Story 39 - Knowledge, the Remover of Darkness

There was a community of savages that lived in a certain part of the Himalayas, savages who never lighted any fire. The old savages of the world did not light fires, they knew not how to make a fire. They used to live on dried fish, and never cooked their food except by the heat of the sun, or dried it in the sun- Before the evening came they went to bed, and got up with the sun, and thus they had no occasion to mix with material darkness. There was a big cave near the place where they used to live. These savages thought that some of their most revered ancestors were living in this cave. In fact some of their ancestors had entered the dark cave and had died in it by being stuck in the mud, or probably striking their heads against the jagged walls of the cave. The savages looked upon this cave as very holy, but these people, not being accustomed to associate with darkness, the darkness in the cave was to them a giant monster which they wanted to get rid of. (This looks as an absurdity, but the people of to-day are committing greater absurdities.) Well, someone told them that the monster in the cave would leave if they approached the cave in a worshipful mood. So they went and prostrated themselves in front of the cave for years, but the monster did not leave the cave by this reverence. Afterwards someone told them that the monster would leave the cave if they bullied him, if they fought him. So they got all sorts of arrows and sticks and rocks, all kinds of weapons that they could find, and began to shoot arrows into the cave and strike the darkness with stick; but the darkness did not move, it did not leave. Another said, "Fast, fast. The darkness will leave the cave by your fasting. All these years you have not been doing the right thing. Fasting is what is needed." The poor fellows fasted and fasted. They sacrificed by fasting, but the darkness left not, the monster still did not leave the cave. Then somebody said the darkness would be dispelled if they distributed alms. So they began to distribute all that they had, but the monster did not leave the cave. At last there came a man who said the monster would leave the cave if they followed his advice. They asked him what his advice was, and he said, "Bring me some long sticks of bamboo, and some grass to fasten the bamboo-sticks together, and some fish oil." Then he asked them to bring him some straw or rags or something to burn. This man applied them to the long end of the bamboo, and by striking a stone against a piece of flint; he struck fire and lighted the straw at the end of the bamboo-stick.

Fire was made and this was a queer sight to these people, for this was the first time they had seen fire. This man then told them to take hold of the bamboo-stick and run it into the cave, and with it catch hold of the ears of the monster and drag him out of the cave, if they met the monster, darkness. At first they did not believe in his theory and said that could not be right, since their great-grandfathers had told them that the monster would leave the cave if they prostrated themselves before it, or if they fasted, or if they gave alms, and they had practised all these things for many years, and the monster had not left the cave. "And now,5' they said, "here is a stranger; he surely cannot advise us aright; his advice is worth nothing. O, we will not listen to it." So they put out the fire. But there were some who were not so prejudiced. They took up the light and went into the cave, and lo! the monster was not there. They went on and on into the cave, for it was a very long cave, and still found no monster; then they thought the monster must be hidden in the holes in the cave, and so they thrust the light into all the holes in the cave, but there was no monster anywhere, it was as if it had never been there.

Just so, ignorance is the monster, darkness, which has entered the cave of your hearts and is making havoc there, and turning it into a hell. All anxiety, all suffering, all pain lies in yourself, never outside.

MORAL: Ignorance or darkness can be removed by Gyana, or knowledge of the Self and not by penances, fasting or other ceremonies.

Vol. 1 (268-269)