Ramayana series 4 – SEES acronym – 4 explanations why Rama abandoned Sita

[Sunday feast at ISKCON, Phoenix, USA]

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Perplexing and disturbing Incidents from the Ramayana This is an incident Over which I have studied and Prayed and discussed Over years Trying to understand this I will try to share Whatever I have studied and understood About this Complex incident So this is the most Challenged and the most challenging Incident from the Ramayana Which is this incident? Yeah Lord Ram Sending Sita to the forest If you see Ramayana Is an ancient epic Which describes the descent Of the Lord to this world And At one level We can say the Ramayana Looks like a Typical romantic Bollywood action movie Isn’t it? There is a hero, there is a heroine The two meet The two of them unite And then there is a villain who has an evil eye on the heroine And then the villain Abducts the heroine And the hero and the villain have a Climactic fight And then After the villain is eliminated The hero And the heroine are reunited And this is where We expect The typical movie to end And they lived happily ever after That’s what we expect Normal romantic Movie to end in And yet the Ramayana Moves forward just after this Climax has come and Ram and Sita Are united Then there is a complete twist in the tale That Ram Ram Sent Sita away So There are some people who question Some citizens of Ayodhya They question Sita’s Purity, her justity And being troubled by their accusations Ram sent Sita So Why would Ram do such a thing Based on some unfounded Unjustified Accusations made by someone So This incident is seen as Being extremely Unjust to Sita So I’ll talk about this In four parts Using an acronym SEES One who sees with the eyes of knowledge Sees, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says One who sees With the eyes of knowledge Actually sees SEES To talk about This particular Incident Why would Ram who is God himself descended to this world Whom the Ramayana calls An ideal human being How could he do something like this Abandon his wife On an unfounded accusation And that too when she was She was pregnant So And the first point is S is sacrifice So The whole mood of the Ramayana Is the mood of sacrifice I’ll come to this point again Later but here Normally we think about Sita As being victimised By a judgemental Ram That’s how things are portrayed So recently someone sent me a Whatsapp message That he said that Actually this is some girl who had written He says If ever I want a brother I want a brother like Ravana And I don’t ever want a husband like Ram So This is a complete distortion Of understanding Now why he said I want a brother like Ravana Because Ravana Apparently Vishwapanaka was insulted Ravana wanted to honour her By attacking Ram But That is just not true first of all Because Ravana Had no inclination To avenge Vishwapanaka’s dishonour And that’s why Vishwapanaka actually Incited Ravana by describing Sita’s beauty And Ravana acted against Ram That was not to avenge Vishwapanaka That was simply to get Sita for himself So there was no Brotherly love In that action There was simply Demonic lust that was driving the action So it’s a complete misunderstanding Of the character of Ravana And yes if Ram Is a husband who abandons his wife Why would I want a husband Like that someone might argue But if we consider the point Of sacrifice What did Ram do It was Sita Who lived in the forest In separation from Ram But after Telling Sita to go away Did Ram remarry again As a king He could have his choice Of women, he could have married anyone He did not do that Not only did he not do that Out of his volition Even when there was pressure by the Brahmanas He did not do that As a king He was expected to perform sacrifices And normally When Householders perform sacrifices The husband and wife Perform the sacrifice together So Ram was told By the Brahmanas who were hosting the sacrifice That Who were organising the sacrifice That you need a wife with you If Sita is not there You should remarry And have a wife with you He said I am not going to remarry In fact The day when Ram and Sita had married At that time Ram Had made a promise to Sita He said you will be my only wife At that time the kings sometimes have many wives Dasyat himself had three principal queens But Ram told her That I will not marry anyone else You will be my only wife And Ram Was determined to honour That word which he had given to Sita Even when Sita was not there with him So if Ram Had considered Sita To be contaminated Because of which He had rejected her Then why would he consider it important To honour a word given to Sita Not only did he not consider her Contaminated Actually when they insisted That you need to have Your wife with you What did he do He had a golden image of Sita made And he had that image Placed next to him When he would perform The sacrifices That means By his