Part 6: Open the Door...Let the Breeze in!🔗

If you say, after finding the stone, there is no dog, does it mean, because you have found the stone, the dog has run away?'

To explain this, there is a nice story.

It seems a person went to see the palace. After going there, he was shocked. There were two big dogs at the entrance to the palace. Exquisitely sculpted, those statues appeared as real dogs from a distance.

As he was already afraid of dogs, saying, 'Two big dogs?' he started to run away nervously.

Having recognized from a distance itself that man's trembling body, facial perplexity, the ascetic took that man along with him and said, 'Don't be afraid. Come with me.'

His fear got cleared after he went closer and saw. He sighed and said, 'Oh, my God! Are they mere stones?' Then he saw the dog first, there was no stone. Now, when he saw the stones, there was no dog.

This is what is meant when we say, 'After seeing the dog, there is no stone; after seeing the stone, there is no dog.' When Ramana finished saying this speedily, having understood the explanation, the devotee also laughed heartily.

Until that ascetic came there, and took him closer to the statue of the dog, that man would not have known that the image of a dog is nothing but stones laid down in the shape of a dog.

This man fearing the stone as a dog, and other man thinking that he can be happy if he touches the peak of infatuation, fame and money – both are in the same boat.

That man believing the stone as a dog is illusion (Maya).

Right from lust up to God, the human mind thinks about some thing and believes it to be true and goes after it – this is maya. What happens at that moment is delusion due to maya.

Only an enlightened Master who has won over himself can get rid of the delusion of a man who has not understood rightly about lust or God, and who suffers and struggles due to this illusion.

One small story.

One disciple asked a Zen Master, 'If every thing is Maya, illusion... is searching for infatuation, position, fame and money like searching for what is impossible in reality?

The Master said, 'Yes, what is the doubt in this?'

'If that is so, what man thinks and wants to achieve through those things are about things which are not there?' the disciple asked.

The Master answered, 'Yes.'

'How is it that man runs so enthusiastically searching for it when it is not there?'

'It is like this.... A village boy got into a steam engine drawn train for the first time, that too in the last carriage, where the signalman was there.

Having got inside, as the boy playfully leaned on the steel bars of the carriage and pushed it, the same instant the train also started.

The boy thought that the train has started only because he had pushed the steel bars. As he pushed again faster, the speed of the train also increased.

The boy's joy knew no bounds – as to how superbly he is pushing the train!

Did not the boy, who could not understand the truth, drive the train?' laughed the Master, winking at his disciple.

The disciple said, 'That is all right. But can't man be made to understand that he is only searching for comfort and joy, where it is not available?'

The Master explained, 'Two things need to happen. First, that boy should be told that the train is running by itself. Second, that boy should be mature enough and have the eagerness to understand the truth.'

Understand one truth.

The society in which you live, the happenings around you, the individual lives of the relations….. Why? Even your body functions are not done by you. All are happening beyond your limits.