Naam Ramayana 15 – Seek the blessings of the blessed

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Naam Ramayan Sharabhanga and Architarama Sharabhanga and Suthikshna were two sages that Lord Ram met during his travels in the forest so Architarama so these sages they intuitively understood that this particular Kshatriya who had now dressed like an ascetic and who had come in their midst was no ordinary person they realized that he is the supreme person, he is Vishnu whom they had worshipped for long in their hearts and in their meditations and in their yoga practices so they were overwhelmed, delighted, indebted to have the darshan of Sakshat Bhagwan in their hermitages and they offered obeisances and they worshipped Lord Ram and in this way Lord Ram fulfilled their innermost desires for having, for beholding him, for having an opportunity to for having for and give him the opportunity to have his direct darshan then Agastya Nugraha Vardhita Ramam so Agastya, now Agastya is considered to be one of the most celebrated sages in the Vedic tradition and he appears at various places in the Puranas often doing awesome deeds and as compared to even among sages all sages may be may be focused on the other world having renounced most aspirations in this world, they may be austere but even among them there is hierarchy and some sages are extremely advanced, they are like what would we say, there can be small chieftains and there can be emperors in a Kshatriya hierarchy so chieftains are rulers of small small state with a small kingdom whereas emperors are rulers of large swaths of land where they may even have kings under them so similarly there are sages who are who have just renounced the world or who have done some level of austerity and there are sages who have got huge levels of realization and they are like so some sages are like chieftains and some are like emperors so Agastya was a sage of that caliber of like an emperor very celebrated sage and Lord Ram went and met him and offered his obeisances to him and there are many stories about Agastya Rishi of how he drank a whole river how he is considered to be the originator of the Tamil language wherein that later the Alwars and others other Vaishnava poets sang beautiful verses and glorified Lord Vishnu using that language so this Agastya, it’s interesting what does this relationship describe with Lord Ram here Agastya Anugraha Vardhita Rama so the difference in the relationship or the interaction between Agastya Rishi and Sudheekshana Sarabhanga Sudheekshana Sarabhanga, it’s evident in the very way they are glorified so Sarabhanga Sudheekshana Architya Rama so they worship Lord Ram and Lord Ram also reciprocated by worshipping them appropriately as sages would be worshipped by a Kshatriya he respected them but then with respect to Agastya Agastya Anugraha Vardhita Rama so it is described that Agastya he did Anugraha, Anugraha means mercy and Vardhita, Vardhita means became Vardhan is to be increased so by the mercy of Agastya Lord Ram became greater, Lord Ram became stronger what does this refer to actually Agastya Rishi gave very secret mantras which could invoke powerful weapons and specifically Agastya Rishi gave Lord Ram a special sacred weapon centered on a particular mantra called Aditya Hrudaya Aditya Hrudaya is Aditya is the sun, Hrudaya is the heart we could say heart of the sun what it essentially means is that it invokes a special power a formidable power that is present at the core of the heart and of course we know that Surya is also a devotee of the Supreme Lord so in his Hrudaya there is Narayan so Aditya Hrudaya essentially refers to the power of Narayan which of course is Lord Ram but here he is performing a Leela so he accepted that weapon from Agastya Rishi and during the final moments of his battle with Ravana which is described in the Aranya Kandam at that time Lord Ram after having tried in various ways to cut off the heads of Ravana and those heads kept growing back again and again so Lord Ram then invoked the Aditya Hrudaya and with the Aditya Hrudaya he pierces the heart of the heart of Ravana and then that’s how he felt that formidable demon who was invincible by any other means so here Lord Ram although he is God he is demonstrating how the sage’s mercy can empower anyone and everyone if you see earlier Lord Ram there was asymmetry of power in the relationship at least that would have what it seemed to to an uninformed vision where the Brahmanas need protection of Kshatriyas so Lord Ram had in fact earlier been called by Vishwamitra to protect his sacrifice so he could have thought that actually these Brahmanas I am protecting them so what can they bless me but he did not think like that later on the assistants of Vishwamitra they had also informed Lord Ram that actually Vishwamitra had the power to kill the demons himself but because he had taken a Brahmanical vow so Brahmanas are usually non-violence and that’s why he did not want to break that vow and he had called Ram to do that service so Brahmanas and sages especially they have great powers and if we can please them we will also by their mercy become Anugrahavardhita that we will become uplifted by their mercy so that’s what is described in this particular past time how Lord Ram how Lord Ram became empowered by Agastya Rishi and similarly when we serve the devotees when we serve the saintly devotees and please them we will get their mercy and we will become empowered in the various inner and outer battles which we have to face in our lives thank you