actions He demonstrated that he considered Sita so pure That even her image Could Participate In sacrifices that often required Exacting degrees of purity So certainly By his actions He does not at all Show that He considered Sita To be contaminated Considered her to be pure So whereas it was a sacrifice for Sita To live in the forest in separation From Ram Ram also had to do a sacrifice He chose not to marry again And he lived without a wife For the rest of his life So there was a sacrifice For Sita but there was a sacrifice Also for Ram It was not that Ram just You know I don’t like this wife So I reject her and marry someone else He did not do that If This is Ram Had his own Reasons So first point is That Ram is There is a sacrifice on the part of Sita That she has to live alone in the forest But there is a sacrifice on the part of Ram also And it is not simply That Ram considered An Unfounded accusation So serious that he doubted her character And rejected her That is not at all the point It was a torment It was an agony For both Sita and Ram And Ram did not Try to evade that Or escape that agony Of separation by getting a Substitute for Sita So then if Ram did not Consider Sita to be contaminated Then why did he at all Send her away That is the obvious question that would come up So S Sacrifice E is ethical dilemma Ram had to face an ethical dilemma Which he had to resolve There are different kinds of dilemmas in life There are moral dilemmas Is where we have two choices One is moral and the other is immoral So suppose A cop is told We are going to Some gang of thieves tells We are going to rob this bank So when you are going to rob When the phones come from this bank just don’t respond And we will pay you We will give you a bribe Now there clearly one choice is moral The other is immoral And when there is a moral dilemma At that time What is primarily required Is Strength of character One needs Will power, strength of character To reject the immoral choice And to make the moral choice So this is The case of moral dilemmas But there are ethical dilemmas Wherein there are two choices Neither of them Is totally wrong Both of them are right But then only one can be chosen So which one to choose At that time This is In Sanskrit called as Dharmasangat When there is dharma to be followed But dharma is itself pulling one in two Different directions So which dharma to follow at that time So how exactly was Ram Pulled in two different directions Ram Was the king So he had his duty As a king And he had his duty As a husband And at this particular point His two duties Pulled him in two different directions So what exactly do I mean by that The Ramayana is a part Of a very Deeply spiritual culture And in spiritual culture The primary value That is depicted Is of Detachment Detachment from the world So that one can become attached To spiritual reality To the supreme spiritual reality By which one can get elevated and ultimately liberated And the whole social order Is Arranged in such a way By which to encourage detachment In the social order the brahmanas They are the intellectuals And they are expected to live very simple Detached lives The idea is they are intelligent people If they wanted to enjoy the world What positions they could have got But they don’t seek those And people say oh these people are so intelligent But They are looking for something other than this world Something beyond this world Then people in general also start thinking Oh there must be something higher I should also explore this And more importantly The Kshatriyas People in general Are impressed by intelligent people But not all that much People in general are mostly influenced Impressed with wealthy powerful people The Kshatriyas And the Kshatriyas Especially the kings Have fabulous amounts of wealth and power And it’s very easy for the kings To become attached to all the wealth and power That they have But the kings exhibit Detachment How? By following Dharma So for example the king may be the Ruler of the whole kingdom And a sage who has nothing Except some deer skin as his possession And that sage comes The king offers respect To that sage And the people in general say oh This king who has so much influence He is offering respect To the sage who has nothing Means the sage must be having something more So one of the Dharma’s Very important Dharma’s of a king is To Actually Demonstrate The adherence to Dharma And in the case of Adherence to Dharma What it means is that Where required The king has honour But where required he has to exhibit detachment So Ram as the king As a husband His duty was very clear He had to protect his wife As a King he had A duty to Exemplify Dharma By which He would inspire others to follow The path of Dharma In this case Because Sita had Lived for a long time Separate from him So Some people would suspect Her purity And Ram had known about this And that’s why When there had been a