Video 1

1. Ramayana: An Introduction

a wonderful meeting though we are in a very far in a separated but still now at this moment we are sitting so close and the memories after seeing you that that memories that is coming to me crowding in my mind when i visited i stayed in their uh house and how uh good their that the hospitality i really cannot forget that and the beautiful island beautiful country and so nice people i visited the schools and i really liked all those now as because you are organizing maybe every month you will meet and we will read the the ramayana why ramayana because that is the first instruction that came from god how the human character should be human behavior should be and there the god he is showing himself so that is the importance of the ramayana she will study the ramayana for every month and as long as we can continue and we will listen from you too so this will be our the interactive courses then we can you can ask question i will try to give you the answer and this will will continue and let me begin with a prayer to sri ramachandra yanmaya basha birth [Music] brahmana i salute the supreme lord hari known as rama the hari is becoming rama hari is the vishnu so that is the supreme court when the god took the form the first form was the god is without form god is all-pervading god is everywhere and naturally god cannot have any form but for us only as we cannot concentrate our mind we cannot give our mind to something which is not having a name and deform the god has taken the form and that form is called vishnu hari and that vishnu that hari sometimes take different forms and this time he came as sri rama the cause transcending or relative causes whose mysterious power controls all beings in the world including brahma the devas and the ashuras the good and the bad everything in the hand of that god whose substance given reality to all things just as the rope does to the snake appearing on it friends this is the way the vedanta that explained the creation and this is very interesting all religions the christianity islam buddhism hinduism and all established religions they have to give this explanation who is the creator and what is this creation and what is the relation between the creator and the creation unless it is there it won't be accepted as a philosophy as a path of god realization so here we say it is like the snake on the rope in the view how the creation came it is an imagination very difficult right this moment to accept it because when i'm pinching my hand i feel the pain i feel hunger i feel sleepy i see the so many things all around me now still the hindu will say no that is not true it is not there why this is maya this is imagination how when you see a snake on a rope you create the snake on a rope snake is not there there was a rope that was lying on the street and a little darkness were there in that tree light you think that is a snake but snake is not there so that is the way we have to understand this creation is and whose feet alone before a spiritual aspirant as a boat for crossing the ocean of samsara so i am we are praying to the three ramachandra and this ramachandra is the embodiment in avatara a part of sri visnu sri vishnu is that brahman all-pervading consciousness who has taken a form a few days before i have concluded the reading the bhagavata and in that bhagavata up from one to nine chapter it all goes about the god without form the god everywhere the consciousness the one day so happened the brahma the fast created one whom that supreme god created out of his mind be you there and immediately it was there in the christianity also they they say the lord god said let there be light and there was light the creation is just like that he thought and it was there so that is the way the brahma was created then one day brahma went and then he prayed to god you must take a form other otherwise the created being cannot understand what is god then the only brahma and sheba they could see a form he was having the four hands and he came over there a glittering light that dazzled the eyes of all the gods even only the brahma and shiva could see him just for a second and there was a tremendous sound and that was the first time the conception of the god in form came and that is the god from there came sri rama and what is this rama this again this will be our theme prayer every month if we continue the ramayana we start with this ramayana it begins with a question one day narada muni all of you know the narada he's a wonderful sage he goes on wandering in different places he's a very educated and he goes to different parts and he meets people one day he came and visited the balmiki valmiki the great sage who has written the mahabharata the other and sorry who has written the ramayana that balmiki's sage he met him the narada made the balmiki and when they were talking they suddenly balmiki asked him i will read the sanskrit because that will give you a beautiful idea [Applause] kanda of the ramayana ramayana in four parts you know in the adi in the beginning this is the question the balmiki is asking to the narada and what is that o naruto do you know anyone in this world who is noble heroic virtuous grateful truthful form in his promises self-confident conquer or conqueror of anger handsome forgiver of others fault and again when he is angry even the gods become afraid of him so he is asking any such person all these qualities are there in him and what are the qualities first is noble what is this nobility behavior he will never go down in his behavior sometimes some people uses the filthy language when they talk or they express their anger a noble person will never do that the nobility is so great so when the people a walking talking seating and that shows his nobility his gesture posture grace everything will show that is a really graceful and that is called noble then heroic what is this hero courageous he always goes forward to help others that's called hedoic virtuous so many wonderful qualities are there virtues are there that