Why did Rama banish Sita?

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Chowpatty, India]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So broadly I have written a book on the Ramayana In which this is an elaborate essay On the last topic So I will be using 4 points To try to explain this And it’s not that what I am going to say Is necessarily a definitive explanation But I have read I have consulted with many Ramayana scholars I have tried to read the Sanskrit Ramayana And try to understand the mood of what is going on over there I looked at various Ramayana commentaries And I have come to a particular understanding Which at least I find reasonable Because this was one of the most difficult pastimes For me myself to accept So I will be using 4 points As I said I will be using the acronym C’s C’s means Pashyati So the Bhagavata often says Pashyan Apina Pashyati Or the Bhagavatam says We see but we do not see So to see we don’t just see with our eyes We see with the eyes of knowledge So somebody says Somebody who doesn’t know anything about market economics Such a person Comes to a stock market And sees on a big screen A line going down And everybody catches their heads And they start getting heart attacks What happened? Just one line went down But A lot is meant by that line going down So we don’t just see with our eyes We see with the knowledge That helps us to make sense of what we see with our eyes So if we see with our eyes This incident does seem to be Unreasonable even outrageous we could say But let’s try to see What the mood of the What the whole context is So S E E S So first point I will talk about is sacrifice So now When you talk about Ram The whole idea is That if Ram abandoned Sita Just because there was an acquisition Because the acquisition was that She had stayed with Ravana so she was impure And because she was impure She could not be with Ram And if that was all that was there If Ram was so reputation conscious Ram was so suspicious That Sita was Impure Then Why did Ram never remarry? If a king is so reputation conscious And a king without a queen Throughout his reign There is nothing particularly Attractive About that This is better Visible So these are four points Sacrifice, ethical dilemma, esoteric explanations And selflessness So we are discussing right now About the sacrifice part So first point is Ram did not remarry And replace Sita If he was so reputation conscious Then for a king He wanted a queen with him And because he was the king Of a powerful kingdom He could easily have married anyone else But he did not do that And he did not do that for multiple reasons One reason of course was that He had given his word to Sita That I will be ek patnivat I will have only one wife, one queen So he stuck to that word Not only that Later on when yajnas are to be performed At that time Especially if somebody is A householder, the husband and wife Perform the yajnas together They are the yajman So the priest told that you need your queen with you Now the priest said You should remarry He said no And what did he do? He got a golden effigy of Sita And he placed that with him And with that he performed The sacrifices Now generally To perform any fire sacrifices One has to be very pure Now we take a proper bath, we sanctify ourselves In the Ramayana Mahabharata, actually The sanctification that one does Before doing the sacrifice, the purification That itself is sometimes called Diksha Diksha is not just a lifelong relationship Between the Guru and the disciple It is also the priest who is going to initiate Somebody into the sacrifice So it requires a significant amount of purity So Ram, by having Sita’s effigy right next to him In that sacrifice Indicated that not only did he consider her Pure, but he considered her So pure that she could be right Next to him, in her effigy form Performing sacrifices Now if somebody is impure Somebody is considered to be Contaminated Now we don’t make effigies At all of contaminated people, certainly if we make An effigy also, we don’t keep that That is a sacred place So the whole idea that Ram considered Sita impure or Ram was reputation conscious Just look at the broad Context that doesn’t Have any weight to it Now, if we consider What was going on over here So Ram, he did Send Sita away But when he sent Sita away Why did he do that? So if it is not just a reputation What was going on? If you look at the next point This ethical dilemma Now what is an ethical dilemma? In an ethical dilemma There are two options Both of them are right But one has to consider Which is the more right option If there is a moral dilemma In a moral dilemma, one option Is moral, the other is immoral And then we have to choose Which one to do in that situation But for choosing, we just need inner strength If somebody is tempted to do Something wrong And somebody is offered some Right for corruption, somebody is offered some Adulterous pleasure Or whatever At that time, one option is moral, one is immoral One needs ethical One needs moral strength To choose the right option Here the right option Is not difficult to know But to go towards That right option may be difficult There is an ethical dilemma Inside us, there is a mind And there is an intelligence In moral dilemmas, it is the mind That is going wild The mind says, I want to go here No, no, you should go here But in ethical dilemmas It is not just the mind It is the intelligence itself that is confused The intelligence is confused means That What is the right thing to do That itself is not clear Now Why may it not be clear Because It may not be clear because We may have certain ideas Of what is right Say for example, a riot is going on And there are rioters Who are chasing a friend of ours And that friend Comes running and knocks on our door He opens the door and please hide me, please save me And then We take that person and Hide him in a closet in our house And then the rioters come running And they bang on the door Is this person here Now We think, I should speak the truth Should I speak the truth Should I not speak the truth Speaking the truth Is good But in this situation Speaking the truth Will lead to a disaster So what is happening Speaking the truth is a good thing Saving somebody’s life is a good thing Here both are good things But which Is going to lead to the greater Good That This is an ethical dilemma In an ethical dilemma we have to consider Not only That this is right or this is right Because both are right But which will lead to a greater good That is what has to be considered So that’s why ethical dilemmas Are difficult to Decide what to do in that situation And we may say In the Mahabharata it is said That broadly when we decide What to do or what not to do A broad Ultimate guideline is scripture tells us It’s like a broad map for our life But beyond that There are three broad factors we can consider There is intent There is content And there is consequence So content means Speaking truth is good Speaking false is bad That’s content So we could say that there are certain categories This is the category of the right course of action This is the category of the wrong course of action So this is the idea of Categorical ethics Categorical ethics means That right action is one category