At Ram Navami, Guruji gave us an extensive and quite
informative speech about the incarnation of Lord Rama and of course He knows how to
apply Rama`s example to our all lives. Here is the summary:
Rama was the embodiment of Dharma, He was very
righteous. The question arises why He did not accept His wife Sita back after She was kidnapped by the demon king Ravana. At that time, a woman was not
allowed to be alone in a room with a man other than her father. Otherwise she
was not even allowed to enter her house again. So when Rama came back home
after many years of exile, people accused Him for taking Sita back. He had to
act according to His role as a king in order to appease His people.
What the people did not know was that it was only a
shadow of Sita Devi who was captured by Ravana. The real Sita has been guarded
by Agni Dev.
There is a close connection between Rama and Agni Dev.
Dasharath, Rama's father, was not able to have children. One day Narad Muni, the
Divine messenger, came to Dasharath to tell him that the Lord had decided to
incarnate into his Yadhava dynasty. He told him to do a yagna in order to
conceive a child. During this yagna, Agni Dev appeared and gave two mangoes to
him. They were meant for two wives of Dasharata so that they might conceive.
One mango was for the incarnation of Narayana and the other one for the
incarnation of Adishesh, the serpent. But he had three wives. So the two wives
shared the two mangos among one another and this is how it came that two wives
conceived one child and the third conceived two children as she got a share of
each of the two mangoes.
So Narayana incarnated as Rama, Adishesh became
Lakshmana, then there was the shanka and the chakra incarnating as Shatrughna and Bharat.
The reason why the Lord had to incarnate at that time
was the presence of Ravana on earth. Ravana was one of the two gate keepers of
Vaikuntha; Jaya and Vijaya, who had to incarnate as demons. But this is
another beautiful story.
Guruji told us, that whenever the Lord has the
intention to incarnate, He asks all the Devas for their assistance on earth, so
all come with Him to earth. When the Lord incarnates, they are already all
waiting for Him. And all know their mission. This is what we celebrate with Ram
Navami.
The reason why Rama refused to take Sita back was
because of His people. Sita always stayed pure, She is Maha Lakshmi, but the people did not know this. They were unhappy that their King took Her back after
She was with Ravana, as they thought. So Rama had to act on His dharma as a
king.
Relating to this Guruji, was also explaining why the
Lord, Narayana, is wearing a tilak, as the tilak symbolizes the lotus feet of
the Lord. The meaning of Narayana wearing a tilak is to always remind Himself
of the love of the bhakta.
Guruji told us, that the same way Rama was doing His
dharma, each one of us should do their dharma. It is not in our hands to decide
about this, life will guide us towards this. There is of course the universal
dharma of realising oneself, but God has also give us our individual dharma
and we have to learn to love it, no matter what our task is. And if we learn to
accept it, and realise that the Divine has given it to us, it will lead us to
our aim. And this is what it means to live spiritually. How can we live a
spiritual way if we cannot accept what God has given us? When we finish our
dharma which God has given us in the outside, He will reveal the inner dharma to us. But how will we handle the inner dharma, when we do not learn to handle
the outer dharma?
Swamiji says “That is the
Dharma. That is what Rama stands for, that is what He is showing. Each one has their
own dharma, each one is very important in that. The role of a priest is a
priest, the role of a banker is a banker. You can't put the priest into a bank, you know, somebody searching for God, you put him in a bank I am sure the bank
will be ruined completely and together with him all the people. If you realise
that where God has put you, that is what your dharma is, try to enjoy it even if
you don't agree with it.”
