Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.7.24. Some of the Teachings of Ramayana
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · London · 2019
Chapters
Introduction and opening prayers
Vanchakalpatara Bhes Chakripa Sindubya Vachapatian Bavani Byovaishnava Bionamonamha, Chay Shri Krishna Chaitanya Pramanitananda Syadvaitagdata Rashivasa De Guru Bhakta Brinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare Hare Krishna, good evening.
It's a very difficult topic to talk on because uh Ramayana is a very vast book. For thousands of years this book is the foundation for spiritual life of millions and millions of people.
And there are so many innumerable lessons in this book. Ramayana consists of, original Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses, but there are so many versions of Ramayana. Practically in every Purana Ramaster is described.
So what I decided to do for you tonight because it's a very you know impossible task uh even to mention all the lessons. I will read one verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam pastimes of Lord Rāma.
And taking lead of this verse, we will
see what Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, how Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, what what is the most important in Rāmāyaṇa? What Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam wants us to extract from Rāmāyaṇa. What Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam wants us to take home from Rāmāyaṇa.
So we will read this verse from the seventh chapter of the second canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which quite unusually describes or summarizes the whole pastime.
There are a couple of verses about Lord Ram, but I will read one of them and read the purport with your permission. I'll read the translation.
The personality of Godhitramachandra being aggrieved for his distant intimate friend Sita, glanced over the city of the enemy Ravana, with threat hot eyes, like those of Hara who wanted to burn the kingdom of heaven.
The great ocean, trembling in fear, gave him his way because his family members the aquatics, like the sharks, snakes and crocodiles, were being burned by the heat of the angry red hot eyes of the Lord.
Transcendent nature of divine emotions
As I said, it's quite an unusual description. Purport.
The personality of God who has every sentiment of sentient being like all other living beings, because he is the chief and original living entity, the supreme source of all other living beings.
He is the Nitya or the Chief Eternal amongst all other Eternals. He is the chief one and all others are dependent many. The many eternals are supported by the one eternal, and thus both the eternals are qualitatively one.
Due to such oneness, both the eternals continually have a complete range of sentiments.
But the difference is that the sentiments of the chief eternal are different in quality, in quantity from the sentiments of the dependent eternals.
When Ramachandra was angry and showed his red hot eyes, the whole ocean became heated with that energy, so much so that the aquatics within the great ocean felt the heat, and the personified ocean trembled in fear and offered the Lord an easy pass for reaching the enemy's city.
The impersonalists will see havoc in this red hot sentiment of the Lord because they want to see negation in perfection.
Because the Lord is absolute, the impersonalist imagine that in the absolute the sentiment of anger which resembles mundane sentiments must be conspicuous by absence.
Due to a poor fund of knowledge, they do not realize that the sentiment of the absolute person is transcendental to all mundane concepts of quality and quantity.
Had Lord Ramachandra's sentiment been of mundane origin, how could it disturb the whole ocean and its inhabitants? Can any mundane red hot eye generate heat in the great ocean?
There are factors to be distinguished in terms of the personal and impersonal conceptions of the absolute truth.
As it is said in the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the absolute truth is the source of everything, so the absolute person cannot be devoid of the sentiments that are reflected in the temporary mundane world.
Rather, the different sentiments found in the absolute, either in anger or in mercy, have the same qualitative influence, or in other words, there is no mundane difference in value because the sentiments are all of the absolute plane.
Such sentiments are definitely not absent in the absolute as the impersonalists think making their mundane estimation of the transcendental world.
So that's the verse which I wanted to try to explain tonight for our benefit. So the first point which is made here is that the supreme person is person, which is very difficult to understand.
We know that we are persons, and usually when we speak about persons, we mean limitation. Persons means limitation. But and therefore it's very difficult to imagine how the person can be unlimited. Person means defects.
Person means faults. Person means so many things. And person means emotions, sentiments.
So here Srila Prabhupada introduces to us the concept of person who is devoid of all limitation, unlimited person, completely, totally unlimited person.
Therefore, God is called Purushottama. He is the supreme person, the highest of all persons. He is not an ordinary person like us. And that means that he has emotions as well.
If we visualize or conceptualize God as impersonal, then of course there is no emotions. And people conveniently think that God is some energy.
But how can energy have desire? And this world is a creation; how can energy create the world, because behind the creation of the world there must be desire.
Why impersonal energy would at one point have such a headache to create this world. This world is a creation of a person but a different person, both qualitatively and quantitively. And the main lesson
in this verse is of course that the person has sentiments and emotions. And we have sentiments and emotions. But there is a vast difference between our sentiments and emotions and sentiments and emotions of the Lord.
Usually, people, the essence of our life is to taste the emotions. We cannot become stone. You know, people sometimes meditate, you know. Very nice. But for a change,
Ultimately we cannot become motionless, you know, because we have emotions. You know, people try to become motionless. And it means that they try to become devoid of emotions.
But emotion is the spice of life. You know, we only want to get rid of emotions because the material emotions ultimately culminate in suffering.
So the main difference, please listen very carefully because this is a very important message which I brought to you tonight. This message is that there are emotions and emotions.
Distinguishing spiritual and material emotions
There are spiritual emotions and material emotions. And all material emotions ultimately are negative emotions.
