One Has To Follow The Entity He Is Attached To

One day while offering prayers to the Sun God on the river bank, a sage saw a lone and

heavily pregnant doe coming to quench its thirst in the river. Hardly had it touched the water when the forest echoed with the roar of a lion. The doe became terror-stricken and it just leaped into the water without even quenching its thirst and tried to ford it in a bid to escape to the other side of the river. Shocked by fear and overcome by the effort to negotiate the current, the doe gave birth to a young deer midstream. Without even being aware of it, the doe reached the other bank where it died of exhaustion. 

Jadbharat - the royal sage who saw it all, was moved by compassion at the sight of the motherless infant deer being carried away by the river. He picked the young deer, took it to his ashrama and fed it with tender grass and protected it from wild beasts. Soon he grew very fond of it. In course of time the sage became so attached to it that he could not part from it even for a short while. He feared all sorts of harms to his pet and prayed for their removal. He forgot that he was a sage and behaved like a foolish householder doting over his child. 

In the end he died with thoughts of the deer in his mind.

In the next birth, he had to become a deer even though he was a Gyani.
 

Moral Of The Story

Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj teaches us that this is a Sidhant that at the time of death, one

remembers him or her in whom he has the highest attachment. And the soul goes to the same planet where the soul he was attached to goes.

• If one is attached to a Satvik being, he goes to heaven.
• If one is attached to a Rajasik being, he takes birth in Mrityu Lok.
• If one is attached to a Tamasik being, he goes to hell.
• If instead one is attached to a saint or an avatar of God, he achieves the saint's Divine Abode.