Value Education and Spirituality 34 – Ramayana 16 – Hanuman 1 – Overcome distractions by determination

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna welcome back to the value education ethics from epic series we are now discussing about Hanuman’s flight to Lanka after Hanuman’s so we will be discussing on the topic of overcoming distractions through determination whenever we want to achieve anything great one of the greatest obstacles is distraction it is said that airplane is almost 90 percent at the time of its flight of course because the airplane says flying from Mumbai to Calcutta at that time it intends to go on a straight course but then there are climatic variations there are air pressure there are clouds and these things often the flight this goes in a small way off track and even now the aircraft is going at such a high speed that it was small deviation in the direction of the journey can lead to a major change in destination if that deviation is not corrected so and if the flight is most of the time off track then how is it going to return back to track it is because the pilot is always aware of the destination the pilot keeps bringing the flight back on to destiny on to track does course correction repeatedly or maybe a more familiar example for us could be the car when a car is being driven steering wheel is primarily meant to ensure that the car doesn’t go off course the steering is done repeatedly so that we can bring the car back on to course again and again and again so similarly the important point is to recognize that we are all on our spiritual journey we are all in a journey in life and we have certain goals which we want to achieve and there are numerous distractions which keep coming and we have to overcome those distractions so Hanuman had to was on a mission he wanted to find Sita and for that he had to scale the ocean so after he was reminded of his potential and power by Jambavan and declared that I will jump across the ocean and then he went to a nearby mountain and he crouched down and then he just jumped up with full energy and he started flying like a comet through the sky he expanded himself to a giant size and the sheer force of his flight was so great that several trees and other creatures in the mountain they just flew off the mountain because of that outward pressure that he exerted on the mountain then he left off and they extended outward with him for a certain distance and they of course fell out because they were not trying to fly onwards Hanuman kept flying and the Vanaras were watching they cheered him on offering their best wishes to him as that brave comrade marched on on this extraordinary death defying journey who knew what dangers he was going to face what all he was going to have to encounter in his journey ahead but he kept marching as he kept marching he was not marching actually he was flying through the sky and as he kept flying through the sky he meditated on the name of Lord Ram he said he meditated how in the Vedic scriptures this world is compared to an ocean and instead the person can drown in the ocean without a boat but the boat can rescue a person similarly it is in the name of God the name of Ram is like the boat and he said that with the name of Ram the great sages can cross over the entire ocean of material existence so what to speak of this small ocean surely I can cross over it and he was meditating on the name of Ram chanting that name and feeling the power exuding through him as he marched onwards while his father seeing his son his stupendous feet was pleased and desired to assist him so he also got the wind to flow behind him to give some support and give some boost to his journey and as he kept moving forward he met multiple distractions and how he didn’t let those distractions distract him is instructive for us in our journey towards our changed aspirations so as he was moving onwards suddenly a mountain just rose out of the ocean and as the mountain rose out of the ocean and that mountain the deity of the mountain came in front of Hanuman and he said that Hanuman was moving onwards and the mountain rose out of the ocean came right in front of him and he couldn’t go and the deity said that actually I am Manak I am the mountain who is who actually I am an ancestor of yours I am your well wisher and I am happy that you are going on this great journey but I feel that your ancestors have done great good to me and therefore I should do some good for you and so therefore I request you to rest on me for some time and that’s why I extend my hospitality I have emerged actually I live under the ocean but I live just for you now certainly Hanuman’s flight required a lot of energy and from a physical point of view rest would have been welcome and how can one refuse some facility some rest which is being offered with such sincerity and even the mountain has gone way out of its way to come out of the ocean to be there for him so Hanuman could have had all reasons justifications rationalizations to say yes but Hanuman was principled and what did he do rather than saying yes rather than succumbing to the temptation to say yes he recognized that he remembered how Ram is waiting how even now he’s filled with anxiety and he meditated and thought how Sita must be in anxiety in fact she will not just be in anxiety she will be in agony she will be in panic she will be in despair as he remembered the urgency of his mission he realized that the rest he could not wait and yet how could he be so discourteous as to reject the courtesy that had been offered so warmly so now he resolved using his intelligence he resolved the dilemma by just descending from his flight and touching the mountain he touched the mountain he said thank you I accept your hospitality at the same time I have an urgent mission so please bless me and the hospitality that you are going to offer me if I stayed if I stayed at you instead you offer that to me in your blessings and prayers so that I can be successful in my journey now when Mainak heard this from Maluma he was pleased he said oh surely I will offer my best wishes to you the servants of Ram are always successful and you don’t need my blessings but still seeing your sincerity I am pleased and I will surely offer my best wishes to you go forth and attain success so when we move forward in our life we often get facilities and if we let ourselves get distracted by those facilities then we may not achieve our potential we may not fulfill our purpose we may not reach our destiny in this world many people live in deprivation many people live in poverty and some people are able to achieve success some people are able to achieve fame and power and luxury and facilities but irrespective of whether we are living in poverty or whether we are living in luxury this world is a place of transition and we are meant to not just either despair about our poverty or delight in the luxury we are actually meant to move onwards