A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

"We""THE MAHABHARATA. 521then the king says shall become the Sanyasins."Itwasm custom for old kings to become Sanyasins. In oldIndia when men became very old, they gave ^everything.When a man did not want to live any more, then he wenttowards the Himalayas or somewhere else, without eatingor drftiking, walked on and on till ihe bodyfailed : all the&im* thinking of God, he just marched on till the bodygave, way.Then came the gods, the sages, and they told the kingthat he should go and reach heaven. To go to heaven"one has to cross the highest peaks of the Himalayas.Beyond the Himalayas is mount Meru. On thetop of Mount Meru is heaven. None ever went there intlr^ body. There the gods reside and Yudhisthirawas called upon by the gods to go. Sc ? thefive brothers and the queen, they made ready and theywent on taking the garb of monks and they walkedfrom mountain top to mountain toptillthey cameto the eternal regions of snow ;and there the queen wasthe first to fall. Yudhisthira, the king, was leading theway. A brother who was behind said,Behold,king, the queen has fallen. The king shed a few dropsof tears but did not look back. "We are going tomeet Krishna," he says: no time to look back, marchon." After a while, another brother says, BeholdSahadeva has fallen. The king shed a few drops oftears :*March on. So, one after the other, in the coldand snow, they were all killed ;and alone this emperor wasmarching. Looking behind, he saw a littledog was fol-^lowing him. And so, the dog and the emperor wenton, through snow and ice, over hill and dale, climbinghigher and higher, till they reached Mount Meru, tilltheybegan to hear the chimes of heaven, and heavenly flowersoh