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 India, long ago, the Hindus used clay lamps, and when one family got their lamps lit, the people of the adjoining houses would go into their neghbour's house to light theirs. One evening a maiden, who was ardently in love with Krishna, went to the house of his father on the pretext of lighting her lamp. It need not be said that it was in reality a desire to get herself singed like a moth at the light of Krishna's face that led her to this house of Krishna rather than to any other house with lighted lamps. She really went to see him; the lighting of the lamp was only the excuse she gave her mother. She had to apply the wick of her lamp to that of the burning lamp; but her eyes were not on the lamps, they were on the face of the dear little Krishna. She was looking at that charming, bewitching face of Krishna; she was looking at him so intently that she did not notice that instead of the wick of her lamp being in contact with the burning lamp, her fingers were burring in it. The flame continued to burn her fingers, but she noticed it not. Time passed on and she did not return home. Her mother became impatient and could bear the delay no longer. She went to her neighbour's house and there she saw her daughter's hand burning and the daughter unconscious of it; the fingers were singed and shriveling, and the bones were charred. The mother panted for breath, gasped and wept and cried, aloud, "Oh, my child, my child, what are you doing? In the name of goodness, what are you doing?" Then was the girl brought to her senses, or, you may say, she was brought from her senses.
In such a state of Divine love, in this stage of perfect love, the beloved and the lover become one. "I am He," "I am Thou."
This is final state, and beyond that comes the state where even these expressions cannot be used.
MORAL: The final stage of love is that in which the lover and beloved become one, but beyond that comes a state where is left no sense of love, lover or beloved, and which is, therefore beyond expression.