#Ancient Culture ( Samskaram ) of India ( Bharatham ) - 6.2 : Swami Krishnananda.

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#OPINION : Wednesday, September 01, 2021. 6:28 . 2497.
#Chapter 6: Quandaries in the Ramayana and Mahabharata -2.
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Human society is the subject of the Ramayana: how society involves itself in various aspects of its internal culture and struggles to slowly integrate itself into a cohesive, cooperative fabric of internal stability, rising gradually from the potentials of the disintegration of society that also may be there inherent in the beginning. 

The story of the Ramayana is something known to you all, and I am not going to tell the story. I also mentioned to you that for your edification you may read the brief presentations exquisitely done by Sri Rajagopalachari in his abridgement of the story of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata because merely listening to the story will not do you much good. 

The story as a novel, for instance, moves, carrying us forward along the lines of our feelings, which touches our heart and brings up to the surface of our consciousness that which is buried in our feelings. Many a time our intellect and rationality take an upper hand in our life, and in the hurry and bustle of their intense activity very little time is allowed for the emotions to also come and take part in our intellectual activity. Our feelings and our reason should go together in order that our perceptions may be integrated. It is not that we feel something which is against understanding and rationality, or we are forced to logically come to a decision which is not compatible with our instinctive feelings.

The logicality of life and the instinctive nature of personal existence are both taken into a harmonious state of consideration in the epics. How this exquisite work has been executed by the poets of the epics can be appreciated only if you read the epics yourself, if possible in their original, or in a very able prose or abridgement.

 

The mystical interpretation of the epics, the spiritual connotation that seems to be there at the back of the story, makes out that the story of Rama and Sita and their encounter with Ravana have a reference to our own personal life. The soul is bereaved when it is dissociated from its harmonious contact with the mind, which is Sita. Rama is in search of Sita, the soul is in search of the mind in the wilderness of existence where the sense organs roam about in the forest of ignorance. That is one analogy that is brought out. The other analogy is that the ten-headed Ravana is the monstrous mind with its ten senses. The five senses of knowledge and the five organs of action are the ten heads of the mind, which is eager to take advantage of the first opportunity to grab objects; and, as we know, the sense organs have no other work than to attempt at grabbing things that are outside in the world.

 

Ravana was a grabber. He vanquished all the ownership of people even up to the heavens, threw the gods out of their seats and took possession of all their worth and value and the property of everyone in heaven as well as on earth. A person who went to the extreme of greed and passion and took his ego to its apex, up to the breaking point, and lived the glory of utter selfishness, caring not for the welfare of anybody else – this principle is exemplified in the concept of Ravana.

Generally in the epic stories, these demons come in pairs. There are the demon brothers Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu in the Srimad Bhagavata. Ravana and Kumbhakarna were brothers. Shishupala and Dantavakra were brothers. The reason for this twin performance of demonical nature is the dual way in which ignorance acts upon us, covering the consciousness of reality and projecting the consciousness of unreality. Whenever a war takes place between the divine natures and the demonical natures, whether it is an encounter with Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, 

Ravana and Kumbhakarna or Shishupala and Dantavakra, we will find the stronger one is encountered afterwards, the weaker one first. Kumbhakarna dies first, Ravana afterwards. Dantavakra goes first, Shishupala afterwards. Hiranyaksha dies first and Hiranyakashipu dies afterwards. This is to illustrate the manner of our extrication of consciousness from involvement in world perception. Firstly, the attempt is to be weaned from the compulsion to sensorily contact objects of the world; that is the younger brother. The elder brother causing this compulsion to perceive sense objects is ignorance. The cause is more difficult to face than the effect, so the effect has to be encountered first and we take care of the cause a little afterwards.

To be continued ....

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