RAMAYANA AND PERSONAL LIFE
Is
the Ramayana, comprising as it does stories from ancient times, practically
relevant today? The simple answer is -Yes, it is relevant
because the stories, though from an ancient setting, embody timeless values.
From “me” to “we”
One
of the primary values that it conveys selfless sacrifice is especially relevant
in our present times that are characterized by obsessive selfishness.
Contemporary culture largely glamorizes the “me” paradigm, which impels people
to seek their personal gratification without caring about its cost for others.
When the same inconsiderate individualism causes us to neglect or manipulate
the people around us our family members, our neighbors and colleagues, then it
boomerangs to wound our heart, afflicting it with emotional ruptures and
gnawing loneliness. Thus, the “me” paradigm, despite its instinctive appeal to
our ego, is disastrously myopic. If we wish to have more satisfying and
sustainable relationships, we need to rise from this myopic “me” paradigm to
the holistic “we” paradigm. As this paradigm shift can be challenging, it is
helpful, even essential, to have inspiring role models and narratives to draw
from. For mining such inspiration, the Ramayana serves as an inexhaustible
mother lode; it offers us a panorama of jewel like personalities who embody the
spirit of sacrifice in various poignant real-life situations:
1.
The example of Rama’s sacrifice in accepting the sentence of exile despite
having committed no fault just to preserve the word of honor of his father,
king Dasharatha, points the way to bridging the ever expanding parent-children
generation gaps.
2.
The example of Sita’s sacrifice in preferring the dangers of the forest to the
security of the palace offers a stirring example of valuing the marital bond
that has become much devalued due to an increasingly casual approach to
sexuality and matrimony.
3.
The example of Lakshmana’s sacrifice in choosing to stand unflinchingly by the
side of his elder brother during the latter’s hour of crisis and thereby
gaining a profound mutually enriching bond can serve as an antidote for the
superficial relationships that characterize today’s siblings.
4.
The example of Bharata’s sacrifice in resolutely refusing the kingdom meant for
Rama can offer a signal lesson for the many succession battles among children
that break open after the death of a wealthy parent and sometimes even before
the death.
Inspiration,
not imitation
At
this point, we may object, “If we sacrifice like this in today’s self-centered
culture, we will be exploited.” That’s possible and that is why the Ramayana
tradition offers the examples of its protagonists not for imitation but for
inspiration, not for duplication of the particulars of their sacrifices, but
for appreciation of the principle of sacrifice. As our relationships and
interactions occur in real life, we need to consider the various contexts and
their implications before we decide how to apply the spirit of sacrifice in our
lives.
Lest
we feel that the spirit of sacrifice is entirely inapplicable today, we need to
look no further than popular team sports like cricket or soccer which throws up
both jarring incidents when a self-seeking player chases after a personal
milestone at the cost of the team’s success and uplifting instances when a
sacrificing player puts aside individual glory for the sake of the team’s
victory. If sacrifice plays a valuable, even critical, role in a relatively frivolous
activity like team-sports, then how much more indispensable will be its role in
real life relationships which are also like teams, but teams that last much
longer and mean much more to us?
Shades
of black
The
Ramayana complements these examples of heroic selflessness with examples of
tragic selfishness and its unfortunate consequences. Significantly, it
demonstrates these ramifications of selfishness through characters with varying
shades of blackness:
1.
At the pitch dark end of the spectrum is the epitome of ungodliness, the
demon-king Ravana, who due to his selfish lust, commits innumerable atrocities
and finally meets his nemesis when his evil eye extends to Sita, the goddess of
fortune.
2.
Toward the middle of the spectrum is the monkey-king Vali, who lets him be
misled by a hasty and nasty misjudgment about his brother Sugriva’s mentality
and so selfishly dispossesses the latter of home, wealth and family, and
eventually meets his own end in a heart-rending fratricidal showdown.
3.
At the bright end of the spectrum is the queen Kaikeyi, whose temporary spell
of selfishness perverts her from her normal kindness, gentleness and wisdom to
an uncharacteristic cruelty, harshness and folly that causes agony to her
family members, brings about the anguished death of her husband and subjects
her to a lifelong regret for her insane self-obsession.
Thus,
the Ramayana by illustrating its caveats about selfishness not just through
outright ungodly characters but also through godly persons who succumb
temporarily to selfishness inspires all of us to keep up our guard against
selfishness and thereby prevent it from sabotaging our relationships.
Redefining
the “we”
If
this message of sacrifice as a means to deep fulfilling human relationships was
all that the Ramayana offered to the world today, then that message in anode
itself would be valuable. But the Ramayana’s gifts are much greater and deeper.
The
central hero of the Ramayana is not a human being, but the Supreme Being. Rama
is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord playing the role of a human being.
So
the bonds of all the associates of Rama with him are examples of the
human-divine relationship that is far more lasting than the best human-human
relationship. All human-human relationships, even if fulfilling, are ultimately
distressing due to the inevitability of rupture at death. But the human divine
relationship, when understood as a spiritual relationship between the eternal
soul and the eternal Supreme, is eternal and eternally fulfilling.
The
Supreme Lord possesses fully and forever the six opulence beauty, wisdom,
strength, wealth, fame and renunciation whose fractional and fleeting presence
in worldly people attracts our heart to them. Lord Krishna indicates that the
attractive features that worldly people possess ultimately originate from him
when he states in the Bhagavad-gita, “Know that all beautiful, opulent and
glorious creations spring from but a spark of my splendor.” Just as the
complete fire can provide far greater warmth than a tiny spark, the Supreme
Lord can provide far greater warmth of love for our hearts than any worldly
person.
In
fact, the Lord descends as his various avataras to offer us this supreme warmth
and ultimate fulfillment. The Bhagavad-gita indicates that when we understand
the true transcendental nature of the Lord’s pastimes the incredible loving
exchanges between the Lord and his devotees that comprise their heart, then the
desire to have a similar loving relationship gets kindled in our heart and that
desire when fully developed helps us attain the Lord’s eternal abode, where we
eternally rejoice in love with him.
But
developing our relationship with the Lord, like developing any other
relationship, requires commitment and sacrifice. If we miss this essential point,
then we end up conflating authentic spiritual life with the inanity of ritual
religiosity or the “feel-good” sentimentality of new-age spirituality or any
other similar form of shallow or shadow spirituality. The Ramayana conveys the
necessity and the glory of sacrifice in the service of God through its refreshing
portraits of extraordinary and ordinary persons who achieved deep devotional
relationships with the Lord by activating their individual spirit of sacrifice.
To
summarize, the Ramayana’s perennial relevance lies in its power to inspire us
to broaden our consciousness from “me” to “we” and to momentously expand
the definition of “we” from the human-human paradigm to the human-divine
paradigm.
