RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA'S PARABLE

There is a very thin line which separates needs from wants.It takes tremendous intelligence to recognise the true needs of an individual.Many times wants disguise itself as intellectual needs and gets the individual entangled into the web of misery.Ofcourse the basic needs of of food,shelter and clothing are absolutely necessary for sustaining a vegetative life.Here is a humorous tale based on Sri Ramakrishna paramahamsa's parable.
'I cant stand it anymore,enough is enough' said Joseph ramkrishna khan, a person who got bored of the material life,wanting to attain self realisation.He was very desperate in this respect and he was supremely convinced that he cannot achieve his goal if he stayed in a place inhabited by people and hence sacrificed all his ownage and left for the forest. En-route he turned an ascetic. He possessed only those equipments that are required to perform rituals by ascetics apart from two holy-robes which meant that while he would be wearing one of them, the other would have to washed and dried for the subsequent day's use.The fourth day after he'd reached the forest, while he was involved in intense meditation,he heard some noise in the direction of the drying-robe.
When he opened his eyes, he was shocked to find that a rat was tearing apart his robe. Since that was his only reserve-clothing, he got a little worked-up. He felt like killing the rat instantaneously but then his ascetic-status prohibited the same.Just when he thought he had ran out of options, his mind pointed out that he could rear a wild cat which would kill the rat in any case.Following his mind's order, he got a wild cat. A week had passed by. The second robe was now fully torn by the rat.The wild cat was of no help.The ascetic again while thinking about the same believed that it was due to the cat's poor health condition that it couldn't kill the rat.Hence he concluded that milk would make the cat healthy and hence got a cow from the forest.While the purpose of turning to a forest being meditation and god realisation, the renunciate didn't want to waste time milking the cow.Therefore he wanted to appoint somebody to milk the cow, but he knew too well that nobody would agree to work in a forest. Consequently he thought that marriage was his only resort as his wife would have to stay with him all the time.He got married.His wife was okay with everything only for a few days, she also started complaining about the forest and asked him to get her constructed a wall, a fence wall which would prevent wild animals from entering the place. The renunciate thought it was fair-enough and got a wall constructed. Again she got unhappy about the
conditions(Earlier,in the 3rd post we saw our mind being a monkey).She wanted her ascetic-husband to get her constructed a house. The sanyasi again felt it was fair and went on to construct a huge house, more like a bungalow.The ascetic now got worried and insecure about the future of this big super-structure ie: his house regarding its ownership and maintainence and it is said that a year later his wife gave birth to a baby.
The sanyasi,a renunciate that he is, sacrificed everything and came to the forest only to live a normal human being's life after falling into the renunciate-order.
With this example,one can easily differentiate between needs and wants.Though they may appear to be synonymous, they quite aren't.

Chant
Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

and be happy

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jai gurunath