A Display of Devotion – My Favorite Scene in The Ramayana

A Display of Devotion – My Favorite Scene in The Ramayana

[00:45] The Abdication of Rama

Welcome to my podcast, The Vedic Worldview. I’m Thom Knoles. Thank you for listening. One of the epic treatises of the Vedic pantheon of texts is known as The Ramayana. And to be very specific, I’ll put the author’s name in front of it: the Valmiki Ramayana. Valmiki, V-A-L-M-I-K-I, who was the cognizer of the events that led to this massive tale.

A very simple tale where there is a king who, as was common in those days, kings or queens could have either multiple husbands or multiple wives. And there’s a famous example of multiple husbands in The Mahabharata, another epic: Draupadi, who was married to five men. Five brothers were her husbands.

In this particular epic, The Ramayana, King Dasaratha had four wives, and those four wives produced a number of children. Among them, the famous Rama. Rama, who is often referred to as Bhagwan Rama, which means Lord Rama, was supposed to have been, in the mythos of this, an avatar. Avatar means an embodiment of Lord Vishnu.

Vishnu is depicted as the personification of maintenance operation in the Universe, the maintainer. And so, Vishnu has ten avatars, one of them, the seventh, being Rama.

The setting is ostensibly about 10,000 years ago, although, let’s not get too stuck on the historicity of that. It could well be less than that, but there certainly was a time once where there was a beautiful city known as Ayodhya, which is extant still today in North India.

Dasaratha had these wives and at least four sons, and one of them was Rama, by one of the mothers. Another of the sons, by another mother, was named Lakshman.

We won’t go into too much detail of the story, but due to some kind of movements of human nature, Rama has to be exiled from the kingdom. Even though he’s the crown prince, he’s expected to abdicate his right to become the ruler of the country.

Then India was divided into several countries, vassal states, somewhat like Italy was, say, in the 13th and 14th, 15th centuries. A vassal state called Kosala, its capital city was Ayodhya.

He had to accept and abdicate. He was much beloved by all the people who didn’t want him to abdicate. But out of a sense of honor, because of a technicality that came in as an obstruction to his taking the throne, he agreed to abdicate. And he took with him his brother Lakshman, who was also greatly adored by the population of Ayodhya.

[04:40] A Mass Exodus

And my favorite scene is the scene when the two of them, who’ve decided to become sanyasis, they’ve decided to become renunciates, with the exception that they were still going to carry their mighty bows, a bow, like the instrument of archery, and their arrows.

And Rama’s wife, whose name was Sita, managed to prevail on him, to get him to agree to bring her. He explained to her she wouldn’t be able to wear her princess clothing, that she’d have to wear the raiment of a sanyasi, a renunciate woman. And although he tried to prevent her from coming, she prevailed and got her way.

So it was Rama and Sita and Lakshman, who on a given fixed day, left the city of Ayodhya, with the thousands upon thousands of people, the masses, all in complete grief over their departure. Almost unbearable grief. And they got their very few goods and chattels and had a charioteer who was going to take them north out of Ayodhya in the direction of the forests that sit at the foothills of the Himalayas.

Himalayas, the way we pronounce it in India. Everywhere else in the world, they say Himalaya, and that’s okay. I understand that too. Himalaya.

And in the Himalayas, there was a beautiful forest that they were going to end up living in, they were targeting, called Dandaka. On their way north, in their chariot, they heard behind them, on the very first night, a great rustling coming from the south.

And Rama’s brother, Lakshman, ever vigilant, because this was an age when, and of course I want my listeners to know that I know this is not literal history, this is mythos, which we’re enjoying, the legendary retelling of a conceptual story to aid us in an understanding of the play and display of consciousness.

This was an era in which rakshasas, rakshasas are embodiments of stress, beings who have lots of power, but whose conscience allows them to be greedy, even as against the interests of others. And they are tribal, and they have a kind of tribal nature of being mischief-makers and killers and all that kind of thing.

And so Lakshman, the brother of Rama, ever vigilant, climbs to a hilltop to look, to see what all the ruckus is that’s following them as they’re progressing northward in the chariot, with their charioteer taking them, by agreement, only to a particular river that’s surrounded by forest, where he was going to say goodbye to them. They would cross the river and go further north into the forest and begin their 13 or 14 agreed years of exile.

And as Lakshman looked, he could see an amazing sight. What had happened when Rama and Lakshman had decided to progress northward, the entire city, the entire population of Ayodhya, as one, had resolved they weren’t going to lose their beloved Prince Rama and Prince Lakshman and their beloved Princess Sita. They were also going to go, that they would all become sanyasis, that everybody in the city… if Rama was going to be exiled, they were going to exile themselves and leave the city behind, and there wouldn’t be a city anymore, except for them.

And Rama, seeing this and noting that they were all on the approach, said to his brother and to his wife, “Let them come. Let them come and we’ll have one last meeting together.”

