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4. Three Histories of Reincarnation
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 | “As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.”
Bhagavad-gītā 2.22
| | | In the first century B.C., the Roman poet Ovid penned these verses describing the fate of an unfortunate person, who, by his actions and desires slid a few notches down the evolutionary scale.
| | | I am ashamed to tell you, but I will tell—
I had bristles sprouting on me.
I could not speak, but only grunting sounds
Came out instead of words.
I felt my mouth grow harder.
I had a snout instead of a nose,
And my face bent over to see the ground.
My neck swelled up with great muscles,
And the hand that lifted the cup to my lips
Made footprints on the ground.
—Metamorphoses
| | | Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, composed some three thousand years before Ovid’s time, contains the following unique story that dramatically reveals the principles of reincarnation in action. India’s great and pious monarch, King Bharata, due to his extreme attachment to a deer, had to spend one life in a deer’s body before again attaining a human form.
| | | King Bharata was a wise and experienced mahārāja who one might have thought would rule for hundreds of years. But while in the prime of life, he renounced everything—his queen, family, and his vast empire—and went to the forest. In so doing, he was following the advice of the great sages of ancient India, who recommend that one devote the latter part of one’s life to self-realization.
| | | King Bharata knew that his position as a great monarch was not permanent; therefore, he did not try to keep the royal throne until death. After all, even a king’s body ultimately becomes dust, ashes, or food for worms and other animals. But within the body is the imperishable soul, the real self. Through the process of yoga, the self can be awakened to its true spiritual identity. Once this occurs, the soul need not spend another term of imprisonment within a material body.
| | | Understanding that the real purpose of life is to free oneself from the cycle of reincarnation, King Bharata journeyed to a sacred place of pilgrimage called Pulaha-āŚrama, in the foothills of the Himalayas. There, the former king lived alone in the forest along the bank of the Gaṇḍakī River. Instead of his royal dress, he now wore only a deerskin garment. His hair and beard grew long and matted and always appeared wet, because he bathed three times a day in the river.
| | | Each morning Bharata worshiped the Supreme Lord by chanting the hymns given in the Ṛg Veda, and as the sun rose he recited the following mantra: “The Supreme Lord is situated in pure goodness. He illuminates the entire universe; by virtue of His different potencies He maintains all living beings desiring material enjoyment, and He bestows all benediction upon His devotees.”
| | | Later in the day he collected various fruits and roots, and as recommended in the Vedic scriptures, he offered these simple edibles to Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and then took them for his food. Even though he had been a great king, surrounded by worldly opulence, now, by the strength of his austerities, all his desires for material enjoyment vanished. Thus he became free of the root cause of bondage in the cycle of birth and death.
| | | By his constant meditation upon the Personality of Godhead, Bharata began to experience symptoms of spiritual ecstasy. His heart was like a lake filled with the water of ecstatic love, and when his mind bathed itself in that lake, tears of joy flowed from his eyes.
| | | One day while Bharata was meditating near the bank of the river, a doe came there to drink. While she drank, a lion in the forest nearby roared loudly. The doe was pregnant, and as she jumped in great fear and ran from the river, a baby deer fell from her womb into the swiftly flowing waters. The doe, shivering in fright and weak from the miscarriage, entered a cave, where she soon died.
| | | As the sage observed the fawn floating down the river, he felt great compassion. Bharata lifted the animal from the water and, knowing it to be motherless, brought it to his āŚrama. Bodily differences are meaningless from the viewpoint of a learned transcendentalist: because Bharata was self-realized, he saw all living beings with equal vision, knowing that both the soul and the Supersoul (Supreme Lord) are present within the bodies of all. He daily fed the deer with fresh green grass and tried to make it comfortable. Soon, however, he began to develop great attachment for the deer; he lay down with it, walked with it, bathed with it, and even ate with it. When he wanted to enter the forest to collect fruits, flowers, and roots, he would take the deer with him, fearing that if he left it behind, it would be killed by dogs, jackals, or tigers. Bharata took great pleasure seeing the deer leap and frolic in the forest like a child. Sometimes he would carry the fawn on his shoulders. His heart was so filled with love for the deer that he would keep it on his lap during the day, and when he slept, the deer would rest upon his chest. He was forever petting the deer and would sometimes even kiss it. Thus his heart became bound to the deer in affection.
