Swami Ramatirtha
There is a story in India about an emperor who was put into prison by his son. He was put into prison because his son wanted to see himself possessed of the whole kingdom. The son put his father into prison so that he might satisfy his hunger after lucre.
At one time, the father wrote to his own son to send him some students so that he might amuse himself by teaching them something. Then the son said, “Will you hear this fellow, my father?
He had been ruling over the kingdom for so many years, and even now he cannot give up his old habit of ruling. He still wants to rule over students; he wants somebody to rule over. He cannot give up his old habits.”
So it is. How can we give up our old habits? The old habit clings to us. We cannot shake it off. The Real Self of yours, the emperor Shah-i-jahan (the literal meaning of the word is ‘ruler of whole world,’ and so the name of that emperor Shah-i-jahan means the emperor of the whole universe) is the emperor of the universe. Now you have put the emperor into a prison, into the blackhole of your body, into the quarantine of your little self.
How can that real self, that emperor of the universe, forget his old habits? How can he give up his nature. Nobody is capable of shaking off his own nature. Nobody can jump out of his own nature.
So the Atman, the true Self, the real Reality in you—how can that give up its nature? You have confined that in the prison, but even in the prison it wants to possess the whole world, because it has been possessing the whole; it cannot give up its old habits. If you wish this ambitious spirit, the avarice should be shaken off, if you desire that the people in this world should give up this ambitious nature, could you preach them to give it up? Impossible.
In the Bible it is stated in the fifth chapter of Mathew, in the Sermon on the Mount, if somebody slaps you on one cheek, turn to him the other. When you have to preach the Holy Gospels, take with you no money, bare-footed, bare-headed you should go. If you are called to the courts of justice, before going to the courts think not of what you will have to say. Open your mouth and it will be filled.
Look at the lilies of the field and the sparrows of the forest. They take no thought for tomorrow, and the lilies and the sparrows wear garments which even Solomon might grudge. Have you not a statement in the Bible that it may be possible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, but it is impossible for the rich to realize the kingdom of heaven?
Have you not read in the Bible about the rich man who came to Christ and asked to be initiated and Christ said, “There is only one way with you, no other way; you should give up your riches; do this alone, and you can be in peace.”
This spirit of renunciation, this chapter which is so much kept in the background by at least the missionaries in India, and even all over the world, this chapter teaches Vedanta and the teachings which are lived by the Indian monks even at this time.
In the name of that holy religion, in the name of that teaching of renunciation, just mark people going as priests and missionaries to India. If you regard Self as the body, nobody should feel offended. Nobody has a right to feel in the least offended if anything is said against his little body.
Swami Ramatirtha
Excerpted from ‘In Woods of God-Realization’
The 137th birth anniversary of Swami Ramatirtha falls on Oct 22
