​Why did Rama not consult Vashishtha when sending Sita away?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So why did Ram not consider, consult Vashishta before sending Sita to the forest? Actually, there are multiple things involved over here.
Firstly, Lord Ram, he is God himself and when he descends in this world as an ideal human being, he demonstrates the duties of a human being. But still he does many times things which a human being cannot do. No human being could have killed Ravana.
No human being could have single-handedly destroyed thousands of warriors at the time of the battle in Janasthanam. So Ram is God and in some situations he acts in his position as God and in some situations he acts as a human being. That is the meaning of Lila.
Now in this particular situation when he had to banish, when he had to send Sita to the forest, actually there are multiple levels of reason for this. The external reason is that she was accused of being unchaste and Ram, in order to protect the reputation of the king, he sent her to the forest. That is actually a very external reason.
It is not that Ram was more concerned about his reputation than about his wife. Actually, if you see the reason, if Ram had just been interested in one’s own pleasure, which might come through reputation also, then actually later on for a king to perform a royal sacrifice without his wife next to him, that is very improper. All the royal sacrifices that are to be performed, the husband and wife had to perform them together.
And yet Lord Ram never married again. He never accepted any other wife. So the point was there was a higher principle involved over here.
All of us have multiple roles that we have. So for example, you know, a woman may be having a job, she has a profession and she’s also a mother, she also has a house, she also has a wife. There are many different roles, like a man, maybe a father, maybe a husband, maybe a professional.
So different roles sometimes conflict. So for Lord Ram at that time there were two roles which were there. One was a husband who was going to protect his wife.
The second is a king who, now the king has enormous royal opulence and yet the king is meant to establish the example of dharma and detachment. While ruling, the king expresses detachment not by living in spartan austerity, but by subordinating oneself to the sages who have nothing. Normally people offer respect to the people who are wealthy, but here a person who is fabulously wealthy is offering respect to someone who has nothing.
That’s how people developed appreciation for spiritual culture. So the king is expected to express detachment also. So now he had both these duties.
So if a king appears attached to his worldly opulence, to his queen and such things, then that will set an example where everyone will become attached. That is undesirable for their spiritual growth. So Lord Ram reconciled these two, these two different duties which he had by sending Sita to the forest.
Now sometimes people say that Ram banished Sita. Banished is not an appropriate word for what Ram did. Because banishment means one is sent right out of the kingdom, deep into the forest with absolutely nothing at all.
Ram, when Sita was sent to the forest, it was that forest was Valmiki’s ashram. It was not just out in the dark jungles. Banishment means the way Ram was sent into the forest.
Out of Ayodhya, into the deep dark forest. That was not what happened to Sita. So Sita was still in Ram’s kingdom only.
Valmiki’s ashram was in Ram’s kingdom only. So Ram was put in. So that means Sita was still indirectly under Ram’s protection through being in his kingdom in the hermitage of Valmiki.
And from the Gaudiya Vaishna perspective, we understand that love is intensified through separation. So Ram arranged for Sita to be separated from him so that both of them could experience the intensity, the highest love of love and separation. Now these are all transcendental considerations that he had.
And with these transcendental considerations in mind, he acted. So the Lord can sometimes act according to the instructions of the spiritual master. And sometimes he may act by his own will.