reunion He had asked Sita He had said He told Sita, he was distressed But he realised that was just his duty So Sita had gone Through the Agni Pariksha And her purity Had been Vindicated, demonstrated Through That fire sacrifice And even the Devatas like Brahma himself had come At that time and told her She is completely pure So That accusation of Sita’s impurity Which Ram had already anticipated And addressed Was now resurfacing So Ram realised that He and Sita, both of them Had already done What they could To address this Sita had already gone Through the Agni Pariksha Now what more could Ram do If people are accusing her of that If Ram Tries to take action If Ram just neglects Those rumours Those accusations Then the idea will spread that He is so attached That even when his wife is impure Still he is so attached that he is staying with her If he takes action Against those who are spreading These terrible accusations Then he will appear even worse He is so attached that he is vindictive That he wants to Take revenge against those Who are Raising some objections So at that time Ram decided That he had these two duties Duty as a king And his duty as a husband So What to do at this time So he decided To give primacy to his duty As a king and Exhibit detachment Now At one level In some ways it is said that Ram banished Sita But banishment Is not the best word To describe what happened Because if we consider The other banishment that happened When Ram himself was exiled To the forest Banishment basically means That one is thrown out of the kingdom Deep into the forest To fend for oneself Now that Was not what happened to Sita Ram asked Lakshman to escort Sita To the forest In the area near Valmiki’s hermitage And the plan was Valmiki’s hermitage also had Some Elderly female ascetics They would act like a mother For Sita Now Valmiki’s hermitage Was still in Ram’s kingdom And In that sense Ram did not Banish Sita Ram still Arranged for Sita To be In Valmiki’s hermitage Which was in his kingdom So just as he protected all his citizens He arranged for her protection also But it was not In his own palace In his own kingdom Thus he reconciled The pulls of two Different duties, the duty as a King and the duty as a husband By at one level Giving primacy to his duty as a king But at another level he Acknowledged, he indirectly Still did his duty as a husband By protecting Sita by having her in a Hermitage that was under his protection So he did send Sita away but it was not Exactly a Banishment in the sense of the Word that it is standard So it’s a Very difficult decision for both Of them, naturally when Lakshman Told Sita what had happened Sita was shattered Overwhelmed by grief and there are Heart-wrenching descriptions Of her sense of agony At being separated from Ram But then She understands She understands the reason Why he does it Although she is still hurt But this is what Ram Has decided, I accept it And If we see Sita is not Just a weak-minded woman Who just accepts anything and everything That happens to her If she had been like that She would not have had the strength of character To resist Ravana For such a long, for nearly a year She resisted Ravana And even when Her sons Lavan and Kush Were born She did not poison Them against Ram Normally whenever there is a Rupture of a marriage and then Whoever has custody of the Children, whichever spouse has custody They often poison Their children Against the other spouse So although Sita was hurt Terribly hurt But she was not bitter She did not hold Ram responsible For what happened to her She understood that it was just An unfortunate, devastating Result of the circumstances That they found themselves in And She reared her children To the best of her ability And they became glorious warriors So glorious in fact that they even Bested Ram and Ram’s best warriors So But there was no bitterness in her heart And she did not transport that bitterness To her sons So it was The ethical dilemma which was a very difficult Situation for both Ram and Sita And Ram resolved it In a particular way Which was distressing for Sita But it was also distressing for Ram himself And there was just No other solution in that situation Going further If you look at There are, whenever anything happens In scripture There are multiple Levels of Causes in action And there are multiple layers Of explanation So I talked about S Was sacrifice, E was Ethical dilemma C is, that’s the acronym I am using Third E is Esoteric explanations There are deeper explanations Beyond what we can normally see So the first Explanation is That What happens in our life Is not just a Result of the Immediate cause That whatever happens In our life, there are multiple levels Of causation So for example, in a house One person gets malaria Now we may say What is the cause of malaria Oh, some malaria Carrying mosquito bit Well Okay, but that mosquito Was there in the house where there are five