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 ...
Story 254 - Newton's fan
Once, Sir Isaac Newton installed a fan in his room. He had arranged the levers and the pulleys in such a way that a fan could be worked by the rats. Near the end of a toothed wheel, he had put a few grains of wheat in such a way that they were not affected by the movement of the wheel. When the rat jumped from one tooth to the other, the wheel was moved, causing the fan to work, but the grains of the wheat remained, where they were. The dupe would jump again and again in its efforts to get them, causing the wheel to continue to work the fan. Poor rat was always in the hope of getting the grains at every jump, but unfortunately, he could never get them. O dear friend! So, too, are worldly hopes and aspirations of the man. They are never fulfilled to his satisfaction. As the rat never reached the grains, so too, the man engrossed in desires, would ever be far from Truth, and the worldly fan would continue to work incessantly.