On interpretations of ancient Indian epics
Epics like Ramayan and Mahabharat can serve to educate. At the simplest levels, they tell inspiring stories of people who faced significant adversities while remaining true to their principles. At deeper levels, they offer insights into how our spiritual-material universe works. The characters and the events that build up into the larger stories of these epics are not randomly conceived to merely teach moral lessons. They are careful depictions of the spiritual reality that eyes cannot see and lessons that science cannot yet offer. The main characters represent entities that operate at a spiritual-mental level that is otherwise invisible to humans. These truths have been discovered and shared by accomplished sages of the past who mastered the domain of spiritualism through deep meditation. They were able to reach reality at a level that modern science is still unable to. For example, science has struggled to explain how yoga exercises and mediation benefit us. The hidden lessons of life within ancient Indian Epics make them indispensable for our spiritual advance. They also provide guidance for those interested in exploring new paths towards mindfulness, spiritual peace, and personal happiness.
The lessons and guidance offered by epics such as Ramayan should not be accepted only on faith or someone else’s word. A person should freely experiment with their practical lessons and judge for himself if these work for him or if he is benefiting in any way. If a person experiences no benefits, he should discard the lessons and look elsewhere for spiritual happiness. Either way, acceptance and rejection should be based on the scientific principles of successfully replicating an experiment personally and not on the basis of a religious belief or authority.
Quick Notes
On past familiarity with Ramayan
Although this piece of writing is intended to be self-sufficient, some understanding of Ramayan would be helpful. One source to refer could be: Tulsida’s Ramcharitmanas and another could be: Valmiki’s Ramayan.
The interpretation of Ramayan below is based on Tulsidas’s Ramayan, which is discussed in the first link shared above.
On God and gods
Indian literature has it that there is one Supreme God, who is all powerful. Under Him, there are a number of other gods (a bit like angels in some faiths) who are responsible for specific aspects of how this universe works. For example, there are gods responsible for fire, water, air, sun, and so on. This distinction would be visible in the passages that follow.
Characters in Ramayan
In the following passages, I describe the key characters of Ramayan, some of its events, and the insights that one could draw from these.
Ravan
The main villain in the story, Ravan (pronounced “Raa-one”), is a demon king who ruled Lanka, an island kingdom in the South. Once a spiritually accomplished man, Ravan worshipped Lord Brahma (creator of the universe) and Lord Shiv (the to-be destroyer) for prolonged periods and asked for immense powers when they appeared before him. Having thus become invincible against gods (akin to angels) by the divine powers granted to him, he did not ask for any more protection and technically remained vulnerable to humans. Practically speaking, his immense powers made it all but impossible for him to be defeated by a human being.
Ravan had ten heads and if any one of these was lost in a battle, a replacement sprang up immediately. Using his powers, he soon became the ruler of all earthly and divine realms, in addition to the kingdom of demons he ruled. He was ultimately killed in battle by Ram, the human incarnation of Supreme God.
Interpreting Ravan
Ravan represents the full force of Maya, Supreme God’s powerful energy that deludes all beings except God Himself. In Ramayan, Ravan’s source of energy was ultimately Supreme God. Similarly, Maya’s power flows from God too. Some faiths might call Maya or Ravan the Devil (Ravan and Maya have been used interchangeably in this commentary)
God has created many realms according to ancient Indian literature. There are beings that exist at a higher mental plane than humans. These beings are called devas (or gods; one could also see them as angels) and wield some level of supernatural power over nature. Lower down the pecking order, there are humans. Finally, there are beings that have been bestowed lower mental capacities – animals and insects, for example. All beings that have consciousness exist under Maya’s delusive energy symbolised by Ravan in the story. This energy has its source in God and once had His nature but at present it operates to delude all living beings.
