Spiritual Stories

Author(s): Raman Maharshi
Publisher: Ramanasramam Tiruvannamalai

Page 75

Brahma's PRIDE
A family came from a distant place to seek solace from the grief of losing six sons; the last child had recently died. As though Bhagavan had inspired the question, a devotee asked about using pranayama and other practices to prolong life to enable them to become realised souls, jnanis.
Bhagavan gently replied, “Yes, people do live long if they do these practices, but does a person become a jnani, a realised soul, by living long? A realised soul has really no love for his body. For one who is the embodiment of bliss, the body itself is a disease. He will await the time to be rid of the body.”
A devotee said, "Some people say we have lived for fifty years, what more is needed? As though living so long were a great thing!”
“Yes,” said Bhagavan with a laugh, “that is so. It is a sort of pride and there is a story about it.”
IT SEEMS THAT in the olden days, Brahma once felt proud of the fact that he was long-lived. He went to Vishnu and said, “Do you not see how great a person I am! I am the oldest living person (chiranjeevi).” Vishnu told him that was not so and that there were people who had lived much longer than he. When Brahma said that could not be, since he was the creator of all living beings, Vishnu took him with him to show him people older than him.
They went along until, at a certain place, they found Romasa Mahamuni. Vishnu asked him his age and how long