ndia’s great Emperor Akbar and his queen, the Begum, had fallen in love at first glance and had spent many happy years together, but had recently begun to feel a little friction in their relationship. Akbar began to spend more and more time in court, and the time they did spend together was fraught with moodiness and impatience. They both became increasingly miserable. One afternoon, after a particularly bitter argument, Akbar snapped, “That’s it, I’ve had enough! You have made the last few months of my life unbearable, pack your things and go back to your parents, I don’t want to see your sour face anymore!”

Sobbing, the Begum pleaded with her king, “Please, please don’t send me back like this, I love you, I can’t live without you!”

Akbar still shaken shouted, “No, it’s too late, it’s over. Pack your things and leave right away.”

Devastated, the Begum went to her trusted advisor and friend Birbal, “Oh, what shall I do? I cannot live without him, how can I change his mind?”

Birbal, the shrewd prime minister, had an answer as always. “You should go to Akbar and say, “I accept your order to leave. I just have one humble request: allow me to take my dearest object with me. He is sure to grant you this request.”

“But how will this change his mind to let me stay?” she asked.

Birbal explained the plan to her in detail. Her eyes lit up and she agreed, “Yes, it’s a very good idea, I think it just may work.”

The Begum sent a message to the Emperor, humbly requesting the pleasure of his visit in her apartments before taking her final leave.

Upon his arrival, she said “My lord, I have followed your instructions and have packed all my belongings. I do have one last favor to ask.

Akbar, a bit short of patience, replied, “What is it!?”

“That you allow me to take with me my dearest object.”

Akbar sighed, “Yes, of course, whatever you like.”

“Thank you, my most gracious lord. Now please allow me to serve you one last glass of wine and let us drink together so I may take this memory with me when I go.” Reluctantly, he took the wine from her hand and downed the glass quickly. As soon as the wine had passed his lips, he slumped to the floor in a deep sleep. The tranquilizer with which she had spiked his drink earlier had taken hold. Without wasting any time, she instructed her servants to bundle him into one of the huge trunks which was then loaded into a whole caravan of camels. They left immediately for her father’s palace, about a day’s ride away.

Her father wasn’t exactly surprised to see her arrive at his gate with all of her belongings, for he had known of the stormy relationship for quite some time. He greeted her warmly and agreed to put up his daughter for a little while without asking too many questions. Once inside her apartments, she opened the trunk and ordered the sleeping Akbar to be placed gently on her bed. She patiently waited by his bed for him to awake.

Eventually he opened his eyes and saw that he was in a strange place. He rubbed his eyes and sat up exclaiming, “Where am I?! What are you doing here, what have you done to me?!”

Calmly the Begum replied, “We are in my father’s palace, you sent me away from yours.”

“But how did I get here?” he shouted.

“When you sent me away, you said I could take my most beloved object with me. YOU are the dearest thing I have ever known.”

Akbar slowly began to put the pieces together and realizing that he had been tricked, began to laugh and asked, “Who put you up to this?”

“Birbal of course, who else?!”

The king’s laughter intensified and he said, “How could I live without someone who loved me enough to execute such a cunning plan? Let’s forgive each other and return home together at once.

As in the rest of this cycle of stories, Akbar represents the blind and gullible mind, and Birbal the soul. This story introduces a new character—the Begum, who symbolizes the intellect. The intellect is the higher faculty of the mind which has the capacity, if guided by the soul, to discriminate between the material dream and the spiritual reality.

In this tale, the soul gives a valuable hint to win the spiritual battle: “If the mind is stuck in a negative pattern, spending more and more time in the court of ego (the manipulating aspect of our consciousness) and refuses to see reason (i.e. to see the queen-intellect), put the mind to sleep to the outside world for awhile. Give it the intoxication of meditation or contemplation, and move it outside of its kingdom.” In other words, take it away from the grip of the court-ego.

My spiritual teacher, Paramahamsa Hariharananda, reminds his disciples: “Good company will make you good, and bad company will make you bad.” The key to success in the spiritual battle is to remove ourselves from the bad company of the ego, and seek the good company of the enlightened intellect (the queen-intellect under the guidance of Birbal-soul).

Give yourself a new chance, a new experience away from the ego. This may sound surprising to most people at first. If we are not the ego—a Latin word meaning “I”—then what are we? If I am not “I”, then what am I? This is the question that begins the spiritual quest and the practice of meditation.

Meditation is not about denying the mind, but, as this story points out, about embracing it with love and wisdom, rather than letting it run downhill under the weight of negative influences. As the queen-intellect explained to her husband-mind, “You are my dearest object and I cannot live without you.” The mind, according to Vedic philosophy and yoga, is the source of everything—intellect, ego, memory, body and world, pleasure and pain, bondage as well as liberation. What could be dearer?

Only by fully embracing the mind with the soul-derived light of knowledge can we restore it to its true dimension. And that is God.

 

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