Maya hides the Truth that is God and makes beings appear separated from one-another. Rephrased, Indian spiritual literature teaches that there is just One Being – God. All other beings, energies, and things are His extensions, and are part of Him. God is thus the ultimate and only reality. Because of Maya, God’s delusive energy represented by Ravan, each being sees himself or herself as separate from others. This perception of separateness is the most fundamental aspect of Maya’s power. It is also the most difficult to overcome. Maya’s energy is the foundation of what makes us imperfect, in our human form. A related aspect of Maya is forgetfulness. Our otherwise divine memory is covered by Maya. So, we do not recall our unity with God. Yet another facet of this energy is desire. Desire is a natural outcome of separateness. If I truly see everything as One, there is nothing and no one that is left that is separate from me. So, there is nothing to desire. Everything and everyone is part of me. On the other hand, if there is a whole universe that I see as separate from me, suddenly, there is a whole universe that I could desire. Or hate. All “sins” flow naturally from this concept of separateness – lust, greed, and anger forming the core. Different heads of Ravan represent different sins or human weaknesses . Try and subdue one (remove one of Ravan’s heads) and another springs up to subdue us. For example, a person who overcomes greed momentarily may then fall prey to sloth. If he then overcomes sloth, he may be subdued by lust. Ravan thus retains his strength as a formidable spiritual adversary while changing tactics and he is relentless in his quest to spiritually and mentally subdue us. Our thinking and actions are based on the foundations of this separateness and are thus subjugated by Ravan. Worse, we don’t even realise that we are subject to this bondage. Even if some of us do, we would be at a loss to think about how to break free from it. Such is the power of Ravan over our existence.
Ravan was ultimately killed by Lord Ram, Supreme God incarnated in human form. The arrow that killed Ravan was shot by Ram into his lower abdomen and not to his head because the abdomen was the source of all his powers. Similarly, in order to combat Maya, a spiritual aspirant must subdue the separateness that our mind sees in this world. This perceived separateness is the source of all other weaknesses like lust, greed, anger etc. This separateness could also be characterised as the ego – the “I” that differentiates each of us from the rest of creation. This ego is not defined by the traditional western concept of the word. In Indian spiritual literature, the ego is the tendency of a person to see his body as himself – a view that is at the very foundation of almost all human thinking.
Ravan was thus an almost invincible (and some might also, invisible) adversary that subjugated all beings and it fell upon God Himself to descend to rid the Earth of him.
Ram
Ram was a prince and an incarnation of Supreme God. Famed for His divine looks and sterling character, He was the model Son, Brother, Husband, Prince and later the King of Koshala, a kingdom located in Northern India.
Ramayan includes detailed stories of Ram that illustrate how God would behave if he were to live amongst us. While in human form as Ram, God allowed Himself to be constrained by a number of limitations that encumber any normal person. In doing so, He set an example of how we should act when faced with difficult circumstances. The Epic brings out the strength of Ram’s character and His transcendental nature, and has Him perform the right actions irrespective of personal implications.
Ram married Sita, a princess, after passing a test that required Sita’s suitors to lift and string a Bow that belonged to Lord Shiva. Numerous kings tried to pass this test but were not even able to move the Bow, let alone lift it. Ram not only lifted and strung the Bow, his strength broke it into multiple pieces. This is the first indication that one gets of Ram’s stature as being higher than even Lord Shiva (who is seen as well above devas or angels).
Due to palace intrigues, Ram was exiled for 14 years and lived 13 of these years in a forest with Sita and his younger brother, Laxman. This exile was part of God’s divine plan, since He descended to Earth to finish Ravan’s reign and the exile was part of a chain of events that were to lead to His battle with Ravan. The final year of this exile was marked by the kidnapping of Sita by Ravan, Ram’s assembly of an army, the battle between Ram and Ravan, and Sita’s liberation.
Ancient Indian texts postulate that humans are the only beings that can attain liberation from the cycle of births and deaths. This is akin to humans being the only ones who can defeat Ravan. And, while a human is capable of performing the feat of defeating Ravan, he or she cannot do this without the active support of Supreme God. God helps immensely through intuitional guidance and fortitude. It is interesting to note here that devas are embodied in a higher spiritual state than humans and yet they are subject to Ravan’s energies in a manner such that they are incapable of liberating themselves. Only humans are able to do this. This ability to spiritually liberate ourselves makes each human life uniquely blessed and precious, regardless of spiritual accomplishments or religious affiliations.
