Story 28 - The Real Abode of Happiness

A gentleman who has been blessed with a child is sitting in his office. He is busy with his official duties, and all of a sudden he hears the ring of the bell. What bell? The telephone bell. He jumps up to his feet and goes to the telephone, but when he is about to hear what the message, may be, his heart beats. They say, coming calamities cast their shadows before. His heart beats, never was it so with him before. He reaches up to the telephone and hears a message. Oh, what a distressing message it must have been!

The gentleman was panting and sobbing; he lost all presence of mind; his cheeks lost all colour; with a pallid, cadaverous face he came rapidly to his seat, put on his cloak and hat, and went out from the office as if he were shot with something like a ball from a gun. He did not even ask the consent of the chief officer, the head of the Department. He did not even exchange a word with the servants in the room.

He did not even look up the papers that were lying on the desk; he lost all presence of mind and went straight out of the office, and his fellow-officials were astounded. He reached the streets and saw a car running before him, he ran up to the car and there he meets a postman who gives him a letter. This letter brought to him the happy news, if it can be called happy news from the worldly point of view, the happy news of a large fortune having fallen to his lot. The man had bought a share in a lottery, and about Rs. 10,000 had fallen to his lot. This news ought to have cheered him up, ought to have filled him with joy, but it didn't, it didn't. The message he had received over the telephone was weighing heavily on his heart. This news brought him no pleasure. He found in the same car one of the greatest officials in the State sitting just in front of him. This was an official to have an interview with whom had been the one dream of his life. But look here! This gentleman did not exchange glances with the official; he turned his head away. He also noticed the sweet face of a lady friend. It had been the ambition of his gentleman's life to meet her and exchange words with her, but now he was insensible to her sunny smiles. He reached the street where his house was located, and a great noise and tumult was there, and he saw clouds of smoke rising to the sky and veiling the sun. He saw tongues of fire going up to the heavens; he saw his wife, grandmother, mother and other friends weeping and bewailing the conflagration which was consuming their house. He saw all his friends there but missed one thing; he missed the then metropolis of his happiness; he missed the dear little baby, he missed the sweet little child. That was not there. He asked about the child, and the wife could make no answer. She simply answered by sobbing and crying; she could make no articulate answer. He found out the truth. He came to know that the child had been left in the house. The child was with the nurse at the time when fire began; the nurse had placed the child in the cradle, the child was asleep and the nurse had left the room. Now the inmates of the house being panic stricken at the sight of the fire consuming the house, had quitted the house in haste, each thinking that the child must be with some other inmate of the house. All of them came out and now they found that the child was left in the room which was then being enveloped by fire. There was crying and gnashing of teeth, cutting of lips, beating of breasts, but no help.

Here this gentleman, his wife, his mother and friends, and the nurse were crying aloud to the people, to the by-standers, to the policemen, and asking them to save their child, to rescue their dear, little baby. "Save our little dear child any way you can. We will give away all our property, we shall give away all the wealth that we may accumulate within ten years from today, we will give up all; save our child.'

They are willing to give up everything for the sake of the child. Indeed, the child is a very sweet thing, the dear little baby is a very sweet thing, and it is worthwhile to sacrifice all the property, all our wealth and all our interest for the sake of the child. But Rama asks one thing, 'Is the child the source of happiness, the sweetest thing in the world, or is the source of happiness somewhere else? Mark here! Everything is being sacrificed for the child, but is not the child itself being sacrificed for something higher, or for something else? Wealth is given away, riches are given away, property is given away for the child, but the child is being given away for something else. Even the lives of those people who may venture to jump into the fire, may be lost. ,But even that dear little child is being sacrificed for something else, for something higher, and that something else must of necessity be sweeter than the child, that something else must be the real Centre of Happiness, must be the real Source of Happiness, and what is that something? Just see. They did not jump into the fire themselves. That something is the Self. If they jump into the fire themselves, they sacrifice themselves and that they are not prepared to do. On the child is everything else sacrificed, and on that Self is the child sacrificed.

MORAL: The Self is the real Abode of Happiness.

Vol. 1 (4-7)