Value Education and Spirituality 27 – Ramayana 9 – Shabari – See not the body’s caste – see the heart’s character

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Welcome back to the Value Education and Spirituality series.
We are discussing from the Ramayana and we will discuss about Shabari today. So, the theme we will discuss is don’t see the cast of the body, see the substance, see the content of the heart, see the substance of the character. Now, when Lord Ram started searching for Sita as per Jatayu’s direction.
So, he went south in the southern direction and then they came to a place that had long ago been the hermitage of Matangarishi. And in that hermitage, actually, one of her disciples, she was a tribal lady, Shabari was living. Now, Shabari had been a great mystic and devotee.
She had served her Guru and the sages very faithfully and she had, now her Guru and the other sages in that hermitage had actually passed away and had departed to higher destinations. She was left there and she had been told that Ram will come one day and you will get an opportunity to serve Ram. She had such a fervent devotion of the heart that she was longing each day when will Ram come and she knew Lord Ram was her Lord and she would pluck berries for him and now her mood was she wanted to offer the best to the Lord.
So, now how do you check whether the fruits are good or not? One way is to smell them, touch them but one can never be sure of that. So, she would decide to, in order to offer the best, she would just actually nibble the berry and taste it and when it would be good, she would keep it ready for Ram. And when actually Ram came and she was so overwhelmed, so delighted to see Ram, her heart’s greatest dream was fulfilled and then what did Ram do? He very graciously, she invited him, please come and sit and she offered hospitality in her small hut.
Now we could hear Ram is the king of Ayodhya and she is an outcast but Ram did not see all this. He saw only the content of her heart and based on the content of her heart he accepted the offering that she made. Now we could say, actually this was, this would have been seen very revolting to some people.
You know, it is actually something which is a remnant. How can you eat something like that? But Lord Ram was seeing the devotion of her heart. So, now he did not see externals.
Oh, this is Jhuta, he did not see externals. Oh, she is a low caste person or something like that. If somebody has, if the heart is in the right place that is what should be appreciated and Lord Ram profusely appreciated that and he received her service and blessed her and then she eventually attained the highest destination by the blessings of Lord Ram.
So now, the similar theme is seen of Lord Ram, of Ram actually transcending or circumventing any caste barriers that might be there. When he came to, when he was leaving Ayodhya, at the border of Ayodhya, there was a kingdom of Nishada King Guha. Now this Guha was also having a very devoted heart and when he saw Ram coming to his kingdom he offered an opulent reception to him and in fact he said, Ram, you can, you are so delighted to see him and Ram actually treated him very graciously, embraced him, accepted his service and reciprocated very warmly with him and Guha in fact said, when he came to know about the whole story of the conspiracy and everything he said, you cannot stay in my kingdom, that I will offer you my kingdom.
If you do not want to take my kingdom, you live as my guest. And Ram said, then I have to fulfil the word of my father and it was that I should live in a forest. I accept your hospitality, I appreciate your offer but I will go on.
But the point was that Lord Ram very courteously dealt with Guha. So, now in India unfortunately there has been this birth-based caste system which has created a lot of discrimination, exploitation and pain for many people. And it is a very regrettable and almost apprehensible chapter in Indian history.
But the original principle of this was not discrimination against people, it was cooperation. Now cooperation, when we say cooperate, that means there are different things and they are different and then those different things, they are going to operate on their own but when they operate together, that is cooperation. So, cooperation involves an acknowledgement that things are different and they need to be brought together.
So, the traditional, not just the recent tradition but the ancient traditional culture of India was centred on the principle of recognising that different people are different. Different people have different talents, different strengths, different inclinations and they need to be engaged accordingly. So, the original, what was there in India was not caste system, it was called Varna Ashram and it was not by birth but it was by guna and karma.
Chaturvaranyam mayasvishtam gunakarmavibhagashaha In 4.13, the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that this division is by qualities, guna and karma, that is by activities. So, their qualities refers to one’s proficiency one’s inclination, one’s innate tendency and abilities, karma, refers to one’s practical competence. So, one’s inner disposition and one’s practical competence at that particular activity.
So, some people are intellectual, they like to think and they like to study and they like to write and they are basically natural teachers. Some people are natural administrators, natural rulers. In a group of people, they take up the responsibility of leadership not that they demand the privilege of leadership but they take up the responsibility and they make sure that things get done.
Some people are naturally business minded and they can handle finances very easily and some people are skilled in bodily activities, pottery and other such. Even if we have machines, still operating machines also require skill. So, the point is that different people have different talents and accordingly, every society has a division of labor and a division of labor is just meant to engage people in a way that the various things that are needed to be done in a society can be done and also that in the society, people get productively engaged.
Communism had an ideal of everyone being equal but as one political commentator, George Orwell said, in communism, all people are equal but some people are more equal than others. Even in communism, there were people who were rulers and the rulers had much more privilege than the ruled and eventually the rulers were in huge prosperity, huge wealth and the ruled were in poverty and that was one of the major reasons that caused the breakdown of the Soviet Union. So, the point is that no society can avoid a division of labor.
So, now whenever there is division of labor, that is basically a class. We may call it caste, we may call it class, we may call it by whatever name but there has to be a division of labor. Now, this division of labor is meant not for discrimination or you are a low caste and I am a high caste.
It was actually meant for cooperation. So, now the original intent of this was to engage people according to their natural talents and ensure that they are happily engaged and society has its resources productively made as sufficiently, adequately, competently made. So, now the problem came when this system instead of being based on natural talents was codified and rigidified and fossilized as a system by birth and then it became discriminatory and many times talented people were deprived of opportunities just because they did not belong to the particular birth.
They did not belong to a particular caste. So, that is unfortunate and generally we may often think of the Indian tradition as monolithic or the whole Indian tradition is bad because it had a caste system. But we will see within the tradition itself there have been protests against caste system.
There have been healthy responses, healthy correctives to the caste system and within the broad Indian tradition, the Bhakti tradition has strongly opposed the caste system and some of the greatest Bhakti saints, we may see them as a part of the Indian tradition but they have been persecuted by the caste conscious upper caste, by the proud upper caste and throughout India we have the stories of such persecutions. So, Tukaram Maharaj wrote his very beautiful Abhangas and then the Brahmins ordered that those Abhangas be thrown away into the water. So, similarly there are stories of sages being persecuted.
So, we see of saints being persecuted just because they did not belong to the right caste but they protested against it and the Bhakti tradition has been a tradition of universality. Opening the door that might have been closed because of any casteist or other barriers, opening those doors for everyone and Krishna makes this as a principle in the Bhagavad Gita. In 9.32 in the Bhagavad Gita he says mām hi pārtha vyāpārśitya ye pisyu pāpa yo nayaḥ sthriyo vaiśya sthārśudrās te piyānti parāṅgatiṃ So, he says mām hi pārtha vyāpārśitya those who take shelter of me ye pisyu pāpa yo nayaḥ so even if they be of sinful birth, so those people who are outcasts, they are often considered as pāpa yo nayaḥ and then there are other people who are traditionally not considered qualified for doing certain specific rituals.
So, there are vaiśya, the śūdras, the women but Krishna says all of them can practice bhakti. te piyānti parāṅgatiṃ Not only can they practice bhakti, but they can attain the supreme destination by practicing bhakti. So, this is not just a concession that Krishna is saying okay, you can also do a little bit.
No, they can get the full reward, the topmost destination. So, in one sense, there was the American Declaration of Rights which is considered to be a landmark document in modern history that all people are born equal and they all have equal right to liberty, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and this spirit of giving equal opportunity to everyone is now widely accepted in enshrined ethos of modern and postmodern times but this same ethos has always been there in the bhakti culture and everybody should be given opportunity according to their talents. That’s what is demonstrated.
So, Lord Ram accepted Guha’s affection. Lord Ram accepted Shabari’s affection and he did not discriminate based on caste and we sometimes have the tendency to reject Indian culture because it was discriminatory but we should see Indian culture has many phases in it. Yes, there has been discrimination but there has also been a tradition of correction and it is this tradition of correction of bhakti that is most relevant to today’s society and bhakti offers universal opportunity to everyone to not only practice spirituality but to attain the highest destination and Lord Ram demonstrates this universality of bhakti by his dealings with Sita, with Guha and with Shabari.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.