towards our destiny to doing whatever positive contribution we can do in the world with the talents that we have and to realizing our spiritual identity and attaining life eternal so if during our journey we get facilities and we get caught in those facilities then we will lose the opportunity to move onwards we will lose the opportunity to succeed in our life so what do we need to do at such times so for example say a person becomes a leader of some kind now especially today we have a democratic setting so in most countries so in democracy the subject the citizens elect the representatives as the leaders so now when the politicians have a huge amount of power now when they get that power if they start valuing in that power thinking that oh now i have so much power they be elected for doing service to society but if they forget that purpose and they start valuing that power that they have then they do disservice to society and similarly when we feel if we do some accomplishment we get some fame some prestige some facilities some luxuries and if we let ourselves get distracted by them if we get distracted by the perks of power by the trappings of success then we don’t achieve our full potential we achieve a little bit and then we we better off we don’t achieve our full success so rather than getting distracted by the facilities that we get we accept them but keep focused on our purpose whatever facilities we have we use those facilities for in a way that does not impede the productivity we focus on our productivity primarily and while being productive we also work on if we have some facilities we use them so here Hanuman just touched it graciously accepted it and kept moving onwards so similarly if we are to succeed in our lives if we do justice to our talents we cannot just be caught in petty worldly things we need to remember that we have greater things to achieve in life and keep marching onwards now as Hanuman kept flying onwards then he met another mysterious being this being actually was a benedictory being but she seemed to work in a negative way so there were actually two creatures two mysterious creatures that came out one was a demoness and the other was someone who appeared like a demoness but was not so both indicate certain things which we all have to learn from which we all can learn from now let’s look at the negative first then we look at the positive so a demoness who came was Simbhaka now Simbhaka had the power to catch people by catching their shadow and he caught the shadow and Simbhaka Anumala was just moving onward and suddenly he found that although he was using all his energy he was not moving onward so what is this I am just paralyzed although I am moving I am not moving and then he looked down and he saw this demoness smiling and laughing wickedly now I have caught this monkey and I will consume him so the Rakshasas are often cannibals and they prey on human flesh they delight in human flesh dragging him down now this was a huge danger for Anumala and how did he deal with that danger before he could do anything he just saw that he is being dragged into the mouth of the demoness so as he was being dragged into the mouth of Simhika he just girded his muscles and he made himself use all his strength to toughen his body and he went into her mouth he couldn’t stop that pull but the demoness had bitten more than what she could digest so Anumala was saying bite more than what we can chew she thought that she had eaten many prey so her fangs and her digestive juices and her inner system was so strong that it could consume and digest but what Hanuman did was he girded his muscles and he had his weapon with him he went inside her and after going inside her he started whirling around him he started pounding from inside using his face using his full force and he ripped apart her stomach and he came out and as the demoness fell to the ground he fell to the ocean and sank into the ocean he rose up and kept marching like victorious so now this demoness was too powerful for Hanuman to overcome directly she had got some benedictions by which she could cast the shadow of a person and she could suck that person so Hanuman did not challenge her at her strengths he allowed her to have her strengths and he allowed her the illusion that she had won now before after she had consumed someone she said already I won I got my food but she did not know Hanuman’s power so what happened Hanuman from inside after she thought that she had won the war Hanuman started the war at that time in earnest and he won because he caught the enemy unprepared so like that actually we need to fight according to our strengths not our opponent strengths when we face some competitors some rival any challenge that we face in our life we need to navigate it deal with it according to our strengths and if we fight a war according to our enemy strengths it’s natural that we will fail so Hanuman demonstrated that where a particular battle cannot be won then better to adopt a low profile over there and then re-emerge and fight more forcefully where a battle can be won so we shouldn’t just fight indiscriminately fight for the sake of fighting but rather we need to choose our battles so that we can fight on those fronts where we are strong we can fight where we are not at a disadvantage because of having to fight on our weak fronts but at advantage because we fight on our strong fronts so it’s not that we have to necessarily win every battle that we are fighting sometimes we might temporarily accept a reversal sometimes a withdrawal a strategic withdrawal in a two armies are fighting and one army will strategically withdraw so that it can regroup and attack with greater force so we should not think of that when we are fighting we have to win every battle and that we have to stamp our domination on our opponents if we if we have such a superficial ego driven idea of fighting and succeeding or fighting for the sake of fighting then we will often be disadvantaged and defeated by choosing our battles so that we fight according to our strengths not our enemy strengths we will be able to move forward towards success so by taking inventory of our own lives we can discover we can realize what are our strengths and be aware of those strengths and catch our opponents on those on their weak fronts and thereby win our battles and then as he kept moving forward he rose again and flew and now let’s go to the positive obstacle that he faced again and suddenly as he was moving forward he saw a giant creature rising from the sky and a huge mouth and he said Brahma has given me a benediction by which whoever enters will have to come in my mouth Hanuman observed carefully and he saw that much of a person’s disposition can be understood from the face of the person so he saw that this creature although seemed like a monster did not seem to have a disposition of a monster and he decided that there was no need to fight so as he was thinking Hanuman