Even though they may start as positive emotions, we may enjoy positive emotions in the beginning, but they inevitably turn into suffering. Every enjoyment in this world turns into suffering.
And therefore people ultimately desire spiritual suicide. They want to become nothing. They want to become impersonal.
But the very essence of bhakti, the very essence of the science of bhakti, which we are learning here, is how to transform material emotions into spiritual emotions.
And the difference between material emotions and spiritual emotions is very significant because material emotions, all material emotions, they have they are born of duality of this world.
So if we enjoy now, and we are very joyful now, it will turn into some sadness, into some suffering. There is always two sides, two sides of the same coin. Every material emotion has its counterpart, which is different.
And we all want somehow or other in this world, we want only good emotions and we don't want bad emotions, isn't it? We only want to be joyful, but there is a price attached to it.
In the material world, if you want to be joyful, you will suffer. And therefore, some people say, okay, I'm done with all this material emotions. No joy, no suffering. Let's meditate. No emotions.
But again, the essence of bhakti cult is not to come to the zero point, the point of negations of emotions, but how to transform or to experience emotions which are non-dual by nature.
In Sanskrit, you know when they describe uh material emotions they say there is sukha sukha means happiness and there is opposite to it which is dukkha. Sukha and Dukha. Happiness and distress. Happiness and distress.
Happiness and distress. But when they describe spiritual emotions, there's only one word, not two words. That's ananda. Ananda means bliss. And bliss does not have an opposite. There is no opposite to bliss.
Bliss or spiritual emotion or spiritual experience, which is based on this complete bliss, Ananda, does not have an opposite.
So the very path of bhakti is the path from this dual emotions, from this you know merry- round how it is called? Merry-go-round, yes.
From this merry-go-round of this material emotions, which is always flip-flopping, to the realm of complete bliss. Isn't that a nice prospect? It's a very good prospect. So, but how it is? Let's try to analyze what it is.
If we, and this is exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda is explaining in the purport: that the emotions, the absolute God, Supreme Personality has emotions, but
his emotions are of different nature, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Fear as the root emotion
And basically, the lesson here is very important for us because all our material emotions... There is one foundational emotion which is the root cause of all our emotions in this world. That is fear.
Actually, whether we admit it or not, whether we understand it or not, realize it or not, but there is a background fear or anxiety in our consciousness. We're always anxious, always fearful, what's going to happen.
And ultimately we are fearful of death. The fear of death is all pervading. It's pervading our consciousness. So all our emotions, whether it's anger or greed or love, they are ultimately rooted from fear.
When we love somebody, there is underlying fear in this so-called love. Therefore, this love is turning into suffering. You know, there is some deficiency in the heart.
Fear basically means something, you know, I'm I'm I'm not self-sufficient. And I'm fearful and ultimately fearful of the death, fearful of this temporary existence. And therefore, it all turns into suffering.
So all the spiritual emotions are based on the opposite of fear. The opposite of fear is love. Whether there, there is no fear. Whether there, there is no love. If we have fear, there is no real love.
If there is love, there is no fear. So that's one very important equation or very important principal which I wanted to illustrate by telling the life of Lord Rāma, or some little story, or whatever from Lord Rāma.
Basically, when Lord Rāma is angry, when we are angry, why we are angry? We are angry because there is something is lacking in our heart.
And somebody is doing something what we think is wrong, and somebody is doing something which we don't like, and you know, and ultimately there is again as I said, we can track down this emotion of anger in us uh into this root of fear, root of you know our incompleteness.
And the Lord is complete, a person, but he's absolutely complete. So his predominant emotion, his mood, which is pervading his consciousness is love, which is, you know, the synonym of love is abundance.
We have incompleteness. He's completely complete. If you can say this. He's completely complete. So so and therefore, when he is angry, it's the manifestation of love.
When God is angry, first of all, this anger is not really damaging him. The anger, when we experience anger, it damages us, isn't it?
It creates all kinds of hormones, it's a stress, you know, we are becoming red and we are losing our temper and this and that, and ultimately it kills us. When God becomes angry, it's a bliss.
When He experienced His amazing anger. This anger is bringing bliss to him and it's bringing bliss to everyone else. People still, to this day, they read
this story how Lord Rāma was angry. Let me tell this little story how Lord Rāma was angry. And then I will explain, or kind of, you know, tell some other lessons of this story.
But again, and it's very unusual, it's very difficult to understand. Because again, we only have experience of material emotions.
When we say angry, we immediately, when we say that God becomes angry, we immediately project our anger and we say what kind of God He is.
But we have to understand that this is completely different anger, completely different emotion.
This is transcendental anger, spiritual anger, which is again a source of bliss for Lord Himself and source of bliss for everyone else. So let me tell this little story, which uh I don't
know how familiar you are with the whole plot of Rāmāyaṇa. You must be familiar or not? No? Who is familiar somewhat? Little? Okay, so there's no need to tell this story. Let me tell the whole story.
So but let me explain first before I tell the whole story or at least parts of the story.
Morality and discipline in Ramayana
But before I tell this, let me tell uh what is the essence of his teaching, teachings of Lord Rāma. He is ultimately, he has come here to teach us how to obtain this love,
how to get rid of fear, how to become free from fear completely. Fear and accompanying fear emotions, which is the cause of suffering of us in this material world.
