Parables of Rama
by Swami Rama Tirtha | 102,836 words
Stories in English used by Swami Rama to illustrate the highest teaching of Vedanta. The most difficult and intricate problems of philosophy and abstract truths, which may very well tax the brains of the most intellectual, are thus made not only simple and easy to understand but also brought home to us in a concrete form in such an interesting and ...
A few years ago, when Rama was in India, a book by a Reverend Doctor, an American gentleman, a professor in a University in India, came into Rama's hands. The subject of this book was "After Death." By a very beautiful allegory it was shown that this world is like one station and the other world is like another station, beyond: the bay, beyond the seas, and all those who have to go beyond this bay have to purchase tickets. Those who do not possess the right kind of tickets will be thrown overboard into the deep abyss. Those who have the right kind of tickets will be allowed to pass on to the goal, to the destination. Tickets are of several kinds, first class, second class, third class, etc. Then there are some counterfeit tickets. They are white, black, yellow, green etc., but the real genuine tickets, the right kind of tickets, which have to take you to the destination are red, besmeared with the blood of Jesus, the Christ. Those alone who have such tickets, will be allowed to reach the destination successfully; others never, never. The white, black, yellow and other kinds of tickets were the tickets of other religions, so to say, and the red tickets bore the blood of Christ; they were the Christian tickets. This was the subject of the book, and it was very beautifully brought out. The reverend doctor had lavished all his ingenuity and English literature in writing that book.
Something like this is the belief, not only of Christians but of all other religions. Mohammedans say that after death, the ticket-collector, or say the great station master, or the examiner of accounts, is Mohammed, and those who do not bear the sign of Mohammed will be cast down Into hell. Other religions also have ideas of the same sort, and they say that all the dead, whether they died in America. Europe, Africa, Australia, or Asia, all these people will be subjected to the disposal of a single man, let it be Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Zoroaster, Krishna, or anybody; and this is the cause of all the warfare, strife, and struggle between religions. This superstition, this dogmatic view is the cause of most of the bloodshed in this world, the bloodshed that was carried out in the name of religion.
MORAL:—Dogmatism in the name of religion brings about warfare, bloodshed, strife and struggle in this world.