Synopsis of Swami Abhedanandaji’s beautiful discourse on ‘Aranya Kand’ from the first day of the monthly yagna:

Meaning of Aranya

1. In Aranya Kand of Ramayana, Bhagavan Ram enters the forest. In Sanskrit, one of the meanings of ‘Aranya’ is forest. Aranya also has another meaning – ‘where one should go’. It is said that one should go to the forest for sadhana after having completed their duties of household.
2. Bhagavan Ram, while living in the forest, demonstrates a beautiful point. He lived very happily in the forest even when there were very limited means. He lived in a simple cottage made out of leaves, and had no possessions, nor luxuries. His food was also very simple, just bulbs and fruits. But Bhagavan Ram was very happy. It is an indication that without the outer things and luxuries also, one can be happy. We gather so many things and belongings in life, but still happiness evades us.
   1. When we see a saint or a sage, a question should arise in our mind that how can they be happy and quiet even when they possess nothing; no bank account, no house, no spouse, no car.
   2. We equate happiness to all these things – money, job, spouse, children, relatives, fame etc. Even if one of these things is missing, we feel sad. But God is very clever; He gives us such situations in life that one of these things would be missing in it.
   3. Joy doesn’t lie in the belongings otherwise Bhagavan Ram should have been very sad. A mahatma finds joy in his sadhana and meditation alone.
3. Another meaning of ‘Aranya’ is – ‘where there is no fight’. We live in a lot of contradictions. Inner fight expresses as outer fight. But living in ‘A-ranya’ (No-fight) means living without mental contradictions, living without too many worldly desires, and therefore whatever you get, you are happy with that.

Secret of Happiness

1. External things like money, food, house, car etc. give comfort at the body level. But the truth is that the address of joy and sorrow is not the body, it is the mind. And mind can be happy only when it has three important aspects – Nirapekshta, Nishkaamta and Akrodh.
   1. Nirapekshta – means not having too much of expectations from others. It is only when we form relations that we have expectations such as – ‘he should have done like that, he shouldn’t have done like that’. World is very carefully drafted by God so that our expectations are not fulfilled. This is the rule.
   2. World is not meant for fulfilling our expectations. We should know that beyond a certain point, others cannot meet our expectations. A watch can show us time, but it cannot give us milk no matter how much we squeeze it, no matter what we do with it.
   3. Nishkaamta – means not having a lot of desires. It means, not seeing a lot of joy in the things of the world. Those who see a lot of joy in the world and give a lot of their time, energy and money, they discover at the end that whatever joy they got, it was mixed with a lot of sorrow, and whatever appeared as an asset earlier becomes a liability later.
   4. Nishkaamta doesn’t mean that because of some foolishness we stop enjoying; it is a conviction that the world doesn’t contain eternal joy. Joy doesn’t come from outer things and people. There is not even a single person or object in the world who we can claim to have given joy forever.
   5. Akrodh – means not having anger and frustration within. Akrodh is the result of Nirapekshta and Nishkaamta. What God has not given us, we should not want it. The art of tailoring our wants is the essence of spiritual life.
2. A person who has the above three things, Nirapekshta, Nishkaamta and Akrodh, he alone can live in Aranyam. Bhagavan Ram had these three things and therefore Aranyam was a very happy place for Him. He didn’t want any particular person or object with Him, nor did He want any success to come to Him.
3. Whole world is like a buffet system; it offers all kinds of things to us, sweet, savory as well as spicy. We can choose whatever we want. In life, we often leave out the good things and instead make a mess of our life because we chose to think about certain topics which have three things: expectations (apeksha), desires (kaam) and anger (krodh).
4. Kand also means room. In our mind, we should have a room where we can develop Aranyam (No fight). More is our Aranyam, more we will have quietness. Outside we can put on any kind of clothes, but inside we should be a hermit only.

Whom should we love?

1. This world is not meant to give our heart to somebody. It is meant only to love the Lord alone. Don’t love the body, love the one who is embodied in the body.
2. All the appearances in the world are completely false. If we find someone extremely beautiful and charming, it is nothing but a play of Maya. If one is able to see the inner parts of the body like the stomach, pancreas, lungs etc. it will be difficult for him even to see the other person.

Other than Bhagwan Ram, no one is beautiful and worth loving in this world!

The Demon Viraad

As the Lord, along with Sitaji & Lakshmanji walked in the forest, they met a demon named Viraad with one eye and long hands and legs. He tried to take away Sitaji, eventually he was buried under the ground and was killed. He then assumed the form of a Gandharva and guided Ramji to go to Matanga Rishi’s ashram.

1. Viraad represents our vasnas. Our vasnas take away our devotion – our real love for the Lord (Sitaji). We all have immense love within us. But all of our love has been taken away by our vasnas (Viraad).
2. Our love (Sitaji) is meant for Ramji only. The moment we love somebody or something else we will be in trouble. This was the mistake of Ravana as well. The entire Lanka got burnt and Ravana had to die because he wanted to take Sitaji away from Ramji.
3. Viraad represents the vasna which is blind, it has no eyes or ears, but has long hands and legs. It is due to this that a person under the influence of vasna is unable to see the consequences of his actions. A drunkard, before drinking will give numerous illogical reasoning to drink and eventually suffers health issues due to it.
4. It is important to love the Lord alone and love everybody else as a representative of the Lord. Just like a woman cares for her in-laws as representatives of her husband, similarly we must see every individual belonging to the Lord and not love them independently.
5. Please don’t establish any independent relation with anybody. If you do, then you will definitely be troubled at the end.
6. Viraad was buried inside the earth – which means we must take our vasna back to its cause (the Lord). All we need to do is, take Bhagavan’s name and automatically all the worldly love will get buried (merged) in the Lord.
7. Driving is easy only when you know the rules for driving, else we will struggle with the accelerator and brake, similarly life is simple when we know the principles of life!

Swami Abhedanandaji continued to enrich the devotees with his lucid explanation on the second day of the Aranya Kand Yagna. Below are some of the memorable takeaways from the discourse, which we all can apply in our daily life:

Valmiki Ramayana – Centered on Dharma

1. In Valmiki Ramayana, dharma aspect of life is greatly highlighted. It elaborates upon both the Samanya dharma (general guidelines) as well as Swadharma (individual guidelines). It tells about dharma of every role – dharma of a King, a husband, a wife, a teacher, a disciple, a father, a mother etc. Hence it establishes the importance of dharma in our mind.

2. In simple words, the meaning of dharma is – the set of rules prescribed for each individual for each specific role, following which one can be at peace internally and also one can create peace outside. If dharma is not there, then one is disturbed himself as well as he is a source of disturbance for others too.

3. To establish the importance of dharma in our life, it is important to go through Valmiki Ramayana… just like to establish Krishna bhakti, one should go through Bhagavatam, and to establish Ram bhakti, one should go through Tulsi Ramayana.

Outer Situations v/s Inner Thoughts

1. The purpose of going through Valmiki Ramayana is to get established in higher thoughts. It can be thought of charity, thought of quietness, thought of forgiveness, thought of compassion, thought of fearlessness. When higher thoughts are there, then outside situation gets dissolved in the bigness of the inner thoughts. For instance,
   • If you have thoughts of forgiveness, then if somebody does wrong to you personally, the thought of forgiveness in you will dissolve the harm done by the wrong action of the other person. It won’t be a very big issue for you because you have the bigger thought of forgiveness available within.
   • And suppose you don’t have forgiveness, then because of the harm done by the outer situation or person, you will be very reactive and revengeful mentally. You will keep on burning inside because you don’t have the bigger thought of forgiveness.
   • If somebody praised you and you didn’t have the higher thought of humility and surrender, then the praise will overpower you, and eventually consume you.
   • If somebody loves you madly and he happens to be a good person, then without the thought of detachment corresponding to that love, you will become very attached and possessive about that person.

2. It is not that the outer situations are very powerful, but the main problem is the unavailability of the corresponding higher thought inside us that could dissolve the outer situations.

3. Situations can be good, bad, happy, joyful, exciting, anger-provoking, lust-provoking, sometimes accusing, but if we don’t have a corresponding personality in us that allows us to rise above the situation, then we feel overwhelmed and consumed by the outer situation.

4. Many times, unexpected situations come in our life which we never thought would come. And at such times, we are not prepared or ready to handle them. Situations never ask us if we are ready to face them or not. Dharmik vritti is that which holds our inner peace of mind, which holds our ability to perform our duty in hand, even when facing unexpected situations.

Importance of following Dharma

1. Dharma is like a torch that shows us our present duty, and at the same time it is the engine which gives us the strength to perform that duty. After one performs his dharma, he becomes much quieter and stronger. This aspect of dharma is brought out by various thoughts which we will see in the character of Bhagavan Ram.

2. The process of developing a higher thought inside us so that the outer bitterness and difficulties may dissolve, is called Dharma. From Dharma comes immense peace, joy and wisdom. Such a person becomes a light house, a moving God. Such people hold their own mind, hold the family, hold the community, & hold the country!

3. Because we live with people around us, it is important for us to know what our duties are and how to perform them. We have to know the consequences of performing a duty and not performing it.

4. Duties are extremely complicated. If we fail to have higher thoughts within, we will find ourselves entangled in various situations. We must keep checking and correcting ourselves every moment, because if we don’t correct, the same mistake will become bigger later on.

Dharma of a Kshatriya (Warrior)

Bhagavan Ram was a Kshatriya, and one of the purposes behind Bhagavan Ram’s exile was to give protection to the sages and saints by killing the demons in the forests. Demons used to constantly hamper the austerities performed by the rishis and also hurt the rishis and eat their flesh and bones.

1. A society is composed of various people, and in every society, there is a softer aspect. Like the saints and the brahmins who are absorbed in the contemplation of the Self, or the intellectuals, the scientists, the doctors who are involved in subtler work, or the research scholars, or the poets, or the women and children, they represent the softer aspect of the society. They must be protected, and therefore each community requires warriors called the Kshatriyas.

2. If somebody attacks the softer aspect of the society or attacks the religion or the dharma, then the Kshatriyas are supposed to give a befitting reply, and if needed, even kill the person who is doing wrong and causing harm.

3. Don’t think that killing is not allowed in Hindu religion. Bhagavan Krishna Himself instructed Arjun to kill in the Mahabharat war. Ahimsa (non-violence) doesn’t mean foolishness. It is the dharma of a Kshatriya to fight for the security and protection of the community and country.

