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 ...
Here is a beautiful boat, and here is the picture of a boatman, a man who ferries the boat across the river. The boatman is a very good man and he is the master of the boat, only so long as the boat is looked upon to be real; the master of the boat is master in the same sense as the boat is a boat. In reality the boat is nowhere and the master of the boat is nowhere. Both are unreal. But when we point out to a child, "Come along, come along, what a beautiful master of the boat," both the master of the boat and the boat are of the same sort. We have no right to call the master of the boat more real than the boat itself.
Similarly, according to Vedanta, the Controller, Governor, Master of the world, or God, the idea of God or Creator, is related to this world as in that picture the boat-driver, or I say, the boat-man is related to the boat. So long as the boat is there, the boatman is also there. When you realise the unreality of the boat, the boatman also disappears.
Similarly, the idea of a Controller, Governor, Creator, Maker, is real unto you so long as the world appears to you to be real. Let the world go, and that idea also goes. The idea of the Creator implies creation, why, when and wherefore.
The question of the why, when, and wherefore of the world is related to this world like the boatman to the boat; both of them are parts of one whole picture. If they are both of the same value, both are illusions. The question „the why, when, and wherefore‟ also is an illusion. The question—why, when, and wherefore—is the driver, the boatman, or the leader of this world. When you wake up and realize the truth, the whole world becomes to you like the boat drawn upon canvas, and the question why, when, and wherefore, which was the driver of the boatman, disappears. There is no why, when, and wherefore in the Reality which is beyond Time, beyond Space, beyond Causation.
MORAL: The appearance of the creation (world) creates the idea of its creator. Hence when the world is illusion, the idea of its creator must also be illusion.