A very large part of the Indian population
worships 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 Singificance 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.
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.
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.
If 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.
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