So, his main lesson is like this: to obtain love, you have first to develop some discipline.
Another name of Lord Ram is Mariada Purushotoma. He's Purushotoma Supreme Lord, but he's teaching us morality. He's teaching us the code of conduct, how we should behave in this world, to prepare our heart for love.
You know, now our heart cannot contain spiritual emotions. It can only contain material emotions. So, first, our hearts should be transformed.
And the Lord comes here and He says: Here I am, here is my story. Please listen very carefully. You will understand something very important for your life. How to prepare your heart for real love, for spiritual love.
So the basically the whole plot of this story is the conflict between Ram, who is goodness personified, morality personified, purity personified, integrity personified, and Ravan. Ravan is his counterpart demon and
Ram symbolizes love and Ravaṇa symbolizes lust. We all want to experience love, isn't it? Everyone wants to experience love. Love is the highest experience in this world. So Ravana is not an exception of this rule.
Ravana is a demon, counterpart of God. He also, but he exemplifies our mentality. When we want to experience love, how we try to experience love?
We try to experience love by taking, by forcing somebody, by imposing ourselves. So our conception of love is that we first have to take, we have to grab love.
Somehow or other, we have either we have... Ravana is this kind of person. He wants to take love by force. And Ram is teaching us that you can only get love by service. So, this is two mentalities. We all want love.
Now, the key question which we all have to answer to ourselves: how to get love. And Rama is saying, you can get love by serving.
Character and ambition of Ravana
And the attempts to get love by force is baffled in this whole plot of Ramayana.
So basically, the whole plot of Ramayana is that once upon a time, as any fairy tale starts. But very long ago, very long ago, there was this extremely powerful person called Ravan.
Ravana means the one who makes everyone cry. And he is the this, you know, this demonic mentality I want to enjoy.
And for the sake of my enjoyment, I can make everyone else cry. I can, you know, basically make everyone else cry. It doesn't matter. Who cares? Let everyone cry, let me enjoy.
So his very demonic person, Ravana, he was he was very highly elevated, very evolved. He was from Brāhmaṇa background, he was brāhmaṇa, he knew all the mantras.
Still to this day, uh if you go to India and there is a book which is written by Ravana, it's called Lalkitap. Uh translation means red book. And this book, it's very interesting. This book, this is a book of astrology.
It's a very famous book on astrology, written by this demon Ravana, where he teaches all kinds of tricks how to improve uh quote unquote improve your karma. Somebody wants to improve his karma? Welcome.
Ravana has all the secrets. So there is it's a very interesting book.
You know, if you have this problem, chant this mantra, do this ritual, you will solve this problem. You know, do this incantation, you know, all these magical things. It's a very magical book.
It's still there, it's available. There is one problem. Very big problem with the book. What Ravana teaches.
He teaches how to borrow something good from the future to your present to solve the problem and to create a bigger problem in the future. We all know how to do this. Everyone has a credit card, right?
Enjoy now, pay later. So that's exactly what this book is all about. You know. You have a problem, no problem, we'll solve your problem by borrowing from the future. You will you will get much bigger problem in the future.
But we will help you to solve this problem by postponing the problem a little later. But ultimately, you will have to pay. So, another famous episode about Ravana. Ravana was so powerful. He was really powerful.
He was teaching people how to become happy now. And he was so much powerful that at one point he decided to build, according to Rāmāyaṇa, the staircase to heaven, so that everyone could just go to heaven.
You know, he was he was a revolutionist. I'm from Russia and I know what revolution what the cost of revolution, you know. All the revolutionists they say, you know, we will make everyone happy. So Ravana was like this.
He said, let's make everyone happy. We will make the staircase to heaven. Everyone will march to heaven. You don't have to work. You know, this is exactly what uh the scientists are doing now.
Let's invent something and everything will be just heaven, isn't it? This is the promise of the science. We will do this and we will do this, we will solve this problem and that problem and you
know we will replace your liver and your kidney and your heart and your head and you will be alright, no problem. So uh but basically again the very approach is wrong. We deserve heaven, we deserve happiness.
No doubt about it. But Lord Rāma comes and he says, you know, if you want happiness, you have to work hard, you have to sacrifice. The happiness will come. Happiness is actually the outcome of the purity of the heart.
Happiness is not the key for happiness is not in the external circumstances. The key of happiness is within your heart. If your heart is pure, you're happy. It doesn't matter which circumstances you are.
You are not dependent on the circumstances. If the heart is pure, you are capable of being happy under any circumstances, in any circumstances, whatever is there. So again, let's come back to our plot.
There was this powerful demon Ravana. And he conquered uh he was performing austerity. It's a usual uh usual element of all Indian uh stories. Then demon performs severe austerity and
becomes very powerful and the creator of this world Lord Brahmā came in front of Ravana and and said what do you want?
The austerities which he did was so severe, you know he was he had 10 heads and he was cutting his head one after another, one after another. You know, sometimes people they torture their bodies for the sake of austerities.
In Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna himself says it's a demonic approach. So Ravana was like this. And ultimately the creator of this world came and said, What do you want? He said, I want to become immortal.
