A very large part of the Indian population worship Rama, but if we look at the situations in his life, and the way life happened to him, it seems like a continuous series of disasters.
He loses the kingdom that is rightfully his and ends up in the forest. Then his wife gets kidnapped, and he has to fight a brutal war even though he does not want to. Then when he brings his wife back, he has to suffer very uncharitable comments about her from everybody around. So, he takes his wife, who was very dear to him and is pregnant with two children and leaves her in the forest. Then he unknowingly ends up in a battle against his own children and then finally loses his wife. His life was a continuous disaster. With all that, why do so many people worship Rama? What to imbibe from his life.?
The Significance of Rama
The significance of Rama is not in the situations he faced in his life. The significance is: how much gracefulness he conducted himself through all this series of disasters that occurred to him.
People seeking liberation and a graceful life sought Rama because they understood and had the wisdom to see that even with lots of management, external situations can go wrong at any moment. You may have everything organized, but if a cyclone hits you, it can take away everything. These things are happening around us right now. They may not be happening only to us, but they are happening to thousands of people around us. “Ohhh... it will not happen to me,” is a foolish way to live. “Even if it happens, I will go through it gracefully,” is a wise way to live. People sought Rama because they saw this phenomenal wisdom. Though life became a continuous series of disasters, he never for once waved himself from his truthfulness, from the fundamentals of life that he set up for himself. He just hung on to what he had to do and conducted his life with utmost balance.
A Tradition of Seeking Disasters...!!
In fact, for people on the spiritual path, there is a tradition of seeking disasters. Many spiritual seekers go about asking for something to go wrong with their life because they want themselves to be fully tested before death approaches. They want to be “quality checked.” No matter what happens, they will go through it gracefully, because when the moment of shedding the body comes, that is the time you will lose your balance. Everything is fine, but the moment when everything that you know as reality is going to slip off from your hands, that is the time when you lose your control a bit. So, people sought disasters.
For example, Akka Mahadevi, who was married to a king, but who right from her childhood had completely given herself to Shiva, goes about saying, “Oh Shiva, make me hungry but make sure that I do not get any food. And in case I get it, before I put it in my mouth, make sure it falls off my hands. Before I pick it up from the ground, make sure a hungry dog eats it. Make me go through everything, so that I will learn to conduct myself gracefully irrespective of what the outside situation is.” This is an extreme form of devotion.
 Akka Mahadevi was a devotee of Lord Shiva. Right from childhood she has completely given herself to Shiva and she looked upon him as her husband. A king saw her one day and she was so beautiful that he wanted to marry her. Akka refused, but the king threatned her to kill her parents. So she married the king but kept him at a physical distant saying, " I married Shiva long ago. He visits me and I am with him every moment. I cannot be with you." After somany attempts, the king got angry and said, "If you are already married to somebody, why are your here with me. Whatever you wear, the jewels, clothes ...everything is mine. Leave them all here and go." Akka Mahadevi - a young woman of 18 years just dropped all her clothes and jewels and left. Akka Mahadevi wrote so many beautiful poems about Shiva and her devotion and in one poem she begged Shiva : |
"Oh..Shiva, Let no food come my way.... Let my body also express the longing and anguish that I am going through to become part of you. If I eat, my body will be satisfied. My body will not know what I am feeling. So let no food come towards me. If food does come into my hands, let it fall down in the mud before I put it into my mouth. If it falls in the mud, the fool I am, before I pick it up, let a dog come and take it away." This was the daily prayer of Akka Mahadevi |
You want to be ready; when the moment of leaving comes, you do not want to lose strength even a bit because that is the moment you need to handle gracefully. It requires some practice. If it suddenly happens one day, you will not be able to handle it. But continuous and conscious seeking of trails and tribunals make you graceful for the events of disasters.
It has been the tradition everywhere in the world that if one takes the spiritual path, the first thing is to seek poverty consciously. To conduct yourself gracefully through poverty is not an easy thing – it will test you in every way. When you are hungry, all sense of being human is lost and you become like an animal. To conduct yourself gracefully when you are hungry is not an easy thing. If you see yogis (not so called fake bavas & sadhus), they never ask for anything, they just keep going. You can see they are hungry, they have not eaten for days sometimes, but they will conduct themselves so gracefully. If you just offer one meal, they will take it, but if you offer money for one more meal they will not take it because they want that challenge to be there in their life all the time. Because if you take money for two meals today, tomorrow you will logically convince yourself to take money for ten meals. Once you add one, one more becomes logically acceptable. Then slowly you will organize your whole life and it will grow endlessly. Just see to what extent we have taken our survival process. We have raised our survival process to the sky and still it is not enough. Yesterday's comforts have become necessities for today and yesterday's luxuries have become comforts today in some cases and even necessity in some. So, if you give one meal, these yogis will receive it but if you give money for one more meal, he will say no, because he wants that trial in his life continuously.
Rama - Embodiment of Grace
So, people worship Rama not because of the success in his life, but for the gracefulness with which he conducted the most difficult moments. This gracefulness, what is valued; that is the highest value in one’s life. It is not the question of how much we have, what we did, what happened or what did not happen. Whatever happened, how did we conduct ourselves? That is what determines the quality of who we are. One may make a billion dollars because the market is doing well. That does not mean anything. It is a social situation. In his society he may be a millionaire. In another society he may look like a failure. It does not mean anything. It is all right to enjoy the comforts that come with it, but the important thing about the making of the human being is, whatever the situation, how gracefully can a person handle it? It has been seen happening to lots of people: they look perfectly fine till one big challenge comes in their life. Then you will see who they are. When something does not go in the way they think it should go, they spill themselves all over the place considering themselves very unhappy.
Just do what is needed. If you are doing what is needed, every thing is fine all the time. There is no question of compulsiveness. Naturally, you become conscious. If you are always looking at what is needed, you will become very conscious. And that is the only and only way to experience life to become more and more conscious. If you become less and less conscious, you cannot experience of life. If you become more and more conscious, you really experience of your life, and everything become fantastic. |
People are always giving thanks for the things that they get. Things that you get will not add to your life. There will be a huge house right next to a hut. But the person living in the little hut is as proud as you are; and that is nice, that a human being carries himself well, not with just pride but with gracefulness, irrespective of how somebody else is. Even if you have to go to the gallows you still walk gracefully. This is the quality of the human being. The rest is only the quality of the situation.
Does this mean to say we should not manage our life properly? No, we manage what is around us well because it is good for everybody. If the situation is well-managed it need not necessarily make us feel wonderful. We will feel wonderful only when we can conduct ourselves gracefully through every situation.
Rama tried to manage the situations in his life, but he could not always do that. He lived in difficult times and things went out of control, but the important thing is that he always conducted himself gracefully. This is the fundamental essence of becoming spiritual.
"Spiritual" does not mean looking up or looking down, or praying or going to temple. "Spiritual" essentailly means you are in an experience which is beyond the limitations of the physical. A physical form can be small or big, but never boundless. There is something withing everyone of us which is longing to touch a dimension which is beyond the physical. Spirituality is not about right or wrong or about God or heaven. Spirituality is about exploring the ultimate limits of who you are. You come here as a human being, all that is possible in this human being, every dimension that exists as "you" must be experienced. If one goes without experiencing his life, that is wasted life. |
you want the right kind of ambience for your being to flower into a beautiful fragrant flower, you must constantly create an atmosphere of grace.
