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 ...
A monkey is caught in India in a very queer manner.
A narrow-necked basin is fixed in the ground, and in that basin are put some nuts and other eatables which the monkeys like. The monkeys come up and thrust their hands into the narrow-necked basin and fill their hands with the nuts. The fist becomes thick and it cannot be taken out, i There the monkey is caught; he cannot come out. Queerly, strangely is the monkey caught.
We ask what it is that binds you first. You yourself have brought under thralldom and bondage. Here is the whole wide world; a grand magnificent forest; and in this grand magnificent wood of the whole universe, there is a narrow necked vessel found. What is that narrow-necked vessel? It is your brain, this little brain, narrow-necked. Herein are some nuts, and people have got hold of these nuts, and all that is done through the agency of the brain or through the medium of this intellect, is owned as one's own, "I am the mind," is that everybody says;
everybody has practically identified himself with the mind, "I am the mind," "I am the intellect," and he takes a strong grip of these nuts of the narrow-necked vessel. That is what makes you slaves, that is what makes you slaves to anxieties, slaves to fear, slaves to temptations, slaves to all sorts of troubles. That is what binds you; that is the cause of all the suffering in this world. If you want salvation, if you want freedom, only let go the hold, free your hand. The whole forest is yours, you can jump from tree to tree and eat all the nuts and eat all the walnuts and all the fruits in the woods, all being yours. The whole world is yours; just rid of this selfish ignorance, and you are free, you are your own savior.
MORAL: Identification with the mind is the cause of bondage. Get rid of it and your are free.