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 man was taken to be a criminal by a certain king of Asia, because he would not bow before the king. This old king got offended when people did not bow before him. The king said to the criminal, "Do you not know what a powerful and strict monarch I am? Do you not know that I will kill you, you are so audacious? The man spat in the king's face and looked so fiercely at him that he was exasperated. The man said, "O foolish dolly that you are, you have not the power or the authority to put me to death. I am my own master. It is in my power to spit in your face, it is in my power to insult you and it is in my power to see this body put on the cross or scaffold. I am the master of my body. Your authority is second-hand, my authority comes first." Similarly, feel and realize that you are always your own master. Look at things from the standpoint of your Atman, and not through the eyes of others. Feel your independence, feel that you are the God of gods, the Lord of lords, for that you are. So long as man does not realize his own Divinity there will be suffering always.
MORAL: Belief in the lower self makes you bold, but belief in the higher Self (Atman) makes you Divine.