Ruling Kings, and Our Kingdoms: The First Step, Having True Happiness

>#The First Step: Having True Happiness

This is the first step, and I remember it well. All Great Kings are ill-tempered before they reach this point, but this is our deciding point.

When a true king wishes to establish a kingdom, he must first find an empty plot of land. Nothing must populate this land; it must be barren, lifeless, devoid of everything that constitutes to the existence of life. Tools and workers brought with the king break and die, unaccustomed to toiling on this bleak ground. The king orders his servants to bury the deceased, until it is only the king that is left alive on the plot of land. The kingdom has been established, but every single one of his subjects is dead. There are no men, no women, and no children. There are no animals. Even flora dares not grace the cold, dry dirt. All resources are used up, but the king is healthy and well-fed. The king contemplates his kingdom from afar.

It is the petty king that comes to the conclusion that his kingdom is empty because it is the fault of his subjects. The petty king becomes angry, and destroys everything in his wake. He despises the emptiness, and leaves the rubble behind. When he returns to his former land, he gloats that if it were not for his inept servants his kingdom would be magnificent. The petty king finds glory in himself, even though he did not lift a finger. Because of this the petty king can either fade away into the pages of obscurity until no one remembers him, or become so hateful that he attempts to make the whole world his false kingdom, a land of him unto himself.

It is the true king that comes to the conclusion that his kingdom is not empty, but awaiting to be populated. He weeps in gratitude for the aid of his servants, and doesn’t take any of the credit for himself. He looks at the emptiness, the death, the suffering, the decay, and becomes no longer attached to them. The true king realizes that these are phenomena that will always occur and all temperaments towards them is destroyed in its entirety to the point that he will never have them again. The true king has faith that the kingdom shall soon be filled.

The true king attains True Happiness because he has been exposed to a portion of the truth. He has seen into emptiness and its nothingness and has utterly rejected it. Death is unconcerning. Suffering is unconcerning. Decay is unconcerning. Because of this, he is now joyful because he knows that his kingdom will always be lived in even when it is absolutely deserted.

Thus is the first step to becoming a Ruling King, and one of many to becoming a Great King:

One can have Happiness without Love, but one cannot Love without Happiness.