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 bright young man working as a professor in one of the sectarian colleges in India. In one of the public meetings he declared his life to be given to that cause, he dedicated himself to that cause. He worked there most zealously for a time and then his opinion changed, his thoughts expanded his mind broadened, his views enlarged and he could no longer work with these sectarians, and these sectarians could not sympathise with him in their heart of hearts, yet he had to pull on with them, because he had committed himself, because he had bound himself to their cause; there was no escape for this young man. His heart was somewhere and his body was somewhere else, the heart and the body were disunited. This could not be. This could not go on. The man died; he could not change the circumstances by any other means but death; by death were the circumstances changed.
You are the master of your circumstances; you are the master of your destiny. But how is it that people are made miserable? How is it that difficulties are brought about? By the conflict of desires. You have one kind of desires which want you to do this kind of act, and then you have other desires which want you to do differently. Here are conflicting desires which cannot go together. What happens? Both must be fulfilled. While one is being fulfilled, the other suffers and you are in pain. While the other one is being fulfilled, the first one suffers and you are in pain. This is how people bring about suffering on themselves.
MORAL: Conflicting desires bring about difficulties, .sorrows, and misery.