4. If one part of the body is causing harm to the whole body, then the doctor operates that part and if required even removes it. Similarly, if somebody or some principle disturbs the community, that particular principle has to be chopped off and removed.

Dharma of a Wife

A portion comes in Valmiki Ramayana where Sitaji explains certain things to Ramji. She does so because she was a dharma-patni. A dharma-patni is the one who can take the husband to the path of righteousness.

1. During marriages in India, the bride is called ‘vadhu’ (in Sanskrit) which means ‘badhnaati’ – one who ties the husband with her love, with her non-expectation; one who binds the family.

2. It is the wife who brings culture in the house. If the wife is tapasvini (austere), calm and quiet, and serves everybody, she gains veto power and she can direct everyone to be on the path of righteousness. Therefore, Manusmriti says “Grihini griha muchyate” – a house is defined by the housewife.

3. In our scriptures a wife is termed as ‘griha-lakshmi’, she is the lakshmi (glory) of the house. A husband is not ‘griha-narayana’; that honour is given to the austerity of the wife only.

Teachings of Sitaji

1. Sitaji describes beautifully to Ramji that Adharma enters a person very subtly, and there are three main gateways from which Adharma can enter:
   • False speech: The fear of exclusion and rejection is the primary cause of false speech. The second reason is, trying to get something which one cannot earn through right means.
     • Any negativity of a person makes him a false speaker. If person is kaami (desirous), lobhi (greedy), or attached, he will definitely speak false as he has a lot of things to hide.
     • When a person lies, he creates a personality within him which says – “I am not good. I lie for selfish reasons.” This personality creates a suffocating feeling within him and it is not easy to deal with. Besides the person also loses credibility and trust of other people.
   • Having illicit relations: This means – associating with somebody else’s spouse. This is a sin because one tries to covet that which has not been given to him by his prarabdha (fate). And one is going against the social rules as well as betraying everyone’s trust.
   • Being cruel without a reason: When a person is upset or angry, he displays cruelty even when there is no animosity. When a person is laden with arms, his nature becomes a little aggressive. It is not good to unnecessarily hate and revolt.
     • We should not become very negative about somebody. If one develops too much of negativity then there is a high frequency of such thoughts in that person and he burns from within.
     • We eventually make an idol of the person whom we despise in our mind and then we are unable to do any task at hand properly as we are internally disturbed. Our mind is a sanctum and we must not make it a den.

2. Further Sitaji advises that it is from dharma alone that one gets joy. Any good that comes to us is only because of the good actions of the past. Our past actions alone come in the form of people, money, son, daughter, wife etc. The food we eat, the kind of bed we sleep in are all nothing but the result of our dharma and adharma.

3. It is therefore extremely necessary that we do the right thing. However, the problem with doing the right thing is, there is a lot of pain involved in it. For cheap gains, people leave the path of dharma.

4. To do dharma we need to gulp our ego and we need to tolerate a lot; we may even be required to go through some emotional pains. Taking pains and not becoming bitter is the essence of dharma.

5. Our goodness is generally conditional – ‘If you are good, I will be good’. However, it is important to remember that all big things are ‘irrespective of’. Even if someone abuses the Sun, the Sun does not stop giving light. Dharma makes you more sacrificing and tolerant, more available to higher thoughts.

6. For a dharmik person the question is not ‘how long should I do good?’ He thinks, ‘I am doing what I am supposed to do’. We must keep checking whether our actions and responses are appropriate or not. Otherwise the fruit of wrong doing can be ruthless.

7. Please note that all these instructions were not for Ramji; Sitaji was telling us through Ramji. Sitaji concluded by saying that the Lord knew everything but due to her nature of talking too much she said those things to the Lord. This is the beauty of the speech of Sitaji, she said all the points in the most pleasant manner.

Another memorable day of spiritually elevating satsang welcomed the devotees of Durban to Chinmaya Shivam ashram, as they reveled in Swami Abhedananda’s talks on Valmiki Ramayana. Below are some of the snippets from Swamiji’s soul stirring discourses:

Dharma: The Transformer

1. Our life should be such that our involvement in the outer world should take us to evolvement. If we involve somewhere, we should grow with that involvement. ‘Growing’ means increasing the ability to leave something small and hold on to something bigger for a long time.

2. We should try to find out the end result of an interaction in the mind. If, during an interaction, or after an interaction, we do not evolve, and our sacrificing power doesn’t grow, then that interaction should be considered fruitless.

3. Dharma is that transformer which transforms or converts the situational sorrows and joy into mental evolution.

4. If we are not able to use the outer situations and people to grow and evolve internally, then it only means that dharma is absent in life, or it is not present in the capacity as required.

5. Valmiki Ramayana is trying to instill in us that which will help us to bring out our hidden potential of renunciation; the capacity to drop flimsy and disturbing things and hold on to God.

6. Our life is such that even if we constantly get disturbed by something, we are not able to drop what disturbs us. This is because there is no inner mechanism which can channelize and educate us internally.

7. Dharma means – what the intellect is convinced of, that is followed by the body and the mind. There is no divorce between our actions, emotions and convictions. We are able to abide by our convictions as per the scriptures and the Guru, and we are able to live by those values and are able to hold that higher thought.

Glory of taking Vows

1. Bhagavan Ram is known for his firmness in following His dharma. He says in Valmiki Ramayana, ‘To protect my word, I can even give up my life!’ It is called ‘Pratigyaa paalan’ (adhering to one’s vows). This is a very important aspect to understand. It should not be mistaken for stubbornness.

2. Everything big in this life is hidden by the incapability of taking bigger vows. If somebody’s achievement is lesser in the inner world or the outer world, it is due to his inability to take bigger vows.

3. Vratam (vows) is required when anything big and higher has to be achieved.

4. If our lower nature tries to constantly pull us down, but in spite of these difficulties if we refuse to give in to that lower nature and instead hold on to the higher nature, that is called ‘vow’ of a person.

5. Even to do one mala japa every day you need a vow; to do a few minutes of puja daily, you need a vow.

6. When we want bigger achievement in life, the capacity of pratigyaa (vow) in us should also be big. If Bhagavan Ram didn’t have that pratigyaa, He would not have stayed in the forest for fourteen years.

7. A person is known by what vows he has in his life. You cannot express any higher emotion for a long time unless you have a vow for it. If one wants to serve his mother and father, he cannot do it unless he has a natural vow that ‘I will serve my parents no matter what happens; even if they kick me, I will still serve them.’

8. To serve anything bigger in life such as parents, or Guru, or country, or God, it requires that we have a very strong resolve. Seva is maha-vratam (very big vow) because in seva we must drop our ego, comforts, emotions, likes, dislikes, laziness etc.

9. A person is what his resolves are. It doesn’t mean being adamant or insistent such as – ‘I have decided I will not talk to that person whole life.’ That is ego-centric insistence, not God-centric resolution. It will make the person fall.

10. Sitaji’s devotion for Lord Ram was so much that she did not give up Ramji even when she was asked to go out of the Kingdom at such a juncture of her life when a wife needs maximum support from her husband and the family. She was banished without any fault of hers, but she had the vow that ‘My Lord will be Ram only… may He do anything!’

11. In life, there should be four kinds of vows:
    • Guru-vrat: means ‘If I have heard and learned from my Guru, so I will serve him no matter how difficult it is’.
    • Ishwar-vrat: means ‘O Lord! I will express my gratitude everyday’.
    • Shaastra-vrat: means ‘I will read something from the scriptures daily and I will adhere to it’.
    • Dharma-vrat: means ‘I will leave my likes and dislikes and I will do only what is right’.

More you perform these vrat, more your capacity to take bigger vrat increases.

Why must we do Seva?

1. Seva is the only means through which we can melt the heart of others. And once we succeed in melting the heart of the higher, we can get immense blessings and a place in their heart.

2. Seva is the most potent way to get close to somebody. If a mother has not served the child, the child will never be close to the mother. Similarly, if the disciple has not served the teacher, the disciple will never be close to the teacher.

3. When one serves consistently for a long time after dropping their ego, attachment and all lower emotions, the fruit can be so big that they can even bring the Lord in their life.

4. Seva is compared to two vows, one is called Chandan vrat and other is Ikshu-danda vrat. Chandan (sandalwood) gives fragrance only when it is rubbed several times, and Ikshu (sugarcane) gives sweetness only if it is crushed. Similarly, in seva, one gets rubbed and crushed several times and it is only then the fragrance and sweetness emerges from within.

What determines our fate?

1. In life, we cannot choose what comes to us. Money, people, relatives, job etc. come to us; we cannot choose them, be it good or bad. There are three things which determine what we get in life – Sankalp: determination, Vishwaas: faith and Karma: actions.

2. When we have Sankalp, which is as per the scriptures, and if we have faith, and we do appropriate actions, we will certainly get our desired object. It was Yashodaji’s higher sankalp, faith and good actions of previous birth which made Lord Krishna her son.

3. Nothing is an accident in our life. Again, it is important to understand that only when our fruits of action mature, we get them. We already have a lot of fruits of our actions lined up. And the fruits of our current actions will come only in due time. Unless we do some teevra karma (intense action), and if one does tremendous tapasya (austerity) with intense faith, he can surely get the fruits faster.

Impersonal v/s Personal Sankalp

1. One of the beautiful things about Bhagavan Ram was that He did not perform any action without taking permission from someone higher (parents/teachers/sages). Whether it was breaking the bow or living in Chirtakoot or killing the demons or even marrying Sitaji. He did not have His personal sankalp at any point in His life.
2. If one tries to have his personal sankalp without invoking the blessings of God or someone higher, or someone contributory in his life, that sankalp is bound to fail.

3. Personal projects, agendas, desires, they all fail eventually. We struggle in life because we constantly tend to fulfill our personal plans. All sorrows are nothing but resisting God’s plan. We tend to make our ego win.

We bring to you some highlights of the fourth day of Aranya Kand yagna where the devotees were treated with yet another spiritual delight by Swami Abhedanandaji.

From Reaction to Realization

1. Human beings have the power of changing their responses to the outer situations. External situations invoke and provoke certain thoughts in us, and a response which produces quietness, knowledge, strength and purification of the mind inside, and harmony outside, is the response of dharma.

