Lessons of the Ramayana

This year I was fortunate to celebrate Rama Navami in Bangalore at the ISKCON Jagannatha Temple. As it so happened, HG Shyamasundara prabhu, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and well-known astrologer and scholar, gave the class on this joyous occasion. What a class it was!

There were so many highlights to the class that I don't even know where to begin. For example, he related how in the Padma Purana it describes why Sita was banished from Ayodhya when she was pregnant. This has always bewildered me and it was amazing to finally hear an answer after so many years of wondering why.

When Sita was young, she, her sister Urmilla and two cousins were playing outside. At that time Sita heard the entire Ramayana being spoken by two parrots. She heard of how she would meet and marry Rama and the entire pastime. Being extremely curious, she started interrogating the two parrots. The parrots replied that they lived in the forest where the sage Valmiki lived and being parrots they were simply repeating what they heard and they couldn't give her further explanations. Sita wasn't satisfied with this answer and so she put both the parrots in a cage. The parrots told her that they were used to living freely and that they would not survive in the cage and so Sita let the male parrot go but kept his wife in the cage. The female parrot was pregnant and became very upset, having been separated from her husband in such a condition, and so she cursed Sita that she too would be separated from her husband when she was pregnant. Upon cursing Sita, she died. The male parrot upon seeing his wife die, fainted, fell into a pool of water and drowned.

It was that same male parrot who took birth as the washerman who spoke those words that prompted Rama to banish Sita to the forest. That washerman stated that Rama had taken back Sita even though she had lived at another man's house. Rama, being the ideal king, took these words, even though they came from a lowly washerman, so seriously that this resulted in Sita being banished.

Prabhuji went onto describe that Sita, the mother of the universe, and Rama, the supreme, could have easily counteracted or not let the curse effect them. However, the Ramayana is one of the Lord's lilas and dramas. So they allowed themselves to be the recipient of these curses and played out their lilas. In turn, the Ramayana goes onto exemplify two things: ideal household life and ideal leadership.

As exemplified in the above story, the Ramayana in general, is the overall theme of doing the right thing. It's one thing to know something is right, but it's quite another thing to do what's right. This is why the Ramayana is so important, it shows us how the Lord himself follows dharma and how we too should strive to do what is right.

Prabhuji also brought out the point that doing the right thing may not mean we will get the intended result. For example, Jatayu did the right thing by trying to save Sita and challenging Ravana to fight. From the material perspective he failed in his attempts because he lost and died. If however, one looks at his attempt from the spiritual viewpoint, he was gloriously successful. In fact, it is said that Lord Rama personally shed tears upon his death and performed his final rites. Is that not the goal for all of us who are aspiring devotees? Lord Rama personally shed tears when he left. Our goal ultimately is to become so dear to the Lord, so what does it matter if in our endeavours we do not succeed to the extent that we may hope to? All that matters is our intention. If the Lord so desires that we be used as his instruments to succeed in devotional service then it is his glory, not ours. And if do not "succeed" then we should clearly inspect our motivations. Is it for glory and honour that we wanted to succeed or did we do it to please Guru and Srila Prabhupada. If we do it to please Guru and Srila Prabhupada then we never have to worry, our life will be successful. Jaya Sri Rama!