members Did that mosquito Bite only this person No, maybe you know This person had no immunity But then sometimes you check the immunity The other people’s immunity might be less But yet this person gets The malaria, why is that So there are Multiple levels of causation So the cause of the malaria There is an immediate cause for that That is the bite by the mosquito But why did the mosquito bite This person alone and not anyone else For that beyond the immediate Cause there is a remote cause And that remote cause Is related With our past life karma So That means This person who becomes infected by Malaria has Done some karma in a previous life Because of which They are, that person is meant to Get malaria now And that’s why the mosquito Bites only this person and not another person Or the mosquito bites Maybe everyone but only this person gets infected So the immediate Cause is Is a cause But is not necessarily The complete cause Sometimes there is There is some On the floor Sometimes water may have fallen, slipped Water may have spilled over And two people walk by, both of them slip But one of them Slips and falls gently, another of them Slips and has a fracture Why is that? At one level the water was there similarly Both of them slipped So the immediate cause is One explanation, it is not the complete Explanation There are remote causes also At work And in this case There is In the Ramayana itself This remote cause is described That when Ram Later on in the Later part of the Ramayana Valmiki is narrating this This is such a distressing incident That Sita is Is Exiled like this So the explanation that is given is Long ago When The devatas and the asuras Were fighting with each other At that time They Asuras Most of the asuras Were overpowered by the devatas They were eliminated But some of the leaders of the demons They fled And when they fled They ran to The hermitage Of The sage Bhrigu And Bhrigu Was not at home at that time His wife Khyati was there And The demons begged to her Please protect us Now Khyati with a Misdirected sense of maternal affection Said okay I will protect you She did not know Who these demons were What kind of demonic activities That they had done She said I will protect you And then when the devatas came chasing They said they are hiding here They need to be punished They will wreak havoc in the universe Khyati said no I have given my word I will protect them So the devatas tried to reason with her But she did not listen And the devatas when they are in danger They call out to Vishnu And When Vishnu came there Vishnu tried to reason with Khyati But Khyati had this Misdirected sense of affection and honour I have given my word I will not let you do anything to them And Vishnu These demons had terrorised The universe for a long time And they needed to be neutralised So At that time Vishnu seeing no alternative Decided to Deliver Khyati So using Sudarshan chakra At an external level He cut off the head of Khyati But if the lord If anybody dies At the hands of the lord That person gets liberated So When this happened The devatas got hold of the demons And the demons were killed And the world was freed from that scourge But when Vrugu came to know about this He was furious He came there And he cursed Vishnu He said Because You have Caused me to be separated From my wife Therefore I curse you That You will In one of your incarnations Be separated from your wife And it was That curse That got enacted over here So The separation of Ram and Sita Was not just because Ram considered Sita to be impure But there are further Deeper causes in action Madhvacharya In his Mahabharata Also quotes the Puranas To describe another story There are In the Puranas described Many Different Demonic forces And all these demons They try to outweigh Everybody in this world is mortal Everybody has to die So the demons Try to Find out some way To avoid That sentence of mortality And they try to ask Different boons We know famously that Hiranyakashipu asked that Let me not be killed by any species Created by Brahma But then the lord is expert Enough to come in a form That has not seen any of the species created by Brahma He came as a half man Half lion So similarly At this particular point There was a demon Who actually Had asked for a boon That let me Not die As long as Lakshmi and Narayan are united So now he thought Lakshmi and Narayan will never be separated And therefore I will never die So then the lord Arranged the separation between Him and Sita so that That demon Could be killed Going further If we look at Another level of explanation Actually The lord is present everywhere Rama is god and he is present everywhere He is present in our hearts He is present in everyone’s hearts So in that sense There is no separation from him When there is separation There is actually intensification Of devotion Intensification of remembrance So the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition Of which we are a part It explains that Rama Sending Sita away Was to Give her The experience of viraha bhakti Viraha bhakti means Devotion in separation That Devotion when the object of devotion is present Is very sweet There is a prayer of Srimati Radharani She says Krishna I prefer separation from you Than union with you Why? Because in union with you I see you at only one place In separation from you I see you everywhere So Separation from the lord Does to love Devotion What wind does to fire If there is a Forest fire Recently in California A huge amount of forest fires broke out And then if there is a stormy wind over there And the fire spreads further and further And further So like that When there is devotion to the lord Which is like a fire And then there is separation Which acts like a wind So the devotion becomes greater and greater And this way Actually the lord This intense Devotion wherein Externally it appears that there is agony of separation But internally there is Deep ecstasy That is What is demonstrated By Ram over here Now going further If we look at The last C is S E E S E is the spirit of the Ramayana So what is the spirit Some people say Oh this demonstrates How in the Ramayana There is injustice against women And this is what was made standard And so many women were exploited because of this But if you see That is not the spirit at all That same supreme lord Descends later as Krishna And when he comes as Krishna At a particular time There is In Krishnalaya when he is in Dwarka There are There is this demon Bhaumasur Who Has plans to Do sacrifices And He wants to He has defeated many kings Imprisoned those kings And he has abducted Their daughters And he wants to have All of them for himself And he was such a tyrant That he had got 16000 Maidens like this And when Krishna goes At the plea of the kings to help He delivers He kills this demon And then he releases the queens Releases the princess And then the princesses ask Now We have stayed at his palace We will be considered To be To be contaminated Please help us What do you want Please accept us as your maid servants So Krishna Doesn’t just accept them as maid servants He makes them his queens So Here what do we see That although Situation was very similar Sita had stayed with Ravana against her will She had been abducted And these queens These princesses Had already also been abducted Against their will And they had also stayed with Brahma And yet Krishna accepted them We could say that Actually at one level Ram was already married to Sita So in a sense He had a duty to protect her Krishna had no relationship With the princess He had no reason to protect her But still he offered them his protection Not only that Sita was pregnant At the same time These princesses He had no similar obligation to them So if the supreme lord If his Purpose was that Any woman who is considered Contaminated must reject her Why would he give shelter to these princesses So the point here is That Every Every descent of the lord Has a Particular mood So Krishna Is Leela Purushottam He performs pastimes In which he demonstrates extraordinary Power, extraordinary beauty Extraordinary mercy So he Accepts all the queens In the Ramayana The driving mood Is something different The driving mood of all the characters Is of Selflessness and sacrifice In fact the Ramayana begins With the question Valmiki Muni is asking Valmiki Muni asks Narada Muni Is there a person Who has ideal character What is this ideal character If there is a person Please tell me about it And Narada Muni tells briefly The story of Ram And he tells him this story will be revealed to you And then you write it down Now By any standard If If a husband Abandons his pregnant wife Based on an unfounded accusation Such a husband Would not be considered Anywhere near ideal Then why Does the Ramayana Describe such a situation So here What exactly is ideal The mood of the Ramayana Is of Selfless sacrifice That for a higher cause A person is ready To sacrifice Whatever is Pleasurable For oneself And this mood we see throughout When Kaikeyi demands From Dashrath that send Ram Away to the forest Dashrath doesn’t have to do that But Dashrath sacrifices And he lets Ram go to the forest When Ram is going to the forest Lakshman has no reason To go with him But Lakshman says I will go with you I will go with you And I will serve you So Lakshman exhibits this mood of sacrifice When Ram and Lakshman are going Sita has no reason to go But Sita insists I will go with you Again Same mood of sacrifice When Ram is in the forest And the kingdom has come to Bharat Bharat could have said I didn’t want this kingdom I was not part of the conspiracy But now I have the kingdom I will enjoy it But Bharat doesn’t do that Again sacrifice What is the sacrifice? He takes Ram’s padukas Ram’s sandals on his head Carries them on his head And has those sandals Situated on the throne Of Ayodhya