| | | Being attached to raising the deer, Bharata gradually became neglectful of his meditation upon the Supreme Lord. He thus became distracted from the path of self-realization, which is the actual goal of human life. The Vedas remind us that the human form is obtained only after the soul undergoes millions of births in lower species of life. This material world is sometimes compared to an ocean of birth and death, and the human body is compared to a solid boat designed to cross this ocean. The Vedic scriptures and the saintly teachers, or spiritual masters, are compared to expert boatmen, and the facilities of the human body are compared to favorable breezes that help the boat ply smoothly to its desired destination. If, with all these facilities, a person does not fully utilize his life for self-realization, then he commits spiritual suicide and risks taking his next birth in an animal body.
| | | However, even though Bharata was aware of these considerations, he thought to himself, “Because this deer has taken shelter of me, how can I neglect it? Even though it is disturbing my spiritual life, I cannot ignore it. To neglect a helpless person who has taken shelter of me would be a great fault.”
| | | One day, as Bharata was meditating, he began, as usual, to think of the deer instead of the Lord. Breaking his concentration, he glanced around to see where the deer was, and when he could not discover it, his mind became agitated, like that of a miser who has lost his money. He got up and searched the area around his āŚrama, but the deer was nowhere to be found.
| | | Bharata thought, “When will my deer return? Is it safe from tigers and other animals? When shall I again see it wandering in my garden, eating the soft green grasses?”
| | | As the day wore on and the deer still did not return, Bharata became overwhelmed with anxiety. “Has my deer been eaten by a wolf or a dog? Has it been attacked by a herd of wild boars, or by a tiger who travels alone? The sun is now setting, and the poor animal who has trusted me since its mother died has not yet returned.”
| | | He remembered how the deer would play with him, touching him with the points of its soft, fuzzy horns. He remembered how he would sometimes push the deer away from him, pretending to be annoyed with it for disturbing his worship or meditation, and how it would then immediately become fearful and sit down motionless a short distance away.
| | | Unable to restrain himself, Bharata set out after the deer, following its tiny hoofprints in the moonlight. In his madness, he began to talk to himself: “This creature was so dear to me that I feel as though I have lost my own son. Due to the burning fever of separation, I feel as if I were in the middle of a blazing forest fire. My heart is now blazing with distress.”
| | | “My deer is exactly like a little prince. Oh, when will he again return? When will he again pacify my wounded heart?”
| | | While frantically searching for the lost deer along the dangerous forest paths, Bharata suddenly fell and was fatally injured. Lying there at the point of death, he saw that his deer had suddenly appeared and was sitting at his side, watching over him just like a loving son. Thus, at the moment of his death, the King’s mind was focused completely on the deer. In Bhagavad-gitā we learn, “Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail.”
| | | King Bharata Becomes a Deer
In his next life, King Bharata entered the body of a deer. Most living entities are not able to remember their past lives, but because of the spiritual progress the King had made in his previous incarnation, he could, even though in the body of a deer, understand the cause of his taking birth in that body. He began to lament. “What a fool I was! I have fallen from the path of self-realization. I gave up my family and kingdom and went to a solitary holy place in the forest to meditate, where I always contemplated the Lord of the universe. But due to my foolishness, I let my mind become attached to—of all things—a deer. And now I have justly received such a body. No one is to blame but myself.”
| | | But even as a deer, Bharata, having learned a valuable lesson, was able to continue his progress in self-realization. He became detached from all material desires. He no longer cared for the succulent green grasses, nor did he give a thought to how long his antlers would grow. Similarly, he gave up the company of all deer, male and female alike, leaving his mother in the Kālaïjara Mountains, where he had been born. He returned to Pulaha-āŚrama, the very place where he had practiced meditation in his previous life. But this time he was careful never to forget the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Staying near the hermitages of the great saints and sages, and avoiding all contact with materialists, he lived very simply, eating only hard, dry leaves. When the time of death came and Bharata was leaving the body of the deer, he loudly uttered the following prayer: “The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the source of all knowledge, the controller of the entire creation, and the Supersoul within the heart of every living being. He is beautiful and attractive. I am quitting this body offering obeisances unto Him and hoping that I may perpetually engage in His transcendental loving service.”