is called virtuous now grateful so this this is the term the grateful and at the same time if a human being is not grateful he's not a human being these are the two qualities of a human being what is the sraddha respect for the seniors respect for the scripture respect for the teachers and also self-confident it is called sardar and krita gata and this gratefulness we should not forget what our neighbors and our country our society our family and our parents they have done for me the parents is giving so much for me and when i grow up i forget them so that is the thing one should not that is called the gratefulness you know the long back i was in island in india that's called andaman some of you know and that is from the mainland india it is almost 2000 nautical miles away towards the north towards the east and near java bali burni so that is that is called andaman islands and in this millennium in the 2000 the first january we all went to a island another island i andaman islands there are nearly 500 islands clubbed together and nicobar so there's a island so we went over there at the fast after the 100th century the first sunrise so the millenniums and rice the many people from different countries hundreds of sheeps went over there and it was the bay of bengal the ocean i also went there with a shape because the governor used to like me he asked me to be his guest i went over there and the morning that was undescribable so beautiful huge ocean and the sun is rising all these things all the officers the governors and the people they went to the land the island called kachal i was on the ship and i was praying to the sun and i was pouring some ganga water and throwing some flowers and chanting the the mantra praising the sun god yabba kushima samkhasam etc then afterwards i sat for meditation then i found a group of people with the cameras that are focusing on me and getting ready as if to take the interview i told who are you and what you are doing here they told we are from cnn the famous american that and they were very famous they used to go everywhere nowadays cnn only gives talks and nothing else but anyway the cnn they told we like to know from you why you are worshipping a star sun is nothing but a star why you are worshiping the sun then i told them see whenever you feel that someone has helped you will you forget that suppose you were very angry very thirsty at that moment someone gave you little food and little drink and saved your life will you forget him oh no so that is the thing now you think what the sun is doing for us each and every one in on this earth we are all surviving because of the sun we know that sun is nothing but a star but at the same time because of the warmth of the sun the sun ray we are all surviving should we not be little grateful to the sun the hindus they're always a grateful nation and we that's why i give the highest respect to this star sun as god and that is the reason the hindus they worship the river worship the trees worship the animals because all of them are helping us gratefulness if a person is not grateful he cannot be called as a human so who is ramachandra we have to understand this in the beginning itself before the ramayana begins these are the wonderful qualities that particular person was having so we have so much of respect and we consider him as an avatar as a god truthfulness one should be truthful truthful to oneself truthful to others also second form in his promises and this is called dharma and when i went to india this time in almost all the lectures nearly 20 lectures i delivered all over the india everywhere i told don't get confused about dharma don't get confused about the religion religion means keeping your promise each and every one of us when we take a position we do promise and if we keep the promise the minister is taking the promise before becoming a minister and soldier is taking a promise the police is taking a promise each and every one of us even before the marriage we took promises many of us we don't understand but if you go and read and ask the person the purohit the what are the promises that we took at the time of marriage each and every religion you will have the promises and when we become monk we take promises we are not supposed to break those promises the monks promise that we should love each and every one without any restriction oh this is my religious relig the people of the same religion so we should love no not like that monk's love should be for each and everyone concern for each and every one so religion means keeping the promise in hindi they always say vada nibhani parega you have promised so you must have to keep your words so in the ramachandra we find that keeping the words the whole ramayana is nothing but keeping the words his father dasharatha will come to that afterwards he gave a promise to his one of his wives and ramachandra when he came to know about that he told father you must keep the promise because that is dharma then self-confident one should be self-confident if one is not self-confident one cannot grow so what is this dharma what is this religion just going to temple going to church going to synagogue or to mosque to do some rituals no developing the self-confidence i can do i can do i can do someday i will become like that i can make it so that self-confidence and conqueror of anger that is the first another quality they say the conqueror of anger the human being sometimes they lose their mind the control and they become so angry and they create the problem for themselves so conqueror of anger and he is handsome and forgiver of others fault sometimes people the friends the relatives they make some mistakes the mind should be broad enough to forgive them again when angry even the gods become afraid of him that is the personality a person when he shows that courageous face then the others are afraid of him so that is the way he is describing so i will read again the sanskrit means [Applause] one two and one to four it says like this when he asks this question narada