Value Education and Spirituality 35 – Ramayana 17 – Hanuman 2 – Never lose heart

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna welcome back to the value education ethics from ethics series we are discussing from the Ramayan and we are discussing about Hanuman’s entry into Lanka and his search for Sita the theme we will speak on is never lose heart so Hanuman had achieved a stupendous feat by leaping across the ocean and overcoming various formidable obstacles and distractions and reaching Lanka but he realized that an even greater task awaited in my head Lanka was fortified from all sides and there are four gates in the four directions and those gates were heavily guarded and he realized it was a giant place and first of all he had this challenge of how to penetrate it second he had a challenge of how to stay unnoticed after penetrating and third is he had how to search various possible places and find Sita so as he waited outside Lanka outside the forts of Lanka observing the observing the various observing the various things that were happening how the guards were heavily armed and they were alert so finally he decided that the best strategy would be to keep a very low profile and can carry so in the darkness of the night assuming the form of a small monkey which is practically inconspicuous the monkeys are there everywhere so he just sleeked in by going across the walls and the guards even though they noticed they thought it was just a monkey what is so great about it and they allowed him to sneak through and Hanuman went in as he flying as an inconspicuous monkey jumping from one house top to another house top observing things as he saw huge buildings Lanka was a it was capital of Ravana and it was filled with opulence it was said to be a golden city and Ravana had got lots and lots of wealth and he had gilded houses houses coated with gold his own palace was magnificent and so were the palaces of his commanders and his assistants and seeing this majestic sights Hanuman was not impressed but still he realized that this opulence was an indication of the wealth and power of the opulence that Ram would eventually have to face he was gauging the strength of the enemy doing a reconnaissance observation while also doing a search operation so he went store from palace to palace to palace and evidently he saw that he was approaching towards what was the center and where lay the biggest palace and as he approached the huge palace he saw that this was actually the palace of Sita palace of Ravana and he shrank with his small form he just went inside and was peering through the windows going across the room and whenever anyone would come he would just look behind some curtains or go under some beds or slink into some closets and he would hide himself and he just keep moving onward onward and eventually he came to the private chambers the bedroom of Ravana and there he saw this huge demon sleeping on the bed and next to him was a woman a woman of astonishing beauty and she was lying on the bed next to Ravana and when Ravana when Hanuman saw this he jumped in delight he thought oh such a breathtaking beauty this must be Sita yes I have found Sita and he was delighted in his own monkey way he started celebrating he took his tail up and started kissing his tail and jumping up and down dancing in a monkey way celebrating of course he kept it all noiseless he had to maintain his front as a spy he couldn’t lose that but at the same time he was delighted and the delight started coming out in his own discreet way but after the ancient exuberance of the discovery stopped he started questioning himself he looked at the woman carefully and he noticed three things although she was extraordinarily beautiful she did not resemble the woman whom they had seen flying being carried away by Ravana Hanuman had been a part of the group of Vanaras Sugriva and others who had seen Ravana going across speeding across the ocean carrying Sita who was abducted and because Ravana was speeding so fast and because that was none of their business they had not intervened so he had got a glimpse this doesn’t look like the same person and secondly he thought that Sita being a chaste wife would never would not submit herself to the advances of Ravana and yet this woman was lying peacefully naturally happily on Ravana’s bed as if she belonged there and thirdly he noticed that there was no sign of grief or any kind of misery on her face sometimes if a person is miserable even if the person is asleep there are the marks of the tears having flown on the face and the face is shrunk even in sleep so as Hanuman observed all this he thought this cannot be Sita and then as he peered around he saw that actually there were various maidservants who were all lying in a state of dishappiness they were in various things of dress and undress so Ravana had his revelry and many of these women were partially they were partially dressed or they were undressed and Hanuman started doubting have I done the right thing by coming here he says this is almost like a warrior who delights in watching the sexual activities of others and especially Hanuman was a celibate so have I committed have I committed offence have I sinned by watching this I started thinking he realized no I have not because my purpose was not to enjoy and secondly if I have to search for a woman where will I search except in the women’s chambers but he realized that actually this cannot be Sita and he realized my search far from being over I have to keep searching and he went searching searching searching searching he searched through all the houses now he couldn’t find her anywhere he went through all the palaces now it was no mean task but he accomplished all that task and still there was nowhere for Sita to be found and where he was rejected the overhead the moon went behind clouds and the darkness that came over the island reflected the darkness that had come in his heart also he felt rejected he had achieved nearly the impossible leaping across the ocean and penetrating into the empire of Lanka and searching through the palaces no very few if any spy would have been able to achieve all this he had achieved it all and for what for nothing what will I do if I go back and tell that Sita is not to be found what does that mean if Sita had been here she would have been found if Sita is not found that means she is dead could it be that because of separation from Ram she has she has just pined away and died oh but if I hear that she has died then if I tell this to Ram he will not be able to bear it and he will die he will give up his life and if he gives up his life his devoted brother Lakshman will give up his life and their mother Kaushalya will give up her life and devoted brother Bharat will give up her life and the whole Ayodhya will sing into grief and Sugriva the devoted servant of Hanuman of Ram he will give up his life if Ram dies and then Ayodhya will not only sing into grief but Kishkind will sing into grief and I will be responsible for all that grief Hanuman had such a sense of responsibility that he thought that I will be responsible and I cannot let this happen no no no impossible I cannot tolerate the devastation and death of all those for whom I love I must persevere and as this rejuvenated determination came into him immediately same time the cloud parted the cloud parted and he was able to see through the parted clouds the moon coming out and as the moon illumined the sky similarly he felt illumined by fresh determination he started jumping again and again going from house to house and under the as he came to a particular house and the moon as it illumined all around him he saw that there was a garden over there and in that garden it was a huge garden although it seemed to be like a royal garden it was almost spartan and he immediately thought maybe Sita is there yes if it is that Sita is Sita has been forcibly abducted and she will not voluntarily submit to Ravana so probably Ravana instead of keeping her in a private chamber has kept her elsewhere so he entered into that into that garden and as he entered that garden it was Ashoka Vartika and there he saw under a tree a woman living in discolored clothes practically looking very dejected her body initiated by austerity and agony austerity because she had refused all the comforts of life she was eating very simple fare also and agony because emotionally she was afflicted by separation and as he peered at her Hanuman peered this must be Sita and morning was coming and Hanuman in his inconspicuous monkey form came there and he heard that around Sita around this particular lady he was not yet sure whether she was Sita but around that lady he saw that there were demonesses of various grotesque forms and they would periodically threaten Sita Oh Sita how foolish you are you are waiting for that mortal Ram he is powerless he is useless he is already be dead why are you waiting for him like this come on surrender to come on Ravana wants you he is the emperor of the Rakshasas accepted they were tormenting her tempting her but as he heard their speech he understood this is Sita this is indeed Sita and he became jubilant yes Sita has been found Sita has been found and so in whatever we are trying to achieve in life quite often we also face reversals and obstacles which may seem to be final which may seem to be so great as to be not as to as if it is not possible to overcome them at all but they can be overcome they can be overcome if we strive to overcome them determinately so to strive to overcome them determinately means that we have to march onwards no matter how many problems come no matter how many problems come we keep marching onwards and eventually we will achieve success and there are many stories like that of underground excavators who wanted to find some underground treasure but they dug dug dug and they stopped thinking that there is no treasure over here and just a few feet below where they stopped the treasure was actually there there are stories of people who sought jewels under the ocean and they explored explored there are no jewels over here and other explorers came and just pressed some more distance and they found jewels under the ocean so like that we need to proceed we should never lose heart so Hanuman could have very well lost heart when he searched all the palaces and did not find Sita over there so when all the all the likely routes to success seem to fail we rather than accepting failure we can look for unlikely routes to success so Hanuman started searching in an unlikely place in a forest in a grove and that’s where he found Sita so like that if we don’t lose heart but stay determined in our purposes then we too will be successful thank you Hare Krishna