A relatively more advanced interpretation could go into the ancestry of Ram, who descended from the Sun god. This may be interpreted as follows: yogic meditation techniques often refer to the mind’s eye or the spiritual eye, located in the space between the eyebrows, as the area that one should focus attention on. This is supposed to be the source of spiritual light that enlivens the human body with consciousness, and is often compared with the Sun. Just as the Sun illuminates the world, the spiritual center between the eyebrows is said to light up the human body with sensory perception. It is at this point that a person should concentrate during meditation and visualise the Supreme God here. Brining the consciousness of God and visualising Him in this spiritual eye is thus personified in the story of Ramayan as Lord Ram being born in Sun god’s lineage.
Sita
The wife and companion of Ram, Sita was said to be the most beautiful and virtuous woman of her time. She accompanied Ram for his exile in forests, though she did not have to. Before she was kidnapped by Ravan, Ram had asked her to perform a fire ceremony, wherein the god of fire accepted her in his protection and a mere shadow of Sita remained in the world. Other than Ram and Sita, no one knew about this switch or noticed it. So, in truth, Ravan kidnapped the shadow of Sita and after Ravan was defeated, Sita emerged from fire and returned to Ram.
Interpreting Sita
Sita represents a person’s soul, an eternal companion of God. This soul’s shadow (a person’s body) is a prisoner of Ravan in this material world. Each living being thus lives in a realm that is dominated by Ravan. As mentioned earlier – under Ravan’s influence, we mistakenly and stubbornly continue to see each person as separate and identify them with their individual bodies. This is the essence of Ravan’s way to bind us here – by hiding the truth of God’s Unity that underlies creation, and pit one against the other.
Birth of the body is akin to the fire ceremony that preceded Sita’s abduction. The soul then casts a shadow in this world in the form of the body of the person. Thereafter, Ravan captures Sita just as a person comes under the spell of his delusive energy and sees the body as himself – separate from others. And, Sita’s liberation and return from fire symbolises the point where the living being casts off the delusive energy of Ravan and is truly free. This spiritual liberation is possible within a single lifetime, but is difficult to achieve. Most people do not attempt it and go through their life not even realising that they are prisoners, let alone trying to free themselves.
Hanuman
A monkey by birth, Hanuman is often seen as the most dedicated servant of God. The son of the god of wind (or air), Hanuman was born with nearly unlimited powers. In Ramayan, he is seen as having being capable of defeating Ravan, though he refrained since he believed that it was only right that Ram do so. Playful and very mischievous by nature, Hanuman was cursed during his childhood that he would forget his powers until someone reminded him of them. He was reminded of his powers and duly regained them while the search for Sita was on. Hanuman was the first to bring Ram’s message to Sita after her abduction. When he met with Sita and delivered Ram’s reassuring message that rescue would soon come, she blessed him with immortality, invincibility, and the eternal love of Lord Ram.
After meeting with Sita, Hanuman allowed himself to be captured by Ravan’s forces and was taken to Ravan’s court. In his subsequent interaction with Ravan, Hanuman warned Ravan that confrontation with Ram would result in the destruction of Lanka and the end of all demons, including Ravan himself. Angered, Ravan ordered Hanuman’s tail to be set ablaze as a punishment. In the melee that followed, Hanuman easily freed himself, set fire to all of Lanka, and returned to Ram with Sita’s message and her location. After Hanuman left, Lanka was quickly rebuilt from the ashes within a few days’ time.
Interpreting Hanuman
Hanuman represents the full power of yoga’s breathing techniques (thus his father is the god of wind/air). Proper control of breath (through yoga techniques) can result in immense mental powers to quieten the mind and subdue its weaknesses (i.e. subdue Ravan’s influence). We are all blessed with this immense power to subdue all that weakens our mind. But we do not even know that we have this power, let alone how to use it. This is akin to Hanuman forgetting his strength during childhood. In the absence of this disciplined knowledge of how to harness our breathing, the breath is often as uncontrolled and random as a playful monkey. And like a monkey randomly swinging from one branch to another, breathing aimlessly moves from one breath to the next when the mind moves from one thought to another. This random mental behaviour makes our breathing behave like a monkey. As the mind of a person similarly swings from one random thought to another and controlling it is “akin to controlling the wind” (borrowing from verse 6:34 from Gita, another ancient Indian Epic ). This is an indication to the close relationship between controlling the mind and breath. For more on how to control breathing and awaken this force using yoga techniques, see this article.
