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 15 - Cure of False Imagination

Child and the Ghost

There was once a mother, not a good sensible mother, who made her child believe that the room adjoining the parlour was haunted by a ghost, terrible monster, something hideous. The child became very much terrified and was afraid to step into that room. . One evening the father returned from his office and asked the boy to go into the adjoining room and bring him something that he wanted at that time. The child was afraid, he did not dare to enter the dark room, and he ran to his father and said, "O papa, I won't go into that room, for there is a terrible big monster, a ghost, and I am afraid". The father did not like it, and said "No, no, dear boy, there is no monster there; there is nothing to hurt you in that room, so please go and bring me what I asked;" but the child would not budge. The father was very wise and so he thought of a remedy, a cure for this disease, this superstition which the child had contracted. The father called the servant to him and whispered something into his ears. The servant left the room where the father was, and by a back door entered the adjoining room,' the supposed haunted room. He took one of the pillows, and over one corner of it he placed black cloth and projected one of the corners of the pillow, which was covered with the black cloth, through a hole in one of the windows of the room; he stuffed it out, and fixed it so that it looked hideous. The attention of the child was drawn to that and the child looked and saw something strange and terrible-looking. The father said, "That looks like an ear. (pointing to one corner of the pillow which was sticking out) and the imagination of the child, which was very active, at once made out that it was the ear of the supposed ghost, and cried, "O papa, that is the ear of the monster, did I not tell you that this house is haunted, now we know it is true." The father said, "Dear boy, you are right, but be brave and strong; get hold of this stick and we will destroy the ghost". You know, boys are very heroic, they can dare anything, they have great courage and so getting his father's beautiful cane, the boy stuck a hard blow, a noise was heard and there was heard a tiny cry, and the servant in the dark room then drew the supposed ear of the monster back into the room. That pleased the boy and with courage he cried that he was getting the better of the monster. The father cheered him up, puffed him up, praised him and said, "O may dear boy you are so brave, you are a hero." But while talking to the child there appeared the two ears of the monster in the crack or opening between the doors of the room. The child was urged on and he ran towards the monster and dealt blow upon the head of the supposed monster. He beat it and beat it repeatedly, and cries were heard from within and the father said. "Hear, child, the monster is crying in anguish, you have conquered, you have conquered." The child went on beating the supposed monster, and the father pulled out that pillow. The father cried, "O brave boy, you have beaten the monster into a pillow, you have converted him into a pillow." The child was satisfied that this was a fact; the monster, the ghost, the superstition was gone, and the child became brave and jumped and danced with joy and went about singing and then he went into the room and brought what the father wanted.

Vedanta says, in this case of the haunted room the real ghost was not driven out by the beating of the pillow by the child, the real cause of the driving out of the monster was not the beating of the pillow, it was the evolution of the Faith in the child that there was no ghost in the room. The child was made to believe there was no ghost, and there was no ghost; the ghost had come into the room through the imagination of the child. The ghost was in reality never there, it was this false imagination which put the ghost in the room, and this false imagination it was that must be cured.

MORAL: False imagination can be cured by the practice of another imagination leading to Truth.

Vol. 1 (196-198)

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