KING AND QUEEN

Written by: Eruch Jessawala

The following story reveals something of the nature of this love, this real love that Meher Baba was talkingabout. It concerns a king and a queen who lived and ruled some centuries ago. They loved eachother and were happy together. The king was a wise and just ruler, and under his reign his kingdomflourished and peace and prosperity prevailed over the land. The King's subjects were happy andcontent. In short, it was almost an idyllic existence, but there was one flaw, one minor thing whichprevented the queen from being completely happy. And this was that the king seemed to have nointerest in God. It was not that he was against God. He had no objection to his subjects or his wifeworshipping God as they saw fit, it was just that he never seemed to join in.Because the king was such a good man, whose life seemed naturally full of virtue, it was notimmediately apparent that he was not a believer. But, as time passed, the queen noticed that the kingalways seemed to make some excuse so as not to attend religious festivals. And while sheunderstood that the nature of his duties prevented him from worshipping as regularly as she did, sherealized after a while that not only had she never seen him perform worship, she had never evenheard him utter a short prayer. In fact, she had never heard him mention the Lord's name.Now, the queen was very religious, and when she began to suspect that her husband, the king, wasnot a lover of God, she became quite upset. She did her best to persuade him to join her in herdevotions, but no matter how hard she tried, he always found some excuse for not joining her. Thiswas the only thing that marred her happiness, but as time passed, it became a bigger and biggerthing. She would think to herself, "My husband is such a good man, his kingdom is peaceful andprosperous, his subjects are happy. Just think how perfect life would be if only he loved God." Orsometimes she would fear that because her husband did not love God, the peace and prosperitymight be taken away, and the more she thought about it, the more upset she got.She began to lose interest in her duties as queen. Uppermost in her mind was the thought that herhusband was not loving God as he should. Next to that, nothing else seemed important. She beganto spend more and more time by herself in the palace temple. Her eyes, which previously had alwaystwinkled with delight, now seemed pensive and brooding. Her constant cheerful smile was replacewith a frown. The king observed this and was sad, but whenever he asked the queen what waswrong, she would say, "Nothing." For she had already told the king she would like it if heworshipped regularly, and he had said, "Ask me for anything but that."And so life went on, with the king attending to his duties, and the queen becoming more and moredespondent and withdrawn. Now it so happened that one day, after this had been going on for sometime, the king awoke and went to the ramparts of his palace. This was his usual custom. He wouldrise early and climb up to the ramparts and look out over his kingdom. He used to feel that he couldascertain the pulse of his kingdom from there. He had learned to tell, just from standing there in theearly morning hours, whether there was any unhappiness or sorrow in the kingdom that neededattending to.Well, this morning, as he looked out, he was surprised to see that many people were already awakeand were busy putting up decorations. Others were cleaning the streets or their homes, and it wasclear that some sort of major celebration was about to take place. This puzzled the king. He couldn'tthink of any festival or celebration which took place at that time of year. He called his prime ministerand asked him what was happening."It is the queen's order, sire," the prime minister replied."The queen's order?""Yes, sire. Early this morning she got up and ordered that today was to be a day of rejoicing. Sheinstructed that orders were to be given to all your subjects that today was a day of celebration.""Why did she do that?""I don't know, sire. She didn't say."The king was puzzled at this. Of course it was in the queen's power to pass such an order, but as shehad taken no interest in the affairs of the kingdom for some time, this was a complete mystery to theking. Why had she suddenly given such an order? He went to see the queen, who greeted him in herbest clothes and with a dazzling smile on her face."Did you order this celebration?" the king asked."Yes," the queen admitted."Why? What is it? What has happened that has made you so happy all of a sudden?""Oh my king," the queen exclaimed, "I am so happy. At last what I have been praying for all theseyears has come true. Last night, while you were sleeping, you turned over and I heard you utter thename of God. That is why I have ordered this celebration.""What!" exclaimed the king, "has my Beloved escaped from my heart and passed through my lips!"And with that the king sighed and dropped dead.