When Hanuman was reminded of his divine strength, he fully regained it and crossed an ocean to reach Sita. Similarly, once this power of spiritual breathing is awakened in us, contact with God follows. This contact is akin to crossing the ocean-sized spiritual distance that separates us from God. This meeting of Hanuman and Sita sits at the core of the most wonderful and detailed chapter of Ramayan and thus it is called the “Sundar Kand” or the “Beautiful Chapter”. And the reason for this naming is that this meeting is the most beautiful thing that can possible happen in a person’s life – he goes through the ultimate divine experience and receives the message of God Himself. The resulting happiness is far, far beyond what our human senses can possibly give us. When people start meditating, they often feel a very small fraction of this inner happiness and peace; but even this minuscule amount is enough for them to keep coming back to it.
When the contact with God happens, a person’s life becomes supremely spiritually successful. This is akin to Sita blessing Hanuman when they met. The divine event of receiving God’s message is also accompanied by an experience wherein a person briefly feels the beauty of being liberated from Ravan’s powers (represented by the burning of entire Lanka). Lanka’s quick reconstruction in the story represents the briefness of the spiritual experience. Sita was liberated later and not immediately during this meeting with Hanuman. Nonetheless, receiving God’s message is an experience that can carry a person through his subsequent life and provide ceaseless spiritual strength and inspiration.
Having being blessed with immense powers, Hanuman had it in him to kill Ravan. This ability represents the dormant power each of us already has to overcome Maya. Once this power is activated, it becomes a lot easier for a person to overpower weaknesses that plague his mind. Ravan’s powers to keep the mind in a state of subdued misery becomes markedly diminished after the first experience of receiving God’s message. With time, this decay in Ravan’s power continues unabated. The passage of time then brings more and more spiritual happiness and peace. The ups and downs of daily life cease to disturb the mind as a person starts seeing all creation as One and stops being subjugated by the perception of separateness that Ravan inflicts on normal thinking.
After the initial divine experience, this process of steadily uniting with God is the most wonderful accomplishment a person can possibly ask from life. In Ramayan, this is akin to the successive victories that Ram’s army had over Ravan’s. As the mind gets progressively free from its normal weaknesses, life becomes blessed and so much easier. Events that would disturb another person cease to hold sway. The peace that the mind feels during meditation spreads over the entire day. Health improves as the body becomes more aligned with a spiritual mind that is at peace. One starts feeling a sense of happiness flowing from the divinity within and is no longer dependent on the outside world to be happy.
Additional thoughts on this interpretation of Ramayan
Stringing Lord Shiva’s Bow
An interpretation related to the story described above would concern the Bow of Shiva, that Ram broke. In a number of yogic interpretations, a bow has been compared with the shoulder of a person. A broken bow may be compared with a posture with the shoulder rounded forward. A proper shoulder posture would align the back along the natural curve of the spine, and be upright over the hips. During meditation, the posture would include a shoulder form rounded backward. This is like a bow with the (yogic) arrow from the base of the spine to the eye of the mind (region between the eyebrows). Pointing this “arrow” upwards during meditation, a yogic practitioner focuses his breathing on the mind’s eye. Breathing in is like pulling the arrow back and breathing out is like releasing it with a focus on the mind’s eye. This meditational comparison is also why some of the most powerful warriors in Ramayan (Ram, Lakshman) and Mahabharat (Arjun, Karna, Drona, and Bheeshma), all wield bows and arrows as their favoured weapons. They all exert their force through the above-described channel of breathing. While Hanuman and Bheem (in Mahabharat, the son of god of wind) wield maces and not bow and arrows, they need someone in the army to provide the guidance and discipline needed (Ram and Arjun respectively – without whom victory would not have been possible).
