గురు బ్రహ్మ గురుర్ విష్ణుః గురుర్ దేవో
మహేశ్వరః
గురు స్సాక్షాత్ పరబ్రహ్మ తస్మై శ్రీ గురవే నమః
శుక్లాం బరధరం విష్ణుం శశివర్ణం చతుర్భుజం
ప్రసన్న వదనం ధ్యాయేత్ సర్వ విఘ్నోప శాంతయే
శ్రుతి స్మృతి పురాణానాం ఆలయం కరుణాలయం
నమామి భగవత్ పాదం శంకరం లోక శంకరం
ఓం నమః శివాయ
Whenever we think of Sri Rama, it is
natural for us to think of him as a God. He is thought of as a perfect human
being, which is possible only if he is a God. But if you look at Sri Rama’s
life there are lots of incidents which show his kinship to normal human beings
like us. He laughed, made fun, cried, shed tears, was enraged, was depressed,
but ultimately knew how to come out of all those emotions.
In this post I shall try to highlight
few such incidents.
When Sri Rama and Lakshmana went with
Vishwamitra to protect the yaagam, Vishwamitra warns Sri Rama. “The Raakshasi, Taataki,
is very dangerous. It is not correct to fight a woman as per dharma. But this
case is exception. You have to kill her.”
Sri Rama responds, “My father told me
to abide by whatever you say. I cannot go against my father’s words. So, I
promise to kill her as per your wish.”
But when that demon comes in front of
Sri Rama, Sri Rama forgets the promise he made to Vishwamitra and did not feel
like killing a woman. So, he tells lakshmana that he would cut her hands and
legs and leave her like that instead of killing her. Ofcourse, he finally kills
her.
This is something which
is pretty common to all of us. We initially start off something with a plan,
but when we encounter the actual situation we get a bit impulsive and we tend
to digress from our original plan/thoughts.
Once, Sri Rama was giving alms to lot
of people. One old Brahmin approached Sri Rama for some cows. Sri Rama gives
him a stick and tells the Brahmin, “Throw this stick as far as you can. I shall
give you all the cows that can be accommodated between here and the spot where
the stick lands.”
The old Brahmin uses all his strength
and throws the stick and Sri Rama chuckles about that. Then Sri Rama goes back
to the Brahmin and gives him more cows and apologises to him for making him
work like that.
So, it’s not that Sri Rama is this one
serious character who doesn’t know how to laugh or have some fun. Not that
there are many such things listed by Valmiki in Ramayana, but once in a while
Sri Rama would have indulged in some fun.
When Sita got abducted by Raavana and
Sri Rama and Lakshmana did not have a clue of what had happened, Sri Rama went
around the forest like a mad man asking every tree, plant and animal about
Sita’s whereabouts. When he did not get a response, he became extremely furious.
He raised his bow and arrow towards the sky and said, “Since no one is trying
to provide me information related to my dear wife Sita, I am going to destroy
this entire universe. If I cannot live with my dear wife Sita, then no one deserves
to live on this earth.”
Lakshmana got so scared with that
roudra roopam (ferocious) of his brother, that he fell at Sri Rama’s feet and
asked him to calm down. He knew that if Sri Rama decided to destroy the
universe, he was actually capable of that.
Within no time Sri Rama restored to
normalcy and thanked lakshmana and then continued with their search for Sita.
There are multiple such incidents. If
possible, I shall try to list some of those in another post.
So if you look at any of
the above incidents, its remarkable how Sri Rama did not get carried away and
controlled his senses. This is the quality which made him a great human being (God).
He could govern all his negative senses and thoughts, which is extremely
important for becoming a super human being.
Only when we think of Sri
Rama as a human being and try to inherit some of his great qualities, there is
a chance of improving our selves. If we just write him off as a God and all his
deeds and actions are because of his Godly status, then there is nothing for us
to learn from Ramayana.
సర్వే జనాః సుఖినో భవంతు
PS: There could be typos and other mistakes
in telugu and english, kindly pardon me with big hearts.
