From misunderstanding to understanding – Rama katha 3
Hare Krishna coming today evening we are continuing our discussion on the theme of misunderstanding to understanding we'll start this discussion now and we'll continue this in the Sunday Peace class 6.30 onwards so one cause of misunderstanding which we discussed yesterday was so one cause of misunderstanding is that we judge things without understanding another cause of misunderstanding often is that we based on some some thought or some perception that passes through our mind we speak some words which terribly hurt us and we don't actually mean those words we just come out of the pressure of the moment and then how the other person responds to those words that determines what will happen in that relationship so there are sometimes words we speak intentionally it's because we are too much under pressure under the pressure, the heat of the moment intentionally we speak some words but what is spoken without intention does not reflect intention it is not intentional it is not we are all under the pressure of the moment sometimes we can do things which shouldn't be taken too seriously this is from the understanding from the point of view of a person who is being hurt generally disagreements can happen from two ways one is one person judges the other person wrong the other is the person who is judged wrong normally holds a grudge and is not ready to excuse the other person so this is seen in an incident of the Ramayana in the Aranya time so Ram and Sita go to the forest along with Lakshmi the initial part of the forest they stay in Chitra Chitra is not very far and then they come deeper into the hinterland of India they come to Nasir there is a forest called Dandaka so in the Naam Narayana in the Naam Ramayana there are various pastimes of lord Ram which are described using his with his nil attitude Dandaka, Vandachetan, Pavan, Ram so lord Ram came to Dandaka and this forest was known to be populated by demons and while he was living there at that time Shurpanakha came to she initially came to devour the humans whose flesh she had sensed but when she saw him that Ram looks so attractive so handsome so she just desired to change and she tried to elude and that did not happen she attacked Sita because of whom Ram is not coming to her then Lakshmi she wanted to punish Shurpanakha Shurpanakha went back and she tried to arrange what happened to her through Kharadoshi, brothers but Ram still had to dedicate Kharadoshi to their entire army of 14,000 soldiers then Shurpanakha went to Rama and she incited Rama and then when Ravana was incited and hearing the description of the beauty of Sita he conspired with Maricha and Maricha took on that war for the air at this point this was almost like Ram had in itself 14 years to the past the idea was Kekhi had thought that 14 years is enough time during the which Bharat can rule well and by ruling well Bharat can win over the citizens so even if Ram comes back after 14 years because Bharat will have won over the citizens then Ram won't get kicked out so she had stipulated this period of 14 years because when Dashrath heard Kekhi's demands that she wanted Bharat to be the king so and she wanted Ram to be exiled Dashrath said if you want Bharat to be the king I will make him the king but what is Ram's fault how can I send him to the forest for you to hold the fence don't ask for this so Kekhi had been Kekhi had been completely manipulating and Manthira had told her that this is what the king will say Dashrath will say don't send that I will make Bharat the king but don't let him send Ram to the forest she had told Manthira had told don't agree with this because if Ram is in the kingdom Bharat will never agree to become the king and even if Bharat becomes the king people will not accept because they will see a more manly alternative there and they will not be able to accept Bharat's authority you have to send him to the forest so by this time almost 13 years of the forest exile had passed and already Ram Lakshmi said they are planning on going back home although they had accepted with fortitude this forest exile it is in the long to go back home not just for the luxuries of the palace life but also to meet their parents, to meet their brothers and to meet all the citizens of the kingdom and Sita she was thinking that when I go back to the forest I should give some gift and what gift can I give if she had been in the kingdom she could have given a gift of some jewel like glass from the forest, what gift can I give maybe some flowers they don't want to mask a lot so when she saw this beautiful deer she thought oh this deer is so nice next year while I am here I can have this deer as a pet and after that I can take this deer back and I can give this as a gift to Kaushalya she started saying oh this deer oh this deer it was extraordinarily beautiful that the forest is filled with many exotic delights which people who live in cities are often not aware of course forests are not to be romanticised because there are many dangers in the forest also but there are many beautiful sights in this forest and this was an extraordinarily beautiful sight and Sita's heart was charmed she said Ram please get this please get this deer for me I would like to have this as a pet and as a gift now Ram he his appreciation for Sita had increased more and more during the forest because first of all Sita had long been obliged to come to the forest Ram it was Ram who had been exiled it was Ram who was a threat to Kaikeyi when she found her husband to become a thief Sita was not a threat even Kaikeyi had not expected Sita to go to the forest so the Ram word actually describes both ways that is in the same story we see that Kaikeyi she goes against her