2. If we see Bhagavan Ram’s life, in every situation, the way He responded was an expression of dharma and character.

3. Most of the times we don’t think before responding; we respond instinctively and impulsively. Whatever comes to our mind, we get propelled by that.

4. Whatever we say, whatever we do, it tells whether we have internally practiced to think in a certain manner, or if we are simply forced by our nature to think erratically and randomly.

5. Right thinking can come if we go through certain discipline. When we do some austerity (tapasya, contemplation etc.) and train the mind then the mind becomes a garden rather than being a jungle. A garden is that which has been trimmed and watered by some gardener, tiled properly, weeds have been removed, and manure has been put.

6. When we don’t work on the mind and we don’t give sufficient time to the mind, the mind becomes like a jungle which is infested by wild animals, and covered by darkness all around.

7. If we analyze honestly, we will find that 99% of our thoughts are not coming from certain discipline or cultured way of thinking. Most of our thoughts are unguided, misguided, illogical and uncultured.

8. Knowing about Bhagavan Ram’s character is our mental training. It helps us give such responses which take us away from reaction and closer to realization.

9. Reaction means – after doing something, the action is not over, it continues in the mind in a vicious circle. Realization means – our responses should take us closer to God, closer to Guru, closer to our own self.

Essence of Seva

1. When Bhagavan Ram was searching for a place to stay in the forest, He told Lakshmanji to find the right place. At that time Lakshmanji folded his palm and said, ‘O Lord! I am your servant and therefore you only please tell where to erect the hut. Please don’t ask me because I may not choose the best. You will choose the best!’

2. Bhagavan Ram was very happy to see Lakshmanji’s response. Bhagavan Ram pointed at a location and said with joy, ‘This is the place. Let us make the ashram.’ Lakshmanji said, ‘You please sit down. I will make everything.’ Lakshmanji was very good in architecture and with his extraordinary might he set a lovely and excellent abode, extensive hut with nice pillars and roof. Bhagavan Ram was very happy to see Lakshmanji’s seva bhaav.

3. Seva means – Joyful attention giving as per dharma to take away all the pains and worries of the master. It can be called as ‘Karma yog’ or ‘Surrendered action’.

4. The source of ‘Seva’ is ‘pain’. The pain of not giving joy to my Lord, or to my master, or to somebody higher, expresses as a thirst to give joy, and that thirst to give joyful attention is the seed and crux of Seva. We are not able to give attention to God and Guru because we don’t have the pain of not serving them.

5. We all have some or other kind of thirst, but it is all worldly thirst. We have thirst for money, children, reputation, luxury. We should have the thirst to give joy to someone bigger and higher.

Thirst to Give Joy

1. Devotees like Lakshmanji, Bharatji, Hanumanji had infinite thirst to give joy to the Lord because they themselves were not thirsty for anything. A person can grow only by developing such a thirst in him.

2. You are happy to be with somebody only when you see the ‘thirst to give joy’ for you in that person. You are not happy with someone who doesn’t bother about your happiness.

3. That wife who does not have the thirst to give joy to the husband is essence-less, similarly, that husband who does not have the thirst to give joy and security to the wife is essence-less.

4. The Guru who doesn’t have the thirst to take away the sorrow of the disciple is essence-less; similarly, that disciple who doesn’t have the thirst to take away all the concerns and burden of the teacher has no essence in him.

5. Everywhere someone is good only when he has infinite thirst to give joy and to take away somebody else’s pain in a dharmik manner.

6. To have the thirst of Seva is difficult. As much developed a person is, so much developed is his thirst, and to that extend he has conquered his lower nature.

7. Puja and Japa means – you are extremely thirsty to give joy to God. If a person is egoistic, or greedy, or jealous or angry by nature, he will not have the thirst of giving joy to God. Because he is already occupied with his own thinking, and his own gain and loss.

Tuning to the thoughts of the beloved

Lord Ram praises Bharatji saying that he served the Lord by knowing the thoughts of the Lord.

1. In seva, everything is not told. Lord Ram never had to ask water or fruits to Lakshmanji. Lakshmanji could gauge what the Lord wanted and when.

2. Another example of such seva is that of mother Sita. After getting down from the boat of Kevat, the Lord wanted to give something to Kevat. Gauging this, mother Sita immediately removed her ring and gave it to the Lord. The Lord did not have to ask Sitaji.

3. Unless a person has removed his own self, he cannot identify with God, with the Hiranyagarbha (Total).

Requirements of Seva

1. Detachment is one of the first requirements of Seva. If Lakshmanji was attached to his wife, or the kingdom or the luxuries, he would not have been able to serve the Lord as good as he did.

2. Egoless-ness is another requirement of Seva. If an egoistic person serves, he will constantly seek response from the one whom he is serving.

3. However, it does not mean that one must not serve at all. When an imperfect person serves, he discovers if he had overcome his negativity, he could serve better.

4. Don’t wait to be perfect, that day won’t come. By serving in an imperfect manner, you develop a capacity to serve perfectly. By driving imperfectly, we learn to drive in a perfect manner eventually.

5. The only means to make someone happy, be it your mother, father, spouse, children, servant or even the Lord is by serving alone!

6. In seva, the person experiences extreme pain in not giving joy to the beloved. A person is known by what pain he has. The pain of a saint is, he could not do his meditation properly, or why he could not have self-control. While the pain of a worldly person is more mundane like – ‘my spouse doesn’t listen to me’ or ‘my children don’t take care of me’. Discover which pain you have!

Surpanakha – Personification of Vasna

1. Surpanakha personifies how much terrible bhokta (enjoyer) a person can be. She was a complete contrast to mother Sita who had extreme modesty and shyness.

2. Surpanakha was extremely shameless. It represents that our vasnas are shameless, they don’t care what others think. In order to fulfill his desires, a person with vasna can go to any extent.

3. Lakshmanji had cut the nose and ears of Surpanakha. It represents that a person with vasna neither follows dharma, nor gets heaven. Nose or naakam in Sanskrit means heaven, while ears or karnam signifies dharma.

4. Vasna (Surpanakha) is ‘adhikaar pradhaan’ and Bhakti (Sitaji) is ‘samarpan pradhaan’. Adhikaar pradhaan means a person with vasna demands his wishes to be fulfilled. Samarpan pradhaan means a person with Bhakti (devotion) has surrender, he only wants to offer himself wholeheartedly at the feet of the Lord.

Dispassion protects our Devotion

1. Lakshmanji represents vairagya (dispassion) which cuts the nose and ears of vasna. Dispassion alone removes the outer joy from the worldly things and helps us see the worthlessness in it.

2. Vasna tries to eat our Bhakti (like Surpanakha tried to attack Sitaji), while dispassion protects Bhakti (like Lakshmanji protected Sitaji).

3. Dispassion is like a hard wall protecting the softer emotion of love for God in us.

4. Our higher emotions, thirst for the Lord, the pain to give joy to the Lord, should be nurtured, nourished and increased.

5. We must use our vairagya and keep cutting the ears and nose of vasanas (Surpanakha). If we remove the outer dazzle of the worldly things it will certainly appear worthless and ugly.

6. Don’t think Panchavati is just a place outside, it is within our heart and we need to bring Lord Ram to kill all the demons ruling our hearts.

Soaking everyone in the cool showers of Valimiki Ramayana, Swami Abhedanandaji continued his divine discourses on Aranya Kand, excerpts of which we are glad to share with you all:

The Science of Thoughts

1. When we live in this world, from moment to moment, different thoughts come and depending on those thoughts, we experience sorrows and joys.

2. It is important to know the science of thoughts, how they come, what is their nature, how they go away…, because with what we are living very closely, we should know it well. If we are living with somebody whose nature is unknown to us, then it becomes difficult to live.

3. Inner thought gives the interpretation of the outer situation. Even in the worst situation, if we have the thought of prasad-budhhi (acceptance as blessing from God), then the situation can become sweet for us. Similarly, a situation which is very good can become bitter for us if we have the thought of anger or arrogance in us.

4. Kaikeyi was living with Bhagavan Ram but her thought of greed and attachment made her life extremely miserable. She used to talk to Bhagavan Ram, she used to love Bhagavan Ram, but her thought of believing in Manthara took her down to the lowest levels.

5. If you see the nature of thoughts, you will find that some thoughts have light in them, and some are dark thoughts. Thought of compassion, forgiveness, devotion, dispassion etc. have light in them. While thought of ego, arrogance, anger, jealousy etc. are dark in nature.
6. Bhagavan Ram, even after being banished to the forest, did not get sad, upset or angry because He had the thought of matru-bhakti (devotion towards the mother). His thought of gratitude and devotion for his mother was extremely developed and therefore the news of exile gave Him a lot of joy.

7. Even during the exile when Bhagavan Ram was living in the forest, wearing the bark of tree, sleeping on the floor, leaving behind all the palatial comfort and luxury, brought no reaction, anger, or frustration in Him. He never complained or cursed Kaikeyi. So developed was the thought of dharma, titiksha and tapasya in Him.

Surpankha – Personification of Kaam Vritti

1. Surpankha represents kaam vritti (selfish desires) in its most shameless form. All selfish desires are dangerous because they are ego-centric, anti-God and anti-dharma.

2. Kaam vritti, per say, is not bad or wrong, its uncontrolled aspect is bad. If a desire is God-centric and pro-dharma, it is fine.

3. Kaam vritti has two things – Srijanaatmikaa shakti: power of creativity and Mohanaatmikaa shakti: power of delusion. As far as the power of creativity is concerned, it is fine if it is as per dharma. But the power of delusion is terrible because it can make us uncontrolled, cross our limits, and make us act shamelessly.

4. When Surpankha saw Bhagavan Ram, she got infatuated, and even after knowing that He was married, she proposed to marry Him. She was a licentious person and was shameless in expressing whatever desires came to her. She had no fear, no limits in her thinking and doing.

5. If we simply express whatever thought comes in our mind, we will become worse than animals. So, there is something called ‘lajja’ or shyness or bashfulness which means – even if we like to do certain thing, we keep quiet because it is not as per dharma and society.

6. Before doing anything wrong, we feel fearful because we are answerable to the society, to our parents and teachers.

7. Kaam vritt is a delusory vritti. For a moment it shows a lot of joy in the sense object. Kaam has come from ‘kam’ dhaatu which means ‘joy’. It paints a particular person or object with immense joy, so much so that one can go mad after that.