And he himself sits At the feet On a small seat Below the throne So he takes up The Responsibility of kingship But he does not take The privilege of kingship In fact He doesn’t even live in the Palace Outside Ayodhya there is a small place Called Nandigram And there there is a hut And that is where Bharat also stays So the driving spirit Of the Ramayana Is of Selfless sacrifice Selflessness Where for a higher cause One is ready to give up One’s pleasure Now what exactly is the higher cause And how that cause is higher That we have to Look at the cultural context to understand Why would Bharat have to Just give up the kingdom He could have lived in the kingdom But that was his fraternal affection To his brother Now similarly This incident Like in the Ramayana Normally in a normal romantic story The culmination is The union of the hero and the heroine After long separation But the Ramayana It is animated through and through With the spirit of selfless sacrifice Of selflessness And that selflessness For a higher cause Is demonstrated In the most climactic way In the separation Of the hero and the heroine So both Ram and Lakshman It is not Ram and Sita It is not that Sita is the victim and Ram Is the victimiser As I said Ram did not Marry again Ram did not try to look for a substitute For Sita So it is not that Sita is the victim and Ram is the victimiser Rather Ram and Sita Are both Sacrificers Both sacrificed To demonstrate the higher value Of selflessness And if at all Ram Is to be compared to anyone Ram’s situation Is comparable to that of Dashrath Dashrath had no Desire at all To send Ram to the forest But he was obligated By his Honour to do so And he was in agony because of that In fact It was completely Against his will That Ram went to the forest Not against his will means That whole conspiracy that happened Was completely against his will But he was helplessly Pushed Similarly Ram He had no desire to exile Sita But the circumstances such that That the cause of honour Required him to do that And when he did that It was not Out of any Sense of suspicion Towards Sita At all So it is an example Of selflessness And especially If we consider A country where Nepotism Is so common Nepotism means One person gets power And that person wants to Give facilities To one’s relatives One’s acquaintances One politician gets a ministership And then his cousins, his sons His daughters, his uncles, his nephews They all get big fat Plump posts In The government In a culture Which is so nepotistic Where one uses one’s Position to benefit One’s relatives Now Ram’s example Is sterling Where he has The position to crush All dissidents But he does not use that position To do so Rather he uses that position To exemplify selflessness And thus The Ramayan The separation of Sita Separation of Ram and Sita At one level it is tragic But at another level It is climactic The climax of The Ramayan is not A normal romantic novel Where the climax is the union of the hero and the heroine The Ramayan’s climax is That the spirit of selflessness That is demonstrated Throughout the epic Finds its zenith Finds its summit In this final act of sacrifice Where Ram and Sita Are separated In a mood of selflessness That runs throughout the epic So it is This selflessness That is vital For sustaining Relationships The Ramayan As I said that It is not that Any husband has any right To question his wife Just because of unfounded suspicion That is not the standard That the Ramayan establishes That same Lord Ram when he comes as Krishna He establishes completely Opposite standard It has a completely opposite pastime So the point is Everything in the Ramayan Is meant to demonstrate Selflessness And rather than taking Things literally This is how everyone should act Take the essential principles It is not that A father honour bound by the word Has to send his son to the forest It is not that If one brother is exiled The other brother has to take his padukas This literal application Is never There in scripture You can’t replicate the exact situation That are there in scripture And apply them in other situations What we do is Take the essential principle And internalise That principle And if we do that If we are ready to be selfless In our relationships Actually relationships will become stronger Not weaker And that is how We see has been the effect Of the Ramayan The Ramayan has been Immensely popular For centuries For we could say even millennia And The same Indian heartland From the north to the south From the east to the west Where Ramayan has been so immensely popular What do we see In that same Indian culture Actually the family Structure is still Very strong And it has been strong For thousands of years Today much of the world Where families are breaking apart In India Where there was so much aggression From so many forces Still the family structure stood strong And So the Inspiration throughout centuries That was derived