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 ...
In some of the poor huts in India, the people are so poor that they cannot afford light in the houses, and Rama once observed in passing along the streets that upon entering the house during the darkness of the night, the master of the house found fault with the wife and others of the household. He exclaimed, “O, why did you keep this table here, I broke my knee over it? Why did you put that chair there, I nearly broke my hand over it?” Was there any remedy? No, none; for if the wife removed the table or chair to another corner or part of the room, then the man would have to go to some other place in the dark and would get hurt. So long as there was darkness, the knee, the arm, the neck or shoulders must be broken; the head must knock against the cornice or wall. It could not be helped. If you simply light the room, let things be where they are, you will not have to bother; you will then be able to walk unhurt from place to place.
So it is in the world. In order that your suffering may be remedied, you should not rely on the adjustment of your surroundings or on your position in life for the remedy, but depend upon the remedy which deals only with the adjustment of the Sun within. All people are trying to get rid of suffering by placing or adjusting as it were the furniture, by placing this and that different in the world, or by accumulating money, or by building grand houses or by acquiring certain land which somebody else owns. By adjusting your surroundings, or by placing your furniture in this order or that, you can never escape suffering. Suffering may be shunned, removed and got rid of only by bringing light into your room, by having Light, by having knowledge in the closet of your heart. Let darkness go and nothing will harm you.
MORAL: Sufferings or the darkness of ignorance can be removed not by adjusting the outer surroundings but by the knowledge of Self, the Light within.