Brahma said, "I cannot make you immortal, I'm not immortal myself." Okay, make me invincible. It's good enough.
So, and Lord Brahma says okay, you will be invincible. No powerful demons will uh you know will destroy you, uh no powerful demigods will destroy you. And Rāvaṇa became very happy. He said, okay, that's fine.
The only thing which he forgot to ask, that human beings would not destroy him. He thought, oh, human beings are so there, you know, they're no match with me.
So ultimately he was destroyed not by human beings, by monkeys. Monkeys and human beings.
Because again, you know, if we have this mentality, we we want to somehow rather protect ourselves, there will always be some some little hole in our protection. And uh our karma will find a way how to destroy us.
So anyway, so this powerful demon when he became so powerful, he started raging and you know he started basically creating havoc in the whole world. And that's one very important lesson.
You know, it is said, I think one Englishman, one English politician said that power corrupts and the absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So this powerful demon was very corrupt and he you know his power corrupted him, he created so many ha so much havoc.
And ultimately he conquered over all the demigods who are ruling this universe and ultimately they asked the Supreme Lord, please come here and create peace, do something with this demon.
And the Supreme Lord came as Lord Rāma. And as I said, Lord Rāma came again to teach us how to conquer over Rāvaṇa, which is within our heart. There is little Rāvaṇa living within our heart.
You know, within our heart there is somebody who makes everyone else cry. Isn't it? I want this and I want this. And I want my desire to be to rule supreme and I want everyone to serve me and this and that.
Isn't that we have this? Do we have this little thing? Little. Very little. Sometimes not so little.
So, so the Supreme Lord comes as Rāma and He comes as a normal human being as a as uh as uh King of Ayodhyā in solar dynasty. Actually, Rāma, there are two main incarnations of God.
Appearance and qualities of Lord Rama
One is Krishna, of course, and Krishna is coming in in lunar dynasty. And Rāma, there are two main dynasties. One is coming from the sun god, and another one is coming from moon god.
And Krishna is coming in the moon dynasty, and Rāma is coming in the sun dynasty. He is very brilliant. He's very powerful. But he comes again to teach us how to conquer this lust or this insatiable lust within our heart.
And he says, how to conquer this? Just you know take pleasure in following the rules. Take pleasure in following discipline. It's very difficult for us to understand. How is it to take pleasure in following discipline?
What is so pleasurable about discipline? But again, he's teaching us how to do this. So the story goes like this that he was he was a pet son of his uh father his father for a long time didn't have any issues.
Ultimately, he created a big sacrifice, and in this sacrifice, the celestial being came. And the celestial being had a big pot and he said, please give this sweet rice or this celestial.
I don't know, some sweet thing to your queens and they will uh uh give uh birth to to sons. And his father, his name was Dasharat, was very valiant warrior. He uh He ultimately four sons were born.
He loved four sons and the older one was Rāma. Rāma was very beautiful, very righteous, very disciplined, and very powerful son. So, yeah, I have to finish the whole Rāmāyaṇa within ten minutes.
I'm trying to figure out how to do this. Twenty-four thousand verses. How to make the you know compact version of the whole thing. Okay. So anyway, he had three brothers and he ultimately he got married.
When he was 16 years old, he got married with a beautiful princess, Sītā, Rāma and Sītā, their husband and wife, and she was extremely beautiful.
She was goddess of fortune, born on the earth to become the spouse or wife of Lord Rāma. And at one point his father, now something interesting comes. At one point, his father, who became old, said, I want to retire now.
There is this very custom when the ruler becomes little old, he wants to retire. In the West no rulers want to retire. They want to be re-elected again and again and again till they get Alzheimer's disease.
So so King Daśaratha didn't want to get Alzheimer's disease. He wants first to retire.
And he said, I will put you in a throne, my dear son. You're my eldest son, you're most worthy, you are such a beautiful son, I will do it. And everything was ready for coronation. Everyone was so happy.
Still, this day in India, everyone dreaming about Rāma-rājya. Rāma-rājya means the kingdom of Lord Rāma. There is actually the whole Ramayana starts from describing this kingdom of Lord Rāma.
Ayodhyā or Kingdom of Lord Rāma, which was vast and was very prosperous. It is said that in this kingdom there was no word dandha. Danda means punishment.
The only daṇḍa was used for sannyāsīs who had this daṇḍa, you know, they were punishing themselves. So it basically means that there was no need for punishment. There was no lawyers in this kingdom.
There was no doctors in this kingdom because nobody was sick. Everyone was prosperous, everyone was happy because Ram was such a ruler.
Of course, he didn't become ruler in the beginning, but even in the beginning the kingdom was very prosperous.
Influence of envy and bad advice
So what happened then?
When everything was ready for coronation, everyone was completely joyful and happy that we will have such a beautiful king, young king, virtuous king with all the you know good qualities which are there, there is one person who was not happy.
And this one person destroyed everything. And this one person was envious. You know, this envy, even little bit of envy, can completely spoil our heart. Little bit of envy can spoil our heart.
This envious person was the servant of King's wife. King Dasharatha had three wives. One wife was Kausalya. She was the mother of Lord Rāma. And there was another wife, Kaikeyī, she was the mother of Bharata.
