​Why did Rama not obey Vashishtha when asked to return to Ayodhya?

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Transcript

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So Ram also did not seem to obey Vashishtha when Vashishtha came and asked him to come back to the kingdom. So actually, the relationship over there is quite different from the way we have relationships in the Vaishna Sampradaya. Now Ram’s spiritual master was not exactly Vashishtha.
No, he was their family priest. And even now if you see, they are in different traditions. They have different ways in the Sri Vaishna Sampradaya.
Usually they don’t have Diksha Guru the way we have in the Gaudiya Sampradaya. They have what is called a Grantha Guru. That means for each, if you want to study one book, you go to one Guru.
If you want to study another book, you go to another Guru. Of course, one primary spiritual guide whose guidance we take, whose blessings we take while going to various other specialist teachers also. So the point here is Vashishtha was the family priest.
As the family priest, he was more of a advisor rather than a spiritual master. So in our terms, we may use the word spiritual master. But the mantras, especially the martial mantras were given to him not by Vashishtha but by Vishwamitra.
And later on also before the Kurukshetra, before the Lanka Yuddha, it was Agastya Muni also who gave another set of mantras. And Ram was able to kill Ravana using the Aditya Hridaya mantra which was given by Vashishtha. So in that sense, the Brahmana or the priest is an advisor for the king.
And the king has his discretion by which the king may sometimes choose to follow the instruction and sometimes choose not to follow the instruction. And Ram was just acting in defiance of his Guru. He said that I have my father’s instruction.
And there is no immediate exigency because of which I should not follow my father’s instruction. So there is in the Bhagavatam also we see that sometimes Bali Maharaj does not follow the instruction of Shukracharya. So the point is that there is the principle of Dharma and one principle of Dharma is we should follow the instruction of our elders.
Spiritual master is the foremost elder and spiritual master instructions are extremely important. But in this case, Vashishtha Muni was not exactly the spiritual master of Ram. He was a royal priest and Ram had other principles of Dharma to consider while choosing his actions.
That’s