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 boy who used to serve in the house in which Swami Rama used to live in India. That boy remaining all the while in contact with Rama; was one day walking on the top of the high mansion, and was shouting aloud, "I am God, I am God, I am God." There were some people in the other houses next door to the house on the top of which he was roaring. They spoke to him, "What are you raving, what are you saying? Do you say you are God? If you are God, do jump down from the roof and let us see whether you are hurt or not. If you are not hurt, then we shall believe in you as God; if you are hurt, we shall kill you, we shall persecute you. Why are you speaking that way? This profane language you have no right to employ."
The boy, full of Divine madness, spoke out, “O My own Self, I am ready to jump down; I am ready to take a leap into any abyss that you may point out; I am ready to jump into any ocean that you may indicate, but kindly let me know the place where I am not present already, because in order to jump down, we ought to have some spot where we can jump down and where we are not present already, Let me know the place which is void of Me; where I am not present already. I am the God of gods. Do point out to me the place where I am not present already, and I will jump. How can He jump who already permeates the whole? He alone can jump who is limited, who is present here and not there. He alone can take a leap."
Then the gentlemen who had asked him to jump down said, "Oh, are you that God, are you that God? You are the body." The boy said, "This body is made by your imagination: this body I am not. Your questions and objections cannot reach Me; they reach only your imagination. Similarly, how can He jump, or how can He do such things? Who is already all-permeating? There is not a single spot where He is not present already. The same am I. The same am I.
If I be present only in this body and not in that, then of course I ought to work worldly miracles through this body in order to make good my claim to God-head. All the bodies are mine; readymade they are mine. I have simply to make possession; I have to make nothing, everything is made by me."
MORAL: One, who has true knowledge of Godhead, believes himself to be everywhere.