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him conquering you.

But it is a very symbolic way, more civilized than .... There is no need to attack, there is no need to start killing; just send a symbolic message. So with the flag of the king, the chariot will go, and if the other king feels that there is no point in resisting -- fighting simply means defeat and unnecessary violence, destruction -- he welcomes the chariot, and in his capital, flowers are thrown over the chariot.

This seems to be a far more civilized way than what the Soviet Union and America are going to do. Just send a beautiful chariot -- but that means your strength should be something absolutely certain to you; and not only to you, it should be certain to everybody else. Only then can such a symbol be of any help. So every king had the desire to become a chakravartin someday.

The story is that one man became a chakravartin -- and it happens only once in thousands of years that a man becomes a chakravartin. Even Alexander the Great was not a world conqueror; there was yet much left unconquered. And he died very young, he was only thirty-three: there was not even time enough to conquer the world. What to say of conquering, the whole world was not even known. Half of the world was unknown, and the half that was known, even that was not conquered. This man, of whom I am going to tell you the story, became the chakravartin.

It is said that when a chakravartin dies -- because a chakravartin happens only in thousands of years, he is a rare being -- when he dies he is received in heaven with great rejoicings and he is taken to a special place.

In Jaina mythology, in heaven there is a parallel mountain to the Himalayas. The Himalayas are just made of rocks and earth and ice. The parallel Himalayas in heaven is called Sumeru. Sumeru means the ultimate mountain: nothing can be higher than that, nothing can be better than that. It is solid gold; instead of rocks there are diamonds and rubies and emeralds.

When a chakravartin dies he is led to Sumeru mountain to engrave his name on it. That is a rare opportunity; that happens only once in thousands of years. Of course this man was immensely excited that he

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