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 ...
To Lord Buddha came a man who asked him to go to his father's cabin. You know, the same Lord Buddha, who was a prince and emperor, was a mendicant at one time, he gave up everything and became a mendicant. As a mendicant he went from place to place-, not asking anything, not begging anything. If anybody threw anything into the bowl, which he carried in his hand, well and good, otherwise he did not care a straw for the body, for this worldly life. He went into his father's kingdom and there he walking through the streets in the beggar's dress, in the mendicant's garb. It is a misnomer to call him a mendicant, it is no mendicancy, no beggary, it is kinghood, it is majesty. He does not seek anything, he does not ask for anything. What if he perishes? Let him perish; it matters not. He does not come to you to ask for food or clothing, not at all.
He was walking through the streets in that garb, and the father heard about it, came up to him, shed bitter tears and said, "Son, dear prince, I never did this, I never took this dress that you wear; my father, that is to say, your grandfather never had this mendicant's dress, your great-grandfather never walked as a mendicant through the streets. We have been kings, you belong to a royal family, and why is it that you are this day going to bring disgrace and shame to the whole family by adopting the mendicants' garb? Do not do that, please, do not do that, please. Keep my honour."
Smiling the Buddha replied, smilingly did he say, "Sir, sir, the family to which I belong, I look behind. I look behind to my previous births, I look behind to the previous birth before that, and I see that the family to which I belong has been all along a family of mendicants, and it is illustrated in this way:
Here is one street and there comes another street. Buddha says, "Sir, you have been coming from your births in that line, I have been coming in this line, and in this birth we have met on the crossing. Now I have to go my way and you have to go your way."
MORAL: Ways differ not in accordance with the outer circumstances but with the inner development of the persons.