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.

WHERE SILENCE IS ELOQUENT AND SPEECH DOTH FALTER

A MAN had two sons. The father sent them to a
preceptor to learn the knowledge of Brahman.
After a few years they returned from their
preceptor's house and bowed low before their
father. Wanting to measure the depth of their
knowledge of Brahman, he first questioned the
older of the two boys. "My child," he said "you
have studied all the scriptures. Now, tell me, what
is the nature of Brahman?" The boy began to
explain Brahman by reciting various texts from the
Vedas. The father did not say anything. Then he
asked the younger son the same question. But the
boy remained silent and stood with eyes cast down.
No word escaped his lips. The father was pleased
and said to him: "My child, you have understood a
little of Brahman. What It is cannot be expressed
in words."

A SALT DOLL WENT TO FATHOM THE OCEAN

ONCE, a salt doll went to measure the depth of
the ocean. It wanted to tell others how deep the
water was. But this it could never do, for no
sooner did it get into the water than it melted.
Now, who was there to report the ocean's depth?
What Brahman is cannot be described. In samadhi
one attains the knowledge of Brahman—one
realises Brahman. In that state reasoning stops
altogether, and man becomes mute. He has no
power to describe the nature of Brahman.

EQUAL VISION IS THE FIRST AND LAST SIGN OF RENUNCIATION

A HUSBAND and wife renounced the world and
together undertook a pilgrimage to various holy
shrines. Once, as they were walking along a road,
the husband, who was a little ahead of the wife,
saw a piece of diamond on the road. Immediately
he began to scratch the ground to hide the
diamond in it, thinking that if his wife saw it
perchance she might be moved to avarice, and thus
lose the merit of renunciation. While he was thus
scratching the ground, the wife came up and asked
him what he was doing. He gave her, in an
apologetic tone, an evasive .reply. She, however,
finding out the diamond and reading his thoughts
remarked, "Why did you leave the world if you
still feel the distinction between the diamond
and dust?"

A GHOST SOUGHT A COMPANION

A GHOST sought a companion. It is said that a
man who dies on a Saturday or Tuesday becomes a
ghost, Therefore, whenever the ghost saw anybody
fall from a roof or stumble and faint on the road
on either side of those days, he would run to him,
hoping that the man, through an accidental death,
would become a ghost and be his companion. But
such was his ill luck that everyone revived. The
poor thing could not get a companion.
It is very difficult to find a person who has totally
renounced the world.