| | | The Life of Jaḍa Bharata
In his next life, King Bharata took birth in the family of a pure, saintly brāhmaṇa priest and was known as Jaḍa Bharata. By the Lord’s mercy, he could again remember his past lives. In Bhagavad-gītā Lord Kṛṣṇa says, “From Me come remembrance, knowledge, and forgetfulness.” As he grew up, Jaḍa Bharata became very much afraid of his friends and relatives, because they were very materialistic and not at all interested in making spiritual progress. The boy was in constant anxiety, for he feared that by their influence, he would again fall down into animal life. Therefore, although he was very intelligent, he behaved just like a madman. He pretended to be dull, blind, and deaf, so that mundane people would not try to taIk to him. But within himself, he was always thinking of the Lord and chanting His glories, which alone can save one from repeated birth and death.
| | | Jaḍa Bharata’s father was filled with affection for his son, and in his heart he hoped that Jaḍa Bharata would someday become a learned scholar. Therefore he tried to teach him the intricacies of Vedic knowledge. But Jaḍa Bharata purposely behaved like a fool so that his father would abandon his attempts to instruct him. If his father told him to do something, he would do exactly the opposite. Nevertheless, Jaḍa Bharata’s father, until the time of his death, always tried to instruct the boy.
| | | Jaḍa Bharata’s nine stepbrothers considered him dull and brainless, and when their father died, they abandoned all attempts to educate him. They could not understand Jaḍa Bharata’s inner spiritual advancement. But Jaḍa Bharata never protested their mistreatment, for he was completely liberated from the bodily concept of life. Whatever food came his way, he would accept it and eat, whether it was much or little, palatable or unpalatable. Since he was in full transcendental consciousness, he was not disturbed by material dualities like heat and cold. His body was as strong as a bull’s, and his limbs were very muscular. He didn’t care for winter’s cold, summer’s heat, wind, or rain. Because his body was perpetually dirty, his spiritual knowledge and effulgence were covered, just like a valuable gem covered by dirt and grime. Each day he was insulted and neglected by ordinary people, who considered him to be nothing more than a useless fool.
| | | Jaḍa Bharata’s only wages were the small portions of unpalatable foodstuffs provided by his brothers, who made him work like a slave in the fields. But he was unable to perform even simple tasks satisfactorily, because he did not know where to spread dirt or where to make the ground level. For food, his brothers gave him broken rice, rice chaff, oil cakes, worm-eaten grains, and burned grains that had stuck to the bottom of the cooking pots, but Jaḍa Bharata gladly accepted all this as if it were nectar. And he never held any grudges. He thus displayed the symptoms of a perfectly self-realized soul.
| | | Once a leader of a band of thieves and murderers went to the temple of the goddess Bhadrakālī to offer in sacrifice a dull, unintelligent human being resembling an animal. Such sacrifices are nowhere mentioned in the Vedas and were concocted by the robbers for the purpose of gaining material wealth. Their plan was foiled, however, when the man who was to have been sacrificed escaped, so the chief robber sent his henchmen out to find him. Searching through fields and forests in the darkness of night, the robbers came to a rice field and saw Jaḍa Bharata, who was sitting on high ground guarding the field against the attacks of wild boars. The robbers thought Jaḍa Bharata would be a perfect sacrifice. Their faces shining with happiness, the robbers bound him with strong ropes and brought him to the temple of the goddess Kālī. Jaḍa Bharata, because of his complete faith in the protection of the Supreme Lord, did not protest. There is a song by a famous spiritual master that reads, “My Lord, I am now surrendered unto You. I am Your eternal servant, and if You like You can kill me, or if You like You can protect me. In any case, I am fully surrendered unto You.”
| | | The robbers bathed Jaḍa Bharata, dressed him in new silk garments, and decorated him with ornaments and garlands. They fed him a sumptuous last meal and brought him before the goddess, whom they worshiped with songs and prayers. Jaḍa Bharata was forced to sit before the deity. Then, one of the thieves, acting as the chief priest, raised a razor-sharp sword to slit Jaḍa Bharata’s throat so they could offer Kālī his warm blood as liquor.