Wrong action is another category But real life Is never so black and white Sometimes it is But frequently there are shades of grey So speaking truth is good Speaking false is bad But speaking truth Causes somebody to get murdered And speaking a lie Leads to somebody’s life being saved Then what has happened over here We can’t just put truth and false In two distinct categories over here So there is Categorical ethics and what is called as Contextual ethics Contextual ethics means That depending on context Depending on context They have to decide This is what is right This is what is not right Say a child doesn’t want to take any medicines And there is a medicine pill I am not going to take it The mother might get a chocolate And put that medicine inside the chocolate And squeeze it inside Make it a round ball again and give it The child asks, is the medicine in this? Now The medicine is essential for the child to take And the child Is not going to take it If the medicine is there in it Then what should the mother do at that time What do you think? There is no medicine over there, this is just chocolate Isn’t it? So here what are we looking at? We are looking at not just the content of what is right Or what is wrong But we are looking at the intent as well as the consequence The consequence here is That for the child If the medicine is taken The result will be good And for the child if the medicine is not taken The result will be bad So you look at the consequence and you also look at the intent The mother’s intent Is not to deceive the child The mother’s intent is to benefit the child So Why am I talking about all this right now With respect to Ram sending Sita away That is the question we are discussing So What was the dilemma that Ram was facing? See he All of us have different duties We all have different roles And different roles we have different responsibilities So sometimes These different responsibilities pull us In different directions Say If somebody has a high pressure High demanding job And then they just come back home And they need to spend some time with their family But suddenly the boss calls Emergency at work, come back now So now you have a duty as a family member You have a duty as a professional Now which duty do you do at that time? Sometimes If the office emergency is very much You may say I have to go there right now And sometimes at home there is something very urgent You may say no I cannot come now So sometimes two different roles May pull us in two different directions And then Now to do our job is important To take care of a family is also important But which do we choose at that time? Here there is not a question of right or wrong It is right and right Both are important But which is more important right now? So in the case of Ram It is important to understand The cultural context In which this whole incident happened The cultural context is that Ram is a king And Now today There is a lot of Opposition to the idea of monarchy Or dictatorship Because people have had many bad experiences With kings If a king is dictatorial A king Who just does whatever they want to do Arbitrarily And abuses power Then people become very Averse to such a king The story of Akbar and Birbal So Akbar was Going to Going from his palace To his To his court And he saw a Washerman along the way And then as he was looking at the Washerman And he was on his horse And as he was moving along Somehow the horse stumbled And he fell And then he fell He got annoyed And he went inside And as soon as he came into his palace He slipped And again he fell So first he got injured And then he just Entered into the palace And then he put his hand somewhere And there was a candle lit over there And his hand got burnt What is happening? Why are so many things going wrong? And then he thought You know something inauspicious is there What happened today? Everyday I come in this routine But nothing happens like this So Today what was special? Today I saw that washerman And he said washerman is very inauspicious So he says because of him I fell down, because of him I got injured Because of him I got burnt So he called Birbal And he said that this washerman Is very inauspicious He spoils the day of everyone Punish him Punish him? He will ruin the day of everyone He has ruined my day Punish him What punishment? Hang him Whatever you decide that is fine But at the same time When you saw the Saw the washerman Did the washerman also see you? He said Yeah he saw me Then Birbal said that See for you When you saw him You fell down, you got a scratch You got a bruise, you got a burn But he saw you And because of that he is going to die So who is more inauspicious? Okay okay Don’t punish him anymore So the point here is That kings can Arbitrarily use or abuse Their power and unless there is somebody Intelligent will direct their power Properly they can abuse the power So because of this the idea of kingship Has got a lot of negative Press in today’s world But in the past when there were kings They were extremely responsible Extremely sacrificing Extremely giving We have in the Bhagavatam the stories of Two kings who were ready To sacrifice not only their Comforts but even their own necessities For the sake of Others Does anyone know those two kings? Yes, Rantidev is one Maharaj Shibi Rantidev was ready to give his own food Although he had been fasting for a long time And Shibi was ready to give his own Flesh Because that’s what was asked for So the kings in those Times were very different from the kings in our Recent experience And even in those times Ram is considered to be His kingdom is considered to be exemplary So he was an exemplary king, that’s why we call him Ramarajya So then what is going on Over here So now Ram, one of the duties Of a king Is To, although the king has More opulence The most opulence in the kingdom But the king is Expected to exemplify detachment One way The king exemplifies detachment is That once the king retires The king hands over the kingdom to someone else And then takes the retired order of life That’s one way the king exemplifies detachment Another way the king exemplifies Detachment is that The king may be the ruler of the whole kingdom But if the sages come The king gets off the throne And offers obeisances Serves the sages And by this detachment, what is the king showing That yes I have all this power, I have all this position But there is something more To be achieved We have even in this 500 years Of the example of Maharaj Pratap Rudra Although he was the king In front of the world he was the king But in front of the supreme king In front of Jagannath He was just a servant And he would sweep the streets in front of Jagannath So the kings were They are not just living in luxury and royalty But the kings were conscious Of their responsibility And what was his responsibility One aspect of his responsibility As a king is to exemplify detachment That although I have so much But And required I am not I am ready to give it up when I have to retire Although I have so much prestige, I am ready to bow down Before the sages So similarly, one aspect of detachment Was what Ram had to exemplify Over here So when people started accusing That Sita is Impure So at that time, now this Accusation was