And there was a third wife, Sumitra, she gave birth to two sons, two children. So this uh there was this ugly servant of Kaikeyī. When she heard that Lord Rāma will become the ruler,
she became so envious and she said, I will completely I will stop it. And listen, this is perhaps one little lesson, which is one very important lesson, which we will get now.
So there was only one night when the coronation the coronation is supposed to take place next morning.
All the best astrologers they selected the best day for this, everything was prepared, everything, you know, promised happiness.
So the Kaikeyī came in the evening and she said, Oh, you know, the whole city is celebrating, and I'm celebrating.
She loved Lord Rama as her own son, even though she was the stepmother, but she really loved him. She really loved him. And this Kaikeyī said, Why are you so happy?
She said, How I cannot be happy. He's so good. He's like my son. I love him. And this Kaikeyī started poisoning her. She started saying, you know.
The first wife, Kauśalyā, his mother. When he will become king, she will make you her maidservant. Now you're queen. Now you're enjoying in this palace. Now everyone is under your command.
You know when she will become the queen mother, she will show you what is your place? And you know, gradually, gradually, within within actually few minutes, uh, she completely turned the heart of Kaikeyi 180 degrees.
She said, by all means, you have to stop this. You cannot do this. Your son has to become king. Not this Rama has to become king. So the very important lesson is that why shall we?
She loved Rama. Kaikeyi loved Rama like her own son. But she immediately believed some bad words which were said about Lord Rama, even though it was complete imagination. Isn't it a very prominent phenomenon in this world?
We may have some good relationship with somebody, but then somebody comes to us and says something bad about him and immediately uh we start thinking bad or we read something on the internet. Internet is maha... The
name of this maid servant was Manthara, so they are all followers of Manthara. So they're all poisoning.
You know the the very important lesson is that within our heart we are ready we are more ready to believe in something bad than in something good. If somebody tells us this person is bad, we will immediately believe.
If somebody will tell us this person is good, we will not be in a hurry to believe it. It may be, may not be. You know, because we have envy in our heart. It's so easy to ignite this envy. So it's amazing.
Banishment of Rama to the forest
This is the beginning of the plot, you know, how Lord Rama, who was virtue and integrity personified, how you know Kaikeyi, her whole heart was completely turned upside down. So, what happened next?
She came to King Dasharatha. When King Dasharatha came, he was also very happy, very elated. He came to her palace and she was in Kob Bhavan.
Kob Bhavan is a special room, you know, and previously was a very nice arrangement in the king's palaces.
When the wife would become angry, she would not make a scene right away to the husband. She would go to a special room.
And the very fact that she was in a special room would mean much, you know, he knew. I'm in trouble now. So the king came and you know he found out his wife in this in this, you know, she must be angry, what happens?
So anyway, she she said to him that once you promise to me, very long back, you promised to me that you will fulfill two of my desires, now it's the time for you to fulfill two of my desires. And he said, Yes, of course I, will fulfill any of your desires. Why did you wait for so long? Yeah, I will fulfill any of your desires.
So he said, okay, my one desire is that Rama will be banished, will be to forest for 14 years. He should not live here. She should leave this city and she should go to forest and nobody. He should be homeless. The
king was devastated. He was completely finished when he heard this. It was like a thunderbolt struck in his head. He just started crying. He said, why are you so cruel? How are you doing this to me?
Why are you doing this to me? But he couldn't do anything because he promised. Previously, when people would promise something, they would never break their word. They would just go.
They would they would rather die than break their word. So he, you know, the morning came and Ram came to his father and he said, Father, what is your order for me? I'm ready for coronation.
And Father, he just he didn't understand what you know he couldn't pronounce the word. And his queen, Kaikeyi, said, okay, he has some problems now. I will tell his desire. So I will tell.
Now you go to forest and live in the forest for 14 years and my son will become the king. So, Rama, it is said in Rāmāyaṇa that even one muscle didn't uh didn't tweak, you know. I i i he said, yes, of course I will do it.
If you want me to do it, I will do it. Immediately. I will protect you what you wanted to do. You know, we know European history.
We know how you know how the whole European history started in ancient Greece where Zeus, you know, put his father in prison. So, you know, if it was in Europe, Lord Rama probably said, OK, I know what to do now.
My dear father, there is a good prison for you there now. No, he said, no, my father, I will do whatever you want me to do. And he said to Kaikai, my dear mother, I know you love me.
I know you're doing it because you're loving me.
Finding happiness through higher duty
And he went to the forest. You know, his younger brother, Laxman, he said, if you tell me I can kill everyone, you know, let's let's not do it. He said, no, no, no. We'll do whatever we are supposed to do.
And it is actually when you read this, and I will finish, I will tell briefly the end of the story, but when you read this particular episode in Rāmāyaṇa, very deep feeling or very deep understanding comes to your heart.
How it is you can be happy by following your duty, how higher happiness can be experienced when you not follow your wings, your desires, but you follow the higher duty and you do it with a peaceful heart.
If you do it with the peaceful heart, you will experience immense happiness because uh the the very fact that you are doing something right is the source of happiness. It is a source of immense happiness.