| | | But the goddess could not bear this. She understood that the sinful thieves were about to kill a great devotee of the Lord. Suddenly, the form of the deity burst open and the goddess herself appeared, her body burning with an intense, intolerable effulgence. The infuriated goddess flashed her blazing eyes and displayed her fierce, curved teeth. Her eyes, crimson orbs, glowered, and she appeared as if she were prepared to destroy the entire cosmos. Leaping violently from the altar, she quickly decapitated all the rogues and thieves with the very sword with which they had intended to kill the saint Jaḍa Bharata.
| | | Jaḍa Bharata Instructs King Rahūgaṇa
After his escape from the Kālī temple, Jaḍa Bharata continued his wanderings, remaining aloof from ordinary, materialistic men.
| | | One day, as King Rahūgaṇa of Sauvīra was being carried through the district on a palanquin resting on the shoulders of several servants, the men, who were fatigued, began to falter. Realizing they would need another carrier to help them cross the Ikṣumatī River, the King’s servants began searching for someone. Soon they saw Jaḍa Bharata, who appeared to be a good choice because he was very young and strong as an ox. But because he saw all living beings as his brothers, Jaḍa Bharata could not perform this task very well. As he walked, he kept stopping to be sure that he wasn’t stepping on any ants. According to the subtle but precise laws of reincarnation, all living entities must remain for a specific length of time in a particular body before being promoted to a higher form. When an animal is killed before its time, the soul must return to that same species to complete its encagement in that type of body. Therefore, the Vedas enjoin that one should always avoid whimsically killing other living beings.
| | | Unaware of what was causing the delay, King Rahūgaṇa shouted, “What’s going on? Can’t you carry this thing properly? Why is my palanquin shaking like this?”
| | | Hearing the threatening voice of the King, the frightened servants replied that the disturbance was being caused by Jaḍa Bharata. The King angrily chastised him, sarcastically accusing Jaḍa Bharata of carrying the palanquin like a weak, skinny, tired old man. But Jaḍa Bharata, who understood his true spiritual identity, knew that he was not his body. He was neither fat, nor lean, nor thin, nor did he have anything to do with the lump of flesh and bones that comprised his body. He knew that he was an eternal spirit soul situated within the body, like a driver within a machine. Therefore, Jaḍa Bharata remained unaffected by the King’s angry criticism. Even if the King were to order him killed, he would not have cared, because he knew that the soul is eternal and can never be killed. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā, “The soul is not slain when the body is slain.”
| | | Jaḍa Bharata remained silent and kept carrying the palanquin as before, but the King, unable to control his temper, shouted, “You rascal, what are you doing? Don’t you know that I am your master? For your disobedience I shall now punish you!”
| | | “My dear King,” said Jaḍa Bharata, “whatever you have said about me is true. You seem to think that I have not labored hard enough to carry your palanquin. That is true, because actually I am not carrying your palanquin at all! My body is carrying it, but I am not my body. You accuse me of not being very stout and strong, but this merely shows your ignorance of the spirit soul. The body may be fat or thin, or weak or strong, but no learned man would say such things about the real selt within. As far as my soul is concerned, it is neither fat nor skinny; therefore you are correct when you say that I am not very strong.”
| | | Jaḍa Bharata then began to instruct the King, saying, “You think you are lord and master, and you are therefore trying to command me, but this is also incorrect, because these positions are ephemeral. Today you are a king and I am your servant, but in our next lives our positions may be reversed; you may be my servant and I your master.”
| | | Just as the waves of the ocean bring pieces of straw together and then break them apart, the force of eternal time brings living entities together in temporary relationships, such as master and servant, and then breaks them apart and rearranges them.
| | | “In any case,” Jaḍa Bharata continued, “who is master, and who is servant? Everyone is forced to act by the laws of material nature; therefore no one is master and no one is servant.”
| | | The Vedas explain that the human beings in this material world are like actors on a stage, performing under the direction of a superior. Onstage, one actor may play the role of a master, and another may play the role of his servant, but they are both actually the servants of the director. In the same way, all living entities are the servants of the Supreme Lord, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Their roles as masters and servants in the material world are temporary and imaginary.
| | | After explaining all this to King Rahūgaṇa, Jaḍa Bharata said, “If you still think that you are the master and that I am the servant, I shall accept this. Please order me. What can I do for you?”