immediately said yes i can tell you about a prince and their family and that famous prince is none other than sri ramajandra this is the first time balmaki he is hearing about sri ramachandra and the balmiki narada told him this all numbers are bhagya and balmy is not otherwise all knower used to go to all over the world is to give the all information so that that is the way he is doing giving the answer he is the prince from the ikshaku family and they are from the sun dynasty you know in india there are two dynasties coming down one is from the sun another from the moon chandra bombs and surya means the sun it's not the real sun it is only they take that the whole it has come and that power the valor of the sun it is there in the tradition so this is the and the family name iksaku ikshaku was the first person of that family the name of the kingdom is koshala we always say ayodha ayada was their kingdom but the whole the empire was the country was kosher and the ajada was the capital and there at present ruling from the iksaku family that dasharata is ruling and dasharata has four sons rama lakshmana bharata and satrugna these are the forshans now when they say the provinces it is a very big kingdom the when we think that drama now the whole fight is going on with ayodhya and now that the hindus are very happy the supreme god has given the that particular plot or yoda to the hindus in india it goes on like this they are planning to make a huge temple over there they're going on but it is not the ayuda you know the the country that dashartha used to rule the father of the sri ramachandra that was drabida means the southern part of india then sindhu that is now the pakistan then soviet that is bihar and kashi that's the eup all these places were under the control in the kingdom of the dasharatha why i am telling you because we can understand the ramachandra was a historical figure it's not an imagination when you talk about goddess kali when you talk about ganesha when you talk about dulga imaginative gods but when ramachandra he was born and his father was the king of all these places and those places are still there except the shura there's so bidah and some part of the hindu that has gone into pakistan so all these places are now in india so that is called the kingdom the king the shraddha's guru and guide was marshy bashista the bashist had a talk and this king was having eight ministers so naturally they used to give him you know why eight ministers different ministers is to look after different departments different parts so the eight ministers head of the ministers pradhan mantri was the su mantra the sumantra he was the economist so he used to guide the king the king's main role the administrator's main role how to earn money and how judiciously to spend it that's the king's duty it is there in our veda what the king should do so naturally he was having an economist as a chief minister minister pradhan mantri and he used to get the guidance and we know it was a really very good country in everything the economically and well protected because the king was very powerful culturally and people were also very religious minded and in that situation it is this premise now you know the story this king dasharatha was not having any children so he was very sad such a huge kingdom who is going to rule after me so he used to think then one day some of the rishis they came and told him why don't you perform one yagya for a son the king told okay and it is true if there are real good rishis who can perform the particular mantra if they can apply and it happens mantra shakti the power of the mantra so the great rishis they came and they performed the yagya putra that is so after the performance of the yagya there from the fire as it says it came a porridge and one plate full of porridge and the king was asked by the god a sound a voice you distribute it among your the wives when the king was distributing half portion of the whole porridge he gave to his fast wife kaushallah then he gave it to kaike the mother of the bharata then next one kaushallah koike and sumatra so these three the kaushallah got the half and that is the ramachandra then the lakshmana then the bharata and lakshmana the bharata's mother kuiki when she was receiving the porridge a drop of it was falling from her hand and there was a crow sitting over there nearby and it flew and took it and it was going to eat indra the king of the gods he immediately asked bayou devata the gods of the wind the that crow doesn't know what is it go and snatch it from crow and then go to that particular mountain where you will find a lady is praying and praying for a son give that portion to her so the wind the bayou devata pavana devata it's called pabana he took that porridge and carried that to that lady the anjana anjaniya and she was also praying for a long time to god for his son and that porridge was given to her and from heart took birth mahavir hanuman so that's why it is said there is the son of pavana how he became the son of pavana because the pavana carried that parish to heart so this is the story and from that the four brothers they were born and it continues about the ramachandra it says so in might he is like the vishnu the tremendous power tremendous strength so that's why beriyah bhi means that power the strength and there it says that is like the lord vishnu the supreme god so sri rama chandra was having that power second it is a psychological mental power some people if they are failure in little thing immediately they break down and they will cry and they will complain the whole society that is not barrier media means well i am not successful in this i am going to be successful in something else so by that way it goes tremendous power that is called beeria somobot priya darshana soha means the moon when you look at the moon we become very happy so he was so beautiful you're so handsome the people used to look at that ramachandra is very very handsome so that's why it's so mobile but sometimes the looking at the because the