KATHAM️
Yesterday’s hanumān jayanti marked the beginning of the 25-day countdown to the 50th revolution around the sun 🌞 in my latest body, named “din-esh” after ‘the lord of the day’ ☀️, whom a hungry young hanumān 🐵 had set out to swallow into nothingness 🕳 , knowing not that that he was an avatār of nothingness too!
Friends & co-passengers, please come on. On the holy occasion of hanumān jayanti, let us begin a journey from devotion to wisdom. This is a journey from rāmāyanā to adhyātma or spiritual rāmāyanā; from mere book 📖 to brain; from vedā to vedāntā; from information to application; from karmayogā to rajayogā; from the multitude of ordinary words to the extraordinary words; from the interesting stories of our purānās & histories to the self-dissolving ultimate highest truth of the upanišad of all upanišads, māndūkya upanišad’s great sentence, ayam ātmā brahma (अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म) meaning "This Self or ātman is brahman" (māndūkya upanišad 1.2 of the atharva vedā). If you or your acquaintances prefer, please listen to my invitation in hindi, thamizh & kannada by clicking on the audio player above.
I also request the inquisitive amongst you to guess the role of the other characters of rāmāyanā in our individuality. I've already told you that Lakśmanā is our body, sitā is our mind, hanumān is our life-breath, bharatā is our intellect, śatrugnā is our aham-kārā or i-ness or ego, vibhīśanā is our sātvik gunā (purity), rāvanā is our rājasik gunā (passion), kumbhakarnā is our tāmasik gunā (lethargy) & of course we are all rāmā, the ātmā or individual soul, which in turn is the supremely absolute universal reality, paramātmā or para-brahman.
Then what about daśarathā, kausalyā, sumitrā, kaikeyi, vālmiki, viśwāmitrā, vāli, sugrīvā, monkeys, anjanādevi, squirrels, jāmbavān, jatāyu, tātakā, mārichā, śūrpanaka, ahalyā, gautamā, rāméśwara lingam et al.? Yes, they are all various aspects of our individual self but what specific aspects? Deeply inquiring about this within ourselves will expand our ultimate knowledge or rather wisdom & which certainly expands when shared in the comments below… trust me;-) Try thinking about at least one character at a time… it's indeed very intriguing how the entire story & history of the scripture can be correlated with us individually every moment of our life.
Ji haan, yeh hai yātrā bhakti se jñān tak; rāmāyan se adhyātma rāmāyan tak; pustak se mastak tak:
🕉 śrī-mad
rā-ma la-kś-ma-na jā-na-ki
jai bo-lo
ha-nu-mān-ki
ay-am āt-ma
bra-hma na-kā-ya-ma-noh-bu-ddhi
jai bo-lo
ma-hā-prān-ki
Asha Raghavan
I was looking at d different characters in Ramayana and tried to squeeze into their shoes.! Surprisingly i fitted partly into every shoe...a mother like Kausalya, broad minded like sumitra, evil element like that of Kaikeyi does exist in me.I have an atome of creativity which can hold a place in Valmiki, helpful like squirrels.I do bring about the latent talent in people like Jambavan did to Hanuman. DIasaratha is impulsive and weak at times and so am I at times! I am lying if I say I have not erred at all like Vaali, Surpanaka or Maareecha. Well this is the blatant truth!
Asha Raghavan
typo error correction....please read as ' an atom ' of Valmiki's creativity, not atome
Srinivasan A.V
Another awesome write up. Kudos to you!