| | | King Rahūgaṇa, who had been trained in spiritual science, was astonished to hear the teachings of Jaḍa Bharata. Recognizing him as a saintly person, the King quickly descended from his palanquin. His material conception of himself as a great monarch had been obliterated, and he fell humbly to the ground, his body outstretched, offering obeisances, his head at the feet of the holy man.
| | | “O saintly person, why are you moving through the world unknown to others? Who are you? Where do you live? Why have you come to this place? O spiritual master, I am blind to spiritual knowledge. Please tell me how I may advance in spiritual life.”
| | | King Rahūgaṇa’s behavior is exemplary. The Vedas declare that everyone, even kings, must approach a spiritual master in order to gain knowledge of the soul and the process of reincarnation.
| | | Jaḍa Bharata replied, “Because his mind is full of material desire, the living entity takes on different bodies in this material world, to enjoy and suffer the pleasures and pains brought about by material activity.”
| | | When one sleeps at night, one’s mind creates many dreamlike situations of enjoyment and suffering. A man may dream that he is associating with a beautiful woman, but this enjoyment is illusory. He may also dream that he is being chased by a tiger, but the anxiety he experiences is also unreal. In the same way, material happiness and distress are simply mental creations, based on identification with the material body and material possessions. When one awakens to his original, spiritual consciousness, he sees that he has nothing to do with these things. One accomplishes this by concentrating one’s mind in meditation upon the Supreme Lord.
| | | If one fails to constantly fix one’s mind on the Supreme Lord and render service to Him, he must undergo the cycle of birth and death described by Jaḍa Bharata.
| | | “The condition of the mind causes births in different types of bodies,” Jaḍa Bharata said. “These bodies may be those of many different species, for when one uses the mind to understand spiritual knowledge, he gets a higher body, and when one uses it only for obtaining material pleasure, he receives a lower body.”
| | | Jaḍa Bharata compared the mind to a flame in a lamp. “When the flame burns the wick improperly, the lamp is blackened with soot. But when the lamp is filled with clarified butter and the flame burns properly, the lamp produces brilliant illumination. The mind absorbed in material life brings endless suffering in the cycle of reincarnation, but when the mind is used to cultivate spiritual knowledge, it brings about the original brightness of spiritual life.”
| | | Jaḍa Bharata then warned the King, “As long as one identifies with the material body, one must wander throughout the unlimited universes in different species of life. Therefore, the uncontrolled mind is the greatest enemy of the living being.
| | | “My dear King Rahūgaṇa, as long as the conditioned soul accepts the material body and is not freed from the contamination of material enjoyment, and as long as he does not conquer his senses and his mind and come to the platform of self-realization by awakening his spiritual knowledge, he is forced to wander in different places and in different forms in this material world.”
| | | Jaḍa Bharata then revealed his own past lives. “In a previous birth, I was known as King Bharata. I attained perfection by becoming completely detached from material activities. I was fully engaged in the service of the Lord, but I relaxed my control over my mind and became so affectionate to a small deer that I neglected my spiritual duties. At the time of death I could think of nothing but this deer, so in my next life I had to accept the body of a deer.”
| | | Jaḍa Bharata concluded his teachings by informing the King that those who desire freedom from the cycle of reincarnation must always associate with self-realized devotees of the Lord. Only by associating with exalted devotees can one attain the perfection of knowledge and cut to pieces the illusory associations of this material world.
| | | Unless one has the opportunity to get the association of the devotees of the Lord, he can never understand the first thing about spiritual life. The Absolute Truth is revealed only to one who has attained the mercy of a great devotee, because in the assembly of pure devotees, there is no question of discussing material subjects like politics and sociology. In an assembly of pure devotees, there is discussion only of the qualities, forms, and pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is praised and worshiped with full attention. This is the simple secret by which one can revive his dormant spiritual consciousness, end forever the vicious cycle of reincarnation, and return to a life of eternal pleasure in the spiritual world.
| | | After receiving lessons from the great devotee Jaḍa Bharata, King Rahūgaṇa became fully aware of the constitutional position of the soul and gave up completely the bodily conception of life, which chains the pure souls to the endless cycle of birth and death in the material world.
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