There was once a king who would ask the same question to all the wise men who came to his court: ‘Which is the greater man—one who gives up the world and becomes a sanyasi, or one who lives in the world and performs his duties as a householder?’ Nobody could satisfy the king. One day, an old sanyasi came to his court and replied, ‘Each is equally great in their own place.’ The king asked him to prove it. The sanyasi asked the king to accompany him. They journeyed into a great kingdom where a grand ceremony was underway. A proclamation was made that the princess of the kingdom was about to choose her husband from among the princes gathered there. The princess was said to be the most beautiful in the world, and the one who married her would become the next king.
The princess was carried around the venue by servants. However, she did not care for any of the princes. After she had seen and rejected all of them, her eyes fell on a young sanyasi standing in a corner. She stopped and threw a garland around his neck. The young sanyasi threw off the garland and exclaimed, ‘What nonsense is this? I am a sanyasi. What is marriage to me?’ The king said, ‘Marry my daughter and get half the kingdom now, and the entire kingdom after my death.’ Saying this, he put the garland again on the sanyasi. The young sanyasi threw it off once again and walked out of the assembly. Determined to marry him, the princess also went after him. The old sanyasi and the king followed them.
The young sanyasi entered a forest. The princess could not follow him after some time, so she sat under a tree and cried. The king and the old sanyasi comforted her and told her, ‘Let us rest under a tree for the night and in the morning, we will guide you out of this forest.’ They lit a fire and settled down for the night.
A pair of birds lived in the tree. They felt that, as householders, it was their duty to ensure their guests did not remain hungry. Having nothing else, they jumped into the fire and sacrificed their own bodies. The old sanyasi said to the king, ‘You have seen that each is great in their own place. If you want to live in the world, be like these birds, ready to sacrifice everything for others. If you want to renounce the world, be like the young sanyasi, to whom even the most beautiful princess in the world and an entire kingdom meant nothing.’