husband but in the same story we have Sita who goes with her husband so the human nature can work in different ways in different situations and Sita actually Ram has fully planned that he will go to the forest and he actually gives a discourse to Sita about how she should conduct herself while she is in the forest and one of the very interesting things he tells her that when you are in the freedom never praise me in the presence of Bharat since when Bharat is the king he deserves respect he deserves glory in his presence you should not praise me naturally you think of me, you will appreciate me but when you are in his presence you should praise him and he gives a general analysis this is not applied specifically to Bharat he says that lengths are all enemies in their presence if someone who is the equal of their competitors glorify they become enemies he is not saying this about Bharat specifically but he is giving a general principle generally when we meet someone it is that a normal part of etiquette is we speak some words of appreciation some encouraging words some words of praise so the idea is Ram is fundamentally prepared thinking that Sita will be strange in the room and Sita says what are you speaking about I am going to come with you actually they have a almost a strong argument over there Sita says I am going to come with you you cannot come and then Sita she is so determined sometimes we may it is a difficult service which we actually don't want to do but out of courtesy we say yes I will do it if you want and we are knowing that I am going to do it we just say for their sake yes I will do it I hope you don't ask me to do it sometimes it is like that Sita is not like that Sita is insistent I want to come with you and when she is when Ram is not relenting she uses the last weapon she attacks Ram's masculinity she says it is so unfortunate that I am married to a man who cannot protect me because you cannot protect me that's why you are afraid of taking me to the forest Ram is touched by her words he knows that she is not attacking his masculinity just that she says and Ram tells her I am simply testing you I want to see your tenacity if you want to come with me it will be my joy if you come with me so Sita sacrifices voluntarily now the comforts of royal life are offered to Ram and Ram actually feels grateful as an example he wants to do things for her but in the forest he is not able to offer anything to her but when he gives her flowers and flowers, but nothing more than that so when she asks for this deer he doesn't have the heart to refuse he he asks for this deer and she says she has never asked anything from him surely I will get this deer now whenever there are a group of people, every relationship has a dynamic so Sita is asking Ram for this but Lakshman is also nearby and Lakshman is in the mood of a protector the mood of a protector and he says Ram don't go after the deer don't go after that deer just see look at this deer I have never seen a deer like this before there is something fishy about it if you look around the deer a deer is a boneless animal a deer does not have jaws, it doesn't have claws it simply eats grass so other animals are not afraid of deer but here you see as soon as this deer came, all the animals nearby disappeared something is wrong about it now the animals have some kind of what psychologists call sixth sense they can sense some things which we humans can't sense in many places where earthquakes happen pretty frequently so there are researchers, seismologists who study the movement of the seismic plates in the earth and they try to predict earthquakes for a long time they have been trying to predict earthquakes and they are not really able to predict it accurately when an earthquake is around finally after many decades they have found one of the most reliable ways to predict an earthquake is to look at the behaviour of animals just before, dogs cats, they all start behaving beyond their means so now they have a theory that before the earthquakes some sort of vibrations come from the earth and the vibrations are sensed by the brain of the animals whatever it is now how do the animal brain have such sophistication that they can sense some vibrations which our human brain also can't sense it's very complex to understand this, the point is Lakshmi one knows this look at all the other animals something is fishy so Lakshmi is in the mode of a predator now all of us we based on our frame of mind, our mood we see the same thing differently so Sita sees that deer as a as a something, as a pet to play with as a gift to give Ram sees this by offering this I can express my love to Sita Lakshmi is entirely different what is this this don't go after it it's a so he so when he sees this now Ram kills Lakshmi and it's a Sita and then Sita says Lakshmi you are very suspicious just see how beautiful this deer is what could be the harm in any way he says you don't think there is something fishy about that deer, do you think that deer can harm us in any way when you are here and Ram is here don't worry so much Ram please get this deer for me because she requests so earnestly Ram doesn't have the right answer the thought of what Lakshmi has said is still going on in his mind Lakshmi when he sees this he wants to tell Ram don't go but Ram is the elder brother so he silently accepts and Ram tells to Lakshmi I am going I am going to catch this deer you steal the Sita and you got her so now initially because Sita wants that deer as a pet so Ram has an intention of killing the deer Ram's intention is to catch the deer and get it so he runs after the deer and as soon as the deer sees Ram coming the deer also starts running and at one level it is expected so Ram keeps running Ram is fleet footed