Spiritual Living 3

Spiritual Living 3

There are a whole lot of magical things that happen. It is very amazing. And eventually, Rama does indeed kill Ravana, and restores Sita.

But having rescued her, Rama appears indifferent, telling her she can go wherever she wants, just not with him. Of course, she hasn’t been pure during all this time to be turned away now. Sita tells Rama if he won’t have her, she’ll just “walk into the fire,” (which is the Vedic equivalent of hari-kari) and die. Rama says, “go ahead,” so she does. But she doesn’t get burned!

Instead, Sita is carried out of the fire by Agni, the deva/small “g” god of fire. As he carries her, all the other gods come out of the fire too, including Brahma, the Creator, Indra, the King of the gods, and all the devas/small “g” gods come out, congratulating Rama, praising him for killing Ravana and restoring heaven to them. They tell him they are not surprised that he did it because of who he is.

Rama replies, “Well, who am I? As far as I know, I’m just a man.” But he is actually Vishnu, one of the three greatest gods in Indian tradition. Brahma praises him, giving him a boon. Rama says all he wants is for all those who died helping him to be healed and brought back to life. So that happens and everyone is great.

Using Ravana’s flying car— the one he used to kidnap Sita— Rama takes the monkeys and bears who fought for him, back home to their kingdom. Rama praises them and thanks them for their help by giving them titles, land, winning lottery tickets and more, so they are all very happy.

Rama then takes Sita back to his capital, Ayodhya, with Lakshmana. Bharata meets them there and Rama is crowned actual King and Bharata gives him back his sandals and retires. Rama then rules for 11,000 years of Heaven on Earth: there is no sickness, no poverty, no criminal activity of any kind, the seasons come in time, the rains come in time, the crops are abundant. It is said that during Rama’s rule, there is such prosperity one can find jewels just lying in the road. It’s a fabulous time of heaven on earth.

Which is actually what we aspire to, at this time in the World.

So that’s a very quick rendition of the story of the Ramayana. It’s a very large three or four volume epic with two-dozen thousand verses, lots and lots of events and stories and worth reading. But for our purposes, this is enough.

Now find out how this story helps you...

Continues in the next post