Coming back to the story of Lord Shiva’s Bow: so, the task set for winning the hand of Sita was to equal Lord Shiva in depth of yogic power and concentration. However, the right companion of a soul is God Himself. And in the Supreme Lord’s presence the Bow of Shiva breaks (shoulder rounds forward) – as Shiva comes out of his meditation and folds his hands in prayer to God, who has suddenly appeared. (Tulsidas’s Ramayan is a narration by Lord Shiva – who repeatedly points out that Ram is Supreme God Himself. )
Crossing the sea – meeting with Soorsa
While Hanuman was crossing the ocean and moving towards Lanka, his path was blocked by Soorsa, described as the mother of snakes. She did not let Hanuman pass. Her condition to vacate the passage to Lanka was that Hanuman would need to enter her mouth. She had every intention to consume him. With no other option to move forward, Hanuman agreed. He grew to a very large size – challenging Soorsa to be able to have a mouth large enough to accommodate his body. Soorsa was a divine being and opened her mouth as needed. Then, suddenly Hanuman reduced his size to a very small level, entered her mouth and came out before she should close it on him. Soorsa then allowed Hanuman to proceed, as she had agreed.
One interpretation here is that Soorsa represents the “Kundalini” or the spiritual force that flows through a person’s spine. This spine is the source of all nerves (akin to snakes – that are Soorsa’s children). Deep meditation and awakening of the power of breathing entails an advanced stage wherein a person’s breathing becomes so less in volume that it’s almost absent. Such reduced level of breathing is akin to Hanuman reducing his size considerably. This very subtle breathing is needed to pass our consciousness through the spinal centres that prevent passage to the places where divinity lies within. Increasing the volume of the breath (akin to increasing the size of Hanuman) won’t do the trick. This increased volume of breathing is a hallmark of a mind that is not at peace and may be equated with states such as anger. To touch divinity, it’s important to learn meditation and spiritual techniques that entail mastery of breathing techniques that calm the mind. The more spiritually calm the mind, the more subtle the breath.
One analogy that can explain this is to compare God with the moon at night. The mind is like the surface of a lake. And the breath is like the wind that sweeps that surface. God can be perceived through the mind, just as the moon’s reflection can be seen on the lake surface. But this needs the mind to be supremely calm. And to ensure that the mind is clam, the breath needs to be spiritually calm (just as the wind on the lake surface needs to subside for moon’s reflection to be clear).
It should be noted that such advanced breathing techniques must be learnt from practitioners of yoga and may be dangerous to try without such trainers.
Crossing the sea – the capture of shadows
An insight from Ramayan comes from when Hanuman was crossing the sea to reach Lanka. A demoness lived in the sea and used to capture and consume birds. She used to capture them by magically catching hold of their shadows and the birds would then be rendered motionless and vulnerable to capture. She tried the same trick with Hanuman but that did not work. Hanuman killed her and proceeded to Lanka.
The birds (like the message carrying pigeons of the past) represent messages that people trapped in Ravan’s Lanka send to God. In other words, they represent prayers. If these prayers cast a shadow, they do not reach God. In other words, if the prayer is based on the love of one’s body (soul’s shadow in this world), the message does not reach God. Such a message would be mired in the thinking that suffers from the delusion of separateness where the paramount concerns are centred on “I” – the body. For our prayers to reach God, they should be pure and not be contaminated by considerations related to our material bodies (or things related to the body, like possessions or friends or family). A thought that casts such an ego-shadow is deluded and is based on the false belief that each person is different. Such a thought would not make it across the sea that separates God from us.
Another way to look at this is through the prism of love – e.g. the love between a parent and a child. At its best, such a love is selfless. In this relationship, a sentiment such as “I will express my love for you in order to get something from you” is out of place and as absurd as saying to God “I pray to you with a sort of understanding that you give me or my family money / health/ power…”. This story in Ramayan illustrates that such prayers are of little spiritual use and will not bring a person any closer to God.
Hanuman and Sun God
An interpretation of Hanuman’s stories could include his interactions with Sun god. During his playful childhood, Hanuman is said to have swallowed the Sun. He released the Sun only after other gods intervened. Thereafter, later in his life, Hanuman was a disciple of the Sun god.
As mentioned above, one could see the spiritual eye between the eyebrows as representing the Sun. Early in our spiritual lives, we are not aware of this center of spiritual consciousness and it is overwhelmed by a person’s breathing. When a normal person feels his incoming and outgoing breath, he does not feel these going into the spiritual center or coming from it. He simply feels this in his chest or elsewhere in the body. This absence of the perception of the spiritual eye is akin to Hanuman swallowing the Sun.
With spiritual advance and training in related breathing techniques, a person learns to focus his breathing on this spiritual eye, with incoming and outgoing breaths feeding into this center and coming from it. This is the phase when Hanuman is learning to worship from the Sun god as his guru (directing the breath to and from the spiritual eye). This mediation is described in more detail in verses 6:11 onwards in Bhagwad Gita.
Sita as incarnation of Goddess Laxmi
Sita is usually depicted as an incarnation of Goddess Laxmi, who is said to be the source of wealth. By the above interpretation of Ramayan, Sita is not the source of material wealth that is lost when the body perishes. She, as a representation of the person’s soul, is the source of spiritual wealth that is permanent and enduring. This spiritual wealth is bestowed by her to Hanuman as blessings when they meet. Immense spiritual powers similarly flow from the soul to us after we have our first divine experience. This true, permanent wealth brings peace of mind and divine happiness, the likes of which this material world cannot match.
Conclusion: Insights from Ramayan and Indian Epics
In conclusion, here are some insights that can be drawn from Ramayan and this interpretation. I am also adding some additional thoughts based on other Indian epics whose teachings overlap here.
Broad insights
Here are some broad insights that one could draw:
- Ancient Indian epics serve as a heritage for all of humanity. They bring us wisdom that remains ahead of our present times (as mentioned earlier, science is still struggling to understand how yoga and meditation benefit us, let alone invent something as deep as them).
- We have always struggled to understand the human mind and have faced challenges in keeping it in a state of enduing peacefulness, engagement, and happiness. This struggle is not likely to make much headway through methods that ignore yoga’s teachings and related meditation lessons that these ancient literatures include.
Yoga is a lot more than just physical exercises. Here’s a recommended source on it. - What we take away from the epics evolves with time. Early in our spiritual journey, they teach relatively simple lessons e.g. in moral life’s principles. As one advances, he can see new meanings and guidance in the same literature. The lessons drawn are relevant for the specific stage of the person’s spiritual journey. This quality makes the epics more like a practical user-manual for life.
Actionable insights
Effective methods that bring deep and lasting happiness and peace are not necessarily intuitive. Most of us would have realised by now that the material measures of success such as wealth, power, and fame do not bring lasting peace and happiness. Many would argue that they do the opposite. So, how can we go about achieving this enduring peace and happiness? Epics like Ramayan, Mahabharat, and Gita can help with this question. While Gita provides more clarity and flexibility than other epics, there are also useful insights that can be drawn from Ramayan. Here are some that I interpret (these insights are not exclusive to Ramayan but teach the lessons in a different way):
Focus and Perspective
Our focus through life remains on things outside of the Self (i.e. the material world or our bodies). The things we usually focus on remain wealth, looks, power, prestige, and fame for ourselves and our families, communities, organisations, and countries. This is not focusing within. This is pursuing things that open doors to fretfulness, anxiety, and anger into the mind. So, the first insight here is that most of the times, we focus on the wrong stuff in life and this wrong stuff occupies our minds almost all the time. If we are to occupy our minds with things in proportion of their importance, then we need to concentrate on the enduing happiness that lies within. After all, enduring happiness is the most important thing that we could possibly achieve. Such happiness does not depend on outside events, wealth, fame, power or the like.
How can one go about doing this? Self-awareness is an important place to start. When an event happens that has a personal impact on us, there is a process that happens inside our minds. Our thought patterns follow a path that usually traces what happened earlier or lays a path for the future. e.g. when a person loses money, the resulting thought pattern may be a mix of anger, regret, blame, disappointment, and anxiety. In this way, outside events keep coming at us and our minds keep reacting to them following a pattern of thoughts we keep tracing again and again. This is a bit like digging a ditch deeper and deeper. The more we trace a thought pattern, the more likely we are to get trapped in it as a habit. Then the mind starts tracing such paths even without being triggered by an outside event (through random thought patterns along these present mental paths) e.g. a person fretting about money or brooding about his lost prestige. The surprising thing is that events a normal person would see as good usually reinforce similar patters of mental misery. The patterns being carved out here are a bit like carving a line in a statue. The line cut into the stone exists as a contrast to the area around it. It cannot exist without the contrast. Similarly, material happiness and sorrow exist because each gives life to the other. Both are part of a mental process that accepts opposites and digs ditches in the mind into which we keep falling.
