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 ...

Story 88 - Removal of Obstacles Essential

The Saint Who Poked out His Eyes

It is related of a Hindu Saint that he was once going through the streets hungry. In India saints or sages come down from the mountains and walk through the streets when they are hungry, and beg food for their bodies. On very rare occasions they visit the streets. Usually they live outside the cities in the forests, devoting their time entirely to God-consciousness. The hungry saint was fed. A lady brought to him dainty food to eat. He just took that loaf of bread in his handkerchief, left the house, went out into the forest, as is the way with monks in India. There he put it in water and making it wet ate it. The next day he came again to the streets at the usual time. Again the girl approached him, and gave him something very rich to eat. He went back. The third day also that girl brought him something very good to eat but while she was giving him this dainty food, she made the remark, "I keep waiting for you. My eyes have become sore in waiting for you, in keeping watch at the door, your eyes have bewitched me." These were the words that escaped the lips of that lady. The sage went away. He went to some other door and there he got some food and eating that food he went out to the forests and threw into the river the food which was offered him by the first lady who had expressed her love to him, and the other food that was presented to him by the second lady he ate. The next day, he got very hot irons, poked out his eyes, tied them in the hand kerchief, and- with the aid of a stick, with great difficulty walking along the streets felt his way to the house of the lady who had expressed her Jove to him. There he found that the lady was waiting for him very anxiously. His eyes were fixed on the ground. The lady did not notice that he had poked out his eyes, and when she brought something very rich for him to eat he presented his eye-balls to her saying, "Mother, mother, take up these eyes because the eyes had bewitched you, and had caused you so much trouble. You have every right to possess these eyes. Mother, you wanted these eyes. Have them, keep them, love and enjoy them, do with these eye-balls whatever you wish, but for heaven's sake, for mercy's sake do not retard my progress onward. Make me not stumble in the path of Truth."

Now, O people, if your eyes are the stumbling block in your way, cast them out. It is better for your body to be without light than for your whole being to perish in darkness. This is the way.

If your eyes stand in the way of your realising the Truth, poke them out. If your ears tempt you and keep you backward, cut them out. If your wife, money, property, wealth or anything stands in the way, away with it.

Gould you love Truth with the same love as you have for your wife and relatives, could you love Divinity and Atman or realisation with the same zest or zeal with which you love your wife, could you love God with even half the love that you show your wife, you would realise the Truth this second.

MORAL: Howsoever dear a thing may be, if it proves an obstacle in the way of Self realization it must be removed forthwith.

Vol. 2 (10-11)

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