but this deer is astonishing one leap giantly from one part of the forest to another part of the forest how is this deer running so fast Ram keeps running and this deer takes Ram deep into the forest as the deer goes deep into the forest Ram feels as if he wants to close in on the deer and catch the deer at that time the deer just jumps high into the sky almost as if it disappears and then Ram is looking around where did this deer go and he sees far ahead in the distance as if mocking Ram come after me catch me so Ram again tries to chase now as a warrior he is always keeping his weapons with him but he doesn't want to use them he keeps chasing and after a long time Ram is led deep into the forest far away from their cottage and as he is closing in on the deer as he closes in suddenly again the deer disappears and when this deer disappears and again the deer disappears Ram realises that what Lakshman said is true what Lakshman said is true this deer can run away this deer must be a demon in fact Lakshman said that actually I suspect that this deer must be a demon who is taken on the guard of a deer just to annoy us just to deceive us so before this because Kharad Dushan they had attacked and they had been killed Ram and Lakshman were on guard because they knew what they had tried to do was when Kharad Dushan were killed they tried to kill everyone because generally if an army any survivor is there, a survivor will go and report report to the base and then the army from there will come and seek revenge so there was one demon accompanied who when Kharad Dushan started attacking and he also experienced general warrior so he had stood aside just to observe and he saw the sheer force of the attack of Ram and Lakshman especially Ram he must be the only one who stood and everybody had been killed so Akampan had fled just as Akampan was fleeing at that time Ram had seen him flee so Ram understood that now this deer is going to go and report to the other demons so they were expecting some trouble and they were also expecting that the demons may not attack full front because they had also seen the power of Ram Kharad Dushan had directly come to attack Ram with their full army and Ram had annihilated them so having seen this the Ram and Lakshman were anticipating the next time the demons attack they may not attack straight because they will be fearful that they will not be able to match us with that of Ram and actually Ram also when first Shurpanakha she goes to Kharad Dushan so this is Gandakha the place where Ram was staying she goes to the camp of Kharad Dushan they come and attack and Shurpanakha is coming with her she is thinking now this Ram and Lakshman cannot have my advantage she switches back to the original plan first Ram enters the lunch box then Ram becomes a Romeo and then Ram refuses and again becomes a lunch box and then she is waiting thinking that I will eat him but then what happens she finds the king she goes wild with anger and frustration doesn't know what to do so frustration is vanquished here and there and then she remembers I can go to Ram I can go to Ram accompanied by a straight run back to Ram and when accompanied reports to Ram that the whole accompaniment should be fearful because in the past sometimes what would happen is if a messenger would come with bad news the king would just shoot the messenger you are the bearer of bad news so right at the beginning he says okay I am going to give you some bad news but I am not the cause of this bad news so please don't punish me and then he tells what is that who has the power to make her infuriated more than that who has the audacity to do that if they have the power they will infuriate me and I will destroy them so after some time he says it is the sons of Dasha Ram and Dasha Ram alone killed everyone he says okay I feel that you should just leave them alone just leave them alone why because I have seen his power and his power is such that not even the gods can match his power so Ram starts thinking this lone demon lone man has killed our entire army must be lone can't be an ordinary army and if a company of soviets the general who can assist us so Ram decides to resist okay but then Shurpan happens and Shurpan comes she she chastises Ram a king is meant to protect his citizens but you a king have are so lazy so irresponsible you have tongue in your toe senses that you are here busy watching girls dancing while your citizens are being tortured now right in the front of the warriors in front of his own assembly Rama suddenly becomes furious what do you mean and she tells what has happened what happened to her and then Rama is furious who has who has abused you in this flight who has cut off your nose as soon as Rama hears the word Ram his anger goes down his anger goes down he says now in front of his citizens in front of his courtiers he cannot just turn away from Shurpan so now he tries to act like a just and fair man he says oh Shurpan he says Ram was living in his territory why did you have to go and fiddle with him because you had been attacking first that's why you are punished if you had not attacked you would not have been punished and he tries to shift the whole blame onto others but because of you fiddling with them you messing with them that's why current you should not lose your life so you should have minded your own business Shurpan gets furious he sees her whole plan for revenge is getting lost and she immediately spins the story around actually the mind is capable of twisting the facts in a way that suits one's own interest the facts may sound very different but the mind can twist the facts in a way that it suits whatever it wants to be they were saying that in science the theories that we like we call them facts the facts