The Son Who Flew to Freedom

The sages told the Pandavas of Shuka, the son of Vyasa - the very sage who composed the great epic of their own deeds - a son born already free, who attained the highest liberation, and whose going broke even his great father's heart.

Vyasa, the mighty sage, the compiler of the Vedas and the author of the Mahabharata, longed for a son - not for an ordinary heir, but for a son of supreme spiritual greatness, who would carry on his wisdom and his line. To win such a son he gave himself to a penance of immense severity, and by the grace of the gods his wish was granted. A son was born to him, and the son was named Shuka. But Shuka was no ordinary child. He was born, it is said, already enlightened - possessing from the very moment of his birth a perfect knowledge of the highest truth, and a perfect detachment from the world, as though he had brought his liberation with him into the world rather than having to seek it.

From his earliest days Shuka was unlike all other beings. He had no interest in the things that occupy and bind ordinary people - no desire for wealth, no wish for marriage or family, no hunger for power or pleasure or possessions, no attachment to anything of the world. His whole being was turned, from birth, toward the absolute, toward liberation, toward the one eternal reality; and the passing things of the world simply had no hold upon him.

Vyasa raised his extraordinary son and taught him the scriptures, and Shuka mastered all of it with ease, for the truth was already native to him. But the more he grew, the clearer it became that Shuka would never be drawn into the ordinary life his father had perhaps half-hoped for. He was detached, serene, and wholly fixed upon the goal of final liberation; the world could not catch him in any of its nets. He was, even as a youth, what the greatest of sages strive a whole lifetime to become: free.

Here was a poignant turn, the sages said: that Vyasa, one of the greatest sages who ever lived, the very author of the teachings on detachment, was himself attached to his son. He loved Shuka deeply, and he could not bear the thought of losing him - of his son leaving the world entirely, parting from him forever to merge into the absolute. The great sage who taught others to be free of attachment found, in his love for his son, an attachment he could not master.

When Shuka, his learning complete, made known that he wished to leave the world altogether and attain final liberation, merging into the eternal and parting from all forms forever, Vyasa was filled with grief, and wished his son to stay. It is a tender and very human thing: that even the wisest of fathers, who knew well that his son was made for liberation and that to hold him back would be wrong, still longed to keep him near, and grieved at the parting. Love and attachment held even Vyasa; and the conflict between his love for his son and his son's spiritual destiny was a real and painful one.

Before Shuka departed the world, Vyasa gave him a last counsel - and it sent the young sage to learn one final lesson from an unexpected teacher. 'Before you renounce the world entirely,' Vyasa told his son, 'go first to King Janaka of Mithila, the royal sage. Learn from him the secret of how one may live in the very midst of the world - ruling a kingdom, surrounded by wealth and power and all the affairs of men - and yet remain wholly free and unattached within. For there is a wisdom in being in the world and not of it that even you should understand before you leave it.'

So Shuka journeyed to the court of King Janaka, the famous philosopher-king of Mithila, who was renowned for having attained liberation while still seated upon his throne, ruling his kingdom yet inwardly free. Janaka received the son of Vyasa and, knowing his greatness, set about teaching him the last lesson he had come to learn.

King Janaka taught Shuka the secret of inward freedom: that true renunciation is not a matter of where one lives or what one outwardly does, but of the state of the mind and the heart. Janaka himself ruled a great kingdom, lived in a palace, was surrounded by wealth and pleasure and the cares of state - and yet within he was wholly detached, free of all sense of 'I' and 'mine,' unattached to his throne, his riches, or his deeds, performing all his duties without being bound by them. He was in the world but not of it.

'Renunciation,' Janaka showed the young sage, 'is of the mind, not merely of the outward life. One may flee to the forest and own nothing, and yet be inwardly full of desire and attachment and ego, and so be no renunciate at all; and one may dwell in a palace and rule a kingdom, and yet be inwardly free of all clinging, and so be a true renunciate though surrounded by the world. It is not the outward circumstance but the inner state that makes one bound or free. Do your duty in the world, but hold nothing as your own, and let no sense of self cling to your deeds, and you will be free wherever you are.' Shuka received this final teaching fully, understanding now that freedom is inward, and was made complete in his wisdom.

His last lesson learned, Shuka was now ready for the goal toward which his whole being had always been turned. He took his leave and went up into the high mountains of the Himalaya, to the solitary heights, and there he prepared to give up his body and attain final liberation - to merge entirely into the eternal, all-pervading absolute, parting from every form and limit forever.

By the power of his perfect yoga and his perfect knowledge, Shuka rose up - and his spirit, freed of the body, did not go to any one place, but pervaded and merged into everything, dissolving into the all-pervading reality that is the ground of all things. He flew up and outward, his liberated being spreading into the sky, the mountains, the trees, the whole of the universe, until he was one with the absolute that fills all things - no longer a separate self at all, but merged into the eternal, free. It is told that the sun split or the mountains parted in homage as he rose, so great was the attainment of the son of Vyasa, who had been born free and now returned, free, into the freedom of the all.

Vyasa, when he learned that his son had departed - had merged forever into the absolute and was gone from all forms - was overcome with grief, for all his wisdom. He went up into the mountains after his son, calling out his name in sorrow, longing for the child he had lost, weeping for the parting as any father weeps.

And a wonder answered his grief. As Vyasa called out after Shuka, the whole world answered him - the trees, the rocks, the mountains, all things echoed back the sound of his calling. For Shuka had so completely merged into all things, had so dissolved into the very fabric of the universe, that there was no longer any one place where he was; he was everywhere, pervading everything - and so it was all things together that answered his father's call, the whole world resonating with the presence of the son who had become one with it. Vyasa, hearing the whole creation echo back his cry, understood the greatness of what his son had attained: that Shuka was not lost, but had become one with the all, present now in everything; and though his grief at the parting remained, he was consoled by the vision of his son's liberation, and by the truth that the liberated soul is not destroyed but dissolved into the eternal, present in all things forever.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

"See, first, in Shuka, the very image of perfect detachment and the highest liberation - a soul born already free, who could not be caught in any of the world's nets, whose whole being was turned from birth toward the eternal, and who attained at last the final freedom, merging into the absolute and becoming one with all things. He is the pattern of what the goal of all the spiritual path truly is: not any heaven, not any reward, but the freedom of the soul that has let go of every attachment and merged into the eternal.

"And see, in his father Vyasa, the tender truth that attachment binds even the wisest. The great sage, the very teacher of detachment, could not himself let go of his love for his son, and grieved at the parting as any father would. There is no reproach in this, only a deep humanity: that love and attachment are hard to master, and that even the wise feel the pain of parting. Yet Vyasa was consoled, in the end, by the truth that his son was not lost but liberated, dissolved into the all and present in everything.

"And take from King Janaka the teaching that completes it: that true renunciation is inward, of the mind and the ego, not merely of the outward life. One may be free in a palace and bound in a forest; it is the inner state that matters. Do your duty in the world, but hold nothing as your own; renounce within, and you are free wherever you stand."

And the Pandavas, who would have to live and rule in the world while seeking to keep their souls free, took deeply to heart the liberation of Shuka and the inward renunciation of Janaka.