Sat Ma­haraj

Part Four

As we cel­e­brate 168 years of the ar­rival of Hin­dus/In­di­ans and their unique re­li­gious be­liefs and texts, in­clud­ing the Ra­mayan, we are al­so re­mind­ed of our du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the mem­o­ry of our an­ces­tors. They have taught us how to at­tain "paropakara" (dis­ci­pline of the mind.)

The sa­cred Ra­mayan is among the most pow­er­ful scrip­tures in its com­pelling il­lus­tra­tions of the high­est eth­i­cal con­duct. The episodes in the Ra­mayan present the va­ri­ety of dilem­ma faced by hu­man be­ings in the dai­ly dis­charge of their du­ties, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and oblig­a­tions. It demon­strates the re­spons­es rel­e­vant to each sit­u­a­tion.

The Ra­mayan points out con­se­quences of the choic­es we make in our dai­ly lives. It in­vites us to fol­low its ad­vice and not seek to trans­fer blame. We are told: Gu­na Av­a­gu­na Jaanat Sa­ba Koee–"We all know right from wrong."How­ev­er, many peo­ple still choose to do wrong be­cause of per­ceived short-term plea­sure.

The Ra­mayan ad­vis­es: Kaa­he Na Kou Aukha Sukha Kara, Doataal Ni­ja Kri­ta Kar­ma Bhoga Sa­ba Bhraataa–"Oh broth­er, do not blame any­one for your un­hap­pi­ness or mis­for­tune since what­ev­er you reap is a con­se­quence of your own ac­tions."

To up­hold the high­est tra­di­tions of his lin­eage: Raghu Ku­la Reeti Sadaa Cha­la Aaye, Praana Jaaye Baru Bachana Na Jaiye–Those in the Raghu lin­eage al­ways main­tain their pledged word even at the ex­pense of life. Lord Ra­ma is pre­pared to ho­n­our the words of his fa­ther, King Dashrath, even though it means be­ing ex­iled from his loved land.

To lessen the shock of this eth­i­cal de­ci­sion, he tells his fa­ther that ex­ile will en­able him, (Sri Ra­ma) to meet the sages and saints. In ad­di­tion, Moth­er Kaushalya demon­strates the same kind of eth­i­cal con­duct.As a moth­er she recog­nis­es the dilem­ma over a son who was about to be­come king and who has to be ex­iled.

Kaushalya feels great pain when her daugh­ter-in-law, Si­ta, leaves for ex­ile and says to her son Ra­ma, "Si­ta is very ten­der and great­ly loved by every­one in the fam­i­ly. I have kept her as dear­ly as though she was the pupil of my eye and have cared for her with my very self." An ex­pres­sion of love and car­ing in a key fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ship!Like­wise, the loy­al­ty and sup­port of a wife to hus­band in dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions is cap­tured in the Ra­mayan. Si­ta firm­ly ex­press­es her right to ac­com­pa­ny hus­band Ra­ma dur­ing the pe­ri­od of his ex­ile.

The Hin­du mar­riage vow con­firms this sa­cred du­ty. Si­ta says to her hus­band Ra­ma, "With­out you, O Lord, even heav­en is like hell...with­out you noth­ing in the world is en­joy­able."A woman with­out her hus­band is like a soul­less body or a dry riv­er. The Ra­mayan al­so notes that this is a two-sided re­la­tion­ship. In fact, when Si­ta is forcibly tak­en away, Ram is al­so be­side him­self in a fre­net­ic search for her.The de­pen­dence on each oth­er and the com­fort of­fered to each oth­er are cen­tral teach­ing points to hu­mans.

Lord Ra­ma asks saint Valmi­ki, in Chi­trakoot, to iden­ti­fy a suit­able place to con­struct his her­mitage. Saint Valmi­ki gives a trea­tise on the places which are suit­able in a mov­ing philo­soph­i­cal dis­course about the use of man's sens­es of ac­tion and per­cep­tion to at­tain the grace of Lord Ra­ma.The Ra­mayan is an ex­hor­ta­tion to fol­low the path of Dhar­ma (right con­duct) re­gard­less of our po­si­tion in the fam­i­ly or so­ci­ety.

The prac­tice of virtue is not to be con­fined or taught on­ly to the con­vert­ed. To ef­fect a change in the world, it is im­por­tant al­so to teach the texts to those who trans­gress these laws.Lord Ra­ma sets the ex­am­ple by ex­pound­ing on those virtues, even on the bat­tle­field. He in­forms Raawan and every­one that hu­man be­ings can be clas­si­fied in­to three cat­e­gories–the rose, the man­go tree and the jack­fruit tree.The anal­o­gy is as fol­lows:

a) The rose tree bears on­ly flow­ers–like some in­di­vid­u­als who on­ly talk but do noth­ing else.

b) The man­go tree bears both fruit and blos­som–like some peo­ple who both speak and per­form.

c) The jack­fruit tree bears fruit on­ly and no blos­soms–like some peo­ple who per­form no­ble ac­tions but do not brag.

The Ra­mayan not on­ly presents ad­vice about the prac­tice of dhar­ma (right con­duct), but al­so warns about the per­ils and pit­falls of as­so­ci­a­tion with Ad­har­ma (un­right­eous­ness). It is said, "Wise men do not be­friend the wicked, and learned men say, "we should nei­ther quar­rel with a vile man nor be­friend him."This mes­sage is so apt to our coun­try to­day where as­so­ci­a­tion with or re­sis­tance to evil­do­ers both bring de­struc­tion.