So just to finish the whole thing, Rama goes to the forest and he lives in the forest and he lives with ascetics and he's very happy and he lives with his wife. His wife goes with him. Again, she didn't have to go to him.
She could stay in the palace very comfortably. She leaves everything, she goes to the forest. Because again, the teaching is there. If you want to love, love means sacrifice, love means service.
Love means following your duty. At least the beginning of love means following your duty. So she goes with him, and then she's being kidnapped by this Ravana.
And Rama, he becomes very emotional, as it is said here that Lord Ramachandra was very much aggrieved.
But again, please remember when we hear all this emotional story, this is a love story, emotional story, story about love, about sacrifice, about you know huge emotions which are there, but they're all based on bliss.
And the whole story, what I will finish with, and ultimately, you know, war there. Lord Ramachandra comes to Lanka, Ravana rules in the golden city in Lanka with his whole army of monkeys, and you know, he conquers over Ravana, gets Sita back and then says to Sita because you were with other person.
Anyway, I just I cannot describe this because it all requires a lot of explanation. But I'm really sorry this whole lecture was I don't know.
Purifying power of hearing divine pastimes
But uh let me say one thing. And this is important. Let at least this one thing. Let's. You will read Rāmāyaṇa. Please read Rāmāyaṇa. Please do read Rāmāyaṇa. People read Rāmāyaṇa again and again and again.
It's a beautiful story, very amazing story. But what will happen with us, please, and this is very important.
When we read Rāmāyaṇa, even though now we don't have an experience of spiritual emotions, and we only have the experience of material emotions.
have an experience of spiritual emotions, and we only have the experience Lila for what? For us to read and hear about it.
And some little speck or little reflection of material or of spiritual emotion can come to our heart. You know, people still uh to this day they see the movie in Rāmāyaṇa and they and they cry.
About this story of love, how Sītā and Rāma were loving each other and how this love was completely pure, and how ultimately this love was victorious.
So, and this little reflection of spiritual emotion of Lord Rāma when it comes to our heart, it purifies our heart and uh the uh makes the space within our heart for spiritual emotions, for love.
The whole idea again is this the idea is that we're listening about Krishna, we're listening about Ram. When we're listening about their past times, then their past times can ultimately be reflected within our heart.
Lord Chaitanya says that our heart is like a mirror. It's just now a greasy mirror. When the mirror is greasy, it's not so the reflection is not so clear. It doesn't clearly reflect.
But when we again and again chant Lord Rāma's name, which is all purifying.
When we again and again hear about his pastimes, about his love, and about his anger, even about his anger, our heart will be gradually, gradually purified, and ultimately it will be able
to catch the glimpse of the bliss which Lord Rāma experiences. It's the whole story is for this.
Not for us to project our material experience into the spiritual realm, but for us to invite spiritual realm within our heart and experience the spiritual emotions within our heart. This is how it works.
You know, when usually people uh when they read some stories, they project their experience into what they read. But what will happen if you read again and again this story, or if you hear again and again this story?
This story will descend upon your heart. And you will ultimately see this whole Rāmāyaṇa within your heart. And you will feel the same emotions, the same blissful emotions which are there.
And ultimately, when you chant Hare Krishna mantra, you will experience these emotions. Because the whole idea of bhakti is to have emotions, but not material emotions, spiritual emotions.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. Anyway, I was given an impossible task. I didn't fulfill it very well, but I tried to do something.
The point is that we need to be happy, and this is the way to be happy. Just to hear about Ram or about Krishna,
meditate about them and ultimately when we meditate about them because they are sat-cid-ānanda, they are bliss personified. This bliss will come to our heart and we will experience bliss.
That's that's in gist what is there? And when we hear about these stories or read about these stories, we have to very clearly understand that this is līlā, this is just a performance, play. Play of love.
And every single drop or atom of this līlā, of this story, is filled with this love or bliss of spiritual world. That's it. Does anyone have any questions? Do we can we have the end bit? story.
The end of the story is very sad. It's a very sad story. It's a very sad story. It makes I it makes you cry.
Devotion of Bharata and Rama's brothers
I will not tell the end of the story. Why fourteen years he was sent away? Or how was it decided fourteen years?
Fourteen years uh yeah if he was sent for 20 years, you would probably ask why 20 years. complete cycle so probably Kaikeshi was calculating you know that she should be there long enough so that you know my son would be completely firmly installed as a king and everything would be nice.
And she just decided, you know, let's add two more years for 12 years to make sure. Because it is said that within 12 years uh our mind changes. Twelve years is a cycle.
Actually 12 years is uh is uh the Jupiter goes through the whole uh cycle of zodiac. So usually you know 12 years. Somehow or rather she said 14 years.
But what happened actually when her son, who was away at that when her son, his son was actually in his grandfather's home, which is present-day Kabul, Afghanistan. Kaikeyi was from Afghanistan.
So her son Bharata was at that time far away. When he heard about this, he became furious. When he came back, Ram was already, you know, he was already in the forest.
He came to his mother and he said, Mother, you ruined my life. I will not become you ruined the life of everyone, I will not become the king. He went to the forest and he started begging Lord Rama, please come back.
You are the real king.
Usually we know you know all the you know if there is younger brother and elder brother and somebody is supposed to be the king, then the younger brother will make a plot against the elder brother to become the king.
