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 ...
There was a prime minister of a king who underwent all the ascetic practices, which are necessary, to see the Goddess of Fortune in flesh and blood before him. Well, he practised all those mantrams, incantations and charms. A million times he repeated sacred mantrams that were calculated to make him realise the presence of goddess Lakshmi. She did not appear. Three million times he underwent all the ascetic practices; still the goddess was not visible.
He lost all faith in these things and renounced everything in the world, took up Sannyasa (monk life) and became a monk. The very moment that he embraced Sannyasa (monk life) and left the palace and retired into the forests he found the goddess before him. He cried, 'Go away, goddess, why are you here now? I want you no more I am a monk. What has a monk to do with luxury, with riches, with wealth and worldly enjoyments? When I wanted you, you came not; now that I do not desire you, you came before me." The goddess replied,
"You yourself stood in the way. So long as you desired, you were asserting duality, you were making a beggar of yourself, and that kind of being can have nothing. The moment you rise above desires and spurn them, you are a god, and to gods belongs the glory." That is the secret.
MORAL: Rise above desires and they are fulfilled; beg and their fulfillment recedes further from you.