spreading Like wildfire And you know when When doubts come or when Rumors come Rumors are like fire And how to deal with A rumor Is very difficult To decide I was in California a couple of months ago There is a place called Paradise Now Paradise has turned into Hell right now What has happened is, that place was called Paradise But there was a terrible fire over there California there are wild brushes Wild forests and huge fires Come up over there So one of my friends over there Is a fire fighter And he was telling that actually With America It’s all advanced technology, can’t it extinguish Some fires So it’s not like that In the forest, the fire can come anytime And sometimes If the fire comes By its own accord, then the fire gets extinguished Also of its own accord And sometimes If you try to extinguish it Say the fire is like this And you try to pour water from this side And sometimes the attempt to extinguish the fire Causes the fire to escalate You extinguish on this side And the fire starts going on that side So it’s very dicey When to let the fire be as it is And when to put all the endeavor to extinguish And how to extinguish it also And when rumors or accusations Start coming up They are like fire So generally When an accusation comes up The more we counter the accusation Quite often it happens That brings more attention to the accusation Oh! This person accused you of this And you say no, I didn’t do this Then it gives more attention Sometimes just neglect the accusation Neglect the rumor, it will go away But sometimes neglected People start thinking that There is no counter to the accusation And it starts growing, growing, growing And then we may have to respond to it So it’s very difficult To decide when an accusation Or a rumor comes up When to neglect to it Or when to respond to it How to respond to it So in this case The accusation had become Quite strong And widespread So now Ram He Could have used his Power to crush the accusers Crush the rumor mongers But that would have made people Think that Just see, first he is so attached And now when we point out What is wrong, he is using his power To crush the accusation So that would have only perpetuated The conception that he was so Attached Now He could have neglected it But it is growing so much That it has gone beyond the phase of Neglect Now personally, as I said, Ram did not Consider Sita impure in any way But in that Situation he had to take some action So as a husband He had a duty to protect his wife As a king he has a duty He has to take care of his citizens He has to set the right Example for his citizens And one aspect of the example is detachment So now among these Two duties, which one to follow What to do So then Now sometimes it is said that Ram Exiled Sita or Ram banished Sita But it is not Exactly that Because if we consider There is another exile that happened in the Ramayana Which is that exile Ram himself was exiled, isn’t it Now when Ram was exiled He was sent right Into the forest, out of the kingdom Of Ayodhya and he had to Go out and live In the wilderness Create his own cottage And fend off the wild Beasts and demons and live over there With respect to Sita It was not like that Ram asked Lakshman to take Sita To the nearby hermitage of Valmiki And Valmiki Muni’s ashram was Still in the broad kingdom Of Ram So In that sense Sita Was still within the Broad protection of Ram If any demon attacks Valmiki’s ashram Ram would go there to protect So if any danger comes to Sita Ram would be there to protect So Ram did not exactly Exile Sita in the same sense In which he himself Had been exiled So what he did was She was no longer in the palace with him So He did prioritize over here His duty as a king And for that duty He sacrificed To some extent his duty As a husband But it was not just that much He did not simply Abandon Sita He had her entrusted in the care of Valmiki Rishi And there in that ashram She lived So Ram addressed The allegation that he was attached By creating a distance Between him and Sita But still She was under his protection Indirectly So the important point over here Is that Among the two options Ram chose The option of Serving his state Serving his nation And in today’s world Especially among political leaders There is so much nepotism Nepotism is Corruption where people Use their contacts To get their family members together One person becomes a minister And then in that ministry 25 other relatives Get all the top posts And They take over the ministries It becomes like Their own home party So For such a culture Ram sets an extraordinary Example of Detachment That he places his higher duty Above his duty to the family Now for him Also it was painful It was Certainly Sita was deprived But Ram himself was deprived So it was a painful choice For both of them It was not just something Which Sita had to suffer Ram also had to suffer over there I’ll come back to this point a little later Now of course you could say that They don’t suffer They are the divine couple And I’ll come to this So I was talking about the acronym C is S E E S So third E is Esoteric explanations Now esoteric explanations means That everything that happens There are Multiple levels of causation for that Say If you say that somebody Gets malaria Now we may say What is the cause of malaria What do you think Mosquitoes Mosquito infected with a germ that bites us And that gives malaria But sometimes it may happen That in a house There may be five people And only one person Gets malaria Now is it that Mosquito bites only that one person Maybe that mosquito Might have bit the other people also But you could say there are other factors That one person’s immunity might be better Another person’s immunity might not be so good But sometimes if you test Everybody may have the same level of immunity But still one person gets infected So there are multiple Levels of causation So there is an immediate cause There is a remote cause There is an ultimate cause So the immediate cause for the malaria Is that that person Was That that person had A person was bitten by mosquito Once I had some fever And the fever was not going for quite some time So I went to the hospital And in the hospital I was admitted for a few days I recovered from the fever and I came back And then I started getting Even higher degree fever And then we went and diagnosed And we found that While I was in the hospital Somehow something happened It was an ordinary fever I had But in the hospital I got TB So now normally people go to the hospital To get cured But what happened is in the hospital I got infected Sometimes it happens unfortunately like that So we may say there is an immediate cause But beyond the immediate cause There are other levels of causes also So the immediate cause is one cause So we could say that somebody who gets malaria The mosquito biting is one cause Another level of cause is The remote cause is that We all have particular karma And because of that karma We sometimes get some diseases Just like say Normally If somebody We eat food we get strength If we eat too much food Then we gain weight Now we may say that yes this is the linear thing If you eat too much food You gain weight But it’s not always like that Some people They may eat Very little food