Sastras advise that an individual desirous of salvation should learn to gradually dissociate himself from the active involvements that he had been preoccupied with and begin to meditate on God with single minded devotion, at least during the last lap of his life. The Lord’s word in the Bhagavad Gita, that one can reach Him if only one is able to think of Him at the time of death, provides the motivation to make it a practice to meditate on Him in earnest at all times.
But even for one steeped in bhakti yoga, to resist the pulls of attachment that might casually come in one’s way can become a difficult task is what the Jadabharata episode very vividly illustrates, pointed out Sri R. Krishnamurthy Sastrigal in a discourse. Bharata’s compassionate nature towards the young orphaned deer had very subtly morphed into strong emotional attachment and this interfered with his usual daily practice of austerities.
Instead of fixing his mind on God which had been his aim when he chose to live in solitude, he remembered the deer all the while so much so that this thought alone prevailed at the time of death. He was then born as a deer in his next birth. Interpreters feel that the prarabdha karma in his account took the form of this new fangled attachment to the deer. The same prarabdha continued in his next birth but now, though a deer, he was granted the knowledge of his past life. He became aware of the long years of penance he had spent in archana, aradhana and meditation and how this had taken a diversion. Brooding thus, the deer moved away from its herd and travelled towards the hermitage to wait for the end of its life. In the next birth, he was born as the realised Jadabharata and attained salvation at the end of his life.