the male body at some time it is very different type of look it is not like that it was very beautiful bhagavan sudama krishna said the gods images should be beautiful when we are making the images why people should look at it if the image is not attractive our attention won't go over there so soma about priya darshana again kaalagni sadrushak krothe when he used to become angry then as if the wildfire the people is to become very very afraid of him like the art it forgives people so many times people are committing mistake and all that going on giving the forgiveness this is the ramachandra you know there are two major ramayana known to the society one is balmiki ramayana that is the original ramayana written in sanskrit another ramayana is very popular particularly among the indians the hindi speaking people and that is called tunsidasi ramcharit manasseh tulsidasji was not at the time of ramachandra balmiki was at that time but the tulsidasi he said as if i am in the time of ramachandra so ramcharit manas manas means imagination the tulsidasi used to imagine that i am at the time of ramachandra the little ramachandra and he is growing up he is playing till siddhasji as if used to imagine that i am observing ramachandra growing up to manhood and then he is doing this doing that ramacharit manas and it is written in the form of a poetry so people like it very much so these are the two ramayana and in the tulsidasi is the conversation between the sheba and the parvati the parvati is asking lord siva you are god but why you are looking at that man wandering over there on the earth and at the same time folding your hands and offering pranam to him he is a human being then he said no he is the visnu himself he has gone in the form of a human so that is the conversation between the sheba and the parvati and that the tulsidasi recorded it is the ramcharit [Applause] and narada also explaining about the ramachandra and then balmiki is meditating on that and finding all this and writing it is the story of the ramachandra friends i think it is almost another 10 minutes left so do you have any question to ask the last 10 minutes as a we can have this interactive session we will study the ramayana and particularly the characters of the ramayana that dash hanuman all different characters and the beautiful way that has come in the ramayana and in between because most of you know the story of the ramayana and the children can also you can go in the youtube you can have the beautiful ramayana the books are also there movies are there and you can learn about that but we will discuss the philosophical part that will help us in our spiritual growth in a spiritual life now in the last 10 minutes do you have any question to ask please unmute and ask and please unmute your baby you please unmute yeah yeah um it's more of a well how do we engage because we spoke earlier with promises right right and um we should make promises to ourselves promises to our religion promises at every point in our life we make promises but i think you know um being part of the younger generation or i mean not so young generation um words now have become so meaningless that you know how do we teach the the upcoming generation the meaning of words and the meaning of when you say something or when you you know say what you mean and mean what you see i think that's one of the bigger challenges that we've been because you know um people taking your life like it's nothing you know the people getting divorced every minute i mean you know it's so rampant to society nobody cares to say good morning manners even something simple as manners you know so if we don't understand the basics then to make a promise like that to maybe ourselves or to you know so as you are telling the the modern society they have made a great mistake they thought the religion means it is only should be restricted in the temple mosque and synagogue churches it is not like that religion is a human life we are leaving into that and human and the animal the what is the difference animals also feel hungry angry sleepy thirsty whatever we feel everything is there in the animal so what is the difference dharma and what is that dharma we keep promises so if we don't keep promises when the hindus they marry the christians they marry and other religion i don't know you will find particularly hindus i have observed seven times they will go round the fire they put a fire the younger fire and the husband and wife they'll go seven times the people are happy throwing the flower petals and singing all these things but you know at that time the priest he says seven mantras what is the promise the man will say from now onwards till my death i will take care of you and the lady will promise to the end at the from now till my death i will always be with you helping you in your endeavors like that seven promises are there and suppose those seven promises you write and keep it somewhere and that should be a very prominently placed if the husband and wife constantly look at that and feel i promise this this breakage in the in them after the marriage the break it won't be there because the human is nothing but the mind and the mind is nothing but keeping the words the teacher gave the word that i am going to give the best education to you the administrator gave the promise that i am going to give my best to you to administer every every step you will find promise and promise and promise each each and every one keep their promises even the polish personal army personnel if they keep their promises think of the world it will be heaven so now you know they be we have to go on telling people we should follow and we should keep our words if i say someone i will give you this much i will surely give it even be that our fathers and the grand grandfathers before their death they always to remember have i taken any loan from anyone and they used to tell it to the children son i took the 10 rupee from that person i couldn't give it back please give it back to him on my behalf i promise that i