HarisChandra : 28th Sūryavanshi king; he is acclaimed for his piety, justice, & fidelity to his word with which he passed the ordeals Vishwāmitra put him to.
... little to enjoy while my neighbour Harischandra has untold riches, how can I fail to envy him his wealth and why should I not try to get it for my own enjoyment, if I safely can? I shall not try, because I cannot, because I have realized that there is nothing in this world but Brahman manifesting the universe by his Shakti, and that there is no Devadatta, no Harischandra, but only Brahman in various states... states of consciousness to which these names are given. If therefore Harischandra enjoys his riches, then it is I who am enjoying them, for Harischandra is myself,—not my body in which I am imprisoned or my desires by which my body is made miserable, but my true self, the Purusha within me who is the witness & enjoyer of all this sweet, bitter, tender, grand, beautiful, terrible, pleasant, horrible... not really preferring another to myself, but my true self to my false, God who is in all to my single body and mind, myself in Devadatta and Harischandra, to myself in Devadatta alone. It is right because it is better for me to enjoy the enjoyment of Harischandra than to enjoy my own, since in this way I shall make my knowledge of Brahman a reality and not a mere intellectual conception or assent; I ...
... Brahman, Isha is the true self of my neighbour, the real Harischandra. There is therefore really no Devadatta, no Harischandra, but my Self in the mental and bodily case called Devadatta and my Self in the mental and bodily case called Harischandra. If therefore Harischandra enjoys untold riches, it is I who am enjoying them; for Harischandra is my Self,—not my body in which I am imprisoned or my desires... that is in the world; yet I find that I have little enough to enjoy while my neighbour Harischandra has untold wealth. If I am to enjoy the world, how shall I proceed to my object? Not surely by abandoning the little I have, but by keeping fast hold on it and adding to Page 183 it the much that Harischandra has. So would argue the natural man, rationally enough from his point of view, but so... are enjoyment. What ground then is there left for coveting another man's possessions? Harischandra possesses merely so much gold, estates, houses, Government paper; but I, Devadatta, in my cottage, possess the Lord of the Universe and am the master & enjoyer of the whole world. It is I who am rich and not Harischandra. That is the fulfilment of his discipline for the Karmayogin. But let us go down ...
... thou shalt see the Lord!” Well, you may say, “What an extravagant story and how contrary to human nature!” Not so contrary as all that and in any case hardly more extravagant than the stories of Harischandra and Shivi. Still I do not hold up the bhakta as an example for I myself insist on the realisation in this life and not after six or a lakh of births more. But the point of these stories is in ...
... story of renunciation is also illustrated through the story of Sri Rama, which can be told to underline Sri Rama's renunciation and his emphasis on action to uphold the truth. The story of Harischandra can also be told it illustrates both Truth and renunciation. The story of Shivi can also be told in the same connenction. The ideal of Truth is so much emphasized that India when it ...
... poetry. There are dramas like Maurice Maeterlinck's which shift the focus of the action from the outer world to the inner theatre of the soul, recalling the silent suffering of Job, Harischandra, or the great Prahlad who have defied evil with the calm strength of their souls. Cannot epics, too, be fashioned in the same way? After all, what it the 'action' in an epic, or an epyllion, like ...
... there are of all sorts, and also about all men being durachar [wicked, of ill-conduct] only some are virtuous durachars, some sinful ones and some a mixed lot! I don't mean to deny that there are Harischandras and Shukadevas here and there, but one has to take a micro- scope or a telescope or anything else handy to find them. But enough! Sufficient [unlit?] the night is the cynicism thereof ! Your ...
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