himself had got a huge form but the demoness made her mouth big and he said you have to enter into my mouth so Hanuman wanted to avoid a conflict as much as possible so he thought one way to avoid a conflict is if I instead of going inside her mouth he just made his mouth bigger and demoness how big has become she made her mouth bigger and Hanuman made her mouth bigger and she made her mouth bigger and as this became a competition Hanuman realized that oh this demoness also has a lot of power but his point was not again to stamp his power on the demoness on this particular creature whoever it was but he wanted to move onwards on his journey so what he did he suddenly within the twinkling of an eye just shrank down to a small size and with lightning speed he came inside the mouth of this creature and came out and he started speeding forward he said your benediction the benediction that you had that any passing creature has to enter into your mouth that has been fulfilled so now I’ll go on my journey and immediately this creature actually smiled and it was a very benedict treat benevolent smile and he said I am pleased with you actually I am surasa I am the mother of many of the creatures that live in the ocean and I am their mother and I was simply testing you I was testing you I was testing you I was testing you I was testing you I I was you I was testing you I was testing you was testing you I was testing I testing was was testing you now the problem with this is that there can be ego battle just for the sake of the ego battle without any constructive purpose being served so rather than such a thing rather than wasting our time and energy in this kind of activity what we need to do is just avoid that okay take the lower position and move onwards in this world actions will eventually speak louder than words so even if somebody claims that I am bigger and there is some symbol of prestige, symbol of success somebody wants that yeah somebody might grab that also but eventually actions will speak so if we stay purposeful then we will be able to achieve wonderful things in life if we get caught in ego battles then the whole battle becomes reduced the whole our whole energy usually gets dissipated in just a internecine game of one-upsmanship.
One-upsmanship is I am greater than you internecine means mutually destructive both ways that I am, ways that I am energy so ego battles especially are a temptation for those who are successful because often they want to prove that you know I am bigger than so I have a bigger car than you, I have bigger house than you, I have bigger company than you, I have this greater than you, I am greater than you and people just get sidetracked from meaningful things in life to meaningless ego battles and the ego battles are ultimately meaningless because no matter what we achieve how long are we going to be achieving that now we may be numero uno for some time but soon old age is going to come, disease is going to come, death is going to come and whatever we have achieved is going to go away even if we say oh I’ll be in the record books as the numero uno well how long are the record books going to last, nothing is going to last forever but if we work constructively if we develop our talents if we unleash ourselves and realize our spiritual potential that is what is going to last forever so when we keep this in mind and then we won’t get sucked into petty ego battles but we will be marching steadily towards our lofty aspirations towards realizing our talents and realizing, actualizing our visions so that’s how we can avoid distractions and keep marching onwards. When Hanuman landed on Lanka he decided to shrink himself to a very small inconspicuous size and as he was entering now Lanka was surrounded by walls from all side and I was trying to enter in at that time suddenly a demoness came over there and she said I am the guardian deity of Lanka I am Lankini and no one can enter this for this I have penetrated the island without my permission leave immediately you are sneaking in like a spy but you cannot enter if you value your life get out she’s tried to threaten Hanuman but Hanuman was not at all threatened he says get out of my way if you know what is good for you get out of my way because I have come for a purpose and I’m going to go inside whether you stop me or not if you stop me you will be ruined so Lankini was trying to intimidate and she charged towards Hanuman and as she charged towards Hanuman Hanuman just raised his hand and swatted it and now he did not want to assault a woman and that’s why he was initially talking to get out of my way but when he saw that she swatted her on her face that simple slap had such power that Lankini was flung to the ground she was like what power is this and she oh I’ve been told when I was appointed as the guardian deity of this for of this island that eventually when a monkey comes and overpowers me at that time that that would be the time of the doom of the ruler of the island so Ravana’s doom has come and oh monkey I will have nothing to do with you and she fled sometimes people intimidate us and we shouldn’t get threatened by intimidations sometimes people want to brag about their strength and make us cower but if we are purposeful we have confidence in our strength and there are bullies who are looking for people who are weak whom they can crush but when bullies see that we don’t have jelly jaws we are not going to succumb to their threats then often they shrink aside they go ahead and we can keep moving forwards so we shouldn’t be we shouldn’t let intimidators discourage us stop us but rather by being calm and confident we can push aside the intimidators and keep marching ahead so Hanuman’s flight to Lanka is an instruct is an instructive journey in purposefulness so when you want to be purposeful and we want to achieve wonderful things in our life achieve something worthwhile in our life we need to resist the temptation that come from distractions the distractions can come from from ego from comforts and luxuries as is presented to minor distractions can come from opponents who challenge us on their strengths so we need to find out our strengths shift the battle to our strengths and win the battle over there as is demonstrated through simhika and obstacles may come in the form of needless ego battles where people are interested in just proving their superiority over us and checking us in our onward progress by consuming our time and energy in ego battles we just as Hanuman shrank down and went in and came out of surasa like that we can stay spiritual we stay purposeful and just bypass the ego battle take a humble position keep moving forwards and do truly wonderful things not just bragging about being great we can by taking a small position do great things and then when all that is part of a path of achievement we face intimidators we stay unruffled we stay calm we stay composed and we stay purposeful and drive away the