If Sita in Lanka was Vedavati, why do we say Sita, not Vedavati, prayed for Hanuman?
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So, I said Sita was praying for Hanuman, but Vedavati has taken the place of Sita. Okay, so there is the important principle over there that when Vedavati took that role, she was given all that is required for taking up that role. And we have to see things from the right perspective.
Yesterday I talked about different frames of reference. We can see things in different frames of reference. So, we need to focus on the right frame of reference or the more constructive frame of reference to understand things.
Say for example, this particular program. Now, if we take a photo of this program. Now, if you wanted to focus on who is the speaker, then you would frame that photo means take the frame in a particular way.
If you want to show how many people had come for the program, then you could frame the picture in a different way. If you want to show how interested the audience were, then you could frame it in a different way. If you want to show how is the facility for this program, if you want to do a future program, then you would frame it in a different way.
If you want to focus on a particular person who had come for the program, then you would frame it in a different way. The program is the same, but you can frame it in different ways. So, in the Ramayana, the principle that there was, in the Valmiki Ramayana, there is no mention of Mayasita.
Because the Valmiki Ramayana’s framing is one particular thing. The primary framing of the Valmiki Ramayana is who is a person of ideal character. And so then Ram’s ideal character is that he is so at one level self-sacrificing that he gave up his kingdom when his father told him to.
But at the same time, that is not weakness. He is also heroic that even without any support from anyone in his kingdom, he by his own resourcefulness formed an army and he took on the most powerful demon at his times, Ravana, and he overcame him and he revealed Sita. So, the Valmiki Ramayana’s framing does not talk about Mayasita because its purpose is one thing, to glorify Ram as an ideal human being.
But there is another framing that we can take that how could the goddess of fortune even be touched by, she is supremely pure, how can she be even touched by the impure touch of a wild demon like Ravana. So, now if that is the frame, the focus is on Sita’s purity, then we have Vedavati coming into the picture. But actually it is not Sita who was touched, it is Vedavati who was touched.
And she was touched, not in the, she was not contaminated, but she had, he had touched her previously and that touch came back to hit him back. So, if you put a different frame of reference in where it is not appropriate, then you can have all kinds of messy things coming up. Then you could even say that, okay, if Ram wanted Sita, why did he even have to go to Lanka? He could just have gone to Agni and got Sita back.
But that’s not the frame of reference. We need the right frame of reference. If, now normally we say that if we are having some problems, we could say it is because of our past karma we are having problems.
But say, imagine if a mother has a newborn baby and the baby is crying. The mother says, oh, the baby is crying because of her past karma. That’s ridiculous.
No, don’t think of that frame at all. Right now the baby is crying. Your dharma is to comfort the baby.
But sometimes it may happen that despite our best effort to comfort the baby, to treat the baby, if somehow the baby stays in pain, then we can put that frame of reference. So, I think this whole frame of reference of Sita being Vedavati, that is talked about primarily to talk about the, to stress the purity of the Goddess of Fortune. Otherwise, there is no mention of Sita, not being Sita, but being Vedavati.
For all practical purposes, she acted just like Sita.