8. If we compare the instances of Sitaji seeing Ramji first time and Supankha seeing Ramji first time, there is a big difference:
   • In Pushpa Vatika, when Sitaji saw Ramji for the first time, she didn’t say anything to Him, rather she simply closed her eyes and started praying ‘May I surrender to You!’ Sitaji had samarpan vritti (thought of surrender) while Surpankha had adhikaar vritti (thought of authority).
   • Sitaji was so full of shyness and bashfulness; she didn’t even see Ramji properly; she immediately closed her eyes. After seeing somebody you can close the eyes only when you know that He is God. A worldly person or kaami person will not close the eyes. He will keep staring outside because he can’t see that God inside.
   • In Sitaji, we find bhakti while in Surpankha we find the naked dance of passion. Such passion which is adharmik should be nipped and therefore Lakshmanji cut her nose and ears.

The Demons Khar and Dushan

1. After Lakshmanji cut the nose and ears of Surpankha, she ran to Khar and Dushan for help. Khar represents ‘harshness’. Dushan represents ‘faults’. Wherever there is Kaam vritti (which is not as per dharma), the person becomes very harsh and numerous faults enter in his personality.

2. A bhogi (indulgent) person can never be a soft and quiet; he will be rude and harsh. And because of that, he becomes a hypocrite and can even cheat and betray others.

3. When Khar and Dushan went to fight with Bhagavan Ram, they both were killed along with their big army by Bhagavan Ram. Lord is the dharma-rakshak (protector of dharma) and therefore if there are people who create imbalance in the cosmos, Lord puts an end to them and recreates the balance.

Is the Lord pleased or displeased with you?

1. It is written in Ramayana, while killing Khar and Dushan, Bhagavan Ram became extremely angry. With our actions, we can create anger or joy in the cosmic mind. We can make God angry also; we can make God pleased also.

2. Just as you get upset seeing something unjust, similarly the cosmic mind of Ishwar also gets upset and angry seeing somebody’s atrocities on someone. So Bhagavan Ram, as the Ishwar, was angry on these demons because they had been eating the flesh of the rishis and creating havoc everywhere.

3. With everybody, either the Lord is pleased, or displeased, or mixed. Remember one thing that fruit will always come from the Lord alone and if He is pleased, He will always give something good. Therefore, to some people God gives a lot.

4. God observes all our actions, He knows us inside out. He observes our every emotion (bhaava). He records and analyses every thought of ours.

5. What we will get, who will be around us, what are our fruits of actions, all are decided by the Lord alone.

6. It is up to us what impression we create in Lord. In Kenopanishad commentary, Bhagavan Shankaracharyaji writes – like we create impression of every person as is good, bad, moody, or lazy, similarly the Lord also take impressions about us.

Three aspects of the golden-deer episode

Mareech disguised as golden deer took Lord Ram far away from the cottage and when he was shot by the Lord, as he died, he yelled for help from mother Sita and Lakshman in the voice of Lord Ram. Hearing that Sitaji was disturbed and she persuaded Lakshmanji to go and save Lord Ram. When Lakshmanji insisted that nothing could happen to the Lord, Sitaji spoke extremely harsh words to Lakshmanji. There are three aspects to this episode:

1. First is the leela aspect – Sitaji is Maha-Maya, she is Durga, Saraswati. If Lakshmanji had not left the cottage, then all the other leelas of Lord Ram – meeting Shabri, Hanumanji, Sugreev, Vibhishana, and most importantly killing of Ravana would not have taken place. She had no infatuation for the deer, it was a leela so that all other leelas could be accomplished.

2. Second angle is – showing what anger does. When a person is angry, he can go to any extent in seeing the badness of the other person. He may even accuse extremely noble and pious person. Anger engulfs the mind and pervades it with a burning feeling.

3. Third and most important angle is – depicting the greatness of Shri Lakshmanji. Even when Sitaji said extremely harsh words to Lakshmanji he was not provoked or angered. He still offered prostrations to Sitaji and tried explaining to her.
   • Lakshmanji had extreme thirst to give joy to Lord Ram, and throughout 14 years of exile, he was awake whole night guarding the Lord and Sitaji.
   • It is very easy to serve when we get conducive responses; selflessness of a person is tested when he serves despite getting unconducive responses.
   • Even when Sitaji blamed Lakshmanji, he still wanted to protect her and prayed to all the surroundings to guard her.
   • Selflessness is when somebody inflicts pain but still you want to respect and protect that person. When we have done a lot for somebody, our ego is more, and we can get easily agitated. However, Lakshmanji here depicts the extreme selflessness and maturity that is required while doing seva.

Swami Abhedanandaji concluded the monthly Gyan Yagna on ‘AranyaKand’ with wonderful elucidation of the characters and stories of Ramayana which are indeed to be contemplated upon. We are pleased to share with you Swamiji’s concluding advice from the final day’s satsang:

The Golden-deer episode

1. In our life we should know what should be protected and what should not be protected, what is precious and what is trivial. Most important thing that we should protect is our love. We throw and scatter our love for trivial things in the world and become weaker day by day. 

2. In Panchavati forest, Sitaji, Lakshmanji and Ramji were happily living together untill the golden deer flashed in front of the eyes of Sitaji. Please note that it was the leela of Bhagavan. 

3. In Tulsi Ramayana, Tulsidasji writes – ‘Character of Bhagavan Ram is very deep; those who are wise they get dispassion and those who are otherwise they get more deluded’. We cannot understand Ram katha by seeing Ram leela in the videos; we need to hear Ram katha from some authentic source, then only we will understand it. Otherwise it becomes very difficult to understand- Why Ramji cried? Why Sitaji wanted the deer? Why Lakshmanji left Sitaji? 

4. The golden-deer episode was all a planned drama to give a lesson to the jeeva. That deer which was very charming and unique represents – the sense of joy that we experience in some person or object or some situation of the world. All of a sudden something starts appearing to have a lot of joy. 

5. What we don’t understand is that everything in the world belongs to Maya; that means it won’t exist forever. Everything here loses its charm. There is no joy in the object but there is only appearance of joy. It is because of our desire that someone or something appears attractive.

Obsession for Worldly wants 

Sitaji saw the nice golden deer and the mistake she made was in thinking ‘I want it’ and then telling Ramji to go get the deer. Remember again that Sitaji is depicting how the jeeva wants things in this world and invites trouble. 

1. If somebody is very good, lovely and wonderful, and you let him be as he is, let him be where he is, it is fine. But the problem starts when you start wanting him or her with you. 

2. Moment you want something, it becomes very close to you. You internalize it badly and then it becomes impossible for you to take it out of your mind. 

3. If you want even a blade of grass for your selfish reasons, your life can become a hell. 

4. Learn to keep the worldly wants at a superficial level. You can say ‘I like tea but if it’s not there, coffee is also fine.’ The object (tea) is at a distance. It’s not that you want it badly. ‘I like that person but even if he doesn’t come to me, I will be fine.’ Let the likes and dislikes be at a distance. 

5. Sitaji developed an obsession for the deer. And even bigger mistake than that was – the deer appeared better than Ramji to her for some time. Otherwise how can one send Ramji away? How can one take service from Ramji? 

6. Bhagavan Ram represents vishwaas (faith). When we put our faith or belief in the world of objects, people and achievement, and we make the faith run after them, then we must understand that trouble is not far away. 

7. We can never get permanent joy from any place, person or achievement in this world. World is not meant to fulfill our demands.

Warning from the Guru (Teacher) 

1. Shri Lakshmanji is Guru-roop and he already warned Sitaji about the golden deer. The moment Sitaji praised the deer and its beautiful form, Lakshmanji warned that it is a deceptive deer and should not be sought after.

2. Guru keeps telling us that there is no joy in the sense organs, everything is imaginary, but we do not listen. ‘I had a lot of faith in my child that he will give me joy’ – people say like this and then suffer because of the same child. 

3. The cause of getting close to somebody is that we put a lot of trust in that person that he will give us joy, security and concern. In reality, it happens otherwise. The same person gives us most grief. Maximum worry in anybody’s life is because of their children and spouse for whom they toil the most. 

4. Living with somebody is not a problem, but the problem is putting a lot of trust in them because when they break the trust, we get shattered. Don’t depend on anybody in the world. Trust should be on God alone! 

5. We all have a lot of love but the problem is that our love which should be exclusively for God, we direct that love towards Mareech deer (world) and as a result we get disappointment at the end. Our love which is for God should be protected.

Dispassion: the Guard 

1. In the forest, when Ramji went behind the golden deer, Lakshmanji was guarding Sitaji. Lakshmanji represents Vairagya (dispassion). Dispassion knows everything about this world in and out. Lakshmanji knew the jungle very well, he knew the demon Mareech also, he knew Ravan also.

2. Dispassion keeps our eyes open. Dispassion does not get carried away by anything which is enchanting in the present. It shows us the true future of the objects and people of the world. 

3. Dispassion shows us that the people whom we are living with won’t be there with us forever. It shows us that worldly love is not real. 

4. Lakshmanji could see the future sorrow of Sitaji because of her want for the golden deer. And therefore, he tried to protect her. We don’t foresee the future and therefore we are mad after immediate joys. 

5. Everybody in this world meets only to depart one day. The only meeting which doesn’t end in departing is meeting with the Lord. 

6. Love the Lord alone… talk to Him, dance with Him, play with Him, laugh with Him, cry with Him, you do anything with Him, He will always be with you. 

7. No jeeva is yours. Nobody is born to listen to you, to follow you; nobody wants to love you in the true sense. If somebody is very good today, you don’t know how they will be tomorrow. Nobody is made for you. Only God is there who is made for you. Only God can live with you even after knowing all your faults. In the last birth also, God was related to you, and in the next birth also He will meet you. 

8. Bhagavan Krishna says again and again in Gita – ‘You should love me alone! Give your mind to me alone!’ He says so because if we don’t love the Lord, we will be deeply troubled by the worldly love. 

Developing closeness with the Lord 

1. Closeness is when we wish to offer ourselves in front of somebody, where we do not wish to keep our individual personality.

2. Closeness with the higher means two things: we are eager to execute the wish of the higher and we identify with their joys and sorrows. 

