Suratha Asks Sage Medha a Question

'Oh sage, oh lord, I want to ask you something. This is troubling me a lot. Tell me frankly.

Why is this like this? I know that my kingdom is not mine anymore. It does not belong to me anymore.

For that matter, I know that this concept of madeeyatvam—this idea that something is mine, this concept of ownership—is false. I know that.

Look at this point.

You say a piece of land is yours because you paid someone money, wrote something on a piece of paper, and someone called the government put a number and a stamp on it.

Does that really mean the land is yours?

It was there even before you were born.

It will be there even after you are gone.

Just because two of you wrote something on a paper and a third party put a stamp on it after collecting his fee—does that really make that land yours?

Think about it deeply.

Does ownership of anything exist for real?

It is just a concept we are so obsessed with.

King Suratha is aware of this.

Still, he says, 'Why does my mind still think that the kingdom is mine, that those people are mine?'

That too, even after they have gone away, even when they are out of my control.

In the first place, the thought that 'this is mine' itself is false. Nothing is really yours. Nothing can be yours. Everything is independent of everything else. You are simply presuming that something is yours.

Our brains are all so hardwired to this concept of ownership.

Does the piece of land or apartment even know that you did some transaction behind its back and are now going around saying, ‘I bought this land, it is mine. I bought this house, this is mine’?

Does it even recognize your ownership?

The king says, 'I know this. There is nothing called ownership. But still, why am I behaving like a fool?'

जानतोऽपि यथा अज्ञस्य किमेतत्

'But still, why am I attached to it? Why am I still worrying about it? Why am I behaving like a fool?'

Not only me—

अयं च.... दःखितौ

Even this man—he has been thrown out by his own people. His sons, his wife, his servants—everyone has abandoned him.

Why is he still attached to them?

Why is he still worrying about them?

The king says, 'This is not just about me. He is also facing the same situation. He is confronting the same state of mind.

Madeeyata in my case is my kingdom, but in his case, madeeyata is about his people—his belief that these are all my people, that they belong to me.

Why is this so?'

दृष्टदोषेपि

We have seen directly, experienced ourselves, that they are not worth our concern or affection.

Still, we are attached.

Our minds are drawn toward them.

It is not that I am unaware of these concepts—that nothing truly belongs to anyone or that the concept of ownership is false—yet why is my mind still affected?

Why is this so?

Please tell us.

Why is it that we have no control over our minds?

Understand this—when I say there is nothing called ownership, many of you will be hearing this for the first time, thinking in this direction for the first time.

But King Suratha is not like that.

He is aware of this.

Yet, he is perplexed as to why he is still behaving like a fool.

The answer he expects from the muni is not at the basic level of—

‘Son, what you think to be yours is not yours. You came into this world with nothing and will go back with nothing. So don’t worry.’

King Suratha is not at that level.

He says, 'I know this. I am clear about this.

But why is my mind still affected?'

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi