Lessons from the Ramayana

Tuesday, 23 March 2010 14:03 Written by TVD

It is a most joyful and merciful occasion to celebrate the great festival of Lord Rama’s appearance day. Infact the main reason that Lord comes to this world is because of His love towards His devotees and at the same time He attracts all conditioned souls and gives them a chance to come back to the spiritual world. He personally sets a great example and teaches valuable lessons by His instructions and pastimes.

Sometimes people are confused and start doubting on why God would act like a ordinary human being in His pastimes, when He is transcendental to this world. This is a great perplexity for most people in this world. But for devotees who are always absorbed in the meditation of lord the secret is clearly revealed. By their mercy we get to know that Lord is here for a mission, to reclaim conditioned souls. He comes here in a way we can relate to Him and get attracted to Him.

Ramayana, the story of Lord Rama, His consort Sita and His associates teaches us very valuable lessons to apply in our life. These lessons help us to solidify our faith and remove all misunderstandings about Lord and His devotees. Ramayana teaches us the cause of conditional life and a path to overcome it.

 When a living entity forgets Lord because of misuse of his free will, he artificially tries to become the enjoyer by imitating the activities of the Lord. Instead of being a cooperator, he tries to become a competitor. This mentality is the cause of his ultimate suffering and misfortune. Ravana the great demon is a personification of this mentality, which is called lust. This lust is a perverted desire to enjoy like Lord and it is artificial because we can never actually become equal to Lord. Goddess of fortune, Sita Devi (consort of Lord Ramacandra) is never to be enjoyed by a living entity. She is always to be worshipped and served along with Lord Rama. The mentality to enjoy Lord’s energy is materialism and will result in ultimate misery, just like Ravana, however powerful one may be.

Srila Prabhupada writes in one of his purports :

 “The materialists, who are after opulence and material prosperity, may take lessons from Ramayana that the policy of exploiting the nature of the Lord without acknowledging the supremacy of the Supreme Lord is the policy of Ravana. Ravana was very advanced materially, so much that he turned his kingdom, Lanka, into pure gold, or full material wealth. But because he did not recognize the supremacy of Lord Ramacandra and defied Him by stealing His wife, Sita, Ravana was killed, and all his opulence and power were destroyed.”

 This disease can even extend to so-called spiritual societies, which decline the Supreme Personality of Godhead, His form and declare some ordinary person or themselves to be God. This is a great offense. Such offenders are punished like Surpanaka, who wanted to get rid of Sita and enjoy Rama alone or like Ravana, who wanted to enjoy Sita alone without Rama. The only way a living entity can enjoy is when he is engaged in serving Lord Rama and Sita Devi together. But, the illusioned spiritual societies use the name of Rama and ignore Sita and commit unpardonable offense. Therefore it is important to understand the knowledge about Lord and His activities from pure devotees, who are always eager to serve the Lord following the great Vedic scriptures and other great devotees in a proper disciplic succession. One who is fortunate or desires to become fortunate takes up such an association and opens his mind and heart to such knowledge. Others, because of their weakness of heart or ultimately because of their desire to enjoy separate from Lord in some fashion, follow such useless spiritual societies, which commit great offense in the name of spiritual knowledge. A sincere aspirant has to be careful against such false societies and should follow the path of great devotees.

 This is the one of the important lessons from Ramayana.