But still Sometimes some people are genetically predisposed towards Obesity They just have a big body Or some people They may have some other issues Sometimes Thyroid issues or whatever Just the weight may go up Or some other people They treat their tongue like a conveyor belt Just take it Anything and everything And still they taste slim So what is happening here There is an immediate cause The immediate cause is you eat and your weight increases But Sometimes the immediate cause May not be the complete cause And sometimes despite the immediate cause Not being there also The result may come And sometimes in spite of the immediate cause Being there the result may not come So there are multiple levels of causation Because of which certain things happen So similarly when we are talking about Esoteric explanations over here We are looking at another level of causation So from the context of the Mahabharata We look at We look at what happened Ok this is the incident There is the accusation and Ram sends Sita away That seems outrageous Why would somebody do like that But we look at the bigger context And we look at the bigger context And then we understand Ok it’s like this So intelligence Means to understand The right level of causation To explain something To understand the right level of causation Say right now Some of us start feeling very hot Now we may say why am I feeling hot over here Hey this fan is not on fully That could be one reason Another reason could be It’s India It’s in the day time Noon it becomes hot You could say that’s one reason Another reason is Actually there is climate change Because of which the temperature All over the world is going up Because of that it’s so hot Another reason could be Oh because There is so much crowd over here That’s why we are feeling congested So now For the same action There could be different levels of explanation And If we don’t Get to the right level of the explanation Then we misunderstand Things and we make a mess of things Sometimes We may need to escalate the explanation To a higher level Say if somebody comes from a cold country Like UK or America Northern part of America, Canada Then they may feel India is very hot And yes it is hot Then ok even if you have AC Even if you have fans The country is itself hot That is the level of explanation we need to look at But If the fan is not working And somebody I’m feeling very hot Can you turn on the fan? No actually India is hot No but turn on the fan No India is hot That’s a valid reason but here Just turn on the fan, the heat will go down So intelligence means That we have to find out The right level of causation So Often we get misled When we don’t find the right level of causation Sometimes a small issue We may escalate To a very big level So when people Get depression What happens in depression It is a small incident And people Extrapolate it To the biggest possible level So I was Talking at a mental health care centre in Connecticut In America And then I was talking with the mental health care providers As well as the mental health care patients About how they got depressed Or why they came there, what are their experiences So there was One girl, one woman So she was saying That what happened She was Serving at her home She was just bringing a glass of water To get for some guest who had come And while she was getting the glass of water Somehow the glass slipped from her hands And the glass slipped And fell down The glass broke, the water spilled over there She said From that I felt I am worthless I am useless I can’t even carry a glass of water What can I do with my life And that one Incident of the glass of water Falling out of her hand Triggered her depression And eventually she ended up In a mental health care centre Okay, okay The water fell down, took it up and Get another glass of water, wipe it Remove the glass and move on with life But what happens When the intelligence doesn’t function properly Then we Go to the wrong level of causation So okay If a glass slipped from the hand Maybe my hand was wet, maybe the floor was wet Maybe the glass itself was slippery Maybe I was just inattentive somewhere There could be so many explanations for that But when we escalate the issue to the wrong level Then we misunderstand So intelligence Means to understand The right level of causation So here I looked at one level of causation The causation for understanding things is That the context, it is an ethical dilemma For Ram, but we can go beyond this So esoteric explanations means We go further, beyond this life To another life Beyond this level to another level So In the Ramayana itself There is an explanation Of why did Ram Abandon Sita And described That there was a demon Who was terrorizing the devatas And when this demon Was terrorizing the devatas At that time This demon, he finally Vishnu came to the aid of the devatas And Vishnu came And started Attacking this demon And the demon realized that Oh my god, I cannot fight with Vishnu And he fled from there But because this demon had been terrorizing Devatas for so long Vishnu gave chase And when Vishnu gave chase At that time This demon ran Ran, ran and he came back He came to The hermitage of Bhrigu Rishi Now Bhrigu Rishi is one of the Celestial sages And when he came there, Bhrigu Rishi was not there At that time, Bhrigu’s wife Khyati was there And he Fell at her feet and said, please save me Please save me And now she was a motherly figure And she said Yes, I’ll save you Now she was motherly, she was Compassionate Now she didn’t consider Why is he in danger, what wrong has he done She just said, okay I’ll protect you You stay over here, stay in my hermitage And then Vishnu came over there And Vishnu told her That Hand him over to us She said, no, I have given him protection I cannot hand him over Then he said, no He is a terrible demon, if he escapes Now, again he will Wreck havoc in the universe He says, he has killed So many people, he has murdered and consumed So many sages, he has Violated so many women, he has Created so much terror and even the Gods are not Able to curb him Now he has become weak, he has been overpowered It’s a long, long fight That is going on, it’s the last stage Don’t come in the way He said, no, I Will not let him go He says, no, we have to protect the universe We have to stop So then Khyati, somehow She got the idea, she said that The only way you will get to him Is over my dead body You will not get to him So now, Bhrigu Rishi was not there At that time, so now Vishnu Realized that There is no way ahead for him Now, Lord Vishnu Is transcendental And we know from scripture That actually Everybody has to die sometime or the other But somebody dies At the hands of Vishnu, they become liberated So then Lord Vishnu did the needful And Khyati’s soul Became liberated And then he got to this demon And he Delivered the demon also, but when Bhrigu Rishi Came back, he saw what had happened Momentarily, he became Very angry And he said Vishnu, the way you have Caused me to be separated from My wife, I curse you That you will be separated from your wife Now, Lord Vishnu does not Have to accept anyone’s curse But he respects the Brahmanas And he said Whatever curse you give I will accept it And he accepts that curse And that