For a person who wants to live in the spiritual kingdom of happiness within, a good place to start would be to be self-aware and try to shift from a role of an instinctive doer to a role of a thoughtful observer. This is not a call to stop action. It is to point out that a lot of our actions and thoughts slavishly follow patterns set in the past. Consequently, we remain trapped in routines of misery.
So, what should we observe? Our breathing is a good place to start. Just to observe one’s breath makes a person more self-aware and at peace. It is highly recommend for people new to yoga exercises of breathing. Such observation of breath teaches a person to slow down when events can hijack his thinking and responses. A person starts observing how thoughts impact the breath, how one loses control over the breath just as the mind flies off the handle. With time and yoga exercise, the person realises how controlling the breath can surprisingly restrain negative thoughts. This makes us more deliberate rather than instinct or habit-driven. We move from being an actor to a relatively more objective observer. From a person who is unthinkingly following a routine of thoughts and actions, to a person who is able to withhold the ripples of disturbances within. Hanuman represents this power of breathing within us. We just need to remind him that he has it (i.e. learn this technique through yoga training).
Without this shift of perspective from outside to inside, it would be impossible to overcome Maya / Ravan. Because the struggle with this spiritual adversary is within, without observing ourselves within, there is no victory. Ravan thrives inside of us. And that is where we need to turn our mental searchlight in order to fight him. As Mahatma Gandhi (himself a deeply spiritual person) once said – “The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought”.
Throw some light within
As mentioned in my earlier note, our natural inclination is to look outside while true happiness lies within. But it’s difficult to peer within. It’s unfamiliar territory and most of us are not trained on how to proceed. Enter epics such as Ramayan, Mahabharat, and Gita. In combination with each other, and with relatively more advanced interpretations, they provide the holistic view of what happens inside in the mental-spiritual plane.
Earlier writing here shows how Ramayan illustrates what is happening within us in a spiritual-mental plane. For those interested, another place to look could be in Yogananda’s interpretation of Gita’s and Mahabharat’s key characters. Mahabharat is a complementary view of Ramayan. In Ramayan, God is the one who is Himself fighting our spiritual adversary. He is shown as the model person – always acting in exemplary ways regardless of the difficulty of circumstances and regardless of the personal consequences. On the other hand, in Mahabharat (of which Gita is a part), God does not take up arms for the most decisive fight but is the indispensable guide, counsellor, and strategist supporting the army of the good against the dark forces. He is shown as the most cunning planner that can be and there is no one who can outwit Him. By virtue of His guile, He is able to ensure the victory of His side and brings down what was widely recognised as an invinsible force. Both views hold lessons. In cases of profound truths, such paradoxes are common and collectively provide the full picture e.g. God is formless and yet, He is every form; He is far but also close by; He is inside each and everything and He is also Spirit, unencumbered by matter… and so on. Mahabharat shows how a person must himself wage a spiritual struggle to advance himself towards God. Without this personal effort, there is no progress. And, God guides him along. Ramayan shows how God remains the primary actor who is ensuring spiritual progress for those who are sincere. Both views collectively represent the whole truth.
Paths
Indian Epics offer a range of paths to help spiritual progress. The most important ones are:
- The path of knowledge: involves reading and reflecting upon the epics. This knowledge-gathering effort helps underhand how the material and spiritual universes intertwine and work. Spiritual knowledge then diffuses into our thinking, our actions, and our lives in general. Self awareness increases just by virtue of knowing more about spiritual realities. Seeing the spiritual flaws in oneself, a person starts moving to steps to counter them and restrict their impact. He also becomes more forgiving and accepting of the same flaws in others.