3. If we are unable to give up ourselves to the Lord or Guru, Ravana (delusion) can attack us at any moment. Unless a person has immense love for his teacher and immense love for his Lord, his samsaar (worldly ups and downs) does not get over. Such a person can never be out of his life’s problems. 

4. There are only assets of a person – Ishwar bhakti and Guru bakti. Ramji is Ishwar-roop, Lakshmanji is Guru-roop, they both are protector of Sitaji; Sitaji is our love. Therefore, we must develop closeness with the Lord and Guru, and protect Sitaji. 

Understanding Moha (Delusion)

1. Moha enters our life very slowly. Ravana (representation of moha) came to Sitaji in the guise of a Sadhu. Similarly, when we initially like someone, they appear to us as saints but eventually we are troubled badly by them. 

2. Everything in this world is temporary. People around will be there with us for a limited tenure (maximum of 60-70 years), after that, that jeeva will travel to some other womb. Whom are you calling as your child? Is the body your child or the atma your child? ‘My money, my son, my daughter, my house, my people’ – all are nothing but delusion. 

3. The house that we are extremely possessive about belonged to someone else a hundred years ago (the land belonged to someone else) and it will belong to someone else after a hundred years. 

4. “Rodayati iti Ravana”, the one who makes everyone cry is Ravana. Our each and every delusion is sure to makes us cry a lot.

Protect your love (Sitaji) 

1. Ravana abducted Sitaji. In our life too our inner Sitaji (peace) has been abducted by Ravan (delusion). Without faith (Lord Ram) and dispassion (Lakshmanji), our peace (Sitaji) is not safe. Without the Lord and Guru, life is difficult to handle. Our bhakti (devotion) cries. 

2. Sitaji also represents our deep loving capacity. Loving something means giving attention. Instead of keeping our Sitaji (love) with the Lord we have given our love to various petty issues in life. 

3. We think too much and we deliberate too much. We don’t rise in our love; we fall in our love. Our attention (love) is distributed in various places. We have given our love to many negative emotions which are undirected and misdirected. We keep doing this our whole life and therefore our inner Sita keeps wailing and weeping. 

4. We are more in trouble emotionally than physically. Instead of giving our thoughts to the world, if we give our thoughts to the Lord, and to our puja and japa, we can easily rise from our present state. 

5. Develop such deep love for the Lord so that you feel you cannot live without Him. All devotion is nothing but developing the thought that “God alone is mine”!

The second part of the Gyan Yagna on the Ayodhya Kand of Valmiki Ramayana was organized by Chinmaya Mission South Africa from 26th February till 1st March at the Durban ashram. This yagna, which was a continuation from the Feb yagna, got off to a scintillating start as Swami Abhedanandaji enlightened the listeners about the great importance of Dharma in one’s life as expounded by Rishi Valmiki through Bhagavan Ram’s life and katha.

We bring to you some noteworthy points to ponder upon from this series of illuminating talks by Swamiji:

The Ultimate Testament on Dharma

• Dharma is that which governs our responses, especially in difficult situations. Dharma holds our confidence under all circumstances and makes sure that our energy is not depleted but rather enhanced.

• Moment to moment our responses do two things – either they create disturbing impressions and bind us or they create impressions which make us free. Bhagavan Ram had to undergo so much injustice because of Kaikeyi, but He had no reservoir of bad thoughts against her, He only nurtured beautiful thoughts of her as His loving mother.

• Dharma is not puja. Puja comes under upasana. Dharma is what you say, think, do, feel and enjoy. When you are faced with a certain situation, if the experience leaves you feeling collected and not scattered, it means you have rightly practiced your dharma.

• The outer situation is not in your hand but your thoughts about the situation are in your hand. Ability to nurture those thoughts which make you available for Guru and God, which allow you to take in more challenges and give you merits for the future, and also get goodwill of others – that is called Dharma.

• We should be very careful about what thoughts we make about any object or person because those thoughts keep coming back to us many times, they do not disappear.

• Bhagavan Ram’s lila is to teach us many valuable lessons such as – how one should be a champion of renunciation; what should be one’s way of looking at things; how one should be egoless; how one should have the emotion of love towards all; how one should be sensitive towards the higher.

• Dharma is one thing which expresses at all times. It’s not a part time job. It pervades and permeates all thoughts and actions. It brings you to your own self.

• Thinking of dharma makes you much stronger. The very thought of dharma will make you think that nothing can touch your joy and security. The inner consciousness born out of righteousness is what gives a person confidence and this is a result of their dharmic vriti (thought).

• Lord Ram’s character depicts which vriti (thought) is required the most in life, which needs to be developed and which is missing. What is the right way of thinking? What is that master thought which will be a mood changer?

• The capacity to replace the lower thought with a better thought so that your response creates fearlessness, knowledge, joy and harmony, the thought which leaves you feeling very composed and collected – that is dharma.

• Adharmic thought does the exact opposite and takes away your knowledge, love, security and poise. Once it has taken root and you can’t take it out, it starts playing havoc.

• The more you have the capacity to take away the adharmic thought with dharmic thought, the more you will be happy. For instance. If somebody says something bad to you, instead of having a thought of anger you can substitute it with the dharmic thought of forgiveness.

• To hold the thought of dharma, sometimes external hardness is required. If you have the soft vritti (thought) of loving God and surrendering to Him then you need the hard thought of being firm with yourself in doing your japa and upasana. If you are not hard on yourself you will never be able to hold the thought of faith, dispassion, sacrifice, devotion and surrender.

• Every moment of Bhagavan Ram’s life was a lesson in dharma. If someone was angry at Ramji, He would still not get angry at the person. This is very important quality to have but very difficult to cultivate. If an angry person came in front of Ramji, He knew how to pacify and quieten them.

• Seva is one thing which will make your mind highly quiet. The moment you think ‘I am born to serve and give joy to something higher,’ your mind will be quiet. The moment you think ‘I am born to take joy rather than give,’ then you will be in trouble. Life is not meant for fulfilling personal egocentric desires. The more one depersonalizes, the more powerful he becomes.

Continuing the satsang on Valmiki Ramayana’s Ayodhya Kanda, Swamiji elaborated beautifully through Bhagavan Ram’s character, what we as human beings are designed for, and what we are not designed for.

Sharing below the second part of the summary of discourses from the yagna:

The Right way of Living

1. Bhagavan Ram teaches us that human beings are not designed to think and do whatever comes to their mind. If in a car, some wrong fuel is put, the car will not move, rather the engine may get destroyed. Similarly, as human beings, we are not supposed to do any and every action without gauging if it is as per our dharma or not. If we do adharmic action, we are bound to become insecure in life. Love, respect, position, money, everything will become insecure; the mind will be agitated and will not be at peace.

2. Through His own most fragrant example, Bhagavan Rama shows us that we are not designed for entertaining and encouraging every way of thinking or responding. He demonstrates with His every thought, action and response, how we can build a joyous world for ourselves and for others, firstly by choosing the correct thoughts.

3. Bhagavan Ram was surrounded by such thoughts which were ever-ready to serve Him, every ready to usher Him into some kind of knowledge, peace.

4. In Valmiki Ramayana, that particular way of life, that particular way of thinking is described, through which we are not left with regrets, bondage and a heavy load of thoughts.

5. From the appearance, the behaviour of a person, we can see what vrittis (thoughts) are in his mind. Because Bhagavan Ram’s thoughts were always beautiful and pure, His very appearance was always madhurah (sweet) and saumya (soft).

Play of Thoughts

1. Thoughts of unfulfilled desires, resentment at being ridiculed by people, being abandoned by someone, or being so attached to someone that we are devastated when they pass away – these are all nothing but thoughts which can become a very heavy load to carry in life.

2. Dharma is the way through which we dilute these heavy, negative thoughts and bring out such a beautiful way of thinking that our life becomes smooth and joyous.
   • The thought that ‘I have enough’, can make our day, our life, very beautiful.
   • The thought of humility can make our mind extremely quiet.
   • The thought of gratefulness can usher us into a lot of seva bhava, and extract from us a quality of seva that we had never dreamt we were capable of.
   • The thought that ‘I can give up anything for my Lord’, can give us immense joy.
   • From Bhagavan Ram, we learn to usher in all such thoughts.

3. Our whole day passes in the intimate company of our own thoughts. The world around us—whatever we have, good or bad—is the grossified form of the thoughts that we have entertained in the past.

4. Hence one must try to nurture dharmic thoughts and live a life accordingly. Dharma is that medicine which removes our biting, burning, demanding, expecting, lustful thoughts.

Glory of the thought of ‘Seva’

1. Every relationship, whether it is marriage or any other, is an institution where we must learn to bring out thoughts of seva dharma. The one who serves, and who has the constant thought of serving, is always more joyful than the one who is being served.
   • The service we do “outside”, whether it is seva of a husband, a wife, a parent, a child or other, is a ritual, a tool.
   • While doing this seva outside, the inside of our mind gets filled with beautiful thoughts.
   • By the very thought of ‘May I serve you’, we are cushioning our mind with soft, wonderful thoughts, and are removing any space for ugly, harsh thoughts.
   • Of course, the fruits of seva will come in the future, but in the present itself, we are creating a beautiful mind for ourselves.

2. When we entertain selfish, ungrateful thoughts like ‘Why should I serve’, we are whipping our own minds with unrighteous thoughts.

3. With seva bhava and the thought of giving joy to others, we can conquer ugly instincts like anger, jealousy and lust. When these negativities are erased, that itself brings to the mind so much joy and peace. To know that ‘I have conquered anger’, is a supreme joy, and that can be understood only by the one who has conquered it.

4. A person who conquers his lower thoughts becomes not only strong, but extremely effective. He has much more space in his mind for puja, japa, seva and meditation.

5. The thoughts of seva, of obedience, of egolessness…these thoughts have to be sown and cultivated. They are not natural to us at the present moment.

During the yagna on Ayodhya Kand, Swami Abhedanandaji delved ever deeper into the exemplary characters in Valmiki Ramayana, to bring the audience the jewels of quintessential lessons and instructions for a beautiful life.

Unlike in Krishna avatar, where Bhagavan showed a flamboyant Ishwari leela by killing demons like Putana early in the narrative, in His Ram avatar, Bhagavan scripted a host of situations through which He demonstrated to us—through His own responses, how we should think and behave—so that we can be free from the tyranny of situations.