we don't like we call them theories so many of you may know the story of an anti-alcohol campaigner he went to a group of alcoholics and he would often give talks about how dangerous alcohol is but he found his talks were not very effective so one time he said I'll demonstrate so he got a during his talk he took out a bottle of alcohol and he had got a small flower in a box and he took the flower he took the small insect and he flipped open the bottle of alcohol, hurled it into the bottle, the insect just flapped around and he just slapped it to the ground there, there and then look at all the alcohol what do you learn from this demonstration you all look down it's obvious that alcohol goes into the stomach it can kill kill an insect what happens when it goes into the stomach so one alcoholic was very cheerful eager to give the answer he said yes, what do you learn when we drink alcohol all the germs and worms in our stomach will die so right away the human mind can actually reinterpret any set of facts in a way that will confirm its own beliefs so here Shurpanakha gives a completely different twist to the story she had gone she had gone initially just to eat human flesh and later on she was attracted around and now what she says actually I had not gone I had not gone there to for my own sake I had not gone there for the selfish purpose I had gone for you what do you mean what do you mean actually I had gone there because I saw Sita how beautiful she is and as soon as I saw her I felt she would be a fitting addition to your as she should be your tea I had gone there to get Sita from you now if there are lies and there are white lies now lies means atleast there is some element of truth in it white lie means there is not even a shred of truth in it so at that time normally when a person is selfish when a person is self-centred you don't think about others at all you see something and you go on for hours enjoying you don't think about others at all and for a self-centred person if somebody tells them so now Swapan Kha was so self-centred she was thinking only of her enjoyment she was thinking only of her enjoyment and so normally around her she was self-centred so normally if a self-centred person is told I went there to get that from you so normally selfish people don't think about others at all so if they hear that somebody was thinking about me getting something for me they become very pleased he said that I had gone to get Sita for you and then she saw that Rana's Rana's indifference was going up and then she started using her current intelligence she started describing very seductively the beauty of Sita and as she started describing the beauty of Sita what happened is the desire within Rana started inflating it started becoming stronger and stronger as well and as the desire became stronger and stronger, what happened Rana said so as one starts contemplating on sensual pleasures from that time onwards the desire becomes stronger and stronger and eventually one's intelligence gets destroyed the intelligence gets destroyed similarly Rana had heard from a Kampan how powerful Rana was Rana himself contemplated if Rana can kill Kharan Dushan and the entire army he must be formidable Rana also knew that he had no immunity from humans in the blessing that he had got from Brahma and Shiva so he knew all this but as the desire started possessing him more and more and more what happened was he just lost lost his intelligence completely and you know in today's world there is much part of the media which acts like Shurpanakhan it is all focused on inflaming people's desires and the whole point of that is by inflaming people's desires make them act in self destructive ways make them act in terrible ways so Ravana anyway was very sensuous, very lusty but when his desires were inflamed like that he just lost all intelligence so actually now at this point if we analyse what went wrong actually when Shurpanakhan was describing the beauty of Sita in seductive terms so Ravana what was he thinking he was not thinking why is Shurpanakhan doing this I want this enjoyment, I want this whole experience so if you had this thought Shurpanakhan what is she getting out of it what is she getting over here she must be having some ulterior motive why is she describing all this to me if you had thought you would have understood that I am just now becoming a poverty I am becoming a poverty we just didn't think like that because once the desire comes up it just captures our capacity to think and just drags all that capacity in a particular direction so temptations can just bring out the worst within us so Ravana now he realised I am going to go and get Sita but then as he is marching back again now I am implementing see the actually Prabhupada writes in one lecture we are going to use our intelligence he speaks in a letter that we are going to use our intelligence to control the enjoymentality but our problem is that we are habituated to enjoy intelligently enjoy intelligently means that we use our intelligence not to fight the enjoymentality but to think I will enjoy such a way that I won't get the consequences somehow I can do it in a way by which nobody will catch me I can do it and nothing will go wrong so he did not have the intelligence to understand I cannot fight it I cannot win against Rama, Rama is very powerful I am caught in danger but when he decided to fulfil the desire I am going to get Sita at that time he realised how do I get Sita how do I get Sita I need to make some plan I need to make some scheme I don't want to face face Rama at all he had multiple reasons for this one was he was he was not sure whether he would win against Rama second was he wanted to win over Sita he wanted to win Sita over to himself so his idea