Resulted in Ram and Sita getting separated So it was not just Sita’s particular action We see that Sometimes We do an action A And we get a reaction B That’s broadly speaking the law of karma But the law of karma Is not that simple Action A does not necessarily Lead to reaction B We all have our karma Say three people are walking along a road And they are walking and Chatting with each other And below there is some water which is spilled And None of them notices the water is spilled So all of them slip over there Now The first person, that person is Near a tree So they slip But there is a branch over there Catch the branch and steady themselves The second person slips And there is a puddle of water nearby The person falls over there Their whole cloth gets dirty And nothing gets injured Except their pride But third person falls And there is a There is a sharp Stone cropping out from the ground below And that person’s head hits that stone Head person falls unconscious And gets brain hemorrhage Now we may say All three of them Slipped All three of them were inattentive And because of that they slipped But what has happened The action which they did It’s all the same But the reaction they got is different So why is that It’s not just action A Leads to reaction B It is true But all of us have our Past karma And sometimes action A May lead to a Big reaction B And sometimes Action A Might be very big But there might be no reaction to it Or there might be very minor reaction to it So sometimes if our karma Is good As one devotee in America was telling me that India when we drive People just drive in such Unpredictable ways So driving can be an adventure Or it can be a nightmare Depending on our perspective In America there is another kind of danger You drive on the road which is so straight And so clear that There is nothing much happening Just going along the road So while driving people fall asleep So Now what happened this devotee was telling me He was driving He woke up early He wanted to go to the temple for Mangal Aarti And from his home the temple was Like a straight line And he got up and he was very tired And while driving he went to sleep And There were several intersections but the road was all straight And finally He just Heard the sound of Kirtan And he got up and he saw His car was just nearing the temple So throughout he was sleeping So he was sleeping But nothing happened to him Now sometimes what may happen is That Now sleeping while driving is dangerous But sometimes Sometimes you may do a small thing wrong And a big consequence may come up Sometimes you may do a big mistake But no consequence may come up Very little consequence will come up That’s how what happens is Although the law of karma is there It’s not just action A leads to action B But action A May not be the sole cause of action B If somebody’s karma is bad Action A might be a small trigger And the reaction B might be very bad Somebody’s karma is good Action A might be bad But the reaction B might not be very much Like earlier I talked about obesity Say somebody who has by their karma They have got They are meant to have a healthy, fit, slim body So now even if they eat a lot That action A does not lead to individual B But somebody Is meant to have a sickly body And there is a little imbalance in their eating And they fall sick Their body bloats out like a balloon Whatever happens So what happens is action A and reaction B Are not necessarily Equivalent immediately Every action will have a proportional reaction But the reaction we get at that time May not be Exactly proportional to the action at that time That’s how So the point I am making over here is When Ram and Sita are separated It is not just because Sita stayed with Ravana Or Sita was accused There is much more going on over there Madhvacharya Has written a book called Mahabharata Tattvare Nirnay Where he addresses controversies in the Mahabharata And there also he addresses Some of the controversies in the Ramayana And there He quotes from the scripture to talk about A demon, a very cunning demon Demons, they all want to be Immortal And in one sense none of us Wants to die But they try to not Spiritualize their consciousness but at the material level They try to become immortal And they try to ask different conditions So like we have Hiranyakashipu saying that No human being, no animal Not morning, not night Not inside the house, not outside the house So they all try to ask different Cunning ways to get Their way to immortality So there was this demon, he propitiated the gods He pleased the gods And he asked for a benediction He said Let me never die As long as Lakshmi and Narayan Are united Now he thought Lakshmi and Narayan will never be separated And therefore I will never die So then What happened? Lord Ram arranged this leela by which Lakshmi And Narayan got separated And when they got separated That was the time Indra attacked that demon And now still that demon was not Very easy to defeat So Indra was fighting that demon for Year after year after year after year And finally Indra killed that demon And the moment Indra killed that demon That was the time Ram called Sita back You know later in the Ramayana Eventually Ram says Enough is enough Sita has suffered enough, I am going to call Sita back And he calls Sita back By that time Sita says Enough is enough now And he says I don’t want to live anymore I will enter into the earth The earth opens and she enters into the earth So the point is there is much more That is happening over there You just look at one frame And you think this is outrageous But if you look at a bigger frame Intelligence means to See the event in the right context In the right frame So when our frame expands And something which seems outrageous in this frame Okay it starts making sense when I put it in the right frame Now the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition Of which we are a part It also explains that there is another aspect to this That Krishna And relationship with Krishna Relationship with Lord Ram or Krishna Vishnu is not like Any ordinary relationship Because at one level When we love someone and we are separated from that person We are just separated from that person That person is somewhere, we are somewhere else But the Lord is not like that The Lord is omnipresent He is present everywhere And that’s why even when somebody Is separated from him Actually they are not necessarily separated from him So when Krishna left Vrindavan And went away from the Gopis At one level Krishna was separated from the Gopis But at another level Actually in their memory Krishna They remembered him even more And in that sense They actually experienced greater union with Krishna Then They experienced union when he was with them So Separation Intensifies devotion Separation Intensifies love So the example given for this is that Separation Does to love What wind does to fire If there is a big Forest fire going on And the worst thing that can happen For fire fighters nightmare is If a big wind comes over there The wind will cause the fire To spread So similarly for Ram Ram and for Sita Their love was so Great That when they reunited When now they Sita was going to have a child Their love had attained its zenith And then The