Page 74 - Towards The Goal Of Beautiful Life

what the baron said and again remarked, "That is the reason why!'', but did not leave
that place. Seeing the gravity of the situation, the baron complained to the minister of

the King about this matter. The minister immediately rushed to the sage. He respectfully
bowed before the sage and very humbly said to him, "Sir, I am indeed honourd to see

you. Kindly forgive me for the request I have to make to you. Since the King will just
arrive here, it is not proper for you to be sitting here with your legs stretched. Hence I

pray for your favour and request you to go away from here.'' This time also, the sage
patiently listened to what the minister told him and remarked, "That is the reason why!'',

but even then made no move to leave the place. In the meanwhile, the King arrived at
that place. Seeing the sage, the King came down from his canopy respectfully prostrated

before the sage and politely said to him, "I am indeed glorified to meet you. I sincerely
feel that a great sage like you should not sit under a tree in my kingdom being ignored

by people. I therefore humbly invite you to come to my palace, so that I can make the
best of arrangements to make your stay very comfortable. I sincerely hope you will

graciously accept my humble invitation.'' Here again, the sage calmly listened to what
the King said to him and again remarked, "This is the reason why''. After inviting the

sage, the King proceeded further along, in the procession. A person who was standing
near this spot and watching all these events was surprised mainly because the sage only

commented "That is the reason why!'' all along. Hence he was curious to know why the
sage made only this comment. He therefore approached the sage and said, "Sir, the

mace-bearer, the baron and the minister of the king requested you to shift from the
place and go elsewhere. To each one of them you only said, "That is the reason why!''.

Finally the King approached you and invited you to come to his palace and stay there for
a couple of days. Even on that occasion, you only looked at the King and again said,

"This is the reason why!''. I am very eager to know, why you repeated this sentence in
reply to each one of them. I humbly request you to explain the reason''. The sage smiled

and said to him, "Come here, I will explain to you every thing. You must have heard,
how rudely the mace-bearer talked to me. Hence I said, that is the reason why he is the

mace-bearer. His behaviour shows that he deserves to be a mace-bearer. After him, the
baron came to me. You must have observed, how politely he talked to me. Hence I said,

that is the reason why he is a baron. The next person to approach me was the minister.
You must have seen, how humbly he behaved and talked to me. Therefore, I said, that is

the reason why he is minister. Finally the King came to me. You witnessed, how
respectfully he behaved with me and the way in which he honoured me. That is why I

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