[09:20] City People are Better Off in the City

But then he said to his charioteer in the morning, very early, “My brother and my wife and I are quietly going to cross the river and leave them all behind, because Ayodhya has to continue on as a civilization and make its contribution to all the civilizations of the Earth. And one day I’ll return after my exile is over, and it can’t be that it’s an abandoned city. They must all go back and live their duty.”

And so I found it a very touching scene, that the entire city decided to become sanyasis, which they managed to do for a week. For one week, everybody there was just living off the land and all that, but it had an enormously destructive effect.

These thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people carving their way through the forests and along the rivers. Trees were uprooted. Fires had to be made, because it was wintertime, to warm themselves and do cooking. The forests were overhunted.

And Rama could see this, that an entire city of people are better off actually in a city, rather than them all invading the countryside. And not only abandoning their city and abandoning the civilization, but at the same time having a very destructive effect on the environment.

And so that evening, in the final meeting of him with all of the leaders of the city, he convinced everybody that it was necessary for them to go back.

And so that there wouldn’t be a painful moment, he and his brother and his wife escaped under cover of darkness, crossed the Rubicon. It wasn’t really called the Rubicon, that’s a river in Italy that Caesar crossed, but I’m calling it the Rubicon. Crossed the Rubicon, went to the other side, and made their way into the forest and further north.

[11:23] The Magnanimous Consciousness of Rama

And so here we have that great and grand magnanimous consciousness of Rama, committing his first magnanimous act. That, had he said to those people, “I won’t leave. I’ll join you. We’ll go back to the city. I’ll reverse my abdication and I’ll be your king,” that would’ve happened.

But had he done that, Rama would have caused a vow that his father had taken many years previous not to be honored, because his father, King Dasaratha, had made a vow to his youngest wife, that because she saved his life once during a battle, anything she ever asked of him, any boon that she asked, would be granted by him.

And for years, no boon was asked. And she produced a son by him named Bharata, after which, by the way, the whole of India is named, after that son of the wife of Dasaratha, the stepmother of Rama.

Bharata was not in the city at the time of the abdication by Rama. He was elsewhere in India on travels. No one had communication devices back in those days, and so there was no idea, no piece of paper, no news that could travel any faster than a galloping horse.

And that was the truth from that time 10,000 years ago, all the way up until the time of my great-grandfather, who said the same thing. That, in my great-grandfather’s 106 years of life, he said when he was a young man, there was no piece of paper, no news, no idea, no anything that could travel faster than a galloping horse, because trains hadn’t been invented yet. The telegraph hadn’t been invented yet.

He died in the 1970s. Can you imagine living that life, in which you progress from news not being able to travel faster than a galloping horse for thousands of years, thousands of years, and then entering into a life where you lived until the 1970s, where there were jumbo jets, telephones, telegraph, fax machines had just started, and so on and so forth. An amazing thing. Amazing amount of progress we’ve made in a short time.

[14:03] An Epic Tale Was About to Begin

So, as it was right up to the Industrial Revolution, no idea could travel faster than a horse. And Bharata would have stepped in and protested that his mother, Kaikeyi, insisted on him being the king rather than his older brother Rama.

And she went to the king with this, in Bharata’s absence, and said, “I don’t want Rama to be the king. I want my son Bharata, our son Bharata, to be the king, the half-brother of Rama.” Nonetheless, Rama had to adhere to the vow that was made by his father. That had been a promise made to his stepmother. The father, the king, having said, “Anything you ever ask of me, in return for you having saved my life in a battle, I’ll grant it.”

And when she came to him and said, “This is the wish, which you told me I could be granted my boon, and this is my boon: I want you to exile Rama to the forest. And when my son Bharata comes back, our son, he’s to become the king instead.”

And Rama, having heard that from his father, and even knowing that it was an egregious act on behalf of his stepmother Kaikeyi, didn’t protest in the least. He was completely non-attached. He had a sense of the future in the making. He knew that an epic tale was about to begin.

And although he had already been recognized as the crown prince, the one who was to be coronated that very week, his abdicating of the throne, he did with complete non-attachment.

And all he wanted was the wellbeing of the people. And his immediate reaction was, “My brother Bharata will rule this kingdom in my absence perfectly,” which indeed, Bharata ended up doing.

[16:10] The Origin of Mythos, Matrix and Motherhood

And our story gets its beginning in this very interesting situation of Rama and Lakshman and Sita escaping from the residents of the city, and escaping from Bharata, who also joined the residents of the city, begging his brother to come back and not to cause him to have to rule the kingdom.

It’s a very touching scene to me. And then Rama, with complete non-attachment, moves forward on the promise that he would become a sanyasi and disappear into the forests. Had he not done that, we wouldn’t have had the epic of the Ramayana and all the things that happened next.

For those of you who’ve not yet read it, I highly recommend any version of it, but my favorite version of it is written by my contemporary Ramesh Menon. Ramesh, R-A-M-E-S-H, Ramesh. Surname is M-E-N-O-N. Ramesh Menon.

