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 Milton‟s life there is very beautiful story told about a lady, who was his wife. In her dream she saw her husband, her lord, and her heart was leaping in her bosom for her lord, for her husband. She embraced her husband, and said, "My lord, I am wholly yours." Just at that moment she woke up and found that a dog that had been sleeping in the same bed with her had been pressing its body to her; that dog leaped out of the bed to the floor, and in reality it was the pressure of the dog that appeared to her in her dream to be her lord, her husband. Had the dog pressed its body more and more, she would have felt a mighty Himalaya on her breast.
And Vedanta says, so long as the dog of ignorance, the dog of Maya remains pressing you down, your dreams are continually changing from good to bad, and from bad to good, sometimes a husband and sometimes a mighty Himalaya presses on you. You will be always like a pendulum oscillating between a tear and a smile; the world will weigh heavily upon your heart, there will be no rest for you. Vedanta says, "Get rid of this dog of ignorance, make yourself God Almighty, make yourself That, realize That, and you are free.
MORAL: It is Maya or Ignorance which makes you weep or smile and keeps you in bondage. If you get rid of it, you rise above sorrow and pleasure. Realise God-head and be free.