the room of mirrors wearing his stately clothes and jewels. This room of mirrors is equivalent to a modern-day dressing room. Our dressing room has only one mirror, but this was no ordinary dressing room, it was Bharat Chakravarti's dressing room! It was covered entirely in mirrors; wherever you looked, you would see your own reflections.
The king was sitting, admiring himself in this dressing room, when he suddenly noticed the third finger of his right hand. He wondered, "Why isn't this finger reflecting beauty?" Upon inspection, he realized that it was because the ring on his finger had slipped off. He began to ponder on whether the beauty of his finger was enhanced by the ring, or whether the ring was enhanced by the beauty of his finger?
As he dwelled upon these thoughts, he gradually removed all the rings from his remaining nine fingers. He then looked at his fingers and realized that in the absence of the rings, his fingers weren't attractive any more. This sparked a trail of thoughts in his mind, "Hmm, how strange is this? That a ring made by molding gold should make my finger look attractive… and that removing these rings, should make the appearance of my fingers less attractive. The fingers add to the beauty of the hand, and the hand makes the body appear beautiful. Then what should I consider beautiful? My body or the rings?" He was astonished and fell into a deep chain of continuous thoughts.
"This body which I consider 'mine' is attractive only due to clothes and jewellery. Does my body have no beauty of its own? It is in fact true. How can the body hold beauty at all? It is made of nothing but blood, pus, bones and flesh after all. Is this what I consider mine? What a blunder, how bizarre! When this body is not mine, then how can this kingdom and grandeur be mine? This supreme reign cannot be mine either. This body too shall die one day. Then what shall I consider my 'own' in all this? Oh! I have totally forgotten! This body, through which I enjoy all this imperial glory and monarchy, is itself not mine. What greater sorrow than this could there be?"
With these profound thoughts, King Bharat's worldly desires got completely dispelled. The veil of misconception flittered away and he attained 'keval gnan' right there in his dressing room.
Thus friends,
It is not worth being charmed by the physical body. It is not worth wasting time beautifying this body. The body will never belong to us. We have been fortunate to meet a 'Gnani'. We should attain the knowledge of our pure soul from the 'Gnani' and use this body to attain completion in our goal of moksh.
