King Bharata was a wise and experienced king after whom our country is named as Bharat. He ruled his kingdom 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.
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-asrama, in the foothills of the Himalayas. There, he performed his meditations. By his constant meditation upon the Personality of Godhead, Bharata reached a very high level of spiritual realizations.
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 asrama. 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. 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. 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 asrama, but the deer was nowhere to be found.
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.”
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.”
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.
B.G 8.6: Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O son of Kuntī, that state he will attain without fail.
References:
http://iskconbirmingham.org/three-histories-of-reincarnation#A Victim of Affection.
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