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 boy while walking over snow came across a cold stricken snake, lying coiled up. The boy handled it, and thinking it to be dead carried it home. But while sitting before the fire of the hearth, the snake got warmed. It stretched itself and bit the very boy. The venom had not really gone from the snake and so the boy died on account of the poison.
In the case of most people concentration is simply the snake of the mind coiled around; the poisonous fangs of this snake are the desires which apparently die out for a time. This little mind sleeps, or in other words, is thrown into a state of Samadhi. The snake is practically dead, cold-stricken, but not really dead. The snake might be handled in another way. We might take up a musical instrument and blow mantrams until the snake is charmed; then by skill on our part we can get hold of the snake, and take out its fangs and teeth. The snake is then fangless and toothless, the poison being taken out of it.
This is the Vedantic way of controlling the mind.
Spiritualists usually put their minds in a state comparable to that of the cold-stricken snake and are in a state of bliss; but in this work-a-day life their relatives, friends, brothers, sisters and enemies, all of them come and warm up the snake of the passions and desires, they heat up this snake and then the snake of passions and desires is roused, the mind within is up to mischief again. The fangs of the snake were not taken out and are poisonous as before. No character is built, no true spirituality is gained.
Concentration of mind is all right, but make the snake poison less, pick out the fangs of the snake, rise above all temptation; build your character. These things are to be looked after and must be remembered. When all the points of weakness are cured, you are the snake without the fangs, without the teeth, and even then you can be cold-stricken, but there is no necessity of remaining in that state, there is no venom in your stings You have character now, and in the busy work-a-day life you are unharmed, undamaged, you are beyond it.
MORAL: In simple concentration, caused by ordinary Vairagya or Hatha Yoga, the desires do not really die out but are capable of rising up and stinging the mind again under favourable worldly impact.
In concentration with character, caused by the practice of self-knowledge, the desires are permanently rooted out, and hence no worldly contact, whatsoever, can make them grow again.