The Spirit Of Spirituality: Spiritual Lessons from the Ramayana

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Spiritual Lessons from the Ramayana

As I write this 50^th blog, I wish to thank the Lord for having given me an opportunity to even begin the journey to understand the Eternal Truth. I wish to thank my train friends who motivated me to write this blog and finally I am grateful to all the people who have visited my blog site and have given me their valuable feedback.

My first blog was on Bhagwad Gita where the protagonist was Lord Krishna. So I thought of taking the opportunity of my 50^th blog to talk about the lessons from Shri Rama of Ramayana.

The happiness of Rama

Summary of mythological story:

Lord Rama was very happy as long as he had his consort Sita with him. Whether he was in the palace or in the jungle, He was happy so long as She was him. He became deeply distressed when Sita was kidnapped by the 10 headed demon, Ravana. Only after He waged a war and killed Ravana, did He get back Sita and he found his happiness.

Spiritual symbolism

We are all very happy so long as we have peace with us. Whether we are in a plush home or in a hut, so long as we are peaceful, we are happy. We become distressed when peace is taken away by Desire through the 5 sense organs and the 5 action organs (10 in all). Only when we are able to fight this “10 headed” demon called Desire, we can find peace within ourselves.

Sita’s loss of happiness

Summary of mythological story

When Sita was in the forest she was totally devoted to Rama and was supremely happy. Once she sees a golden deer and wants Rama to get it for her. Rama goes to get it and when he does not come for a long time, she asks his brother Lakshmana to go and see what is happening. Lakshmana protests saying he does not want to leave her alone and says Rama will be fine. Sita angrily orders him to go. Once he goes, Ravana who is in disguise kidnaps Sita and takes her away.

Spiritual symbolism

When we have identified ourselves with the Supreme Consciousness, we are happy. However when through illusion, we let our senses capture an object of desire and let ourselves become associated with that desire, we have stopped identifying with the Supreme Consciousness. We put all our effort through our action organs to get the object of desire. When the Intellect tries to warn us that we should not associate with object of desire, we angrily denounce the intellect and go after the object of desire. Once we go after the object of desire, then the Desire demon occupies us totally and takes us away from our connection with Consciousness.

The killing of Vali

Summary of mythological story

When Rama was wandering in the jungle searching for Sita, he met Sugreeva whose kingdom had been snatched by his brother Vali.Rama agreed to kill Vali and give Sugreeva his kingdom in support for Sugreeva’s help in searching for Sita. In the first battle between Sugreeva and Vali, Rama could not kill Vali. In the next battle, Rama hid behind a tree and killed Vali. When asked as to why Rama had to kill through stealth, the story is that Vali had a boon. When he had an opponent, half of the opponent’s strength would go to him. So there was no way any opponent could defeat him. Hence Rama hid behind a tree and killed him.

Spiritual symbolism

When we are searching for peace, we are constantly facing an opponent in the form of sense objects. The more we see a sense object in front of us, the more we are tempted to possess it and the more we are defeated in our battle for peace. So in effect, the presence of the object in front of us pulls away our strength in the fight for peace. How often have we not heard of cases where someone wants to give up alcohol and has been fighting the battle by not keeping it in their house? But when they see a bottle in a friend’s party, their strength of conviction in the battle to give it up is lost and they succumb to the habit.

Does this mean that we will win our battle against desire by hiding the sense objects from our senses? This by itself will not ensure success. Removing the objects of desire from the vicinity of the action organs will surely prevent us from impulsively falling a victim to the object. When I want to light up a cigarette, if I do not have it readily available; I may not take the pain of getting up and going to the nearest shop to get one. So to the extent the object is hidden from me, I am winning the battle. But the real hiding of the object should happen behind reasoning driven by the intellect. Hiding behind the intellect, if we focus on higher things, the desire for the lower object falls off and we would have the battle over desire to gain peace.

The destruction of Ravana

Summary of mythological story

Ravana, the king of Lanka had all the wealth anyone could desire. He was highly learned and knew all the Vedas and Upanishads. He was a devotee of God. But once he saw Sita, he was smitten by her beauty and could think of nothing else. All his knowledge deserted him and he was lusting for her. He kidnapped her and finally in the battle with Rama, he was killed.

Spiritual symbolism

Most of us in day to day life are normal people. We can get the best knowledge and be the best people. However there can be one lingering desire which we feel we can control. However this lingering desire grows within us and at one point overwhelms us and leads us to destruction. Have we not seen business leaders at the pinnacle of success fall into disgrace over an affair? Have we not seen normal business leaders do one crooked thing to get that extra dollar and then follow that crookedness all the way to disaster?

So the need is to sharpen our intellect and use it as a friend to ensure that the mind does not entertain any hidden desires or to ensure that we do not succumb to the desire.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.

1. My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality