What goes around comes around – Ravana & Maya-Sita

[Talk at St Louis, USA]
Video

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
So, let me illustrate this. So, before I go into the story, let’s look at some principles, that, all of us operate based on an innate assumption of cause and effect. Say, if your child comes back from school with a black eye, and a and I say, what happened? I just got a black eye.
Oh, really? Something must have happened. How did you get a black eye? Did you fight with someone and got an infection? What has happened? So whenever we see some effect, we presume there is a cause. And conversely, whenever there is a cause, we understand that there will be an effect.
Say a child may not be studying. I am happy. But if you don’t study now, you cannot stay happy in future.
You have a life ahead. So even if the effect is not immediately seen, you understand the effect is there. Now, this cause and effect principle applies in our day to day experience of living.
And intelligence means to perceive the cause and effect, even when it is not immediately visible. Even science operates on this principle itself. When Newton saw the fruit falling a few years ago, I was invited to Cambridge University to speak.
So while going there, we passed by the same tree. It’s supposed to be still there. So it is that tree is like a pilgrimage place for scientists.
So they go there and they get inspiration. How brilliant was Newton. So does anyone know what happened under that tree? The apple fell.
Where? Yes. Some people say it fell in front of him. Some people say it fell on him, on his head.
When the apple fell, Newton asked a question. The question was what made this apple fall? And it’s his brilliance that he came up with the principle of gravity based on that. But still the question itself, what made this apple fall, means that there is no, that there is an implicit assumption that apples don’t fall by chance.
There is some mechanism. Let me understand the mechanism. Science itself is a search for the mechanisms that govern, mechanisms, principles that govern the functioning of nature around us.
So whether in day to day experience or in science, we implicitly assume the principle of cause and effect. And even when sometimes we cannot find the effect for a particular cause or we can’t find the cause of a particular effect, even at that time, although it’s confusing, disheartening, but we don’t lose faith in the principle of cause and effect. So sometimes when bad things happen to good people, atheists ask this question.
If God is good, they consider the problem of evil to be like a knockout punch. Because God is supposed to be good, but there is so much bad in this world. Therefore, how can God exist? So we can turn this question around and say that atheists say, why do bad things happen to good people? We can turn it around and ask, why should bad things not happen to good people? What do you mean? Obviously good things should happen to good people, bad things to bad people.
But why? If we are simply biological machines geared for survival, then in nature, there is no such thing as good things happening to good people and bad things happening to bad people. Nature functions where might is right. If a wolf is strong and a chicken is weak, the wolf will catch the chicken, even the Jinkai chicken is very good.
So the whole idea of good and bad should lead to good and bad within a purely atheistic worldview, there is no basis for it. So you may ask the question, why do bad things happen to good people? And atheists may try to put us on the defensive, but we can put them on the defensive by asking, why should bad things not happen to good people? Why should good things lead to good results? Within atheism, there is no explanation for this. That’s how it should be.
Why? So the point which I’m making here is that even the atheist, atheist also assumes that actually good things should happen, they also assume the existence of cause and effect. And they also try to make sense, oh, this makes sense because of this, but atheism is so ironical, that atheists basically end up searching for islands of meaning by drowning an ocean of meaninglessness. What is the island of meaning? Oh, why do fruits fall? It’s because of gravity.
Oh, why does, why does things, why does metal pass some electricity because it’s conducting, because it’s a conductor. So we have explanation in terms of cause and effect for many things within existence. But for existence itself, there is no explanation.
Why do we exist at all? Why are we born? Why do we live? Why do we die? So atheism is ironical in that, that we even atheists, even an atheist, a hardcore atheist, will not grow up their children saying that actually everything is meaningless. There is no correlation of cause and effect. Whether you study or not, what marks you get, it’s all chance.
Nobody trains their children like that. You work hard, then you succeed. Now, it’s possible that sometimes you may work hard and you may not succeed.
Now, these exceptions are what raise the question. And yes, that question needs to be addressed. But first, the exception requires a foundation.
And theism may struggle to explain the exception. But atheism fails to explain the foundation itself, of which there is an exception. Is this point, am I making it clear? So, now we could ask this question that, yeah, okay, why do bad things, because bad things happen to good people, so therefore there is no God, there is no cause effect connection, everything is by chance, everything is meaningless.
Now, even if something doesn’t make sense to us, we never lose faith in cause and effect. Suppose we have some, say, some swelling or some pain or something, and we go to a doctor, and the doctor says, it’s a dreadful diagnosis for you, you’ve got cancer. Now, one of the reasons why cancer is so scary is, of course, because it can be fatal, but also because its cause is very difficult to determine.
Sometimes you just don’t know what the cause is. But if once we go over the denial and the shock, the next thing we ask the doctor is, is it treatable? How can we treat it? Now, as soon as we ask, is the cancer treatable? That means we are implicitly accepting again cause-effect connection. Okay, I don’t know what cause led to this cancer as an effect, but still I believe in cause and effect.
That means if I take this medicine as a cause, the effect of this cancer will go away. So, nobody can function by totally rejecting the cause-effect connection. So, the principle of cause-effect is foundational for our very existence in this world, for any kind of functioning in this world.
See, all of you are sitting now. Now, every one of you is reasonably confident that the person next to you will not suddenly turn up at you and slap you in the face. Now, you could say it’s possible, but it’s not probable.
Why is it not probable? Because there is no cause for it. Or if somebody did it like that, why did you slap me? That’s the question you would ask. So, we generally function based on a presumption of cause-effect correlation.
Now, when some cause-effect correlation doesn’t make sense, then we need to expand our frame of reference. Everything that we see, we see within particular frames of reference. Say, for example, right now, sitting and suddenly this light goes off.
And the first thing you look, somebody accidentally pressed the switch. So, that means we put this light in the connection with the frame. That’s one frame.
The one cause could be that somebody’s power switch has been accidentally turned off. Another could be, oh, maybe this particular light has got spoilt. Another could be, oh, maybe has the power in this whole area gone off? Or could it be that America has been attacked by terrorists and the power plants over here have been all stopped? Or could it be that there has been sudden solar flare on the sun? This is a possibility that if a solar flare comes too close to the Earth’s atmosphere, the insertion of energy into the Earth’s atmosphere will cause all electrical and electronic equipment on the Earth to stop functioning.
So, you could escalate the frame of reference, light going off on the Earth to a flare coming from the sun. It’s remote. But the point is, we ourselves do this calibration.
Say, if the power goes off, it doesn’t fit in this frame of reference. Is that switch off? Or is this got spoilt? Or is the power gone off? So, we ourselves, for functioning everything, we put in different frames of reference. And say, for example, right now I’m giving a class and suddenly I start coughing.
Then I may think, okay, has something gone in my mouth or something? Or is there something in the atmosphere over here because of which I’m coughing? Or is it that I have got cough? If something is in the atmosphere, then I’ll say, can you just stop that? Sometimes some people have allergy to incense or some kind of smoke. Can you please stop that? Or if I have got some cold or cough, I may say, can you please switch off this fan? Or I may ask, can you give me some ginger water or something like that that can help me deal with my throat? So, basically, if I start getting cold or cough, I can put it in different frames of reference. And based on that frame of reference, whether it is the atmosphere, whether it is the temperature, whether it is the health itself, we will find different solutions.
So, basically, when one frame of reference doesn’t work, then we try to put things in another frame of reference and another frame of reference. And then we try to put things in that frame of reference, which makes sense. So, what the dharmic texts tell us that when we don’t see the cause-effect connection, that simply means we haven’t found the right frame of reference.
So, when some person is doing good and getting bad as a result, that simply means that we have to look at a bigger frame of reference. Karma is not just one-to-one correspondence, it is also cumulative. See, every action has a reaction, but the reaction may not come immediately.
That is a simple example. Suppose, say, you have a credit arrangement with some nearby mall or supermarket, some big shop. So, throughout the month, you pay, you buy some things and you have to pay only at the end of the month.
At the end of the month, say, three friends go in there and all of them purchase some $2 worth some food item and come out. But when they come out, one of them gets a $2 bill, another gets a $200 bill, another gets a $2,000 bill. Hey, what’s going on? All of us purchase the same thing.
But the difference is the bill you are getting is not just for what you purchase at that time. It is for what you purchase at that time and what you purchase throughout the month. So, yes, from the immediate frame of reference, you could say, I just took such a $2 worth and you gave me $2,000.
It’s outrageous. But what you are getting is not just for what you purchased. So, there is a one-to-one correspondence in karma, but the way karma unfolds is not based on one-to-one correspondence alone.
So, that’s how sometimes somebody has a negative credit, somebody has a positive credit, they may not pay anything and still they can get a $2,000 worth item and they can walk out without paying anything. Isn’t it? So, you can see this practically in life also that sometimes some people, their digestive system and their health is very fragile. They eat something a little bit wrong, then immediately their health gets spoiled and sometimes they just eat a little bit more and their body balloons out and then they say, I am out of shape.
Actually, even round is a shape. But still, there are some other people, they treat their tongue like a conveyor belt. They eat anything and everything and still they remain healthy and fit also.
They look also still slim and attractive. So, what is going on? Now, what we eat does have an effect. But if somebody by their past karma is meant to have a sickly body in this life, then a small cause, small imbalance in eating, like a $2 item you purchase, you get a $2,000 bill.
Somebody else by their past karma has meant to get a healthy body. So, it’s like they purchase a $2,000 item and they get a $2 bill or they don’t have to pay any bill at all. So, it’s not that they don’t have to pay, but it’s just that they don’t have to pay now.
So, cause effect exists, but it can be delayed. So, the normal frame of reference would be that, okay, I pay this much amount, I buy this much item and I pay that much amount. But if you put in the bigger frame of reference, I might buy a small item and pay a big amount or I might buy a big item and pay a small amount.
That’s because you have to look at the big picture. So, similarly, what the Vedic scriptures tell us is that, if we expand the frame of reference, then the cause-effect can start making sense. So, if somebody is doing good and getting bad, we have to look at the previous lives.
Maybe in the previous life they have done something bad, so reactions are coming now. Or somebody is doing bad and getting good, that means in the previous life they have done some good karma. And that’s why the results are not coming immediately.
So, we need to expand the frame of reference. And that’s why to understand how God is good, the concept of the Atma and reincarnation are very important. Without that, Christians find it very, very difficult.
They accept God. See, it’s like there are two prominent branches of religion. You have, say, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.
These are called the Abrahamic religions. This is Buddhism. So, Christianity accepts the soul without reincarnation.
Buddhism accepts reincarnation without the soul. So, Christians accept the soul but no reincarnation. That’s why they find it very difficult.
Why? Because the child, say, sometimes children from birth itself have a lot of medical complications. They just can’t explain because the child has no previous lives or no previous karma. This is the first and only one life according to them.
So, why does this happen? It’s very, very difficult to explain that. Conversely, in a Buddhist, they, basically Buddhism was like a rebel child of Hinduism. So, rebel child means what? Rebel child means that sometimes a child doesn’t want to tell their surname because they don’t want to identify with their family.
And they change their name also. So, Buddhism emerged from Hinduism but because it is a rebel child. So, they try to change certain doctrines and one of the doctrines of Hinduism that they rejected was Atma.
But for 2,500 years, Buddhist philosophers have been struggling to explain if there is no soul, then what is it that reincarnates? This is just a samskara which are accumulated together and they reincarnate. So, the point here I am making is we need an expanded frame of reference to make sense of things. So, this was the background for the class.
The background went a little longer but any questions about this till now? The main point is to understand cause. Nobody rejects cause and effect. Everybody presumes it.
But when we don’t make sense of, when we don’t see the cause of connection, we need to expand the frame of reference to understand it. So, I’ll move on to a story from the Ramayana which illustrates this. See, Ram was a, Ravana is an example of a person who by past karmic, by past credits is meant to have, was meant to have power.
Am I audible behind? Can you hear me? Thank you. So, by past karma he had some powers. And he, different characters in the scriptures represent different anarthas.
So, Ravana embodies which anartha? Ravana embodies which weakness? Lust, yes. So, he, now his abduction of Sita was the last act that he did. But before that he had done many many atrocious things.
So, once he had, he was going on a conquest of the universe and he was wandering through the Himalayas. He was going in his Pushpak which he had stolen, the flying airplane which he had stolen from his cousin Kubera. He was going along, below the nature was beautiful.
But when somebody is in, having a little sattva, they can appreciate nature’s beauty. But somebody in ruches, nature is too peaceful. I want some stimulation.
So, I want stimulation. You know, there are some people who say that video games can also enhance attention and ability of people, of children. Now, yes, you could say so, but broadly speaking there are two kinds of attention.
There is reactive attention and there is focused intentional attention. Reactive attention means something changes rapidly and that’s how you focus on it. So, what happens when people play video games or they watch videos or they watch movies, they are very attentive.
When they are watching a movie, completely absorbed in it. But that attention is because so many stimuli are coming up on the screen. So, that attention is reactive attention.
In general, life is not that fast. So, when our reactive attention increases, then in one sense we may feel there is a lot of attention. But that attention is a response to a high level of stimulation.
But because life is not that stimulating, so, people get bored with life. And capacity for intentional attention, that is, there is nothing, like if you are hearing a talk. Now, some speakers can be very dramatic.
But in general, normal human conversations and normal human talks are not like high stimulating talks. So, it requires concentration, it requires focus. And that capacity for intentional attention decreases.
And that’s why children get things like ADHD, attention hyperactive disorders, because it’s not that they don’t have attention, it’s that whatever they are focusing on, that is no longer attractive enough to retain their attention. So, sometimes video games can also have a lot of variables, okay, get this car, get this, shoot this particular thing or take the car through this or do that, do that. There’s a lot of thought, attention and planning required to play video games also.
But it’s primarily reactive attention. So, reactive attention does not help us in life so much. It can lead to some kind of intellectual development, development of the brain, but only particularly.
The point I’m making is that Ravan was flying and for him, if you just see the Himalayas from the ground also they are beautiful. But you see from the sky, magnificent view. But for him it was too peaceful, too boring, he wanted some action.
So, you put it in the right frame of reference. So, he’s looking for some action and as he was going through the sky, suddenly he noticed something below, some action. So, it’s a beautiful woman.
What is a woman doing over here? Immediately his eyes became like radars. What happened? And immediately he got his plate to descend, he looked around. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
He came outside looking around. What is a woman doing alone over here? Does she have any protector? I’ll deal with that even if he’s there. And then he came down and then he saw that this woman was a yogin.
She was sitting in a yogic posture with closed eyes, intoning the mantra. And as he looked at her, he became more and more captivated by her. And he got off his chariot and started approaching her.
Now, she sensed his approach and she opened his eyes. And he changed into an attractive human form that time. Ravan could assume that ten-headed form and he could assume a normal form also.
So, he came there and he asked her, he says, oh maiden, beautiful maiden, what are you doing alone in this forest over here? And he, now she saw him as a guest who has come there. And she offered normal hospice. She says that actually I am the daughter of the great sage Kushal Bhaja.
My name is Vedavati and I am doing tapasya here to get Vishnu as my husband. And as she completed this, she started speaking also, her voice was also so attractive. So, Ravan got more and more incited by that.
And then when he heard Vishnu, Vishnu is my competitor. So, if somebody says competitor, then what happens? Then he thought that if I can’t defeat Vishnu, I will take something which is meant for Vishnu. So, his desire to get Vedavati increased even more.
And then he told her that I am Ravan. I am the king of the demons. I preside over a magnificent kingdom in Lanka.
Just come with me, become my wife and I will make you the principal queen of Lanka. You can live in prosperity. I have a city of gold.
So, he started bragging about his wealth and power to attract her. And she said, oh king, I have set my heart on Vishnu. No one, I am not interested in anyone else.
Please return the way you have come. I cannot fulfill your desire. Still very polite.
But Ravan just laughed at her. He said that she thinks that I am making a, see some people, when they make a proposal, it’s not a instruction, it’s masquerading as a proposal. It’s a demand masquerading as a proposal.
So, what happened when he said that? He just marched towards her to grab her. Now Vedavati was also sharp. She immediately recognized his intention and tried to move away.
He caught her by the hair. As soon as he caught her by the hair to pull her, she immediately, suddenly Ravan was allowed to pull her and he was thinking I will grab her in my arms and suddenly he found, he just, he just thrown back and he just had a tuft of hair, just a tuft of hair in his hands. He looked and he saw that this Vedavati had used her hands with a mystic power like a sword and she had cut off the hair.
So, she was, he just left with the hair and she was standing there. He said, oh wicked one, since you have defiled me by your evil touch, this body is no longer pure enough to offer to Vishnu. He says, because you have defiled me, I will return to destroy you and I will ultimately attain Lord Vishnu.
And as Ravan was just amazed and watching, things happened so fast, she closed her eyes and suddenly a mystic fire came from her body and that, her own body gave out the fire and she immolated herself in that fire. And as Ravan walked away disappointed, he didn’t even pay much attention to the thought. She said, I will return and I will destroy you.
But he did not know that this attempt to violate a woman, how much it would cost him in future. Now, this Vedavati she came back as Maya Sita. She is known as Maya Sita or Chhaya Sita, both of them.
So, in that case, Ravan seemed to, you know, he tried to molest someone, he got away with it. But every action has its reaction. So, when he cast his evil eye on Sita, at that time, Lakshman, before he had gone out to be with Ram, he had made a Lakshman Rekha.
And what happened was, it was a mystical wandering. Like sometimes in some houses you have electrical fencing. There can be barbed fencing but there can be barbed and electrical fencing.
So, barbed will cut but the electrical fencing will burn. So, that Lakshman Rekha was like a mystical fencing which anybody would step on it, a step across it, you would get burnt. So, that’s how Lakshman had arranged for Sita’s protection.
And Ravan, when he came, again he had put on a different garb of a saintly person and he came there. When he couldn’t come in, he hit Sita. Sita said, just please wait for some time.
My husband will come and then we will serve you. No, I am very humble. Just please give me some food.
Right away. But how can I refuse a saintly person like this? So, she came out. And when Ravan was trying to come in, he was getting burnt.
When Sita stepped towards that Lakshman Rekha, the fire came there also. But she went into the fire and came out of the fire. And it seemed that the fire didn’t affect her.
But actually, in that stepping into the fire and out of the fire, a mystical switch happened. The switch was, Sita went to Agnideva and went to mortal vision, to our vision, Vaidavati had been burned. But Vaidavati, there was no body and no ashes left.
Vaidavati just disappeared. So, at that time, Vaidavati had gone to Agni. So, what happened? From here to here, this is the fence, then Sita came in from here and she did not come out from here.
She actually went to Agni. And Agni brought Vaidavati. And Vaidavati came out.
Now, Vaidavati was given a form exactly like Sita. So, normally, when we say karma as action-reaction, it is not literally always one-to-one correspondence. Sometimes the reactions to our actions may come in different way from the way we end an action.
So, just for indicative purposes, we may say that, say for example, if somebody kills a cow, then it is said that what will happen? If somebody kills a cow, what is the karmic reaction for that? Yeah. But basically, basic principle is that we say that they will become a cow and they will be killed. Now, you know, you could twist this logic and say that that means all those who are cows now, they must have been cow killers in the past.
That’s the wrong logic. That is not the right logic at all. Because in logic, this is called as the error of the antecedent.
If A leads to B, so if A leads to B, and then if you say B is present, that does not necessarily mean A was present before that. So, if I say that if it rains, then the pavement will be wet. So, if A leads to B, so tomorrow morning, if I wake up and find the pavement to be wet, that does not necessarily mean it could have, it does not.
Maybe somebody was carrying water and they spilled the water. Maybe somebody was watering the lawn and the water spilled over onto the pavement. Maybe there was a leakage in the water supply.
And that is how that came up. So, we cannot twist it that way. If A then B does not mean if B then A. So, that somebody is a cow slaughterer, then it means you could say that they become a cow.
And then they may be killed by cows. But that does not mean all cows are cow slaughterers from the past. That’s a completely twisted understanding.
And even this is indicative. It is not that every cow slaughterer will become a cow and they will be killed. Basically, they will get the pain that they have inflicted on others.
Now, how exactly that pain will come? Will vary. So, Ravan inflicted the pain on Vedavati and on so many other women. And now, all that karma came back to him.
So, when we have a particular craving, the craving itself is painful. The craving is like a fire. Now, of course, the nature of the material mind is such that it starts envisioning that craving to be enjoyable.
In Hindi movies or something, they write songs, love was right. Something like that. That fire of desire that is created in us.
Now, they also acknowledge it as fire. They say it is desire. It’s fire.
But they think by union that that fire will get extinguished. Well, it gets extinguished temporarily, but it comes back again after that. So, what happened? That fire can also be a great pain.
Especially if we desire something very strongly and then we can’t get it. And that desire burns like fire within us. At least a normal fire burns and gets over.
But the fire of desire keeps burning and burning and burning and burning. So, what happened to Ravan was that he abducted Sita. He abducted Vedavati who he thought was Sita.
And Vedavati was given all the knowledge and the ability by which she could function. Not only she had the looks of Sita, but she was also functioning exactly like Sita. And he was craving, craving, craving, craving for her.
In the meanwhile, he had also, after he had tried to violate, Vedavati had also violated another celestial woman, Rambha. And at that time, Rambha’s husband had cursed that because he had been given immunity by Brahma’s boon, he could not curse him to die. If you do this thing again to any other woman, you will be killed.
And Brahma came over there and he told that you don’t have, he says that my boons, my boon will give you immunity from attack by enemies. It is not going to give you immunity from curses. So, from that time, he could not, he dared not force any woman.
So, although Sita was with him, Vedavati was with Sita, she was close, but she was always unattainable for him. And day after day, night after night, he burned in that fire of lust. And that fire tormented him.
And the fire of unsatisfied desire can be an unbearable torment. He just couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t, it’s like, it’s like we are fighting a battle that we can’t win and that we can’t quit.
Suppose somebody is in a boxing match, and there is a tiny person and there is a big boxer on the other side. And this person gets beaten, gets beaten, gets beaten, but you cannot lose this boxing match. What do you do? You get beaten, knock down, get up, again get beaten.
So, having this desire burning within us is like that. We can’t stop the, we can’t, we can’t win the war, we can’t quit the war. We just get beaten.
So, Ravana was tormented like that continuously. Constantly he was thinking, when, when, when, when, when? He just couldn’t retain her. So, it is all, all the karmic suffering that he had caused, he got it all back.
Not just that he got at the time of death, when he was killed. That was the conclusion. He got a lot of suffering before that also.
And eventually, so many times he thought, he thought that maybe, maybe that curse will not work. That curse might just be a hoax. I’ll go and, I’ll go and do what I want, Sita.
But then he said, no, I don’t want to, I’ll go and try to, I’ll try to do something and then that curse kills me. He said, I’ll look like a fool. And the whole universe will laugh at me.
I can’t do that. So, he was tormented, tormented, tormented constantly. And then what happens? See, the more, sometimes you may feel that if somebody has a good karma buffer, then they can do a lot of bad, and still they don’t get any bad reactions.
Then is it, I mean, they’re just, at least in this life, they’re getting scot-free. But actually, it’s not like that. If somebody has a good karma buffer, then that means they have wealth, or they have power, they have position, they have influence.
And then that means that if they do something bad, that bad can have catastrophic effects on others also. If we hate someone, now we might just hurt that person. But when Hitler hated someone, he caused the death of 12 million people.
And that was just the Holocaust. And apart from that, the war also was there. So many people were killed.
The Holocaust itself, the gas chambers killed 12 million people. So, what happened? So, it’s one thing, the past bad, it’s our own evil desires are there, whatever Ravan had. But then, if he has greater power and greater influence, then those evil desires affect not only him, but all those around him.
So, because of Ravana’s evil desire, and because of his karmic position that he had that power, that meant that he actually caused the destruction of his whole dynasty. His brothers, his sons, his cousins, his uncles, so many of his generals and soldiers, all of them. So, that retribution came to him.
He was tormented day after day, month after month. And then eventually he saw every one of them getting destroyed, one after another after another. And finally, Ram and Ravan fought.
I mean, they’re fighting, fighting, fighting. Initially, of course, we know that Ram shot at his neck and cut off his neck, but his head kept coming back. Then Vibhishan told him, shoot at his chest, shoot at his heart.
But still he was waiting, waiting. Ram was not shooting. So, it described that what happened that Ravan had Sita in his heart.
And Ram thought, how can I shoot at Sita? So, he’s waiting, waiting, waiting. And he was playing with Ravan. Ravan was shooting and he was shooting back and he was completely countering and defeating and humiliating, but not killing him.
And finally, Ravan, for a moment, now Sita was in his heart, that was not out of love, that was out of lust, but still Sita was there. But finally he started thinking, you know, Gopakaran was killed, Indrajeet was killed. And for just a brief moment, as he thought of all those people who had been killed, till that point, his desire for Sita was so great that he thought, whoever is killed, I want Sita.
But finally he saw that, that last day when he had gone for the war, he had gone with his last regiment and almost all his generals were killed now. The last few soldiers were remaining as fighting and he thought, the proud army of Lanka, everything has been destroyed. And for that one moment, the lust in his heart was replaced by anger.
And in that anger and the death of all his loved ones, Sita disappeared. And as soon as Sita disappeared, Ram shot the arrow. That arrow went and thudded into his heart.
And that person who had terrorized the whole universe, he gave a roar that shook the earth, but then fell on the earth never to shake again. That was the end. So what goes around comes around.
Now how it will come, when it will come, it will vary. But once we understand this principle of cause and effect, we don’t worry so much about why something is happening to someone. Oh this person, we may feel that this person is not working so hard but they are getting so much fame, they are getting so much credit, they are earning so much.
And I am working so hard, nobody gives me any credit, I don’t earn so much. Almost everyone feels, this is almost a universal psychological attribute, almost everyone feels underappreciated. Everyone feels underappreciated.
So, and usually the person whom we are most envious of, we feel they are overappreciated. Like say suppose we sing nicely, but people don’t praise us. And if somebody else sings very nicely, then, I mean we think not as nicely as me, but they get a lot of praise.
Then what we do is, they sing very nicely, people praise them, you know, sing so nicely. Have you seen how much prasad he eats? So we find some way to criticize them and pull them down, they don’t deserve so much praise. But we have to understand that if somebody is getting a lot of praise, it is not just because of what they are doing right now.
And if we are not getting praise, it is not that we want praise, it is at one level, appreciation is just a matter of reciprocation. If we are doing some service, if it is recognized, we feel encouraged. Am I doing something good? I will continue with it.
So it is a normal human need also. But sometimes if it is not coming, we don’t have to get into a zone where we create further karma. Sometimes we may be doing the right thing, but we are not getting the right result.
That doesn’t mean the right thing is all waste. The right thing is valuable and it will give its result. And if you are doing something bad, even if you feel that nothing is going wrong, actually it is going wrong.
The consequences are going to come. Like say, one of my friends, he does this, not a devotee, but he is an adventurer. He jumps from airplanes, helicopters, you know, what is called bungee jumping or what is it? He does that jumping.
Skydiving, yeah. So he does skydiving and he said that actually the initial part, when you are just falling down, it is how you are going down with such speed, you can feel the wind in your ears and you can see the earth coming to you. First time it is scary, but after that it becomes actually enjoyable.
You can just feel that and then eventually the parachute opens and then you come down slowly. But he says that when you are coming down, when he was telling me this, it struck me that if you are coming down and if your parachute is not going to open, suppose, then you might be enjoying while you are coming down, but once you really come down, you will be panicking and then you will be destroyed. So like that, sometimes if we may be doing something wrong also and we are not getting any result, that simply means we have jumped from the parachute, but it is just that we are not yet hitting the ground.
So actions do have consequences. Of course, as devotees, we don’t have to live in fear. Is some bad karma reaction going to come to me? Is this going to happen? What is going to happen? We want to be more Krishna conscious than karma conscious.
If we focus on serving Krishna, whatever bad karma is there, Krishna will help us to deal with it. And whatever good karma is there, Krishna will help us to do it in a spiritual way so that we don’t get bound by it. So we focus on serving Krishna.
But sometimes if we feel that even while serving Krishna, I am not getting what I feel I deserve, then we don’t have to get too much carried away by that feeling. Every action that we are doing, it will give results, not immediately, then eventually. So I’ll summarize what I spoke today.
I spoke on the topic of what goes around comes around. Started by talking about how cause effect is universally presumed by us in our day to day conduct. And that is a foundational presumption even in science.
In fact, intelligence means to see the cause effect even when it is not immediately visible. And some atheists may ask that why do bad things happen to good people? And yes, that’s a valid question. But atheism itself does not have any foundation for this cause effect correlation.
Why should bad things not happen to good people? If atheism were true, then nature will operate simply on the principle of might is right, not on any ethical principle. So we may have, theism may have problem in explaining the exceptions, but atheism has a problem in explaining the foundation itself. Foundation principle of cause and effect.
And even atheists, what happens is they don’t reject the cause effect principle completely. They delight in finding islands of meaning while drowning in ocean of meaninglessness. This works like this way, this works this way, this works this way, this works this way.
But life is meaningless ultimately. So it doesn’t make any sense. And nobody is functionally a rejecter of cause and effect connection.
No parent will raise their child saying that there is no cause and effect correlation in life. Even when cause and effect correlation doesn’t make sense, still we don’t lose faith in it. Even if we get a disease for which cause we don’t know, still immediately we look for a treatment.
That means we accept cause and effect principle. So to find the cause and effect correlation, we need to put events in the right frame of reference. Just like if power goes off, then the power switch has been turned on, the bulb has gone off, the power supply has gone off, the country is under attack, or a solar flare has come to the world.
Expand the frame of reference to find in which frame of reference this makes the best sense. So similarly, action-reaction, there is correlation, but it’s not an immediate one-to-one correspondence always. So we might buy a $2 item and get a $2,000 bill, or buy a $2,000 item and get no bill, or just a $2 bill.
That’s because based on what kind of credit we have over there. So similarly, sometimes some people may eat healthily and still, and eat a little unhealthy and fall sick. Some people may eat a lot of unhealthy things and still remain healthy.
That’s the past karmic buffer that is there. Then I talk about Ravana’s story to explain how the expanded frame of reference of previous life helps us to make sense of things. In Christianity, they accept the soul but no reincarnation.
That’s why they can’t explain the problem of evil. Buddhism accepts reincarnation but no soul. That’s why they can’t explain what is it that reincarnates.
But in the Ramayana story I discussed how Ravana had a karmic buffer because of which he did not get the immediate reaction for all his monstrous wrongdoings. But the Vedavati whom he tried to violate, she came back as the Maya Sita. And so when I talked about when Ravana was going through the Himalayas, he did not find the Himalayas very attractive.
Because he was in so much passion, rajas. I talked about video games which increase our reactive attention but doesn’t increase our intentional attention. And Ravana’s reaction was not just the death at the end of his life which Rama inflicted.
It was also the torment of unfulfilled desire which his craving for Sita inflicted on him. So when we have too strong a craving, it’s like a boxing match we can’t win and we can’t quit. It’s like a fire that keeps burning, burning, burning within us.
So that is also a great torment for him. And the greater the good karma somebody has done in the past, the better the position they will be in. Now at one level that may insulate them from their past karmic reactions but that can also mean that they can do far worse karma in this life.
So if an ordinary person hates someone or a big dictator hates someone, dictator can do far greater harm. So Ravana’s evil desire not only caused him to die, not only caused him to be tormented, but the result was all those who were around him, they were also killed. And eventually Ravana himself fell.
So then I concluded that in our lives, if sometimes we are doing good, if we are not getting the credit for it or the result for it, we shouldn’t become discouraged. Just put in a bigger frame of reference and we continue doing our duty and our bhakti. And if we are doing bad and somebody seems to be getting away, then it’s just like they are falling but they are not yet come close to the ground.
Jumping out of an airplane. We don’t have to be so much fearful of what karma is going to hit me when. We are not karma conscious but Krishna conscious.
If we stay conscious of Krishna, then he will protect us from whatever bad karmic reactions are going to come upon us or he will give us the strength to deal with them. And whatever good karma incline we have to do, he will help us to spiritualize it. So whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through.
Whatever. Thank you. Any questions or comments? So Vaidavati was from Lanka.
So when did she turn to Sita? Is it by any chance? Exactly. Yes. So what happened to Vaidavati when she merged into Sita? Yeah, Vaidavati.
When did Vaidavati change into Sita? When the Agni Pariksha was done. At that time again, Vaidavati entered from one side and she went to Agni and Agni returned Sita. So it was Sita who came from the other side.
So it was not so much her purity that was being tested but rather she was being returned. And the excuse of testing her purity was just the external reason. Then Vaidavati in that particular manifestation of the Lord, she was not destined to be united with Ram.
She had to do, sometimes bhavunam janmanam ante jnanvan mam prapadyate. And attaining the Lord can take many lifetimes. So it is a later lifetime when the Lord appears as Balaji.
At that time, one of his consorts is Vaidavati who is returned. So that’s why we say Balaji has two consorts. And this Bhumi Devi, Shri Devi like that.
So one of them is Sita, the other is Vaidavati. That’s when she unites with him. Thank you.
Ray Krishna. Any other questions? We understand that there is cause and effect. We understand the philosophy and everything.
And when we start any work or any good thing in our life, first our mindset is like, okay, whether it is there in our karma, did we get it or no? But when you, suppose it’s a good result, obviously mind gives you happiness and everything is there. But when, suppose it’s not what we desire for, it’s different from what we desire. Maybe it’s like, that is not working out.
Then first comes to mind is that, why am I not getting it? Again it takes some lectures, some reaching to come to the point again that this is based on karma. So as soon as any situation happens in life, how we should cultivate that this is like, this is what karma is like, whether good or bad. So it takes a lot of time for mind to adjust to this concept again.
That’s true. How can we cultivate that understanding that result that we are getting are not necessarily because of our actions alone. So if we don’t get what we deserve, we get something bad when we have done something good.
How can we learn to immediately accept that as karma rather than need to hear some philosophy to understand it? See, it’s not necessary that we always have to resort to past karma only. It’s like say, suppose on a cold night somebody eats 10 ice creams. And then the next morning, they have a terrible throat and they say, ice cream.
Now that terrible throat, is it because of past karma? Yeah, past night karma. So it’s not that everything that happens to us is just because of past karma. There is a combination of present karma and past karma, which comes together in giving us certain results.
That’s why we have to be practical also. That means if I’m doing something and I’m not getting the result, then is there something that I could do to improve it? We should think about it. We should not think this is past karma.
See, in one sense, over-reliance on past karma as the explanation will make us very passive and fatalistic. And over-reliance on present karma will make us very insecure and volatile. Because every failure will start taking it too personally.
So if I don’t do well in an exam, sometimes it may be that I may not have studied, but I have studied well, but still I didn’t do well in the exam. In relationships, sometimes it happens that people try to form a relationship and it doesn’t work. It could be that there’s something wrong with me, but sometimes it’s just that the other person is at fault.
We shouldn’t presume that, but sometimes it can be like that. Sometimes some people are just abusive, some people are terrible people. So then something doesn’t work out, especially in today’s culture where people have dating and everything.
And if somebody breaks up with them, people feel so insecure after that. We have unloved, I’ll be unlovable. People become very insecure.
One of the top ten fears of people in today’s world is the fear of rejection. That I form a relationship and I may get rejected by someone. So if we rely too much on present karma, then what happens? Our life becomes very volatile.
We become very unstable because we take everything very personally. But sometimes things don’t have to be taken so personally. So basically I said put things in the right frame of reference.
So normally the immediate cause effect is the first frame of reference. So suppose if I go for a program somewhere and there is nobody there for the program. Now I could take it personally and say I’m such a poor speaker that nobody comes.
Now that could be true, but suppose that program has been done at a place where at the same time there is some other big event going on and everybody has gone there. Then I have to put it in that context. So I remember I went for a program in one country and the host, he invited me in.
He said actually I’m going for that program. You can sit. Whoever comes, they’ll attend this class.
That was quite humbling. But you don’t have to necessarily take everything too personally. So basically rather than thinking of a right explanation or wrong explanation.
So if we do something and we get some result. Now is it because of our present karma or past karma? Now rather than trying to get too much into that analysis, we focus on trying to find the most constructive frame of reference in which to put it. It’s not that one frame of reference is right and the other is wrong.
We don’t know in these cases what is right and what is wrong. But what is the most constructive frame of reference? So if I have done something and I have not done it so well, then the most constructive frame of reference is let me take care of this in future. But if I have done the best that I can and still the result is not coming and the most constructive frame of reference is there is some past karma involved, then let me move on.
Now moving on also we will have to use our intelligence to decide should I keep doing this, keep doing this? And if we have given a reasonable amount of tries for that and that’s not working, maybe that’s not meant to work. Maybe we need to move to something else. So rather than trying to simply resign the results to past karma alone, we try to place things in the most constructive frame of reference so that we can move on in our life.
Does that answer your question? Any other questions? There’s one question. Yeah, please. Good question.
Is there a cause for causeless mercy? Yes and no. As in the very word causeless indicates that it doesn’t have any cause. But what it means is that the cause is not required for the result.
It’s a precondition. But that doesn’t mean that there is no cause at all. So I’ll give an example.
Once Prabhupada was going for a morning walk and they were passing by a lake and there they saw, it was in America I think, they saw a man feeding the ducks in the lake. So now this man was just throwing crumbs to all the ducks. But there was one duck that was quacking very loudly.
Loudly, loudly, loudly. And then this man was putting more crumbs toward that duck. So Prabhupada said, this is how we attract Krishna’s mercy.
Now if you see from the person’s perspective, that person is completely independent to which duck it feeds. The duck’s quacking is not the cause of the person’s feeding. The duck might keep quacking, quacking and the person might just walk away from there also.
But the person is completely independent you could say. But there is a reciprocal relationship. And because this duck was quacking more, so that person was giving more.
But sometimes they might not give, sometimes the duck might just be noisy and quacking more and the person may choose not to give more. So there is a reciprocal relationship. But it is not always a proportional relationship.
It is not necessary that we have to do this much and we will get that much. In the Bible there is a story, there is a wealthy person who was passing by an area and he saw some people sitting very glumly over there. He said, what happened? He said that we are workers in a field but our field had no crops.
So we have no work now. He said, come and work for me and I will pay you some amount. And then they came to him and started working for him.
And then after that, after a few hours he went there. And then when he went there, he saw some more people standing over there. He said, you also come and work for me.
And then some people worked for him from morning to evening, some people worked for him from afternoon to evening. And at the end, he paid all of them equally. And then those people who had worked from the morning, they said, they protested.
They worked all day, they worked only half day. He said that, you know, you had no job. If I had not employed you, you would have got nothing.
So I have decided that I will pay everyone of you are in need. I didn’t need your work, but I engaged you so that I could fulfill your need. So it is based on your need that I’m giving, not on the amount of work that you are doing.
So he said this is now, of course, is not absolute principle. Labour unions may agitate against this. But he tells the story to illustrate the principle that God’s grace is not necessarily, it’s reciprocal, but it’s not proportional.
It’s not that because I have done this much service, so Krishna, you have to give me this much. We can’t demand like that. Krishna is in that sense.
So our endeavours, we definitely have to do that. By our endeavours, we show our eagerness, our sincerity, our bhakti to Krishna. But it is not our endeavour that determines whether we get mercy and how much mercy we get.
It is Krishna’s sweet will that determines when and how much mercy we get. So it’s causeless in the sense that our endeavour does not determine Krishna’s mercy. But it is also still causal in the sense that there is a reciprocal relationship.
So we need to endeavour. We can have maybe two more questions, life-bonding questions. Yes, please.
Yes, correct. Suppose we are in a relationship with someone and they are doing something bad, which is hurting them and hurting us. But we don’t have the influence to stop them from doing that.
So then how will that end? That’s the question. See, a lot depends on specifics, but I’ll give some broad principles. There is the love that guards and there is the love that guides.
That means that love is the same. But say if a small child, a small maybe 2-3 year old child goes and maybe while playing a ball breaks a neighbour’s window or something like that, window glass, the parents will say that, okay, you know, don’t worry about it. We will pay for it.
Now, if a child does something wrong, the parents stand next to the child and guard the child from the results. But if a teenager or adult child does something like that, then at that time it is the love that has to guide. If the parents keep guarding the child from the consequences of their actions, then what happens is the child keeps doing the wrong thing.
So now, of course, the child is there, but there can be other situations also where guarding others from the consequences of their actions in the name of love is actually a disservice to them. So I was in Connecticut. I had gone to a seminar on spirituality and mental health.
It was spirituality and mental health and addictions. It was a whole group of addicts had come there. Addicts and their family members were there.
So there was one man who was like a little older, 65-70, and there was a girl with him who was just like 5 years old. So then after the class I was talking, they were both Americans, then after that he came and talked with me and he told me that she is his granddaughter. He said that his daughter had become a drug addict and she was taking more and more drugs and he said she would borrow money from me and never return it.
And then I retired and my life savings, one day she broke into my house and stole it all. And then not only that, while she went to get a big haul of drugs, she left her daughter in her home alone and there was some kind of electrical wiring which went off and there was a fire over there. So I had to run and save her at that time.
So when both of these happened in quick succession, till then I was trying to help her, support her. But after both of these happened, I went and did a court case against her. He said I filed a complaint against her and she didn’t go to jail but she had to go to a de-addiction center, penitentiary center.
And then I filed for custody of my granddaughter. And at that time my daughter was so angry with me. She said what kind of father are you? You are taking my own daughter away from me.
You are sending me to jail. Now she is in the de-addiction center and now she is, as she is getting treatment, now she is becoming a little sober. Now she is understanding that what I did for her was good.
So at least she is understanding right now. But even after she comes out, she is not going to get her daughter back. My granddaughter is going to be with me.
I have got the custody. That is an extreme example. But in general, if somebody is an addict, if their addicts are to be counseled, often their family members also have to be counseled.
And there is a concept called co-dependency. Co-dependency means the addicts’ significant other in their life, they unwittingly start facilitating the addict’s addiction. So the addict may get drunk or go high.
And after every episode, their significant other picks up all the pieces. If they keep doing that, when that person is not hit by the consequences of their actions, then they keep doing it more and more and more. So sometimes letting people suffer the consequences of their actions is love.
It’s painful. There is no easy way. We don’t want them to hurt, but we don’t want us to also get hurt.
So these are decisions that have to be taken very carefully. And as I said, a lot will depend on the specifics. But the principle is that if that particular suffering which we are getting is because of that person’s misuse of freedom, then at the very least, we should stop giving them power over us.
If this person, somebody is an addict and squandering all the money and then you say it’s my own karma. Well, it’s not karma, that’s irresponsibility. It requires courage to take a stand.
Now, of course, everybody commits mistakes and we can’t just come thundering down on people for one or two mistakes. But if something has been done repeatedly, again and again, worse and worse degrees, then at the very least, we have to create some distance. Now, specifically how we do that, that will vary.
Now, sometimes it might be something different, like somebody is autistic or has some other mental health, mental developmental issues. Because of which they are aggressive, because of which they act in ways that hurt others. They are not exactly consciously doing it.
Then it’s a different dynamic. But we will have to see the specifics. Broadly speaking, we have to look at things from the perspective of what is the best for that person, but what is also the best for us.
Because if we are drowning ourselves in trying to help them, then they will drown and we will also drown. So it’s not selfishness to think of our basic survival needs. That’s intelligence.
Beyond that, if we start thinking only of ourselves, then that’s a problem. It’s like, say, in airplanes it is said that whenever there is an emergency, first put the mask on yourself, then put it on your children. Why? Because if we try to put it on the children first, we might not be able to reach them and fix it and they may not be able to put it on.
So there are times when if our very life is itself becoming unbearable, not in the sense of not in the sense that something happens and for the next some time we feel very bad about it, but repeatedly happening again and again. Then some appropriate action is required. Does that answer your question? Any other questions? Yes, please.
So why did Ram abandon Sita? I have written a whole book on the Ramayana. There is a full article on that and I have a one hour class on this also. But I will not go into that.
Basically, I use an acronym SEES to explain this. So now first principle over there is that sacrifice. So is it that Ram was so reputation conscious that because Sita was accused, just because of that he sent her away.
Now if Ram himself was so reputation conscious, then for a king to preside without a queen, it’s not good for reputation at all. And he was a powerful king. He could have married somebody else.
He did not marry anyone else. So it is not just Sita’s sacrifice, it is Ram’s sacrifice also. And another point on the word sacrifice is when Ram performed those yajnas which as a Grahastha king he had to perform, the priest told him, you need a wife.
So then he made a golden image of Sita and put over it. Now generally to do sacrifices, we try to purify, we take a bath and we sanctify ourselves. So Ram personally considered Sita so pure that even a refugee could sit next to her.
So it was a sacrifice on their part. Now you say, why do a sacrifice like that? What’s the reason? Is that somebody makes an accusation? Because of that you have to give it up? That brings us to EE’s ethical dilemma. There is moral dilemma where two choices are there.
One is moral, the other is immoral. You just need strength of character to choose the right solution. But ethical dilemma is where there are two choices.
Both of them are good or both of them are bad. Then you have to choose between which is more good or which is less bad. That requires not just strength of character or willpower, it also requires intelligence, discernment.
So in that case, Ram was torn between his duty as a husband and his duty as a king. So the king had to have a spotless reputation. And this is not just Indian culture.
Even in western culture, Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion. In the past, there was a cultural expectation everywhere. So Ram had already done what he could.
He already had Sita Goswami Agni Pariksha. And Brahma himself had come and sanctified it. Even after that if a rumor is spreading, what could he do? Now if he had tried to go after the people who were doing the rumor, that would have seemed like he was so attached that you are abusing your royal power to get at us.
So he chose at that time to give precedence to his duty as a king as compared to his duty as a father. A duty as a husband. In one some way that is a very significant example for a country like India where much corruption happens in the form of nepotism.
Nepotism is one minister, one politician becomes a minister and the whole ministry is taken over by his family members. So Ram said nothing for himself. It’s a great sacrifice.
And although he gave priority to his duty as a king, but he did not completely reject his duty as a husband. Ram himself was sent to the forest and that is different from Sita being sent to the forest. Because when Ram went to the forest, it was out of the kingdom, out into the wilderness with nothing.
He had to construct his own kutir and stay amidst the animals. Sita was sent to near Valmiki’s ashram. Now Valmiki’s ashram was still in Ram’s kingdom.
So indirectly she was still under the protection of Sita, under the protection of Ram. So it was an ethical dilemma and that was the best solution he could come up with in that situation. And next E is esoteric explanation.
Esoteric means we need to expand the frame of reference to understand it. It was not just the accusation that led to that. He described that in a previous time there was a demon who was terrorizing the devatas and that demon was finally attacked by Vishnu.
And while Vishnu was chasing after the demon, the demon went to the ashram of Bhrigu Rishi. And Bhrigu Rishi was not there. So his wife Khyati was there.
And he begged, please save me, save me. And he had come in the garb of a nice pious looking person over there. He said, I will protect you.
I am like your mother. And then Vishnu told her, begged her, she told her, he is a terrible demon. And after a big, big time, we have been able to weaken him.
And if we don’t kill him, he will again become murderous. She says, no, I have surrendered to him. I have given him shelter.
I will not let him go. So sometimes, sometimes civilians might shelter a criminal. And the only way to get to the criminal, the civilians become collateral damage at that time.
The law enforcers do not want to kill the civilians. But that’s what happened with Vishnu. And when Bhrigu Muni came back, he was furious with Vishnu.
And he said, just as you curse Vishnu, just as you have forced me to be separated from my wife, you will be separated from your wife. And that curse was, now Vishnu of course is beyond curses, but he respects Brahmana, the Brahminical culture. That’s why he voluntarily submits out of his respect to the Brahminical cultures.
So he agreed to that. And that’s how, that’s why he had to be separated from Sita. Madhvacharya in his Mahabharata also tells about another demon who had this, demons are very cunning.
So he had a benediction that he said, as long as Vishnu and Lakshmi are united, Narayana Vishnu and Lakshmi are united, I will not be killed. He asked that benediction from devatas. So then, then that’s why Ram and Sita had to be separated.
And then when they were separated, Indra started attacking him, weakening him. And Indra had to fight for many, many, many years eventually. And then when Indra killed that demon, that’s when Ram called Sita back.
But by that time, Sita decided to enter into the earth. And of course, from the Gaudiya Vishnu perspective, he also understood that love in separation is the highest love. That so Sita, when Ram sent Sita away, it was not a rejection.
It was just like Krishna went away from the Gopis. It was similar. And if you look at that perspective, it is the Lord in different avataras or different things.
So that same Lord Ram, now Ram is demonstrating a particular virtue throughout, that is selflessness. The whole Ramayana specializes in the selflessness. And how Bharat selflessly kept, sat as a servant below the royal throne, how Lakshman went selflessly.
So this Ram sending Sita away is also an act of selflessness. So if at all it is to be compared, some people have tried to portray this from a feminist lens, that all women were so much exploited and Sita was victimized. Sita is not a victim.
Sita is also a very strong character. And so it is like, it is to be compared, it is not that Ram victimized Sita and sent her away. It is rather, just as Dashrath had to send Ram away earlier to the forest.
Similarly Ram had to send Sita away to the forest. And just as going to the forest, sending Ram to the forest was painful for Dashrath. Similarly sending Sita was painful for Ram.
But just as Dashrath and Ram, both of them are heroic in their strength of character, in doing that sacrifice for a higher cause. Similarly Ram and Sita are also heroic in their selflessness, in doing that particular activity. So it is that selflessness that is the enduring inspiration of the Ramayana.
In India, even if you look at the world today, India has one of the strongest family structures. So and Ramayana is a book which has influenced Indians for millennia. So is it the inspiration of the Ramayana that men have become judgmental towards their wives and have abandoned their wives? There is hardly any history like that.
But the inspiration that people have taken from Ramayana is the inspiration of selflessness. So sometimes in scripture, certain virtues are demonstrated in extreme degrees. Now those extreme degrees, examples are meant for inspiration, not for standardization.
So just like we can say Ajaam Eli just chanted the name of Vishnu once and he was delivered. Does that mean all of us will do all kinds of nonsense and at the time of death we will chant Vishnu’s name? No, that extreme example is meant to illustrate a universal principle. And what we should do is focus on universal principle.
Oh if one chanting of the holy name of Vishnu can have so much potency, how much will regular chanting have? So this is an extreme example and what is the enduring inspiration is not the standardization of the extreme example, but the universal principle of selflessness. Thank you. Hare Krishna.