The Burning House - A Metaphor for the World

The house is on fire. Flames pour through the roof, black smoke coils upward. Inside, through the bright windows, children sit on the floor with their toys, laughing. Their joy is genuine, their danger equally real. They do not see it.

Every day we stand across the street, looking through the window. We open a newspaper, turn on a screen, scroll through headlines. There it is again: the house ablaze. Wars and cruelty, greed and delusion, the slow collapse of what sustains us. The flames are not hidden. They are plain to see.

And yet beside the fire, play continues. Children laugh. Crowds shop. Screens glow with entertainment. The games of culture go on, bright and absorbing.

The wise deny neither. They see both—the joy and the fire—and they are not deceived.

What then? To rush inside is to be consumed by the same flames. To walk away is to pretend nothing burns.

The middle way is harder: to stand near, to witness, to remain. To know the fire is real, to see the children’s absorption, and yet not collapse into despair or distraction.

This is the stance of the wise. To feel the heat without being scorched. To recognize the play without being entranced. To acknowledge what is not in your control, and not let it consume your peace.

The Buddha spoke in the Fire Sermon: “The world is on fire. The eye is on fire. Consciousness is on fire.” His warning was urgency itself: wake up before you are burnt.

Vedanta, too, says the house is burning. But it whispers something more: you are not the house, nor the fire, nor the toys, nor the children at play. You are the witness in whom all this appears—the sakshin, untouched though all burns within sight.

...

Look again. The children still laugh. The fire still rises. The witness still stands.

Nothing has changed.

Everything is revealed.

The house burns—that is certain.

The play continues—that is certain.

But the witness remains free.

And in that freedom lies the only true refuge.