Sri Ramayana

Painting by Mahaveer Swami

I think that a lot of us struggled with the Rāmāyana growing up. There were so many aspects of the story that triggered me even when I was younger. It reeked of patriarchal elements and I hated when people called Sita the epitome of a perfect woman. After moving to LA, when SITA RAM bhajans were chanted, I wouldn't partake as a silent act of rebellion against the text and the message it spread to the world. Recently, a dear friend of mine lent me his copy of the Sri Ramcharitmanas, an ancient text with paper from 1862 and I decided to revisit it! I truly think that the texts cognized by ancient rishi munis of India are and so my inquiry of this one text has continued. 

Bhanumathi Narasimhan Ji (more famously known as Bhanu didi) appears on this podcast based in the UK and has the most incredible explanation of this ancient text. It was not just the dhanush and physical strength that was going to decide who her husband would be, but Ram and Sita had a different connection with Shiva and the bow responded differently to them. If you connect to the source, you gain the strength. 

She says that the Rāmāyana is not a historic event but a daily happening in our lives. (Like most of our ancient texts are). Rāmā is the soul, Sita is the symbol of mind, Laxmana is a symbol of awareness and alertness, hanuman is prana, Ravana is arrogance or the ego.  When mind is kidnapped by the ego, the soul becomes restless and with the help of breath, the mind is reunited with the soul. Laxman dian’t want to leave her, but he has to listen to her. He alerts her for her safety before going. 

Let’s talk about the Agni Pariksha and the way Rāmā treated her! Guruji gives a different perspective about how the Rāmāyana is happening in our lives daily. “Agni Pariksha,” she says, “is not just a test of Sita’s ability to walk through physical fire, in fact, it is the fire in the mind, and we know that doubt and humiliation are fires in the mind that can burn you much more than a physical fire.”

She talks about the five types of fire that Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has talked about, 

Bhutagni, the fire in the body that keeps you warm,
Premagni and Jnanagni, the fire of knowledge or love,
Jataragni, the fire of digestion,
Kamagni, or the fire of desire which propels action
Badabagni, the fire of doubt and humiliation and criticism. The toughest fire.

She says, “When your own loved ones doubt you, it is unbearable. But Sita was so pure and so strong, that she was not touched at all by this fire. There is a story in Valmiki’s Rāmāyana where the Devas come to Rāmā and ask him, “What are you doing? You know that Sita is unblemished. And Rāmā says, “I know. But the world doesn’t know. And that is the only way to erase this doubt. In the end Brahma says, “Why do you have to speak harshly to her as if you doubted her? And Rāmā says, only then they will know that I have not helped her and she on her own is so pure and powerful.”