Ramesh Menon’s retelling of the Valmiki Ramayana is superb, absolutely superb, and I highly recommend it to all Vedic meditators. It’s a fascinating tale with all kinds of deep, deep and rich meanings. A great dive into the mythos.

Mythos is an important thing to understand. The word comes to us from the same root as does the word matrix. Forget about the movie. Matrix means the narrow channel between two major things.

And so, for example, in an hourglass where you have sand here, and a narrow neck that goes into another part of the hourglass — and when you turn it in such a way, the sand travels through the matrix, that thing that brings all the sand together and then disperses it into the next part of the hourglass.

Matrix comes from matris, which means mother, because mother gestates the child. Child moves through the birth canal, the matrix point, and then is offered to the world. Matris and matrix are related etymologically to mythos, which is the mother. And mythos is not all about, you know, “All right, is this true? Is it historic? Can we find the DNA of these people and do carbon dating and all?”

It’s not anything like that. It is an essential element of human consciousness that we have to celebrate the connotative and step out of the denotative. To step out of the literal into the figurative is our special talent.

[19:15] Relatability with Villains and Heroes

Storytelling is our special talent, because it awakens in all of us the capacity to enjoy the rich fabric of unity between humans. And every great myth, any myth that is great, is one that has lasted hundreds or thousands of years in its retelling.

What we are seeing is the flow of consciousness in humanity and the normalizing of that. Relatability is found. In a good myth there are always heroes and villains. Who are those people? They do not exist in order for them to be the villains, in particular, to be considered other than oneself. In a very good myth, the villains are always relatable people. You can kind of relate to them.

Why is that? It is because there are elements of your own consciousness, elements of your own inner Beingness, which could quite easily have gone down that direction of disregarding the interests of others and being villainous in that way.

There are also elements of your own consciousness that can rise up and be heroic and defeat the villain inside you. And so all the characters in a good myth are able to be found inside yourself. It is one of the reasons why the stories are so fascinating, because we might feel faintly guilty that we can kind of relate to these villains.

We also feel uplifted from our guilt, because we can relate to the heroes heroically dispatching the villains of the story.

For those of you who have had very little introduction to the concept of mythos, I strongly recommend that you commence a reading, a studious reading, of the writings of Joseph Campbell.

Joseph was a meditator and someone with whom I got to spend limited time, but very rich time, in my upbringing with Maharishi. The man whose famous adage, which you see on bumper stickers and fridge magnets, “Follow your bliss,” Joseph was influenced to make that statement, that platitude, by his contact with Maharishi, who said similar things all the time. Follow your bliss, go in the direction of charm.

Joseph Campbell’s most notable work, in my opinion, is The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and what he is doing in this is tracing the role of someone who becomes a hero or a heroine in mythos and shows us cross-culturally how we need to have these characters.

[22:23] The Enduring Art of Storytelling

The noble outlaw Robin Hood. If Robin Hood did not exist, in fact, we would have had to invent him, and it is likely that most things about him were actually invented, although there is some evidence there was an historic character like that.

The noble outlaw, the one who broke the laws of man but lived in a forest right next to a city and who would go in disguise into the city and carry out all kinds of good deeds, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, the ultimate philanthropist who did not wait for taxation, but actually made it his business to tax the rich himself.

So the mythos of a story is uplifting to our consciousness, because it shows us the formats, the ways in which the mores of humanity, the sociological drivers of humanity, how they have operated in the same old ways, there is nothing new under the sun for millennia, all the millennia of humanity.

Storytelling is a very big part of human brain function. We know this because, in our most ancient bits of artistic evidence of our paleontological forebears, in cave art notably, we see depictions of storytellers gathered around the fire with the small crowd of the tribe, listening while the storyteller held forth about the hunt, about the great heroes, about the enemies, and about this and about that.

Modern day, we also have the fire. That is our little iPhone, or our computer screen, or our television, or our cinematic giant screen. That is the fire. And there is nothing better than gathering around the fire with strangers, who are still in your tribe because they come from somewhere in your neighborhood, and complete strangers all gathering together, letting a storyteller tell a story.

The director, the producer, the actors, the screenwriters, everything down, all the 1,500 people it takes to make a movie — these are the modern-day storytellers, and the fire is the illuminated screen that attracts all of us, like bugs, and we all hang out and have, even without commenting to each other if we are in a movie theater with strangers, a kind of camaraderie there.

Everybody is eating the same things, the little candies and the little popcorns and the little fizzy drinks and things, and all watching while the storytellers and the big fire, the screen, get on with the business of entertaining us.

You see, really, when you think about it, things have not changed that much since paleontological times. We have just developed different technologies for doing the same thing, but we still tell the tales that give us a degree of relatability.

[25:26] A Worthy Read

So, Ramayana, a very, very great epic, highly recommended. And watch for that scene of Bharata returning home to find that his brother is gone, and then the entire city getting up all at once and marching off to follow Rama into the forest because they wanted to continue being ruled by him. Very touching scene, very fantastic story. Worth reading at least fifty times. I think I have read it at least fifty times.

Jai Guru Deva.