Here, the younger brother has the chance to become a king. He goes to elder brother and says, You come back. Ram says, No, I will never come back. Because I have to protect the word of my father.
I have to protect the honor, the dignity of my father. I will never do it. I will do for 14 years in the forest as he wants, that's my father's will.
So Bharata says, okay, I will go back, but I will not rule, I will not become the king. So what Bharata did, he didn't even go to the capital. He made a little hut outside of the capital.
He begged his older brother Ram his sandals and he put his sandals on the throne. And he was ruling on behalf of the sandals. He became the king virtually, but you know, on behalf of his brother.
He never, you know, he never dared to call himself the king.
Says: this is the sandals of my brother, and I'm ruling on behalf of the sandals. This whole story, actually, what I wanted to say: this whole story is teaching us what we should do to enter the relationship. We all want relationship, we all want love.
But our mistake is that we think that we can enter into relationship and enjoy the relationship without fulfilling our duties, without serving first. It's like Ravana. Ravana wants to steal love.
And Ram says, you can have relationship, but relationship and love are based on sacrifice. For 14 years Bharata was loving Ram in separation. And when ultimately after 14 years Ram came, he was the happiest one.
He said, ultimately I can put your sandals down and put you on the throne and you will become the king. It is said actually the Ram he came to. He went to the forest with his brother.
His younger brother Lakshman went with him. He said, Because he said, I cannot live without you. I will go to the forest myself, you know, even though he was not bent. He went with him to the forest.
So the wife of this Laksman, for 14 years, she was fasting. She didn't eat anything. She was sitting in front of a flame. This place is still there.
It's in Dig, one place near Vṛndāvana. The castle of younger brother of Lord Rama, for 14 years she was just waiting for her husband to come back. And she didn't even eat.
She was for fourteen years she was in samādhi in meditation, thinking about her husband and about the love which was there between them.
And there are so many amazing little episodes in in this whole story which actually depicts through different ways you know what love means and what are the price for love.
Importance of guarding one's association
So what does this say about the mother then? So what was the motivation of the mother to cause all this problem and heartache because they're his they're her sons?
Yeah, the motivation of the mother because she was poisoned. You know, as I said, it's a very important lesson of this whole story that it's very easy to poison our heart, unfortunately.
We have to be on guard, and therefore we have to be very careful when it comes to association, especially for the close association. Kaikki was a very nice lady. She loved Rama dearly.
But somehow or other, you know, one envious person could completely change your heart. How? Because the tendency was there. And unfortunately, this tendency is within our heart.
Therefore, in the whole Indian philosophy or Indian practice, Indian religion or whatever it is, one most important uh single most important thing was always emphasized, quality of your association.
Because we become like, you know, we very easily become influenced in the association, especially when the association is closed. So the whole point of this is that it's so easy to poison our heart.
It's much easier than we think it is. For many years she experienced herself how good Rama is, how honest he is, how obedient he is.
Somebody tells her, oh when he becomes the king, he will put you in prison, he will make you maidservant, he will humiliate you. And she immediately believes it. Oh, so someone influencing her by poisoning her.
Yeah. That's what happened. This, her maidservant, which unfortunately she was too intimate with, She immediately believed this and changed her mind completely.
And that's a very important lesson for us because... because Shakespeare... when I'm done with Shakespeare. Yeah. Kind of. Kind of. Yeah. Othello. Yeah. Yeah. Iago was poisoning mind. Poisoning mind. And it's so easy to do it.
It's so easy. Because again, we have the tendency. If something... if something bad is... if something negative comes to us, we immediately believe it. Immediately believe it. It must be true.
We never check something negative. We... when it's something positive, we... we double check it. You know, if something negative, yeah, yeah, it must be true. It seems that story has continued in the Asian culture.
Um when you promise somebody something you have to keep it up.
And, um, the poisoning of the brain with the head or the mind with the um extended family, you have all these figures in the family who would influence the... the mother-in-law or the daughters-in-law. You know that kind of culture still exists. Yeah the the you know the culture the culture is still exist
And in fact that Rāmāyaṇa is very influential. It's still not only in India. If you go to Thailand, in Thailand, the king of Thailand is still called Ram. Yeah. Ram, I don't know what is the number of this ram.
But all the kings are called Ram on behalf of the original Ram, which was there.
And in the airport there you will see the de- you know the Rāmāyaṇa story and this Rāmāyaṇa story is uh is in Malaysia, in Thailand, all over Asia. It's very influential still in the minds of people.
And in fact, if we read Rāmāyaṇa, we we can see this culture. This culture is very much intact in the whole Rāmāyaṇa, the culture of relationship. But But uh uh you're right, but ultimately uh
the main point of this thing is that we have to be careful with whom we associate. You know, poisoning is very simple, it's very easy. It's not difficult, no-brainer, to poison somebody's heart.
To associate with good people, this is more difficult. Therefore, in our tradition, it is said, you know, somebody asked Lord Chaitanya, how you define a vaiṣṇava? Who is a vaiṣṇava?
And he said, A vaiṣṇava is one who does not associate with bad people. Who does not want to associate with bad people.
Because ultimately if we really go deep into our heart, we will understand that there's not much freedom in our life. You know, there's many things are predestined, so many things.
