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 ...
Once there came into a mirror-house (a house whose walls and roof are bedecked with mirrors) a dog. The dog finds armies of dogs, on his right, coming up to him, and you know that dogs are very jealous; dogs do not wish some rival dog to be present beside them. They are very jealous. When this dog saw thousands of dogs approaching him from the right, be turned to the left hand side, and again on that wall were fixed thousands of mirror and there he finds an army of dogs coming up to him about to devour him, tear him to pieces. He turned to the third wall and there he found again dogs of the same sort. He turned to fourth wall and thre the same thing. He turned his head upward to heaven and there from heaven he saw thousands of dogs coming down upon him to devour him and tear him to pieces He was frightened. He jumped up, all the dogs jumped on all sides; he was barking and he found all the dogs barking and opening their mouths at him. The sound reechoed from the four walls, and he was afraid. He jumped and ran this way and that way. The poor fellow died exhausted on the spot.
Exactly the same way, Vedanta tells you this world is like a mirror-house, and all these bodies are like different mirrors, and your true Atma or real Self is reflected on all sides, just as the dog saw his figure reflected from the four walls. Just so does the One Infinite Atma, the One Infinite Divinity, the Infinite Power, reflect itself in the different mirrors. It is the One Infinite Rama that is being reflected through all these bodies.
Ignorant people come like dogs in this world and say: "That man will eat me up, that man will tear me to pieces, destroy me." Oh, how much of jealousy and fear in this world! To what are this jealousy and fear due? To the ignorance of the dog, to dog-like ignorance is all this jealousy and fear of the world due.
Please turn the tables. Come into this world like the master of the house, of the looking-glass and mirror-house. Come into the world not as d-o-g, but as g-o-d, and you will be the master of the mirror-house, you will be the owner of the whole universe; it will give you pleasure when you see your rivals and your brothers and your enemies advance; it will give you joy when you find any glory anywhere. You will make a heaven of this world.
MORAL: Ignorance of Reality is the Cause of all Jealousy and Fear.