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 horse came to a man to be saved. You know, there was a time once when man too lived in the jungles. The horse also lived in the jungles; the deer and the stags too lived in the jungles, as they do in these days.. A horse was once worsted in a fight with a stag. The stag stabbed him with his antlers. The horse came to the man to seek help. The man said, "All right, I will help you. I have arrows in my hands. You take me on your back and I will go and kill your enemies." The man rode on the back of the horse, went into the forest and killed the stag. They came home victorious. The horse was very happy. Now the horse wanted to go. The horse thanked the man, and said, "Dear sir, I thank you. Now I want to leave you." The man came up and said, "O horse, O horse, where do you want to go? Now that I have come to know how useful you are, I will not let you go. You have to be my servant; you have to become my slave." The horse was saved from the stags, the deer, the other beasts of the forest, but he had lost his freedom; and the slavery which was the result of his outward success, did not counterbalance his loss of freedom.
So it is with man. After his marriage he is saved from many temptations, but the one temptaion, the slavery or dependence to which he is reduced in relation to his wife, is just like the treatment that the horse received at the hands of man.
MORAL: Dependence on the strength of others may give you temporary comfort and pleasure but results in permanent loss of freedom and independence.