separation that was created between them Whatever be the external context of that separation That separation Intensified their love Intensified their love So that separation was like wind Which Increased the fire So both of them Actually became more and more devoted to each other And That’s why we see that Sita Never poisoned The minds of Love and Kush Against Ram Sita said your father is so bad that he abandoned me like this Later on There was a fight between Love and Kush and Ram’s soldiers And eventually when they were about to fight Ram Sita came and Stopped them, what are you doing, he is your father He is respectable, he is worshipable for you How can you fight against him So the love of Sita for Ram or Ram for Sita That did not turn into Bitterness or resentment or anger It actually Deepened Now it deepened because already their love Was very deep Here I said separation does to love what wind does to fire Now we shouldn’t misapply this Principle, if you think I will get Separated from Krishna, I will get separated from Devotees and my devotion will increase No For that the love has to be like a forest fire Our devotion Is like a candle fire When wind comes and there is a candle fire What happens The candle gets extinguished So if we go away From devotee association If we deliberately get separated from devotee association We get separated from Krishna Our devotion will get extinguished But when there is a great Devotion, separation intensifies The devotion So these are esoteric Explanations when we further expand The scale of reference, the first Expansion is beyond this life To another level of reality, that is the Celestial level, the heavenly Level and second level of expansion is To the spiritual level Where we see that actually This is not an ordinary person, this is God And love for him Is such that even In remembering him one can experience So that is esoteric Explanation and the last part now We will talk about is Selflessness So if we Consider that same Lord, Supreme Lord He comes as Ram and he also comes As Krishna, if that Lord is so reputation conscious So honor conscious That because Sita was Considered impure, Ram abandoned her But then that same Ram Comes as Krishna And what does he do as Krishna? There is this Demon, Bhaumasur He has Is very demonic And he has abducted many many Princesses and He is Planning to do a Sacrifice And that sacrifice he wants to Appropriate all these princesses for himself And Krishna Goes over there And then he fights and He frees He kills the demon And he frees all the princesses And then the princesses Tell Krishna that People will consider us Contaminated because we have stayed In the demon’s palace, although that demon had not Touched, Narada Muni was very expert Narada Muni comes and tells him that Actually you first perform the sacrifice And then If you perform austerity till you do the sacrifice And then you do whatever you want You will gain military might, you will become more powerful So Although there was no contact But this reputation Would be there that oh they stayed in somebody else’s house They would become contaminated So then Krishna said we will be Contaminated in the world’s eyes So Krishna said what do you want They said please accept us As your maid servants Krishna asked them They asked Krishna to accept us as their maid servants But Krishna said Why maid servants, I will make you my queens And that is how Krishna had Now this demon was so demoniac It actually terrorized Many many other kingdoms and he had got 16000 princesses over there And they all became Krishna’s queens Now if you consider Krishna Had no relationship with these princesses Before He not only had no relationship with these princesses They were also You could say from the worldly point of view They were of a soiled reputation But still Krishna accepted them Now with respect to Sita She was already married to him She was already bearing his child Why would Just because of consideration of reputation That lord ever Abandoned his own consort So we have to see that something else is going on That same lord When he descends as Krishna He is demonstrating The principle of compassion Whereas When he is There as Ram He is demonstrating the mood of Selflessness The whole mood Of the Ramayana is the mood of selflessness Put the other person Before yourself And rather than thinking Ram Thinking of Ram as unjust Unfair, irresponsible Abandoning Sita We can see that the mood of the whole Epic of selflessness Is demonstrated by Ram also We see everybody Puts their Puts their interest Lower and some higher cause above Dashrath Dashrath loves Ram More than his own life And yet Because for a Kshatriya, word of honour is very important For the sake of That word of honour What does Dashrath do? When Kaikeyi tells him, send Ram away To the forest, he does that Then when Ram has to go to the forest Ram does not fight This is my right, what wrong have I done? Why should I go to the forest? He, okay, honouring my father’s Word is my responsibility So Ram also Is selfless He goes there, when he is going Now Lakshman is not obliged to go Lakshman says, I will Go with you, I will serve you Sita is not obliged to go Sita goes with Ram, she says, it’s my duty Now Ram says No, you stay over here, you stay here In royal comfort, the forest is No place for you to come Sita could have said, oh My wife’s duty is to obey my husband And my husband is saying stay over here So I will stay over here She doesn’t say that He says, if whatever discomfort you are going to face I will face the discomfort Even when she is abducted by Ravan And Ravan, first thing that he Does is, he takes her To his palace And he Rounds all his palace and shows how much Wealth he has, he thinks by that She will get attracted to him But she doesn’t even look at him She doesn’t even look at his wealth And then he takes her to a royal chamber To keep her over there And she says, as long as my lord is staying in the forest I will not stay in a palace And that’s why She is so insistent about it that Ravan Takes her to Ashok Vatika And that’s why he stays also in a Forest like place, in a garden, in a park Over there Similarly Bharat What does he do? He is also Selfless, when he Hears that Ram is living in the forest He says to He goes and begs to Ram Please come back When Ram says, no, our father has given The word, then Bharat says, okay He says, if Our father has given the word It has all happened because of me Because of my mother’s desire That I get the kingdom, all this wrong happened So he said, we will honour the word of my father I will stay in the forest And you go back to the kingdom Ram says, we cannot Interchange karma like this The universe will fall into disorder Then what does he say? Okay, then you will be the king And I will be the I will be your servant So the disposition of my heart Should be reflected In the position in the court And that’s why In my heart, you are my lord I am your servant And I want that disposition of my heart To be reflected in the position In the court That’s why he says, you give me your paduka You give me your footwear And I will Carry it on my head And I will put it on the throne And I will sit on a mat below that Now today, if there were two brothers Who are having a conflict