will give i must give it back and the son used to do the same thing he used to keep the promise one young boy his name was nachiketa in the upanishad in the four thousand years before he his father angrily told him you go to yama the king of death then he said father why you are sending me to death i was not a good bad boy i was always good to you the father then realized and told angrily i told so don't you need not to go then that boy is telling swami vivekananda again and again quoted that and he said if the human being do not keep the promises they will be like the grasses they are they are growing up for some time then dying again growing up no purpose in the life human life is with the purpose and the purpose is promise he told his father if you have look at the past your the ancestors never broke the promise and if you break the promise then your the next generation they how they will survive the human life is nothing but keeping the promise and keeping the promise needs lot of mental strength and physical endeavor and ultimately you will become peaceful and happy i have tried my best i will just conclude this particular portion of answering bhagavan sirama krishna used to say always stick to the truth and any promise you must keep and he was a poor brahmana and at the time of marriage they hired some of the jewelleries from the neighborhood and the decorated bride and little sarda she was very happy with all the jewelleries little she knew the jewelleries are actually coming from the other neighbors family next morning when she was sleeping the mother-in-law took out all the jewelries and gave it back she got up and started crying where are my jewelleries then the mother-in-law she told my son will make the golden jewelries for you in future suramar krishna never could touch the money but at the same time because the mother gave the word he took a job as a priest and used to get eight rupee in those days and used to ask another gentleman will you please keep this money and tell me when it is sufficient to purchase two golden bangles for my wife and when it was there he purchased the golden bangles gave it to the mother and he said i have kept my promise and that is called dharma every time you will find this thank you for your a beautiful question very good question any other question um any question um i just saw me i just saw an uh a question i think popped up in the chat um from randy the quran it says what is the punishment for not keeping a sun cult a promise if the punishment is great then it's okay to not promise but rather have a good intention keeping it mentally and not verbal while performing duties with best effort i'm sorry i read that that was a question i i didn't read it as a question um i'm not sure if you'd be able to look in the chat if the punishment is great then is it okay to not promise but rather have a good intention keeping it mentally and not verbal while performing duties with best effort okay or not but rather have a good intention keeping it mentally and not verbal while performing duties with best effort so this actually you know that when you are asking that it is very clear i don't promise which i cannot keep i should not do that and suppose i promised then it won't be possible for me to keep then i should go to the person with whom i promised and say i'm very sorry i don't think i'll be able to keep it but 99.9 percent the if i have promised i should keep it i must keep it if you read the gospel of sirama krishna every week i am reading here if you listen to that and only the last wednesday the yesterday when someone is asking then what should i do what is my my duty to my wife then suramar krishna is telling since you are married you have to take care of your wife because you are promised and when you think that you will die you must keep the provision sufficient so that your wife can leave on that because you are promised so that is the way the family there it goes it is very very important the brahmacharya that means the student life then the bana prasti the retired life the sannyas alive they all depend on the grihasti and the griasthi is the main base of the human society and if the family they don't keep promises and they break like this just like they go marry and go to the court and again take the breakage again they go marry in the movies it is okay but in the original life if it is there the whole human society will become the society of animals animals they live only for the body but the human being should not so when i am giving the world i must be sure that i can keep this world then only should give and if you are not keeping the word you should be punished or not that is a different question because there's all the time the rules and the fear of police and administration cannot keep you a human human is mental human is psychological and if you tell yourself i am a human being i must keep my word then you are not only human you are also divine thank you for the question um okay then it is eight o'clock i think and we will continue this do you like to continue raise your hand oh good okay okay okay so we will read so now we will and now you need not to unmute but you sing with me only these two lines jayaram i think you all know it and it will be like this [Music] red three four times if we do the what happens you know then the power that is there in the name sri rama is the power this is a divine power it's a holy power so when you are chanting your house become the room become holy unholy thoughts are are the bad type of the souls won't be able to enter over there fast and rama means you get the joy ramayathi rama rama means joy so if you chant that name automatically you will get the joy so okay then thank you don't forget these three these three words jairam sri ram jai jai ram okay jai ram sri ram jaya clap your hands and you have to sing like that so in every class before we will offer the pranam and that is a long sanskrit you won't be able to do i will do and at the end all together we will chant jairam sriram okay thank you