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 in India had two wives. Hindus generally do not believe in polygamy, but the Mohammedans do. It was a Mohammedan who had two wives. One of the wives used to live upstairs and the other on the lower storey. One day a thief broke into the house. He wanted to steal away all the property, but the members of the house were wide awake and the thief could not get an opportunity of stealing anything. Near dawn the members of the house saw the thief, and they caught him and took him before a Magistrate, or to the police magistrate. There was nothing stolen, yet the thief had broken into the house. That was a crime. The Magistrate put some cross questions to the thief, who at once admitted that he had broken into the house with the intention of stealing something The Magistrate was going to inflict some punishment upon him. The man said, "Sir, you may do whatever you please, you may throw me into a dungeon, you may cast me before dogs, you may burn my body, but do not inflict one punishment upon me." The Magistrate being astonished asked, "What is that?" The man said,
"Never make me the husband of two wives. Never inflict this punishment upon me." Why is that? Then the thief began to explain how he was caught, how he had no opportunity to steal anything. He said that all night long this master of the house had to stand upon the stairs because one wife was pulling him up-stairs and the other was dragging him down-stairs. The hair of his head were pulled out and the stockings on his feet were torn off; he was shivering with cold all night long, and thus it was that I was caught, that I had no opportunity to steal anything.
So it is, all your sufferings come through your conflicting desires, and your desires are not in harmony, but are at war with each other, and you know a house divided against itself must fall. If you have singleness of aim and unity of purpose, you will have no trouble, you will have no suffering, but if there is conflict and discord, you must suffer.
MORAL: Discordant desires produce suffering and pain; hence harmony in desires is essential for peace and happiness.