Parables Of Rama: Stories In English Used By Swami Rama Tirtha to Illustrate The Highest Teaching of Vedanta

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The most complex and intricate problems of philosophy and abstract truths, which may very well tax the brains of the most intellectual, are thus made not only simple and easy to understand but also brought home to us in a concrete form in such an interesting and attractive style that even a dullard or a child finds delight and pleasure in reading them and can easily apply their truths in daily life and practice.

Swami Rama Tirtha (22 October 1873-17 October 1906), also known as Ram Soami, was an Indian teacher of the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta. He was among the first notable teachers of Hinduism to lecture in the United States, travelling there in 1902, preceded by Swami Vivekananda in 1893 and followed by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920. During his American tours, Swami Rama Tirtha frequently spoke on the concept of 'Practical Vedanta' and the education of Indian youth. He proposed bringing young Indians to American universities and helped establish scholarships for Indian students.

A chance meeting with Swami Vivekananda in 1897 in Lahore inspired his decision to take up the life of a sannyasi. He always referred to himself in the third person, a common spiritual practice in Hinduism to detach oneself from Ego. Paramahansa Yogananda translated many of Rama Tirtha's poems from Bengali into English and put some of them to music: one, entitled "Marching Light", appeared in Yogananda's book Cosmic Chants, as "Swami Rama Tirtha's Song."

While going through the Complete Works of Swami Rama, "In Woods of God Realization" one is struck with the vast number of simple stories, so profusely used by Swami Rama to illustrate the highest teaching of Vedanta. The most difficult and intricate problems of philosophy and abstract truths, which may very well tax the brains of the most intellectual, are thus made not only simple and easy to understand but also brought home to us in a concrete form in such an interesting and attractive style that even a dullard or a child finds delight and pleasure in reading them and can easily apply their truths in daily life and practice.

And yet there are some who cannot at once go in for the full set of Complete Works owing to financial difficulty, or are rather not well inclined to go through a work bearing any such label as Vedanta, thinking it to be either too abstruse for their comprehension or to be prejudicial to their own particular forms of faith or ways of belief. For such specially, and generally for those who take interest mostly in light reading only, as of stories and fables, and are averse to study any subject requiring serious attention, it is a great pleasure to us that we have been able to bring out in this cheap and handy volume a complete and classified collection of all the illustrations and stones spread throughout the Complete Works of Swami Rama; for abstract Truths, otherwise most difficult to comprehend and to remember are easily understood, kept in mind, and applied in life, if available in the form of interesting stories.

To make these Parables still more useful and easier to remember, they have been numbered and divided subject-wise, each with an appropriate heading giving the subject dealt with and a subheading giving the actual story related. A brief and fitting moral is also drawn for daily practice and added in bold type at the end of each story.

Each story is given a number above the heading to denote its general serial position, a number on the left of heading denoting its number in the subject dealt with, a number on the right of the main subject giving the total number of stories under that subject, while all the subjects are also alphabetically arranged and numbered serially in Roman figures. A reference, as to the Volume of Swami Rama's Works of Fifth Edition and its pages from which the story is taken, is also given at the end of the moral of each story.

Pushing, marching labour and no stagnant Indolence, Enjoyment of work, as against tedious drudgery. Peace of mind and no canker of suspicion, Organisation and no disaggregation, Appropriate reform and no conservative customs, Solid real feeling, as against flowery talk The poetry of facts, as against speculative fiction, The logic of events, as against the authority of departed authors; Living realisation and no mere dead quotations, Constitute Practical Vedanta.

"Vedanta says that your relations and connections ought to be an aid to you and not an obstacle. Everything you meet in this world should be a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block. Convert your stumbling block into a stepping one".

Book's Contents and Sample Pages