Parables of Sri Swami Sivananda

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Several children were playing on the village street, building houses

and acting the part of families etc. One child got annoyed with

another and in a fit of anger kicked the house built by the latter.

The two began to quarrel over this. " You have destroyed my house;

how dare you? " etc. etc. A young man who was watching all this began

to laugh at the children's foolishness in quarrelling over the

imaginary " houses " made of a handful of mud which were in any case

to be destroyed after the play came to an end. An elderly man,

however, remarked: " Friend, when you were a young boy, You, too,

quarreled like that. Now that you have grown old, you no more take

interest in these things. You have acquired the sense of proper

valuation of things. Come. let us by all means pacify the children;

but you should not laugh at their behaviour. "

 

Similarly, in the world people quarrel over the petty things. They

build houses of brick and mud; and quarrel over their possession.

This earth itself is just a mud-pile whirling in infinite space. It

is created for the time being so that the Jivas might carry on His

play. When this play is over, it will be dissolved. Then man with a

worldly wisdom laughs at others who quarrel over the objects of the

senses. But the sage reminds him that, before gaining the knowledge

of the impermanence of the objects, he, too, was behaving like the

worldly men. With genuine love and sympathy, he makes people live in

peace and gradually enlightens them about the real nature of the

mundane objects and the Peace and the Bliss that can be had in the

Self.