Was Janaka's Detachment from His Kingship Not Neglect of God's Work?

[Shri Balaji asked:- You told that King Janaka was not disturbed when he was told that his city called Mithilaa caught fire and that this showed his detachment from worldly issues while he was deeply absorbed in a spiritual discussion. You told that his administration of the city as a king was also God’s work, in which sins were controlled. Does this not mean his detachment from God’s work?]

Swami replied:- Kingship was his inevitable worldly work like the profession of an employee. He turned this worldly work also into God’s work by ruling the city through upholding justice and condemning injustice thereby the kingship for him was not a worldly enjoyment. He never enjoyed the kingship, but, always enjoyed spiritual knowledge in spiritual discussions with sages. He was detached to the kingship and always was attached to God through spiritual discussions. The sages wanted to test his detachment from worldly affairs and simultaneously the attachment to God. This can’t be compared to the scene in which the king is playing on violin while his city Rome was burning! Enjoying the worldly music is also a worldly affair only and not related to God. The detachment from the world comes only by the attachment to God in which case the detachment is natural and spontaneous without any effort. Such detachment from world is only meaningful, which is not a prerequisite to attachment to God. Mere detachment from world without attachment to God is completely useless. The clearly visible worldly detachment acts as a measure for the invisible attachment to God since the abstract attachment to anything can’t be measured directly. If one is seeing a cinema in a theatre, his depth of absorption in the cinema can’t be understood directly by seeing him. Even though the blood bugs in the seat and mosquitoes on the body are biting him, he is unconscious about those bites and the external visible bites act as an indirect measure of his deep attachment to the cinema. His detachment is natural and spontaneous without any effort. Such detachment is real measure of the attachment to cinema or God! Today, the detachment is enacted by forced effort to expose the unreal attachment to God to the public.

Of course, King Janaka turned the worldly affair of kingship into God’s work by seriously attending the work of protection of justice and control of sin through his administration. This is perfect Pravrutti by which God is pleased. But, now, the city is burning by the will of God only and not by his will! In the absence of the king, there will be a representative ruler to look after the administration to put efforts in extinguishing the fire and the absence of king Janaka will not affect the administration in anyway. His run to the city leaving the spiritual debate will not matter at all. He was doing this administration as a divine duty without any personal attachment, which comes only when the soul is not attracted to worldly enjoyment. All his enjoyment was in spiritual side only. The situation means that God is cutting the worldly bond in the case of which a spiritual soul is never disturbed. Such soul gets disturbed only when his bond with God is disturbed. An ordinary king would have certainly run to the city leaving the spiritual debate since he was attached to the worldly bond of kingship by which he gains enjoyment. If the king enjoying the violin is also immersed in divine music, since the situation is exactly same, that king is also like king Janaka only.

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