Understanding difficult pastimes such as Rama’s banishing Sita
[Ramayana series 3, Talk at New Goloka, Hillsborough, USA]
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Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I spoke today, I spoke on the theme of why did Ram send Sita away. I started by talking about how education happens in two different ways.
One is if we have a property, we can build on the existing property or we can destroy, blow up the existing property and reconstruct again. So education sometimes happens by building on our existing conceptions and sometimes by destroying our existing conceptions. So scripture also adopts both these strategies while teaching.
Most of the Ramayana and its inspiring past times build on our existing conceptions. So the Ramayana you could say is like a typical romance story. But the conclusion has a completely shocking, unexpected twist.
Where the hero and heroine are supposed to be united and happily ever after they get separated. So what’s going on? So we could either say that these people are crazy. So we talked about is Shurpanakha, is Ravan an ideal brother? Not at all.
He did not fight with Ram for Shurpanakha’s sake. He fought for Sita’s because of lust for Sita, not love for Shurpanakha. And is Ram a bad husband because he sent Sita away? No.
We discussed that using an acronym. What was the acronym? S was? Sacrifice. The sacrifice means two things.
First is that in the sacrifice Ram had an effigy of Sita. It means he considered her pure. And secondly the sacrifice also means that it was not just Sita who sacrificed by going away from Ram.
Ram also sacrificed because he never remarried. So if he just was concerned about honour and wanted a picture perfect family as a king without a queen is hardly picture perfect. Then why did he send Sita away if he didn’t consider her impure? I talked about E was? Ethical dilemma.
So I talked about contextual ethics and categorical ethics. Categorical is this is always right no matter what. But contextual is we have to look at the consequence, look at the overall time, place, circumstances and understand what is right and wrong.
So Ram faced an ethical dilemma that as a king he had to demonstrate detachment. And people were considering very attached to his wife although she was suspected of something. And he had a duty to his wife, he had a duty to his kingdom and he chose a duty to his kingdom.
But he also did his duty to his wife by not exiling her right into the forest but within his kingdom to Valmiki’s ashram. So now why would he do such a thing still? When the rumour was not credible sometimes even if the rumour is not credible it just spreads like wildfire. And then what do you do? Sometimes you just have to move away because the area is going to be burnt.
So when the cause effect connection doesn’t make sense in our immediate context then we frame it in a bigger frame of reference. That’s why the second E was? Esoteric explanations. So I talked here about the principle of karma.
If a light goes off it could be because the power switch has gone off or it could be because terrorists have attacked America and all power plants have shut down. So we have to frame it in the right scale of reference. So yes, that unsubstantiated accusation leading to sending away, that doesn’t make sense.
So we have put in the bigger frame of reference and talked about two stories from the past. One is Khyati trying to protect the demon and she being the collateral damage when Vishnu had to kill the demon and Bhrigu Muni cursing Vishnu that he will be separated from your wife and Madhavacharya telling the other story that this demon could be killed only when Vishnu and Lakshmi are separated. So those were the reasons we could say when we expand the scale of reference.
And then last was? Selflessness. So we see that Sita did not become bitter and poison her sons about Ram. So rather than thinking of Sita as a victim and Ram as a victimizer, trying to fit this into a gender discrimination narrative, we see it in the narrative in which the whole Ramayan is cast.
And that is the narrative of selflessness. So the selflessness of Ashrath and Ram, of Lakshman, of Sita, of Bharat, all these they are selflessness that we can understand. They build on our existing understanding.
But the selflessness of Ram and Sita in being separated, that is something which challenges our existing understanding. So the best example to understand it is Ashrath and Ram, Ashrath sent Ram away to the forest, similarly Ram sent Sita away to the forest. And it is very painful and they did it out of obligation.
And both of them show enormous strength of character in doing this exercise of selflessness. The enduring lesson of the Ramayan which has sustained a stable family structure in India for millennia is not that become judgmental about others based on unsubstantiated accusations. It is be selfless in your relationship with others.
And that selflessness can help us today, especially in today’s narcissistic age, in helping us to become better human beings, better family members, better members of our community and ultimately better devotees when we expand our selflessness to the Lord. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Any questions?