Importance of Dhriti (Tolerance)

1. Tolerance as taught by Bhagavan Ram is not a weak, fatalistic acceptance of situations, but a strength that helps us rise above situations.

2. In Bhagavan Ram’s yatra from near-coronation in Ayodhya to vanvaas in the forest, Bhagavan Ram demonstrates to the jeeva, the necessity to endure a lot, tolerate a lot.

3. The essence of dharma is dhriti, or tolerance. Tolerance means meeting an unconducive situation without giving the situation the power to disturb us.

4. In our life, some people’s words, some situations we find almost impossible to get over or get out of. The purpose of dharma is to develop dhriti, an increased capacity to digest unconducive people, situations, financial and other troubles, without allowing them, to overwhelm us.

5. Every weakness in us means we are prone to disturbance from certain issues. By developing dhriti, we reduce our tendency to be disturbed by those situations.

6. Dhriti is a core quality we need to develop in the building of our character. Dhriti is the capacity that makes us free from the wrong kind of insistence.

7. Bhagavan Ram exemplifies this quality of dhriti, when, on the first night of vanvaas, coming straight from His princely life in the palace, He laid down on the forest ground to sleep as if nothing had changed. He was not angry, agitated or sad at all.

8. This dhriti, this capacity of tolerance, comes when ahankaar and attachment are not strong in us. If Bhagavan Ram had wanted the kingdom passionately, or if He had been attached to comforts, or if He was egoistic, He would have reacted very differently to the news of exile.

Importance of thinking through our actions

1. Valmiki Ramayana stresses the importance of carefully considering one’s fruits of action before performing any action.

2. Devastated after Bhagavan Ram leaves for vanvaas, Dashrathji remembers the incident in his past, where he had carelessly shot an arrow in the forest, without having its target in his line of sight. And instead of hitting an animal, shot a hermit boy and killed him. Dashrathaji says to Kaushalya, that the fruit of his careless action, which was waiting, had now arrived giving result to such difficult situation.

3. From the immense pain of separation from Ramji, Dashrathji gives up his pran. After Dashrathji dies, his entourage arrives, and notes the bitterness of Dashrathji’s prarabdha—With four sons, and no ordinary sons at that, not a single one was to be present when Dashrathji breathed his last.

4. Dashrathji, the father of Bhagavan Ram Himself, could not escape from the gruesome results of his past actions. We, as ordinary people, must realise that we too, at some point will face the fruit of every action we undertake.

Why have Devotion in life?

1. Devotion is not an option in life. The moment we make it an option, we put ourselves in trouble.

2. Devotion is life’s most urgent requirement, because if we don’t have devotion, we will always be afraid for our future. If we don’t have devotion, we will fall for every small temptation.

3. In devotion we do not fall in love (with God), we rise in love with Him.

4. Lakshmanji used to say that he didn’t want any options in his life, and his whole life was only to please just One—his beloved Bhagavan Ram. This thirst to please the Lord is the essence of both Karma yoga and Bhakti yoga.

5. For those who insist on working for their own selfish joy, it is important to realise that the smaller is their altar of dedication, the lesser will be their strength and energy in any work that they undertake.

6. If we work for two people, we have energy for two people. If we work for a hundred, we will have commensurate energy. If we work for the country, the energy of the whole country will be with us.

7. Lakshmanji teaches us a most beautiful sentiment when he says, “The same God who gave us everything, let us offer everything back to Him.”

8. It is very, very rare to find a real devotee of the Lord. Very few people are thirsty for the Lord.

9. Lakshmanji had only one agenda, one goal, “I just want to see Bhagavan Ram happy all the time. I don’t want anything else.”

Swami Abhedanandaji opened the July yagna on Valmiki Ramayana with a full-throttle, high-impact satsang, shaking us out of our complacent approach towards the time we have left in this human birth.

“Use your time wisely”, was Swamiji’s most compassionate message and warning to us all. Full of pointers on how to live a dharmik life which is full of sacrifice, how to develop dispassion & detachment, the talk was an indispensable road-map to progress on the spiritual path.

We bring you the most salient points as below:

Bharatji’s Character: Reaching the Higher through Sacrifice

1. We saw the glorious character of Shri Bharatji in Ayodhya Kand that even when he got the kingdom of Ayodhya, he did not take it.
2. Generally we are very right-oriented people. We constantly think of what we should get.
3. Bharatji demonstrated a beautiful aspect of dharma—that we should perform such actions through which we decrease our vasanas and increase our independence. The glory of a person is not in how much he can enjoy the world, but in how much he can give up the world.
4. It is not important that whatever you have, you should enjoy that. Suppose you have money:
5. Instead of enjoying luxuries with your money, it would be better to use that money to drop some negativity of your mind. That would serve a bigger purpose.
6. Instead of going on expensive holidays or collecting luxury items, decrease your greed and attachment to money by offering it to the Lord, or doing charity.
7. Shri Bharatji is the acharya (teacher) of Love, Service and Sacrifice. He went to Chitrakoot to offer the kingdom to Bhagavan Ram. Everything belongs to Bhagavan only. Moment we possess something as our own without making Bhagavan as partner, that thing is sure to become a curse upon us.

Dispassion and Detachment are our Key Requirements

1. In life, we are not troubled by something which we have left, but by things which we can’t leave.
2. Dharmik life is a training through which our sacrificing capacity increases. Not by leaps and bounds, but slowly and gradually.
3. Measure your life’s Bigness not by how much wealth and property you have accumulated, or how settled your children are, but by– ‘What all mental weaknesses such as hatred, obsessions, attachments have I left? How much anger I could control? How much have I stopped getting bothered by trivial issues?’ This is the right measurement criterion. This alone shows how dharmik you are, and how strong is your mind.
4. As we grow in age, more people look to us for support. A person should be such, that he is ready to support the system around him; that others can depend on him. And that is possible when the person is situated in dharma, is full of faith, and has detachment from the world.
5. A detached person alone can love someone in the true sense, can shoulder big responsibilities, and can handle situations properly. Attached people are easily over-powered and overwhelmed by emotions for the people whom they are attached to.

Understanding the temporary nature of the world

1. Bhagavan Ram says to Bharatji, ‘All that we accumulate will eventually decay and all that is high will go low one day’. This is the nature of the world.
2. Somebody is on the top one day and on another day, he is at the bottom. Those who were once big politicians and businessmen, today they need help to even sit up straight.
3. All people, whether they are people we like or dislike today, will soon depart. Every meeting in life ends in departure.
4. All life will end in death. Do not claim, ‘I know this already’. Everybody ‘knows’ it, but we have to repeat it in our mind, it should sink in. This contemplation helps in reducing our raag (attachment) and dwesha (hatred).

Hearing about Death – A Sadhana

1. Death is extremely close to us. In Hinduism, hearing about death is a sadhana. It helps us understand where we stand and how many years we have wasted.
2. When we hear the news of someone passing away, we have to personalise the news, understanding that this will happen to our body too, soon.
3. As two logs of wood meet in the ocean, bang each other for some time and with the next wave they get separated, so too, in our lives we meet husband, wife, children, mama, chacha, etc. just to be separated with the next rising wave.
4. It is a Sadhana to go to a funeral. When you go to a funeral, pay attention to your bhaav (emotion). Picturise your body in the same way, and see how everything is false here. Realise how flimsy and finite the world is.

Use Your Time To Get Big Earnings

1. Like we cannot take the Ganges back to its source, we cannot get lost time back. Use the time that you have wisely, put your mind in dharmik actions and in Bhakti (devotion).
2. With the limited time we have, let us earn something bigger in life. Do not waste your earning capacity. When we leave this body, we must leave with more dispassion and more purity of heart.
3. When death arrives—there should be no regrets, nor should we be hankering after anyone—we should be thinking of the Lord alone. Start preparing for that moment from right now.
4. Put your mind in something bigger. In this birth, either do something so that you are not born again; or prepare yourself so that in the next birth, you get more opportunity to enter spiritual life with a more prepared mind.
5. Live with the world but use the world for self-purification. Use every person around you for sadhana, for pleasing God, and for growing dispassion. Through children – practice sadhana of patience, through somebody very good around you – try to imbibe his qualities, through an angry person – practice tolerance, through someone who neglects you – try to still love him.
6. Serve everyone. Do more Jap, do more puja.
7. Swami Sivananda used to advice to make a daily sadhana diary. Be answerable to God. If you miss sadhana, compensate for it. Be ruthless with your mind, don’t be soft. Be soft with the world, not with your mind.

On Day 2 of the Valmiki Ramayana yagna, Swamiji encouraged us to set a very high goal indeed for ourselves. We must become Mahatmas, said Swamiji, by consistently giving up our smallness for the Higher.

We bring you some key points:

Sacrifice, Sacrifice, Sacrifice!

1. If someone is sad, it is because he is holding on to something small, he is not making someone big happy in his life.
2. Sometimes we say, ‘My God and my Guru are not happy with me’. A simple set of questions for us is – ‘What did we give up for God, for Guru? Did we give up your anger, comforts, hatred, attachments?’ If we give up, it is not possible that our God and Guru won’t be happy.
3. Every big thing and big joy in this world is—as if—covered. It is covered due to lack of sacrifice. Shri Bharatji’s glory was that he gave up the kingdom so that the joy of Bhagavan Ram could be uncovered.
4. Bigger is the renunciation of the person, bigger is his ability to get the Higher Joy. If we have not had big experiences in life, it is only because we have not given up sufficiently.
5. When someone complains that he cannot do japa, puja or meditation, it only means that he has not sacrificed enough for doing his sadhana. If he sacrifices, he will be able to do it.
6. Each moment demands some renunciation from us. There is a silent call in each moment which tells us to give up our laziness, ahankaar, attachment, insistence, comfort etc. But we are so habituated to holding on to our pettiness and negativities that we don’t listen to the call to give up.
7. And because we don’t listen to this call, we are stuck with low and middle-class joy. If somebody’s joy is Higher, then we can infer that his sacrifice is more. Higher joy means the joy which is independent, long-lasting and cannot be snatched away.
8. Our giving-up capacity should increase with time. The capacity to give up ego, falsehood, attachment, sensuality, etc. should increase. It is not automatic. We need to put in effort for that.

Bhagavan Ram’s Egoless & Detached Nature

Bharatji says that Bhagavan Ram is so great that He is not shaken by situations.

