Ram Ram Ram....
It was a week end, and was relaxing at home. As usual, I was humming to bollywood music at home.
The music player started playing a Ram Bhajan from Swades. It had some words like "Man se Ravan jo nikale ram uske man main hain.."
A few thoughts started running through my mind....
Who is Ram? I had read it some where, that a highly dynamic person existed in history, who was referred as Ram. It was about 5000 years ago.(time being approx). He was supposed to be a powerful warrior and a great thinker. He probably had set examples as a complete ruler. However, I have not yet come across a fact in history that Ram was an incarnation of God. I do not or rather cannot challange the fact that Ram is an instance of the class God.
The next thought that started running was about Ram and Ramayan. Ram was indeed an incarnation of the supreme God. But a few questions started again. Is Ram really God, who is almighty. Basic questions:
If Ram is God, and Lakshman marked the famous "Lakshman Rekha", crossing which Sita was kidnapped by Ravan, why did Ram not realise it when was being done? Ram( being an incarnation of God) would have surely viewed through his eternal vision that Sita was kidnapped by Ravan. Ram could have controlled the loss, right at that moment, by stopping Ravan. Lots of lives could have been saved( army who died in Ramayan war), if Ram had taken the right step.
This probably was because Ram was a human, who was an incarnation of God. Hence, Ram was not able to realise by his "godly vision" that Sita was being kidnapped.
I was left confused with this thought and the next thought started soon. During "Sunder kand", Ram along with his huge army crossed the Indian Ocean to reach Sri Lanka on a bridge. But how was the bridge built? It was built of stones, which had Ram's name printed on it. The heavy stones which could withstand the load of Ram's army was floating on the Ocean. It surely is against the basic science, that heavy stones drown in the deep water.
Now, I am surely a fool. The stones floated, because Ram's name was printed on the stones. Ram's name was strong enough to create this miracle. Nothing new in this.
Why did Ram behave like the almighty God now?
Now, the confusion began. Is Ram whom we know from Ramayana a human or an incarnation of God?
I did some more processing on this thought.. Now, I realise that Ram was indeed a human being. But he surely was close to perfect and his principles were followed closely. Few historians made him a God, to make people follow him closely. This is not a new concept. Most of the religions in the current day have this concept.
Remember Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohommad, Mahaveer Jain and the Teerthankaras, all of then follow this line.
I personally feel that the concept of making a perfect person as God, is not a wrong concept. The crowd of humans follow God with belief and devotion. But very few follow a perfect human. To support my thought, who follows Mahatma Gandhi without questioning his principles? Very few people question Ram and his thoughts.
I conclude that Ramayan is a well authored book, where a "close to perfect" human is magnified as God. There are a few instances where we see disconnects in the story. I am still not ready to accept them as disconnects in the story. May be I am not competent enough to understand the complete Ramayan correctly.
During the period of ramayana the society was value based.Rama is an illustration,who sacrificed the life for values.In our culture v always express our gratitude thru pooja, to the sources we exploit treating them as God.Rama has demonstrated the sacrifice,humility,obedience,great courage in eliminating the social evils,being highly balanced & above all worldly pleasures, for values.Since he is a human being, v treat him as god,as god always blesses his creatures with good stuff only. Infact v who misuse our traits & cause sins,of which God keeps an a/c & punishes us appropriately. This is what Rama did.
ReplyDeleteHowever the concept is well thought & well nit in the blog.
As you have truly stated most of the Gods whom we worship are "close to perfection and always doing GOOD irrespective of the challenges,risks they come across". This is what made them different from the crowd and we started believing them as "GOD". Ramayana and Mahabharata are stories which will inspire you to have good instincts inspite of having many thought provoking or controversial scenarios which we find hard to believe now.
ReplyDeleteHowever, appreciate the effort you have taken to question the belief we had for ages and rare to voice.
By mere wavering thoughts one cannot understand Ram/Hari, to understand him u need to first understand devotional service. Don't make the mistake made by Ravan to simply say Ram as sadharan purush, you ve just begun the enquiry about Ram keep searching untill you find the actual connection between us and Hari :)
ReplyDeleteYour concept of Ram as incarnation of God somewhere holds good.., but the point is who is God ? If God is a supreme power than surely existed in "Ram." Rama and Ramayana is a idealism where the humans of "Kaliyuga" can attain. Anyways, your blog has certainly evoked thoughtful inquiry. Good Work. Keep it up !!!
ReplyDeleteThe incarnation of Lord SriHari as Ram is the truth.This is not a concept which is tested for its holding as good or bad for any situation.Only the faith is required to believe this thing.There are immense number of proof existing from kanyakumari to kashmir to prove it.God himself took birth on Earth to show us the proper path of life.
ReplyDeleteThe questions such as "why did't Ram realise the kidnapping of Sita,even though he was God" really appear in our mind.Such doubts can be cleared by reading Bhagvata Purana which has got lot of interconnection with Ramayana.As we all know "tena vina truna napi na chalati", which means without his(God's) will even a grass straw cannot move,then how come Lord Ram could be unaware of kidnapping of Sita?It was the desire of Almighty to show to the world,that the consequences of the Ravan's deed or the path of Adharma will lead to the complete destruction of the self by none other than the Almighty himself.So, the Lord let the Sita to be Kidnapped by Ravana and later rescued her by killing Ravan in Lanka War.
It is difficult to understand complete Ramayana by just reading Ramayana itself.Because most of the books on Ramayana we read,will not quote the links of Ramayana with Bhagvata Purana and other Puranas as they are breif versions.So ,we readers feel that in Ramayana "close to perfect" human is magnified as God. But,if we go for the original version of Ramayana written by Sage Valmiki our doubts get cleared as Sage Valmiki has quoted all the links between Ramayana and Bhagvata Purana and other Puranas as well.There by we can say that in Ramayana "close to perfect" human is not magnified as God, but God himself has demonstrated to the world and has shown the path to be a "perfect human being".
You have questioned a canonical truth in lives of one fifth of existing and celebrated mankind. I totally agree with your last line. It's too much of thought-provoking stuff for common man to understand.
ReplyDelete