But there is one, definitely one freedom is there with whom I choose to associate. That I can choose. If I consciously associate with good people, my heart will be gradually purified.
If I associate with bad people, I will be influenced by bad people, for sure. And there's so much negativity out there now in the internet.
Spiritual significance of divine human pastimes
And we constantly associate with all this negativity, which is not good for our heart. So So I wonder what the meaning was for um when a Lord Rāma is is a god, yeah, almighty.
He didn't know about where his wife was kidnapped, he didn't know where she was. Yet um also when he did, he didn't save her. What what was that mean? What's the meaning of that?
He comes here and he plays Naravat-līlā what is called he he plays the role of a human being. Because he knows everything. He knows everything. And you know, he doesn't have to go with the monkeys to Lanka to kill Ravana.
He can just think and Ravana will be killed in no time, you know. He will. But he he does it first of all to understand to make us understand that relationships are very important.
When there is the separation with beloved, uh it's a it's it's an experience. And he experienced it himself. And uh this whole plot is a is a drama but
the meaning uh ultimately meaning of this is to teach us that we should we should value relationship we should value relationship very much. That's what he is teaching us.
And how to make relationship very strong, how to become loyal, remain loyal in this relationship, and how to surf and be consistent in this relationship. But otherwise he knows everything.
There is a little story which I tell, you know, once which is directly in relationship to your question.
Śiva, once Śiva from Kailāsa and his wife Pārvatī, they came and they saw Lord Rāma. And Lord Rāma at that time was wandering in the forest. And Sītā was kidnapped. And he was crying. He was it was a drama.
He's crying, crying, crying. And he's asking every tree, where is Sita? He's coming to the stone and embraces the stone and saying, Stone, please tell me, where is my wife? Did you see my wife?
A deer is running by and he's asking, oh, deer, maybe you you you've seen my wife. He's completely mad. He's crying and crying and crying. And Lord Śiva comes with Pārvatī, and Lord Śiva is a yogī. And his wife is a yoginī.
And Lord Shiva he sees it and from a distance he pays his obeisances. He bows down because he knows this is the Supreme Lord, this is his beautiful līlā, līlā of Love, and he is crying in separation.
And his wife, she becomes little doubtful, you know, why he's paying obeisances to this crazy fellow who is asking Stones where is his wife? What kind of. you know what's going on? So she becomes doubtful.
So she didn't pay obeisances. Even though it's against the etiquette, she's supposed to pay obeisances. And Lord Shiva sees this and she understands and she understands that she's doubtful.
And she knows this is actually feminine nature. Women they are more prone to be doubtful. They always, you know, they always. They're a little undecisive, you know. Men are there and women they're always you know wavering.
So uh he understands that she's she's doubtful in her heart. And he says, Oh, my dear wife, her name was Sati, you know, you're doubtful. Maybe you should go and test Lord Trump.
And she says, it's a good idea. Let me test him. Like you. She became doubtful. What kind of almighty, all-knowing Lord who is doing this? So she came close to
Lord Trump in a distance and she sat under the tree and she took a garb of Sita. She became exactly like Sita because she's a great yogi herself.
So she and she thought, oh, he will see me and he will say, oh Sita, oh my dear, finally I found you, my dear. So she sits there as if nothing happens.
And Lord Ram goes there crying, crying, Sītā, Sītā, Sītā, and then he sees her. And he comes to her and he bows down to her, Lord Trump bows down to her.
And then he says, My dear Sati, what you are doing here alone without your husband? She sizzles through the whole thing, you know. And she became very embarrassed, you know.
First of all, he bowed down to her. He's the Supreme Lord. He still bowed down to her following the etiquette. And then he very politely pointed out that what are you doing here without your husband?
Because in the Vedic society the wife is not supposed to wander around alone without her husband. What are you doing here? You know, so she became very embarrassed.
And um uh uh she came back uh to Shiva, to her husband, and her husband asked her, uh my dear wife, uh what happened? Did you test Lord Trump and she already invented some answer. While going back.
Because she was too embarrassed, you know, to tell the whole story, you know, I I pretended to be Sītā, but you know, he immediately recognized me and she did this. So she said, no, no, I didn't test him.
I just came there because I didn't pay obeisances to him, so I wanted to pay my obeisances to him. I paid my obeisances and I came back to you. So she lied. She lied to her husband.
And And you know Shiva, he's a yogi himself. Yeah, actually what happened when uh when uh uh uh Ram left Pārvatī, or not Pārvatī, Satī, wife of Lord Shiva. So when he left, all of a sudden she saw a mystical vision.
In front of her eyes, she saw Lord Trump together with Sita and Lakshman, and they were together because Sita is his energy. They are inseparable. They are not separated. It's just līlā.
You know, how the energy can be separated from the source of energy. So, and uh and Shiva, he's yogi himself, so he he went into trance and he saw everything which happened.
And he said, my dear wife, you're not honest with me. She was even more embarrassed. And they actually, yeah. Are these stories all in that book? Uh these stories are in other Puranas.
This story is another Puran which I tell. But in this book there are many good stories. So no more questions unfortunately. But if we could all thank uh His Holiness for the massive round of applause, thank you so much.