over a succession Or getting some Father’s estate or something like that In fact, there is a Book written called the Modern Ramayana Something like that Which is all described as a conflict between A prominent family in India between two brothers After the father passes away So anyway, if today one brother Gave his footwear to another brother The other brother will take it and beat his head with it So What do we have is There is a mood of selflessness throughout All the characters All the characters exhibit that selflessness And That selflessness Attains its zenith Attains its climax In Ram and Sita’s separation So It is not that Ram has passed A judgment and punished Sita If at all you want to compare Ram’s Situation You can compare it to Dashrath’s situation Dashrath had no desire To send Ram to the forest He had no desire to send Ram away In fact his heart broke To have to send Ram, Sita, Ram away But still Dashrath did that And Ram also Accepted that So similarly what was Dashrath’s situation In the Initial part of the Ramayana That was Ram’s situation in the later part Of the Ramayana Ram had no desire to send Sita away Dashrath knew That there was no fault in Ram at all Similarly Ram knew there was no Fault in Sita at all But The situation was such that That for Some higher purpose Dashrath had to send Ram away And similarly Ram had to send Sita away And In this context if we see Ram when he went to the Forest, that is also Ram’s Glory He did not complain, he did not protest He did not rebel Ram also exhibits great strength Of character In going to the forest and living in exile So similarly Sita is not a weak character Sita is not a victim Sita also has great Strength When Lakshman tells her that Ram Has sent her away, she is Heartbroken But even in that heartbreak When she is lamenting bitterly She understands why Ram Has done it And her heart, although it is broken She accepts it She is never filled with resentment Or bitterness towards Ram So actually the Selflessness That is the thread underlying The whole Ramayana The selflessness that is exhibited by Dashrath By Ram, by Sita By Lakshman, by Bharat That same selflessness Attains its climax In the final separation between Ram and Sita And both of them Are exhibiting selflessness And both of them are United in selflessness Both of them are Actually doing something which is very Very difficult to do And we will see that The Ramayana Has inspired millions And millions of people Throughout history Not just in India I was in Singapore Malaysia, Indonesia, they all have their Ramayana retellings And Ramayana is so much a part of their culture Over there Millions of people Some historians of literature They say that no other book In world history Has inspired As many people as the Ramayana Now If you see what is the inspiration that people have got The inspiration is The inspiration of Selfless service The inspiration India has one of the stablest Family structures in the world If we go to America, in America Families are So much broken apart In many cities I had once gone for a walk in LA Los Angeles And there is a big park And that whole park, normally if you see a park There will be children playing in the park There will be mothers and fathers They are just sitting and chatting This whole park, there were no children There were only dogs In fact, in the Caucasian That means the white American population In their In their families, statistics say that Actually, in those families There are more dogs than children There are more dogs than children So what has happened Families are breaking apart and people just People just don’t Want to have families I was travelling For a program And people put various slogans on their cars So one slogan was The more I get to know people The more I love my dog So People are just Breaking apart To some extent That is just very sad In the past we had joint families And we had nuclear families Now even the nucleus is split And there are electrons and protons orbiting around In the concrete jungles Lost and lonely It’s very sad But the point I am making is That India, in general, in the immigrant families In America, immigrant families Are relatively stabler Although there is instability there also So India has a very stable family structure So now If Indians have been inspired by the Ramayana And India has a family structure So if This whole pastime was about About somebody is irresponsible And somebody is just Abandoning somebody else Just on the basis of a rumour Then is that the inspiration that people have got from the Ramayana No, that is not the inspiration What has inspired Millions for millennia Is the principle of selfless service The way We put something bigger, higher Than our own immediate interests And it is that Is the model that the Ramayana has given to us So actually When Ram Sends Sita away It’s an extraordinary Act of selflessness In which both of them Are participating And it is that selflessness That is the enduring Inspiration from the Ramayana It is the selflessness That strengthens and stabilizes Relationships And that is what we learn From the Ramayana So this is a pastime Which can be very easily misunderstood If we see it in the wrong context If you just see This accusation and this rejection But that is not what is happening There is much bigger things happening over there When we see it in the right context When we see that it embodies The same mood of selflessness That the whole Ramayana embodies And it provides the same inspiration For selflessness that the Ramayana Provides in general So I will summarize I spoke today on this topic of Why did Ram abandon Sita And I talked about it Using an acronym Does anyone remember the acronym? S E E S What is the first S? Sacrifice So the sacrifice is that Ram, if it had been Simply because of an accusation He abandoned her Then why did Ram not remarry? So Ram did not Replace Sita ever. Not only that Ram considered Sita pure enough That he had her effigy With him when he performed the yajnas So it is A sacrifice for him Not that Sita was deprived but even Ram was deprived And for both of them It was a sacrifice. Then the question is Why sacrifice like this? Then we talked about E was Ethical dilemma So the ethical dilemma was that Moral dilemma is one right, one wrong, which to choose That just requires strength of character But when two rights, which to choose Then it becomes difficult Like speak the truth But protect somebody’s life So here the ethical dilemma was Ram had two roles His role as a husband and role as a king And a king is meant to Exemplify detachment And in this case When the rumours started spreading If he had tried to counter the rumour Or still stay on Sita That he would not have been able to exemplify detachment So He Chose to subordinate his duty to the kingdom Chose to subordinate his duty to his Family to his subordinate To the kingdom Which is exactly opposite to which The way politicians are today Nepotistic, using the state for Gratifying, for pandering to their family’s Whims and needs and desires So Ram He did not exactly Exile Sita Because Sita was still in his kingdom In Valmiki’s ashram Indirectly in the protection So he did do his duty As his king but he did not entirely abandon His duty as a husband.
