AN ANT WENT TO A SUGAR HILL

MEN often think they have understood Brahman

fully.

Once, an ant went to a sugar hill. One grain filled

its stomach. Taking another grain in its mouth it

started homeward. On its way it thought, "Next

time I shall carry home the whole hill."

That is the way shallow minds think. They don't

know that Brahman is beyond one's words and

thought, However great a man may be, how much

can he know of Brahman? Sukadeva and sages like

him may have been big ants; but even they at the

utmost could carry eight or ten grains of sugar!

'BEHOLD, O KING! BEHOLD'

ONCE, a king asked a yogi to impart Knowledge

to him in one word. The yogi said, "All right; you

will get knowledge in one word." After a while a

magician came to the king. The king saw the

magician moving two of his lingers rapidly and

heard him exclaim, "Behold, O king, Behold." The

king looked at him amazed when, after a few

minutes, he saw the two lingers becoming one. The

magician moved that one finger rapidly and said,

"Behold, O king! Behold."

The implication of the story is that Brahman and

the Primal Energy at first appear to be two. But

after attaining knowledge of Brahman one does not

see the two. Then there is no differentiation; it is

One, without a second—Advaita—non-duality.

WHEN FACE TO FACE

WHERE the mind attains peace by practising the

discipline of 'Neti, neti', there Brahman is.

The king dwells in the inmost room of the palace,

which has seven gates. The visitor comes to the

first gate. There he sees a lordly person with a large

retinue, , surrounded on all sides by pomp and

grandeur. The visitor asks his companion, "Is he

the king?" "No", says his friend with a smile.

At the second and other gates he repeats the same

question to his friend. He finds that the nearer he

comes to the inmost part of the palace, the greater

is the glory, pomp, and grandeur. When he passes

the seventh gate he does not ask his companion

whether it is the king; he stands speechless at the

king's immeasurable glory. He realizes that he is

face to face with the king. He hasn't the slightest

doubt about it.

THE KING AND THE MAGICIAN

As you go nearer to God you see less and less of

His upadhis, His attributes. A devotee at first may

see the Deity as the ten-armed Divine Mother;

when he goes nearer, he sees her possessed of six

arms; still nearer, he sees the Deity as the twoarmed

Gopala. The nearer he comes to the Deity,

the fewer attributes he 5-ees. At last, when he

comes into the presence of (he Deity, he sees only

Light without any attribute, Listen a little to the

Vedantic reasoning. A magician came to a king to

show his magic. When the magician moved away a

little, the king saw a rider on horse-back

approaching him. He was brilliantly arrayed and

had various weapons in his hands. The king and

the audience began to reason out what was real in

the phenomenon before them. Evidently the horse

was not real, nor the robes nor the armours. At last

they found out beyond the shadow of a doubt that

the rider alone was there. The significance of this is

that Brahman alone is real and the world unreal.

Nothing whatsoever remains if you analyse.

NEITHER 'YES' NOR 'NO'!

THE husband of a young girl has come to his

father-in-law's house and is seated in the drawingroom

with other young men of his age. The girl

and her friends are looking at them through the

window. Her friends do not know her husband

and ask her, pointing to one young man, "Is that

your husband?" "No," she answers, smiling. They

point to another young man and ask if he is her

husband. Again she answers, "No." They repeat

the question, referring to a third, and she gives the

same answer. At last they point to her husband and

ask, "Is he the one?" She says neither yes nor no

but only smiles and keeps quiet. Her friends realize

that he is her husband.

One becomes silent on realising the true nature of

Brahman.