1. If somebody is not shaken by sorrows, it means that he doesn’t have attachment and ahankaar (ego).
2. Bhagavan Ram’s kingdom was taken away, but He had no sorrow; because He had no attachment to the kingdom. When we are not attached to a certain object, then the presence or absence of that object doesn’t bother us.
3. Similarly, when we don’t have any desire from others, then others cannot make us unhappy.
4. An egoistic person’s problem is – he doesn’t want that anybody should see him as small. When ahankaar is absent, the person already sees himself as small. He is not troubled by how others look at him or treat him.
5. There was no ahankaar in Bhagavan Ram. In no time, He took off His royal attire and put on the bark of the tree. He didn’t feel any inferiority. He didn’t think ‘What will people think? What is my fault?’ etc.

Situational sorrow v/s Emotional sorrow

1. In life, there can be situational sorrow but making it into emotional sorrow is our own foolishness. Ramji had situational sorrow, but not emotional sorrow. He didn’t internalize the situation.
2. Anybody would have been sad in His situation, but not Bhagavan Ram. Because in Him, there was no ahankaar to catch and personalize the sorrow.
3. An ahankaari person lives a very personal, ego-centric life. ‘My success, my failure, my joy, my sorrow, my insult, my honour’–he embraces everything except God. He doesn’t personalize God.
4. Success in life is to personalize God and impersonalize all worldly things. An ahankaari person cannot do that. And so, he remains troubled.

Maturity comes from Right Intellect

1. Maturity of a person is, how big difficulties he can take without breaking or becoming sad, and still continue to give joy to others.
2. The thinking capacity of a matured person is very big, he has a very big filter in him. His every response is very well thought-out.
3. An immature person has no buffer in him to analyse the situations before acting. He acts upon his erratic and irregular impulses, which he then tries to justify.
4. Bharatji says we must live like a dead person, i.e., with no demand, complaint or anger. Whether we get attention and love or not, we should be always fine, as if our mind is dead to selfishness.
5. We must live without any insistence. It should not matter much whether we have something or not. Learn to live with minimum and adjust with whatever you have.
6. If we have to be choosy, we must be choosy regarding our thoughts. Living such is the laabh (profit) of having right intellect.

Become a Mahatma!

1. We are born to give love, and to offer and surrender ourselves to the Lord.
2. A Mahatma is the one who thinks how many people are happy with his happiness; whose reference point is the happiness of God. A Mahatma does not live for small, low-class joys.
3. It is important to become a Mahatma, because if we don’t, we will be in trouble. The moment we put our selfish desires ahead, there will be someone who will come to obstruct our desires.
4. A Mahatma is the one who has calibrated his mind such, that his habits are non-vulnerable and non-crushable. If one desires to do puja, paath or parayan, or decides to be humble, nobody can contradict his desires.
5. On the path to becoming a Mahatma, keeping vows is essential. When we fulfil our vows, we feel more confident because the power of the Lord is now with us.

On Day 3 of Valmiki Ramayana yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji gave us some extremely practical pointers to measure our spiritual progress. Swamiji blessed us with a close look at some of the most essential components of dharma, and gave step-by-step instructions on how to both recognise, and hold on to Satyam (Truthfulness).

Sharing below some key points:

Glory of Sacrifice

The glorious portion of Valmiki Ramayana where Shri Bharatji meets with Bhagavan Ram in Chitrakoot, is the meeting of two Maha-tyaagis, the meeting of two greatest of renunciates.
Between them, there is a tough competition. But it is a divinely sweet tussle, because they both want to renounce for each other.

1. Ordinary people compete to get something. But Lord Ram and Bharat are competing to give up very big things.
2. The true value of a person is measured not through his outer affluence, but by ‘what’ he has given up in life, and ‘for whom’.
3. We should increase our capacity to give up lower emotional joys of ego, attachment, hatred etc., for the Higher.
4. The joy of egoless-ness is much more than the joy of an egoistic person. The joy of surrender is much more than the joy of pursuing our own agenda. The joy of detachment is much more than the joy of attachment.
5. To reach that higher joyous state, we have to go through some pain for some time, where we have left the lower joy, but don’t yet have that higher joy.
6. One who can tolerate that painful phase, he is sure to reach that higher joy which is independent, long lasting, deep, and non-snatchable.

Learn to be hard with yourself

1. To love the higher, you have to be very hard towards the lower. You cannot be soft to the lower and higher at the same time.
2. We have a ‘bowl’ called mind, which needs to be very strong, to hold within it the nectar of devotion. If we allow the mind to be soft towards lower emotions, we won’t be able to contain the higher emotions in it.
3. To do regular sadhana, we have to be hard on ourselves. Hard on our laziness, desires, anger, attachment and senses.

Learn to become small
Bharatji tried to persuade Bhagavan Ram to return to Ayodhya and rule the Kingdom. He said, “I am just a small child. How can I become a king? I don’t have proper intellect. Without You, I cannot rule.”

1. In life, we tend to overestimate ourselves. None of us want to think of ourselves as a child (small). We think we are very intelligent. But we don’t even know what we don’t know.
2. We must know how to become small in front of the higher. Our inability to become small costs us the love of God.
3. The beauty in life is to understand that in front of the Lord, our abilities, our knowledge, are very small. This is beautifully portrayed through Bharatji’s character. Bharatji was extremely brilliant and intelligent, and yet he genuinely considered himself as a small child who knew nothing.
4. Learn to become small. To get milk (grace) from the cow (God), one has to become a calf (small).

Strong mind v/s Weak mind
Rishi Valmiki uses a beautiful word for Bhagavan Ram – ‘Satya-vaan’. Satya-vaan means ‘one who has a strong mind’.

1. A strong mind does not mean a stubborn mind, but the mind which has the ability to follow some higher principle even in the face of difficulties.
2. A person is called Satya-vaan, when he has dispassion, devotion, faith in God and righteousness in his actions.
3. A strong mind acts as per dharma, can keep big vows, and go through pain to follow the higher. A strong mind is one which can face the lower joys and firmly say ‘No’ to them.
4. To do anything bigger in life, you need a mind that stays strong and resolute for a long time.
5. A weak-minded person is not able to do big work for a long time. He may start well, but he is not able to continue, because he doesn’t have tenacity. When your mind is weak, your vasanas dominate, and you tend to break vows.
6. More a person becomes selfish, or sensual, or emotionally weak, more he loses control over himself.

Understanding Truthfulness

Lord Ram says to Bharatji, “Truthfulness, which devoid of cruelty, is the way prescribed for the Kings.” The whole world is based on truthfulness. Let us understand what truthfulness actually means.

1. There is a code-of-conduct prescribed in the scriptures. We are meant to do only specific actions. And even think and talk in a specific way.
2. We are not meant to do everything we like, even if we are capable of doing it. A Sannyasi cannot start a business, even if he is capable, because his dharma is different.
3. Every single person has his prescribed set of duties and actions, be it a husband, wife, child, parent, sannyasi, brahmachari. And interesting point is, what we are supposed to do is always difficult, because it challenges our likes and dislikes.
4. A sannyasi has to renounce everything, and live a detached life. He cannot hate anybody or be angry. This is difficult. Similarly, for a householder, to follow dharma and take care of family is very difficult.
5. Practice of that dharma is called Satyam or Truthfulness.
6. Lord Ram says, “As people get scared of a snake and run away, similarly people run away from that person who is not dharmik and who does not have truth in life.”
   • It is important for us to cultivate dharmik thoughts. If we have adharmik thoughts, then to get respect from society, we start living a life of lies, and thus lead a divorced life.
   • When one does his dharma, he becomes an essential contributor is the society and is highly valued.
   • The person who is steadfast in his dharma is:
     • Very fulfilled
     • People trust him and are drawn towards him
     • Has high level of confidence
     • Has no guilt of the past
     • God is closer to him
     • Has lessened his raag (attachment) and dwesh (aversion)
   • The way to find out what is one’s dharma is: Through scriptures, Guru (saints) and our own inner conscience. We have a very sophisticated software inside called the conscience,which constantly warns us when we are wrong, lazy, too angry etc. When we tune in to this conscience, and remain alert and vigilant, we are able to understand dharma and follow it.

On Day 4, Swamiji emphasized the crucial role of Satyam (Truthfulness) in following dharma. Through the glorious examples of Shri Bharat and Bhagavan Ram, Swamiji showed us how, when a person is established in Satyam, he has the natural ability to understand and follow his swadharma (one’s ordained duties).

What is the role of Satyam in following Dharma?

1. Satyam (Truthfulness) is the silent energy, or heroism through which one can transform the right intellectual notions into right thoughts and actions; at the emotional and physical level.
2. Sometimes, we do understand what our role is and what we are supposed to do, but we are not able to do it. Satyam gives the energy, the shakti that is required to follow one’s dharma.
3. You have to tolerate the pain and do the right thing as per your dharma. And after doing so repeatedly, the pain will lessen. This capacity that you discover in yourself is Satyam.
4. It surely is difficult to follow our dharma. But if we only do easy things in life, we will make our life difficult. When we do difficult things which are as per dharma, we make our life easy in the long run.
5. One need guts, courage and tenacity to percolate one’s dharma at the emotional level, physical level, schedule level and interaction level.
6. Valmiki Ramayana declares, “Satya alone is the Ishwar! Truth is God!” It means one should live that life which we can speak of without hesitation. When we live a dharmik life, we have no fear and reason to hide anything.

Glory of Satyam

1. Satya is a Shakti, and every shakti grows only when we apply it. If you walk for one kilometre one day, then the next day you can walk little more. The same applies to living a life of Satya.
2. It is because we don’t practice Satyam, that we are unable to take bigger resolutions in life, unable to control our senses, and unable to leave our attachment and aversion. Once dharma is understood, the dharma-transformer (Satyam) has to be brought in us, and the best way to bring it is by practicing it.
3. He who abides in Satyam, he alone can contribute, serve, give and be an asset to the society. Such a person is highly predictable and dependable. He is not an erratic and moody person who thinks, and talks just anything.
4. Bhagavan Ram says in Valmiki Ramayana that the person who doesn’t abide in Satyam does paap (sin) by body, mind and speech. And because of that he loses out on the best in life. “Land, fame, Lakshmi come to him who has Satya,” Bhagvana Ram has said.
5. One who has Satyam in life, he is an expert at finding out what is his respective duty at any given time. Many things that we ought to do are not told by anybody, we need to find out ourselves.
6. Others may give pointers and indication but particularities and how exactly to do it, is our area. This is brought out spectacularly in the characters and responses of both Bharatji and Ram Bhagvana.
7. As per the advice of Guru and elders, Bharatji could have taken the throne, but he was so established in Satyam, he knew exactly where his swadharma lay, and went straight to Chitrakoot to offer the kingdom at Bhagvana Ram’s feet.
8. In Chitrakoot, as Bharatji was trying to persuade Bhagavan Ram to return to Ayodhya, Vasishthaji came with a big list of kings of Raghuvansh. He said that as per the records, it has always been the eldest son who became the king, never the younger son, and therefore Bhagavan Ram should rule the kingdom.
9. But Bhagavan Ram was established in His swadharma—like Himachal, He was absolutely unshakable. He said, “I am indebted to my father and I have to follow his words to get free from those debts.”