Indirectly he did that duty He could counter that Accusation of attachment By that And then second E was Insulting explanations Talking about, intelligence means To frame a particular Event in the right context So I talked elaborately about how karma Works, that sometimes a small Wrongdoing may Lead to a big Problem and sometimes a big mistake May also lead to a small problem Somebody driving while sleeping and no accident Somebody just walking and slipping And getting a brain hemorrhage So whenever A particular thing is happening, it’s not just Action A leading to action B. Action A may lead To action B but B is not simply because of Action A. There might be many other Things which are leading Which are leading to B happening So when Sita is sent away by Ram, it’s not just because Of that accusation or because she was Abducted. Discussed Multiple levels. One level is Khyati had, because after Khyati’s death, Bhrigu Muni had cursed Ram That you will be separated from your wife And that’s how it happened And there was this demon as Madhavacharya explains Who Who had Got the direction only when Sita And Lakshmi Narayan separated That I will be killed And ultimately because God is Omnipresent, so separation From him intensifies Devotion.
Just like What wind does to fire Separation does to love So in being separated, their Love attains its zenith And last S was Selflessness. Where Everybody in the Ramayana Is demonstrating selflessness. Dashrath, Ram Bharat, Lakshmi and Sita That same Mood of selflessness is Demonstrated in its climax by Ram and Sita when both of them get Separated.
So it is not that Ram Is the victimizer and Sita is the victim Both of them are Gloriously strong characters And just as Dashrath Knew that Ram had done no wrong But still Dashrath and Ram, both of them Co-operated in that Separation. Similarly Ram knew Sita had done no wrong But Ram and Sita separated In a mood of selflessness. So the lesson Of the Ramayana which has Inspired millions for millennia Is not that we be judgemental or Irresponsible or abandon someone.
The lesson Is that we be selfless And it is that selflessness That has inspired millions For millennia and that Is the lesson that very much is relevant Even in today’s world Where families are breaking apart, where relationships Are short lived So the Ramayana through this Extraordinary Extraordinary complex incident Ultimately embodies this Virtue of selflessness. Thank you Very much. Hare Krishna Are there any questions or comments? That’s why she opted for Going to the fire So can you just explain that It’s just When are you talking about? In the Agni Pariksha or later? Before Agni Pariksha also Because when she doesn’t retaliate And then she opts for Getting into the fire Okay.
So is it that Because women are meant to be subordinate To men or Wives are meant to be subordinate to husband that’s why Sita did not retaliate That could be one contextual Explanation but then We can say that The whole culture of the Ramayana Is the culture of Obedience or subordination Even Ram did not retaliate When Dashrath sent him to the forest Now To exile someone is actually A very very serious punishment Exile is just One level below execution If somebody has done such a terrible crime That you killed that person One level below punishment is You send them away From everything that is due to them It’s a very grievous punishment And when Bharat hears from Kaikeyi That Ram has been exiled She is shocked She says Ram cannot do even the smallest of wrong And what wrong could he have done That he has been exiled So the whole culture of the Ramayana Is the culture of Submission of subordination So it’s If we see it in a broader context Just as Ram does not retaliate against Dashrath Similarly Sita does not retaliate against Ram Any other questions? Yes please Hare Krishna In Esoteric explanation you gave an example of Kayati and Bhrigu For Ram For that pastime So is there any Explanation for why Sita didn’t Accept the proposal of Ram For reunite And she left So why did Sita not accept the proposal of Ram For being reunited Yeah Ultimately that mood of love and Separation that was there That was where That was where Love had attained its climax And Even if there had been union after that Love had attained Such intensification That The perfection was there Just like we see Krishna tells the Gopis I will come back to Vrindavan But apparently he doesn’t come back Isn’t it And why doesn’t he come back There are many different reasons for that One explanation of course is that He never leaves, he is always there in the Gopis hearts Another explanation is that When Uddhava is going as a messenger And Uddhava comes back Krishna why are you not going They are separated from Krishna Krishna tells Uddhava that Actually they have attained the highest love And ultimately of course Krishna and Gopis Both go back to the spiritual world And there they are eternally united So in this world Love and separation is the zenith Is the climax And because that love and separation has already been attained So then Sita Just leaves the world at that time Any other questions Ok sure Those who want They can meet you in person So I will be available Downstairs As I mentioned I have written this book Wisdom from Ramayana And there are about 20 incidents from the Ramayana And incidents have been Narrated and their practical life Applications have been given So this whatever I spoke is from The last article in this book But apart from that There are many practical life lessons Say if a good person suddenly does some terrible thing So how do we respond to that When Kaikeyi Sent Ram away How do we respond to that When something bad happens in our life Do we accept it as destiny Or do we try to change it When Ram was exiled he accepted it as destiny But when Sita was abducted Ram did not accept it as destiny So when to change things How to understand what is destiny All that is explained There are two close friends and some misunderstandings happen between them Why do they happen, how to resolve them That’s also explained through the story of Vali and Sugriva So and if you want This book is available downstairs Thank you very much