From the Ramayan Was not the literal enactment Reenactment Of the actions done by the characters But the inspiration that was derived was The inspiration of putting The other person first In a relationship of being selfless And that lesson of Selflessness if we focus On drawing then the Ramayan Can enrich us Immensely even today So I will summarise What I spoke I spoke on Theme of why did Ram Abandon Sita And I spoke based on An acronym what is the acronym Seize One who sees with the eyes of knowledge Actually sees So first S was sacrifice So Ram Was not like opportunistic Man who wanted to reject One wife so that he would get another wife When he sent Sita Away he did not Marry again he honoured his word to her And he considered her so pure That he had for the sacrifices A golden image of Sita So he considered her pure E was what Ethical dilemma His ethical dilemma was His duty as a husband And his duty as a king Pulled in two different directions As a husband he was meant to protect his wife As a king he was meant to exemplify Dharma and detachment And he had already done that By having Sita Go through the Agni Pariksha But if people were still Accusing Then neglecting them Would have made him appear attached Acting against them would have made him appear vindictive So therefore He felt the only solution was Separation from Sita So he did not exactly banish Sita Because Sita was still in his kingdom In Valmiki’s hermitage Indirectly under his protection So he did his He gave primacy to his duty as a king But he also indirectly did his duty as a husband By having Sita Indirectly in his protection In his kingdom Next E was what Esoteric explanations I talked about three levels of explanations One is because Ram was Cursed by Bhrigu Muni That you will be separated from your wife just as I am being separated Now of course Ram is a supreme being And he is not Subject to anyone’s curse But he respects the brahmanas And sometimes out of the respect for the brahmanas He voluntarily accepts their curse So I said events Have an immediate cause but the immediate cause Is not the complete cause There are remote causes also So it was not Sita simply staying with Being in Ravana’s place That was the cause of her exile Of her being sent away There was another deeper cause Then another level is that This demon who had a benediction that he would not be killed Till Lakshmi and Narayan were separated And that’s why Sita and Ram’s separation Had to take place And then lastly the separation was meant to Take Sita To a higher level of devotion Viraha Bhakti Devotion and separation which actually Intensifies the remembrance of the Lord Just as the Gopis in Vrindavan Also experienced Separation from Krishna and there was Immense devotion Intensified devotion And the last S was Selflessness The spirit of selflessness The same Ram Comes as Krishna And accepts women who were in Similar situation So it’s not that The standard which everyone Has to follow is to reject A woman just because of some Unfounded suspicion The leela which Ram is enacting Has a mood of selflessness That same mood Which is demonstrated by Dashrath When he sends his son away By Bharat when he accompanies Ram to the forest By Sita when she accompanies Ram By Lakshman when he accompanies Ram And Bharat when he stays in Ascetic Mode even while being the king That same selflessness Is demonstrated at its climax By When the hero and the heroine Are meant to unite and enjoy together The selflessness is demonstrated by They are getting separated And this mood of selflessness Is The essential inspiration that we derive From the Ramayana Not the literal reenactment of the specific Actions that its characters have done And this selflessness is actually Very important And very nourishing For sustainable relationships If we take this Essential mood of the Ramayana Then we will find that Our own devotion and our own Relationships with the lord Vertically and with others horizontally Can actually be improved By the inspiration the Ramayana provides Thank you very much Hare Krishna So we have a few minutes Are there any questions? Yes please Okay So we have There is significant difference in the characters Of Rama and Krishna And is that because they came in different Yugas? Yes and no Yes in the sense that yes They have different moods And they came in different yugas But it is not that the yugas Determine their mood Rather they have their own mood And that is manifest in the appropriate yuga The lord Lord’s actions Are not only a product of circumstance The lord may act According to circumstance But he is not a product of the circumstance So in the Rama and Krishna They are both existing Eternally in the spiritual world From where they descend to this world That is the meaning of avatar One who descends From the spiritual level to the material level So they exist eternally In the spiritual level And they have their particular Moods in that