Bhagavatham Stories

As Canto 9 approaches its conclusion, after presenting the lives and teachings of twenty-three great souls, after exploring the diverse paths of dharma and their ultimate convergence, Canto 9 offers its final teaching: the recognition that transforms all understanding.

This final teaching, traditionally presented as the story of the last king, is paradoxical—for it suggests that all that has come before is like a dream, vivid and meaningful, yet ultimately recognizable as appearance upon consciousness rather than as absolute reality.

The king of this final chapter—sometimes called the Awakened One, sometimes simply "the Last King"—was unique among all the souls presented in Canto 9. The teaching suggests that his path was not distinguished by what he did but by what he recognized.

Throughout his life, this king had engaged with all the paths presented in Canto 9. At different times, he had been a warrior like Raghu, a lover like Aja, a renunciate at heart like Nachiketa. He had practiced devotion and action and knowledge and surrender. He had served others and been served. He had won victories and experienced defeats. He had loved and lost. He had even glimpsed the transcendent through these various practices.

Yet throughout all these experiences, something continued unchanged. Beneath the changing experiences, beneath the different states and emotions and accomplishments and failures, something remained constant, untouched, unmoved—the awareness itself that was witnessing everything.

One day, in the midst of an ordinary moment—perhaps in meditation, perhaps in the midst of ruling, perhaps simply in quiet reflection—this recognition crystallized. The king realized that he had been looking for truth in the experiences while overlooking the awareness in which all experiences appear.

This realization was not a new experience to add to his collection of experiences. Rather, it was the recognition of what had always been true: that the awareness viewing all experiences is itself what is being sought.

In a single instant, the meaning of all the teachings of Canto 9 transformed. All the paths that had appeared as different routes to a distant destination were now revealed as different ways of approaching ever closer to what was already here. The awakening that had seemed like a future achievement was recognized as the perpetual presence of consciousness itself.

The king realized that every king presented in Canto 9—Dilipa and Raghu and Aja and all the others—were not separate beings struggling toward enlightenment. They were like characters in a dream, and the consciousness experiencing the dream was the same as his own consciousness. The multiplicity was like waves on the ocean—each wave appearing separate, yet all waves were the same ocean appearing in different forms.

This recognition brought with it a peace that transcended all previous understandings. Unlike the peace that comes from accomplishment or spiritual practice, this was the peace of nothing to achieve because nothing had ever actually been lost. It was the freedom of recognizing that you are not the separate self struggling to become something better—that separate self is like a character in a movie appearing on the screen of consciousness.

The transformation this recognition created was subtle yet profound. Externally, the king appeared much the same. He continued to govern, to engage with his people, to fulfill his duties. Yet something fundamental had changed. There was no longer an internal conflict between what was and what should be. There was no longer an "I" striving to become enlightened because it was recognized that the "I" that strives is itself a thought appearance in consciousness, and consciousness itself had never been limited or bound.

The king continued to live until his natural death, yet he lived from a completely different consciousness. He related to his body, his thoughts, his circumstances, his relationships—all with a kind of divine play, taking them seriously yet ultimately not identified with them.

One of the most important aspects of this final teaching is that the recognition is not a new state to achieve but a realization of what is already true. Unlike other spiritual attainments that require practice and effort, this recognition—once it occurs—is simply the falling away of a fundamental misunderstanding. It is like waking from a dream. You do not need to practice being awake—you simply need to recognize that you are already awake.

The appearance of seeking itself, the appearance of spiritual practice, is part of the dream. Within the dream, spiritual practice is meaningful and necessary—just as within a dream, if you dream you are studying mathematics, the studying is meaningful within the context of the dream. But from the perspective of the awakened state, all of it—the seeking, the finding, the practices, the realizations—is seen to be the eternal play of consciousness appearing as the cosmic dance of manifestation.

The final teaching of Canto 9 can be stated simply: You are not the character in the story of your life. You are the consciousness in which the story appears. When this is truly recognized—not just intellectually understood but directly realized—all seeking ends because it is recognized that what was being sought was the very consciousness that was doing the seeking.

This recognition brings the ultimate freedom: freedom from the necessity to change anything, because change is recognized as appearances on the unchanging ground of consciousness. This does not lead to passivity but to right action flowing spontaneously from clarity, not driven by the desperate attempts of a separate self to improve itself.

In the context of Canto 9, all that has preceded this final teaching is like the spiral staircase leading to the top of a tower. Each king, each path, each teaching is a step higher. Yet the final teaching reveals that the top of the tower and the bottom of the tower and every point in between are all equally present in the eternal now of consciousness itself.

The Canto concludes with the recognition that the reader themselves—the one reading these stories—is not separate from the consciousness in which these stories appear. The very awareness reading these words is the same eternal consciousness that animated Dilipa and Raghu and all the great souls of Canto 9. There is no "other" who attained enlightenment while you remain struggling. There is only consciousness appearing as infinite forms and experiences, forever seeking to know itself.

The beauty of this final teaching is that it does not negate all the previous paths and practices. Rather, it fulfills them. The warrior's discipline, the lover's passion, the renunciate's surrender, the devotee's devotion, the scholar's inquiry—all of these are recognized as the infinite ways that consciousness experiences itself, seeks itself, and ultimately awakens to itself.

And so Canto 9 concludes not with a moral or a lesson to remember but with a recognition to awaken into: that the search itself is the searcher, the path is the traveler, the light sought is the light that is seeking, and there is no separation between any of it. All is the divine play of consciousness eternally recognizing itself as all things, all beings, all times, all possibilities.

To read these stories is to participate in this recognition. To contemplate these kings is to recognize your own nature. To understand their teachings is to understand yourself. For in the deepest truth, there is only one consciousness appearing as many, only one story being told in infinite ways, only one awakening happening eternally in this very moment, for the first time and for the millionth time, because in the timeless now where consciousness dwells, all of these are the same.

Thus concludes Canto 9 of the Bhagavatham: the story of kings and the story of consciousness, told as if they were different, yet ultimately revealed as one.