“ Beautiful skins are all the same, an interesting soul is one in a million!”
Shakyamuni Buddha (Gautama Buddha)
The Four Wives
The Fourth Wife
Buddha’s Life Lessons -The Four Wives “The Fourth Wife’ | Wisdom | Spirituality
Shakyamuni Buddha in one of his teachings to his disciples used the example of a businessman that was married to four wives: The first wife was smart and cute, and accompanied him like a shadow; the second wife was snatched by him, beautiful and enviable; The third wife, was taking care of his daily chores, not let him worry about life; the fourth wife, was the busiest all day, but he didn’t know what she was busy with.
The businessman was going to travel far, and because of the hard journey, he asked which wife was willing to accompany him.
The fourth wife said: “I will follow you wherever you go because you are my master.”
The businessman sighed after hearing the words of the four wives: “The fourth wife is better at the critical moment!” So he took the fourth wife and started his long journey.
Shakyamuni Buddha said to everyone, “Do you understand? The fourth wife is the real you!”
The fourth wife refers to celestial nature. You can ignore it, but it will always care about you. Whether you are rich or poor, it will never betray you.
Another version of this story is that there was a king who had four wives and he was on his deathbed. He was afraid of being alone in the afterlife, so he asked the wives one by one: “Would you die with me, will you come with me to the afterlife?”
Suddenly, they heard a voice saying: “I’ll leave with you and follow you wherever you go, even if it is to the afterlife!”
The king turned his head and saw that the one speaking these words was his fourth wife, the wife that he took care of the least, that he didn’t care about at all. He immediately felt embarrassed and said to her: “I am really sorry, I should have taken more care of you, and given you more attention when I was healthy.”
Commentaries:
The fourth wife represents our essence, our center, our core, all that is beyond the body, some call it the Soul. It is the Pure Consciousness, the Universe, The All without a body. When we have the body, Consciousness is experiencing itself through us. We usually neglect our soul, we neglect taking care of our soul, we neglect to nourish the soul like we nourish the body, but that is the thing that will follow us to the afterlife.
Remember you are just having a human experience, you came here to learn, and then you will move on.
As the body needs nourishment so does the Soul. Although we shouldn’t call it like this, if you want to find your real self we have good news for you. Your real self is your soul, the one that is connected with the All. The only self which has no constructed character, it only has experiences from many lifetimes and it is “craving for development” because that is what the universe does. That is what consciousness does, it is continuously expanding.
Thanks for reading!
The First Wife-Shakyamuni Buddha
The Second Wife-Shakyamuni Buddha
The Third Wife-Shakyamuni Buddha
Watch the video of this blog post on Youtube