was Ravana was such a godless person that he had no respect for the sanctity of marriage he thought that Sita is still a fair game for him and when eventually I am just going ahead to illustrate the point over here that when Rama is taken is sidetracked by Maricha and then Lakshman also goes away, at that time Ravana comes and when Ravana comes first he comes in the garb of a sadhu and then he tells who he is and what does he do at that time now when I say when a boy wants to propose to a girl what does the boy do? the boy might want to show off the boy might come in a big car the girl will get impressed by this and then what he will do is he will praise the beauty of the girl oh they are so beautiful compose some poetry and the girl will get very impressed oh she thinks I am so beautiful and then third thing is that if he knows there are some other suitors he just derides them he is like this, he is like that I am going to so that's what Ravana does when Ravana comes in front of Sita he thinks that I will win Sita because he knows that he has been cursed that if he tries to violate any woman he will die so he wants to win Sita and he he thinks that if Sita has come with Ram to the forest she must have some attachment to Ram so if in front of her I fight with Ram and I kill Ram she will be so distraught that she will not come with me therefore he thinks let me get Ram out of the way and then I will present myself to her present myself to her I will show her, I will tell her how wealthy I am how powerful I am, how heroic I am and then I will tell Ram what is Ram giving you I have been devoted to you you are forced to live in a forest you can live in a forest with me come with me and he has made his whole plan so with this plan in mind he goes to Manicharya when he goes to Manicharya actually he goes to Manicharya twice the first time when Akampan comes and tells him this has happened he Akampan tells him don't fight with him if you want to fight you cannot fight with him fairly so at that time he goes to Manicharya and at that time Manicharya tells him Ram is so powerful that just by hearing the word Ram I become fearful actually Manicharya Manicharya, Subahu and Tataka these were the first three demons that Ram attacks and Maricha is the person whom Ram shoots and Maricha just you know Ram is this is his first fight and he is Subahu, this is right when Ram is very young this is 14 years old when 16 years old when Vishwamitra comes to Dashrath Maharaj to ask for his son so at that time he has to kill Tataka, he doesn't want to kill Tataka but Vishwamitra says you have to kill him and then he has to kill Subahu and Ram is still soft hearted and seeing Tataka and Subahu falling he sees that Maricha becomes fearful and Maricha turns and about to flee Ram decides he is so fearful if he is turning around and fleeing I don't want to kill him actually I want to punish him so what Ram does is he uses a blunt arrow normally an arrow pierces to the body and kills but Ram uses a blunt arrow and the blunt arrow does not kill but Ram has such strength in his body and he shoots the arrow, that blunt arrow hits Maricha and throws him far into the air and Maricha just he is running and he finds out he is flying what happened? the arrow is propelling him along and he goes high high high into the air and he is scared what is happening? it finally comes crashing on the ground he thinks what power this Ram has this blunt arrow can throw me so far away if a sharp arrow comes what will happen to me so from that time he just becomes so fearful and he decides I don't want to ever have to do anything with this Ram and he thinks that the business of being a Rakshasa is very dangerous so I will give up this business and I will become a Yogi so he becomes a Yogi from that time and Ravana comes and Ravana says I want you to help me the first thing that Maricha says is which enemy of yours has put this idea of tangling with Ram in your head this will simply cause your death, don't do this so on hearing this Maricha says so on hearing this Ravana becomes sober Maricha goes off into a fearful flow of words don't do this, this will cause your destruction at that time actually Ravana comes back he is angry but at that time Maricha warns him and comes back but this time when the desire for Sita has inflamed his heart he just has no and he tells Maricha you have to help me in this you have to help me in kidnapping Sita Maricha I just told you this is the way to death so Ravana is completely cold hearted sometimes people say that if we are too detached if we are detached we become cold hearted but it's not necessarily like that sometimes it's not detachment which makes us cold hearted sometimes it's attachment which makes us cold hearted when we are attached to something we feel a lot of emotions in relationship with that particular object but we feel no emotions in relationship with anything else Dhritarashtra was he detached or was he attached? he is attached Dhritarashtra was strongly attached with him this is where he made himself because Dhritarashtra was so attached to his kingdom but not to him that made him so cold hearted that he couldn't even think that actually I am allowing Nagamukha the fuse to be poisoned, to be killed to be burned alive and they are not just my nephews, they are like my children because they don't have a father so it is attachment that makes us cold hearted, not attachment attachment can also make one cold hearted but attachment frequently makes one cold hearted to everything else so here Manicha had been a faithful demon follower of Radha but Radha told him I have not come here for your suggestion I have come here for your cooperation if you don't help me I will kill you this is the cold heartedness of demons.