Page 186 - Kailaspati: Paramhans Hansdevji Avadhoot

to meet the King. On having offered his obeisance, the King told the sage that he had come there to learn ‘TatvAvidya’. The sage replied, “You are not now fit for learning BrahmAvidya. Now i cannot initiate you. You have still pride left in you.”
“how to get rid of this pride?” asked the King. in reply, he was told, “it may be had only by means of service to the monks and sages.”
The King then, by way of service to the sages, began to grind wheat and in the process he spent six months at a stretch. Everyday he used to work hard, with all gladness, to grind the wheat for preparing bread for the sage, and his followers. in course of that passage of six months, never did the sage ask the King if he himself had taken his meal.
after this long passage of time when one day the King thought that he would earn the reward in return for his service, a mishap took place. a beggar, who created a nuisance in the ashram, was badly dealt with by the King who had him driven out of the ashram. When the sage came to learn about the incident, he said to the King, “You being an angry man do not deserve to be in this ashram. so better leave the ashram now.”
On being asked to leave the ashram, the King went out, but he did not return to his palace. he thought to himself that the stumbling block to his self-realisation was virtually because of his pride and anger. he thought how to eradicate these two uncon- trollable vices. he then decided to live on begging and to spend the nights by sleeping anywhere his fancy would take him to. Thus thinking, he began to wander about.
an old lady lived on selling snacks. One day the King in tatters, with his body soiled everywhere, stood with a begging bowl at the entrance of the cottage of that lady. The lady had the habit of getting her chores done before she parted with the alms. The King had to bake and fry the snacks and make the fire always ready for baking them. The bits of snacks that would fall down at the time of baking and frying was what he took as his sustenance. This was how the King spent his days. Once, being too hungry, he wanted to have snacks, but by that time he had forgotten that
156 Kailashpati