Never stand against God's Will

There was once a very, very good king, a superlative king. He was kind-hearted, compassionate and wise. In every way he was so good, unimaginably good. All his subjects took him as their father. They were so fond of him.

One day the queen was massaging the king’s head with coconut water. While she was massaging him, there were tears in her eyes, and these tears were dripping on the king’s face and on his whole body.

The king became so concerned. He said, “Why are you crying? Why are you shedding tears? Have I done anything wrong? Is there anything that I will not do for you? Tell me! If anybody has insulted you, I shall punish them. Although I am a very kind-hearted person, I will not forgive anybody who has misbehaved towards you. Please tell me what is wrong. You are dearer than the dearest to me.”

The queen replied, “No, no — nobody has insulted me. I am crying because just now I found one white hair on your head.” She showed it to her husband and said, “I am crying because you are getting old. One day soon you will die. Then how can I live without you? Who will take care of me?”

The king tried his best to console the queen. He said, “Is there anybody who will not become old? Life is like that. Everybody will eventually be old. I am getting old, you will become old; everybody will become old.”

But the queen was still crying and crying. “Oh, you are getting old, you are getting old!” she said. “You will die soon!” Finally, the king said, “You are right.” He ruled only for a few more years. Then he placed his son on the throne and went with his wife to the forest. He said, “I cannot deal with the problems of my kingdom any more. Now I am really old. Let me spend the rest of my days in prayer and meditation” In this way the king entered into the spiritual life.

The king’s subjects loved him so much that they accompanied him to the forest, and then they would not go home. All of them stopped eating, and then they started praying to the sun god. They prayed and prayed for a long time. The sun god was pleased with their prayers, and he appeared before them. “All right,” he said, “what do you want?”

They answered, “We want our king back so that he can rule us for ten thousand years!”

The sun god granted the boon, and then the sun god and the subjects went to the king to inform him. The king said, “I do not want that, I do not want that, no!”

But the sun god forced the king to come back to the kingdom and rule for ten thousand years. The poor king said, “O my God, O my God! What am I going to do?”

As the years went by, the king saw that people who were younger than he were all dying in front of him. One by one, his subjects were all leaving the earth plane. The king cried, “What kind of boon is this?”

Then he started praying and praying to the sun god. His prayer was, “Please, please, please give my subjects also ten thousand years! Since I am supposed to live for ten thousand years, let my subjects be with me.”

After many years, the sun god was pleased with the king’s prayer and granted the boon he desired, so everyone in the kingdom was living for ten thousand years.

Now it happened that, after a few years, some people became extremely miserable. They were saying, “We are living for ten thousand years here on earth, but there is no joy. This world is boring, boring! We do not want to be here for so many years.” They were murmuring that they were not pleased with their boon.

It seemed that nobody was satisfied, so the king prayed and prayed to the sun god once more. This time he prayed, “Please give us some wisdom regarding your boon.”

The sun god replied, “Never stand against God’s Will! If God wants you to die today, you die. If He wants somebody else to die tomorrow, then that person also has to surrender. It is all God’s Will. When God wants you to die, you should take it happily. Otherwise, you will go against His Will.”

First the people were thinking, “We are immortal!” But afterwards, they discovered that their life was boring. What were they going to do on earth for ten thousand years? Were they happy living on earth for so long? God fulfilled their desire, true; but when God fulfils our desires, it does not mean that we are going to be happy. On the contrary, we will feel miserable.

God says to us, “You will always be miserable if you want to please yourself in your own way. But if you please Me in My own Way, then only you will be happy.”