This path is especially suited to the intellectual and the curious. They come for the novelty of ideas and stay for the benefits they experience in terms of peace and happiness. - The path of action: this is the path of trying to work for the betterment of others. One of the most important things that a person could do on this path is to get trained in practices of yogic breathing and mention. Pranayam is a yoga breathing technique that helps a person not just become a better observer (as suggested above) but an active controller of the mental processes. This works best when combined with guided meditation. The ultimate result is a person working at the material level while his mind is established in spiritual bliss. This happens when deep state of mediation becomes more and more enduring – lasting much longer than the meditation session itself. Having reached this level, it becomes easier for a person to do the right things – always a challenge in the path of action.
Meditation is linked with spiritual strength a bit like how gym workouts are linked to physical strength. Done right, meditation provides strong mental patterns that help us manage our mind while we get pulled into the daily grind. Just like an exercise history in a gym provides us with the physical resilience and energy to go through a challenging day, similarly meditation practice provides us with the mental strength to withstand and prevail over debilitating mental thought patterns. Bhagwad Gita is specific about the descriptions and techniques suggested for meditation – one can refer it from verses 6:11 onwards. It should be pointed out that the focus area during meditation should be between the eyebrows (and not the tip of the nose- as is often wrongly interpreted). - Path of Worship: This is perhaps the most difficult of all paths. It entails giving up material possessions and affixing oneself in a routine of worshipping God. Worship here means that the ideal state is one wherein the mind does not desire and thoughts do not chase material dreams (wealth, powers, influence, fame etc). When the mind gets distracted, it is brought back to God. All actions are typically directed towards teaching spiritual lessons or maintaining places of worship. Or, the person lives alone to perform this worship, less disturbed by worldly distractions – as happens in remote monasteries.
This path is more difficult than the others. While the path of action and knowledge entail moderation in indulgences that the world allows a person, the path of worship prescribes the abstinence from these before the mind has let them go. Moderate indulgence in paths of knowledge and action teaches a person that true happiness does not lie in material things and it then becomes easier for him to let go. The path of worship entails the risk of a person remaining fixated on desires that remain unfulfilled along with the regret that they are prohibited. The resulting sense of frustration can engulf any spiritual endeavour. The unfortunate result could be a life that brings a person the worst of both the worlds – scant spiritual advance while experiencing the frustrations of material deprivations. The three paths (of knowledge, action, and worship) described above are not independent of each other. A person can travel down one of them and get the benefits obtained from the others. It is probably not possible for one to successfully travel one path alone. He would typically move from one to another during this journey.
Endnote – A Call to Action
Youth, good health, and life’s distractions successfully hide from us the happiness that we can achieve through spiritual progress. Most of us do not realise what we are missing. We jump from one random thought or action to another; from one mental ditch to another; from one spiritual trap to another. Like in a world full of people who cannot see, no one realises the beauty that lies beyond our spiritual blindness. But that incredible world of deep, lasting happiness does exist. It exists inside us and is within reach. Its promise is waiting to be realised in this life itself. We do not need to wait for an after-life to reach this heaven.
A number of people have faintly tasted it. When in meditation, they catch glimpses of the spiritual beauty that is otherwise hidden from us. It manifests to them as unconditional happiness that comes from within and is independent of the chaos in the outside world. But they experience it momentarily and do not grasp its deep promise. Instead, they get back into the daily grind again. The hustle of life drowns out the memory of that happiness and working towards it is usually not even a medium-level priority. But a few persevere – moving from glimpsing this paradise to experiencing it more and more till they bring it out of meditation and into the normal life. This is what we would all want to do – live in a state where we are always happy. This is where we belong. Our true home is waiting. We just need to start moving towards it. All it takes is to set aside some time everyday to practice and deepen the spiritual skills needed. Here are 3 things that a person could start doing daily:
- Pranayam: needs some training first and here’s one possible resource. Recommended: 10 minutes of pranayam in the morning.
- Read an Indian Epic: Bhagwad Gita would be a great place to start. Recommended: 10-15 minutes of reading.
- Meditation – in line with these suggestions (replace the deer skin mentioned here with a thin, firm mattress). Recommended 30 minutes.
