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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
This country, India, has an inestimably great cultural history. It is very unfortunate that we don’t have a kind of a written record of this cultural history of the land. At the same time it is immensely fortunate that we have some very good depictions as well as written records of the culture of our land. I don’t know when exactly world saw something like historic writing and presentation. But before this transpired may be a few centuries before, a few centuries in BC, before history writing began we had already developed something in the way of epic writing. This epic style of writing is actually history on the one hand, but presented in a manner that will instill values, traditions and culture in the people. The authors of these epics succeeded so very well that their writings permeated into the society, in individuals first, families next and social segments later and ultimately in the whole nation boundaried by the Himalayas on the north and seas on the three sides. How exactly this cultural permeation took place is simply impossible for us to understand.
Any culture spreads through individual dissemination and individual imbibing. Not that a society as a whole will become cultured in one day. The human mind is individualistic in nature and also content. We don’t have anything called a collective mind to begin with. Then the individual mind thinks, feels, senses, understands and all that transpires in the mind is shared by one individual with the others, there starts taking place something called a collective thinking and feeling. So the effort must have been done by an individual in the matter of disseminating and sharing the culture and individuals alone would have imbibed them to begin with, because every individual belongs to a family. The permeation first takes place in one’s family and thereafter in the social segments around.
Our cultural writing, the epic writing became so effective that our history started following this writings. What do I mean by that? We have two epics namely Ramayana and Mahabharata. In Ramayana we find the prince and the King Rama depicted by Valmiki who was the contemporary of Sri Rama according to the writing. The central theme of Ramayana is the birth, life, growth and characteral excellences of Sri Rama. But while presenting this central theme the author has done it in a manner that the readers as well as the hearers of Ramayana irresistibly imbibed the cultural values and traditions presented in Ramayana. And what are these values if you ask me, our values primarily are fourfold as I always say. Dharma is the first, artha, wealth or property and opulence next, and then spending the wealth or utilizing the wealth in a manner that one’s desires are fulfilled, Kama the third, with all these three the gain and the pursuit do not stop. All the three like the flow of a river through different ghats and different terrains, ultimately the river goes back to the sea from where it had risen in the form of vapor before it started flowing from the mountain peaks.
We all start our life from within. Our body by itself is inert. It can be animated and activated only by a non-bodily factor called the conscious mind. Dharma is for our action, activity and interaction. They are all centered on the body seemingly, but all of them have their genesis in the mind. So we try to live dhaarmically and conduct ourselves dhaarmically in terms of propriety and ethics and through an ethical conduct we are supposed to acquire our wealth using our hands, feet, senses and brain. Then after amassing our requirement we should also spend them and fulfill our desires. But after fulfilling our desires what? Finally the body leaves and before leaving we must be able to leave everything mentally. That sense of release following the fulfillment of life, this is called moksha. This is the fourth value. Dharma, artha, kama and moksha.
The first epic namely Ramayana was written by Valmiki in such a manner that this fourfold Purushartha, the fourfold objective for human pursuit was clearly set forth through the narration. That is why we find a Sri Rama very much reared beautifully and fondly by Dasaratha. But he had to leave the entire palace when his father was expecting to crown him as the Yuvaraja, the crown prince. On that very day he had to leave the palace for a fourteen year exile. The great character of Rama never resented or expressed any reluctance in the matter. The moment Kaikeyi, his step-mother told him that, “No coronation for you today. You have to go to the forest and live there for fourteen years and my son Bharata will be crowned.” Rama said, “Only this much? For the sake of Bharata I will give anything and everything that I have, including my Sita”, he said. “I only want a few hours to discuss the subject and console the people in the palace. So before the sun set today I will have left Ayodhya.”
Now when you start speaking in this manner about Rama, the young prince, he was a man, he had a mind, he had an intelligence, he had an ego, this is all what he had and these are what we every one of us has. With the mind that he had, a sterling mind, he instantly decided to leave for Ayodhya. The decision is of a moment but the consequence lingers for fourteen years. Our mind is capable of rising to any height and falling to any depth, acquiring any extent of vastness and loftiness; it can also fall to any extent. In Kaikeyi, the step-mother, the mind fell to abysmal depths but in the young Sri Rama it rose to tremendous heights. Valmiki tells every one of us, that you everyone of you has, you have such a mind. Understand whether you should be Kaikeyi or you should be Sri Rama. The bodily growth and age are no matter at all. Kaikeyi was fairly older. She must have already enjoyed many things in the royal life in spite of it her mind emitted poison. At the same time the young Rama never became shaken or excited about the whole program. With a lot of love, fondness and resolve, he set himself on the long forest exile. Sita, his wife comes up and says, “You cannot leave the palace without me. Never say women should not follow men on a forest mission.” And Lakshmana without asking Sumitra said, “I will be there to be helping you both and even protect you both.” Sumitra never said anything. She only blessed him with a monumental sentence and that is the greatest words of Ramayana.
Now that narration is of a prince of Ayodhya but the style of narration, the content of narration, the inspiration, the evaluation, the resolve, the aspiration, the goal and all these allied matters interwoven into the narration represented the cultural greatness of the country and the cultural aspiration that should be instilled, aroused and reinforced in the minds of the people. Ever since this Ramayana was written, you find our country has excelled in reading, propagating, imbibing and disseminating. So instead of following history it also started creating the history of the people. What is history? The character, behavior and interactions of the people. When exactly this Ramayana was written and how it became interwoven with the conduct, behavior, thought pattern of the people, it is almost impossible to say. That is why I told you that we have something inestimable in the way of a cultural, value and tradition.
Later on came Mahabharata where the story, the decline and the fall of the Kuru dynasty are described beautiful again telling people how value declines and how the decline of value means destruction and extinction of even a very, very long dynasty. What do you think of the masterly minds which were able to pen this kind of a narration though seemingly it was a history in reality it was a value instilling activity or pursuit. In all these things I find only three elements as Krishna puts it. Yajña, daana and tapas. Yajña is whatever you do as a dedication to God. You can dedicate the whole life. If that is not possible dedicate small things, at least one dollar or one rupee, maybe one moment or five minutes of your life per day. There must be something in the way of dedication adorning and enriching your mind.
Then follows dāna. Don’t think that you and your family alone are within your domain. Feel for the others also and make a habit of giving something to those who are not related to you through blood and matrimony. And thirdly comes austerity, austerity. Unless we are able to incorporate a measure of austerity, a kind of a discipline, where we deny ourselves some comfort, some leisure, some convenience, etc. there cannot be any enrichment, inner enrichment to life. Austerity can be still defined greater. I don’t do it now. Yajña Dāna and Tapas. Yesterday a CD was displayed here on Swaminarayan. The scenes are still lingering in my mind. What we find in that boy Swaminarayan was yajña, yajña, and yajña, then tapas tapas and tapas. Dāna if at all came in his life much later. He was not somebody who possessed something in order to give. His life was one of dispossession, dispossession. So only yajña and tapas were supreme in his life that is what we find. I think these are the spirit of our culture, these are the inspiration with which our people have been living and facing all the hazards, calamities, upheavals and nevertheless reaching the goal and fulfillment of life.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
