There was once a great King who comissioned a ring to be made for himself that he wished to wear as a symbol of rulership of his Kingdom.He decided to have an inscription put on the inside of his ring, something personal that would aid him in the many moments of utter despair that often came in ruling his Kingdom. He went to many of his wisest men but none seemed to be able to come up with any words of wisdom that were fitting.
One day, one of the Kings servants, a very old man who had been in service to even the Kings father, took notice of the Kings search.These were the words he said to the King.
"I have lived long and met many people. Once I came across a true mystic. He was in the service of your father as I was and upon his departure from the court he gave me this message to give to your father should he ever have need in his times of greatest trouble.I give you this same message.Look at it only when everything else has failed and there appears no way out of trouble".
With that he gave him a small piece of folded paper which the King tucked into his pocket.
The time soon came when the King would have need of this. The country was invaded and the King was in grave danger of losing his Kingdom. There came a certain night when he was running for his life on horseback making an attempt to escape the troubles brought on by the war in his Kingdom.As he was running many enemies were pursuing him. He took a turn into an unknown area of the forest and found to his utter horror that he had blocked himself with no way out. His enemies were ahead of him and a large drop off a cliff face was behind him.There was no way out.To go in either direction meant certain death. The king decided in what he was certain were his last moments to open the piece of paper given to him by his servant. Upon it was simply written "This too shall pass." And miraculously enough, it did pass.He began to notice that the sound of the hoofbeats of the enemy horses approaching were growing dim. They had simply taken another turn that did not lead to him and were moving in a different direction.
As he sat there for a time under the stars,thanking his good fortune,a thought came to him as thoughts often do when one has just experienced a moment of death passing near. He realized that nothing in the world was permanent. Everything was to pass and only one thing could be permanent. The words that came to his mind were " Only You remain,that part of you within which Watches. Everything else is of the earth and will pass away."
The King realized the Truth of permanence. That only one thing was Real in all the world. He knew then that what was Real was surrounded by many dream like events of beauty and dream like events of pain but none of them, either good or bad, would ever last. The Real that was within him was the only thing permanent.
This focus was to become the Truth which the King conducted the rest of his life from. It would prove to guide him in many wise ways, both when he was blinded by beauty and when he was blinded by pain.
Upon returning home the King knew he had finally found the inscription he would place inside his ring as a symbol of his rulership and to remind him of the correct view of what he had previously taken as his reality. It was the inscription "This too shall pass".
