Page 182 - Mystic Pathways through the Bible

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176 Mystic pathways through the bible
the Ramayana, which abounds with amazing literary excellence, poetic sublimity and mystic insight.
If you have studied the Ramayana, you will recall that in this epic scripture, the monkeys and bears fought ercely with the demons every day. After being crushed, miserably beaten up, and af icted, they gathered in the ev ening before Lord Rama. Rama simply smiled at them with his magnanimous Divine compassion, and they were all miraculously healed.
The demons also felt crushed and battered by the day’s end. But when they led before Ravana, the demon king, he glared at them with his twenty eyes (Ravana had ten heads), making them feel even worse than before.
The secret of Rama’s success was his compassion. Though he did not even so much as lay a hand on his monkey and bear warriors, the mere power of his compassionate gaze alleviated their suffering and left them feeling refreshed and renewed.
When great Saint Jnaneshwar was a boy, he was already well-established in the Vedantic vision of nonduality—the vision that all is the Self. One day the Saint saw several men beating a water buffalo. Noticing the Sage, they asked him whether he could feel the blows they were in icting upon the water buffalo, since according to the Sage, the Self in the buffalo was the same as his very own Self. In