spiritual Level of reality also So Krishna has the Mood of especially Vrindavan of just Of Love in the Love without the Aura of godhood Nobody knows Krishna is God He is such a lovable child among us Krishna in Dwaraka There is the aura of godhood But still Krishna in Dwaraka Is different from Ram in Ayodhya Ram Eventually becomes the king and reigns As the king In Dwaraka Krishna never reigns as the king Krishna Is the king and Krishna is the servant So Krishna demonstrates How more important In leadership more important Then the designation is the disposition He executes the responsibility of Protecting Dwaraka whenever it is required But doesn’t take the position So Krishna And Ram there are many significant differences And those differences are reflective Of the rasa Of the mood of their Relationships that is there in the Spiritual world So it’s not just because of the yugas that they come in The yugas They all have their ethos And yes when the lord comes He comes in a mood He comes in a way In a form By performing pastimes That are intelligible to people of that yuga But his pastimes Are not a product of that yuga They are transcendental Manifest appropriately According to yugas Does it answer your question? Yeah Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question So who is the demon and the story? Actually the Mahabharata Atma Niranaya is A book written by By Madhavacharya where he describes He resolves primarily The unresolved questions Associated with Mahabharata But in that there is an appendix Where he talks about something like Ram Upakhyan Ram Upakhyan also Section on Ramayana Where he addresses some questions about the Ramayana So he mentions this But he does not give an elaborate Description of it So The Nature of the Puranic stories Such that the Puranas are actually The Puranas are Recited They are books but they are also recited The Bhagavatam originally Was four verses When Chatushloki Bhagavatam was spoken by By the lord to Brahma But then when Suta Goswami speaks it Thousands upon thousands of verses The Puranas in that sense Are not a static body of knowledge They are What is called as The way Shruti is revelation Smriti is recollection So The story that he mentions He refers to The Puranas which Is not found right now So He just mentions that story But does not give the details of that story So that’s why I didn’t stress on that in the class That was just one of the explanations The important thing is that We can intelligibly Explain what happens As happening in the Ramayana Even without resorting to the past life But that past life Or some things are happening in some other part Of the cosmos That can give an additional light But that is not the main light that we want to show Yeah Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question If he kills or if he destroys him, that means he is vindictive. There is a third point also, right? He sends Sita to the forest, that means he had… that means some few people are suspecting him. Okay, yeah, so… You know, now if Ram sends Sita away because of the rumours of some people, that means isn’t he giving credence to those rumours? Isn’t he giving credibility to something that is unsubstantiated? Yes, at one level.
See, basically when problems come up, how best to deal with these problems is something which is not so easy for us to decide. Sometimes we confront an issue head on. And we just correct that issue.
Sometimes we just change us and tolerate the issue. Sometimes we just walk away from that situation. Broadly, when difficulties come in our life, we can deal with them in three ways.
Change the situation, change ourselves, or walk away from the situation. So sometimes some issues are best dealt with by just dodging the issue. The more we talk about it, the more it gets aggravated.
So was he vindicating it? Well, was he substantiating those rumours? The fact that later on he refused to marry again, the fact that he insisted on having Sita’s effigy next to him, that showed that he did not give credence to those rumours. But sometimes the nature of the world is that when a particular rumour is there, it’s said that if some bad publicity comes, when you try to counter the bad publicity, that counter gives more attention to the bad publicity. So it’s a complex situation when any negative aspersions come against anyone, what to do at that time? There’s no easy way.
If you just neglect it, sometimes it grows. If you try to counter it, it grows further. So Ram at that time felt that, at that time, just send her away.
But he very categorically demonstrated that he did not accept those rumours by having her in an image form in his sacrifices. So it is more a response that is appropriately done to aggravate the situation. But at the same time, eventually not giving credence to those rumours.
So thank you very much. Sri Ramachandra Bhagwan ki, Srila Prabhupada ki, Gaur Bhaktavrinda ki, Itai Gaur Premananda ki.