The Indescribable Heights that Satyam takes us to

The glory of Satyam, and how it elevates a person to unimaginable heights can only really be described through Bharatji’s most exquisite example.

1. In Chitrakoot, when akaashvaani happened (a celestial voice came) which said, “O Bharat, please allow Ramji to do his dharma!” Bharatji fell at the feet of Bhagavan Ram and pleaded, “O brother, I don’t have the capacity to rule such a big kingdom.”
2. When Bharatji kept crying inconsolably, Bhagavan Ram embraced Bharatji, lifted him and made him sit on his lap. Bhagavan Ram said, “O Bharat, listen! How can you not rule? You have so much of vinaya (humility). Don’t worry!”
3. When this was said, then Bharatji understood that Bhagavan Ram would stay in exile. He brought Ramji’s paduka (slippers) and said, “O my beloved brother Ram! Please put your feet on these. These paduka will protect the whole world.”
4. Bhagavan Ram placed His feet on the paduka, and gave them to Bharat. In the most touching moment, Bharatji offered pranaams to the paduka, lifted them on his head, and said, “I will also live as you are living. I will also wear the bark of tree and eat bulbs and fruits. Like you are living in the forest, I will also live outside the city.”
5. “Every day I will just count the days for you to return,” said Bharatji. “I will wait for this time to get over. I will wait for 14 years, and if I don’t see you after 14 years, I will burn myself in the fire.” Bhagavan Ram embraced him and promised that He would not delay at all.
6. The whole assembly of people was in tears to see the two great mahatmas embracing each other.
7. It is written in Valmiki Ramayana that, when Bharatji left, Bhagavan Ram returned to his kutia and cried inconsolably. He felt like, ‘I couldn’t obey my brother. Such a renunciate brother Bharat is.’

Learn to Be Like Bharatji

1. When Bharatji returned to Ayodhya, he said, “I cannot live here. This is a desolate place.” He went to Nandi gram (nearby village) and made an altar with his own hands. He brought the throne and placed Bhagavan Ram’s paduka on the throne.
2. Bharatji’s bhaav was, “My brother has given me kingdom to keep as a trust. I am a trustee.” Bharatji had so much selflessness. There was not even a whiff of ego or selfishness in him.
3. The demand of the world with everybody is ‘Don’t be selfish with me. You live with any person but don’t be egoistic.’
4. Not having ego means – ’My desires have no value. I am not living for myself. I am living to fulfil some divine vision. My life is not for me. I am just an executor of Lord’s plan.’
5. Bharatji used to sit near Bhagavan’s paduka for hours together and think, “I will worship these padukas, and the moment the Holder of Paduka will come, I will hold His feet, and I will become His servant.”
6. It is written that Bharatji worshipped the Padukas so much that the Padukas started talking to him and guiding him.
7. When someone becomes very selfless and is ready to leave everything for Bhagvana, Bhagvana is touched. Such people are able to offer themselves completely to the Lord, to the Guru, to some higher ideal.

Bharatji is the epitome of such selflessness. Let us become like Bharatji!

On Day 5 Swami Abhedanandaji graced the audience with ‘How To’ list, to compliment the ‘To Do’ list we all have but keep failing at.

Swamiji took us through an in-depth inquiry into why our best intentions seem to always fizzle out, and gave us some superbly practical tips on how to turn our daily failure into enduring success.

Immediate Relief OR Long term Solution – Choose wisely

1. Our life is mostly centered on immediate gratification. We do whatever is most convenient for us, looking for instant joy, or immediate relief from problems. We fail to realise that this may lead to serious problems in the future.
2. We have all experienced that at times, we did, said or thought something which took away our immediate pain, but in doing so, invited long-term pain.
3. If we have long-term emotional pain, we should understand that somewhere in the past, we went for instant gratification. We did what we “felt like” doing, instead of what we “should” have done.
4. Dharma gives us the ability to hold ourselves from seeking immediate relief. It shifts the mind’s attention towards long-term relief, and provides far-sightedness. One learns to evaluate his actions as per the scriptures, Guru, and the internal Self.
5. When we only do what we “feel” like doing, then the ‘feeling mind’ gains strength. The erratic and emotional mind becomes stronger. The big loss here is that we have nourished the mind which is feeling-oriented rather than the mind which is dharma-oriented.
6. Such a mind is anti-Guru, anti-scripture and anti-God. It only wants the joy of the moment; it is blind to the pain of the future.

Dharma says ‘Stop’!

1. Before we act, we need to be able to stop ourselves and ask – ‘Is this action/thought right? Will it please God? Will it please Guru? Is it as per the scriptures?’
2. Dharma says – ‘Stop!’ Dharma is the training of the mind to pause. “No, don’t cater to the senses. No, don’t entertain thoughts of anger & lust. Do your duty even if you are tired and sleepy. Complete the work!”
3. When we follow our dharma, and follow the rules of the society, of the house, we develop the habit to hold ourselves. We develop the ability to say ‘No’ to outer temptations and inner reactions.
4. We must develop a dharmik personality which is able to fight laziness, lethargy and is able to shout down the illogical arguments of the mind.
5. “I don’t feel like doing puja today, but still I will do it as it is my dharma. Even if I am tired, I will complete it. It will make my God and Guru happy.” When you think like that, and perform your daily sadhana, then over time, the resistance of the mind is lessened, as it knows that you are tougher than before.

Lights ON

1. Dharma is a training of the intellect to keep the “Lights On”–scriptural light, Guru’s light! What you heard in the satsang, it should be glittering all the time in your mind i.e., it should be readily available for you to apply in your actions, thoughts and speech.
2. You have to train the mind every day to do a little better. Training means – you are making the mind do something which it is not good at; and which is hard for it to do, so that after some time the mind can do it spontaneously and effortlessly.
3. Towards your ‘wrong mind’, you have to be heartless and ruthless. If not, you will cultivate a ‘demon mind’ for yourself.

Be a Trustee

1. Our house, our job, our car, our wealth, who does it all belong to? No person, no position belongs to us. In hundred years, everything will belong to someone else. The fact is everything belongs to the Lord alone.
2. We are just a small speck of the Viraat (Infinite Lord). And since our body is the part of the Macrocosm, it should work for the Macrocosm. Just as various parts of our body work for the entire body, and not for themselves.
3. The principle that everything belongs to the Lord is very important to understand, as it forms the basis of Karma Yoga. With this understanding, there is a lateral shift in our thought process.
4. The person then performs all his chores as a trustee of the Lord. When we work for the Macrocosm, we start earning/working for the Lord, who is expressing as our family. We take care of our child by being a trustee of God. We do not have any independent relationship with anybody.
5. We must constantly check how the Lord wants us to live, and live accordingly.
6. The result of such thinking is very big – if something doesn’t happen as per our desire, we are not worried or disturbed. All sad people are sad and disturbed because they try to have individual relationships with the world, and do not bring the Lord into the equation.
7. When any part of the body works independently, it becomes cancerous. When an individual acts for himself, the Cosmic Power withdraws Grace from his life.
8. This is the principle behind Bharatji taking the Paduka of the Lord. Bharatji took care of the kingdom as the Lord’s kingdom. Whatever work came, Bharatji went to the Lord’s Paduka and took advice. When someone praised him, he went to the Paduka and offered the praise to the Lord.
9. Mixing “from” and “for” in all our actions is Karma Yoga. “Where from” you get and “for whom” you do… Both should be Lord alone!

Soaking everyone in the cool showers of Valmiki Ramayana katha during the six days of Monthly Yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji enriched each listener with extremely essential pointers for living a surrendered spiritual life. We are glad to share with you an excerpt from the last day’s satsang:

Karma-Yog as Taught by its Greatest Acharya: Bharatji

Shri Bharatji installing Bhagavan Ram’s Paduka on the throne of Ayodhya, and ruling on behalf of Paduka, beautifully portrays the principle of Karma-yog. This principle should be clearly understood and personalised by each human being.

1. In life, there are areas where we have a certain amount of freedom. For instance, in our home, we can arrange things as per our liking, or with our spouse and children, we can act in our chosen manner.
2. We have been given some authority by our prarabdh (fate) to call our house, family, job as ‘mine’. But how we present ourselves in the areas where we have authority, is an important thing to analyse.
3. Every person has an area of bondage where he is likely to be caught, or likely to suffer in. And the interesting point is – the area where our freedom lies, that is exactly the area of our bondage too.
4. One cannot have bondage in the area where he has no freedom. For example, you have no freedom with the neighbour’s house, so you will not be bound by his house. Similarly, you will never be bound by someone else’s spouse and children.
5. But where you have the freedom to say ‘you are my wife’, ‘you are my child’, ‘you should act as per my wish’, that is your area of bondage. That is where comes attachment, hatred, aversion and ahankaar (ego). And gradually it becomes a disease; and the very cause for the person’s fall.
6. The antidote for this is the study of Shri Bharatji’s immaculate character. Bharatji is the acharya (teacher) of all sadhana. He demonstrates that everything and every person in life belong to the Lord, and should be offered to the Lord alone.

Does the World Really Belong to You?

1. It is a false notion that the people and the objects around us belong to us. If they belonged to us, then they should have been in our full control. But it is a proven fact that no person and no situation is under our control.
2. There is not even a single person in your life whose nature is exactly as you want, or who always does what you want. Very easily we say ‘he is mine or she is mine’, but there is no truth in that.
3. Even our body doesn’t obey us. Who wants diseases? But we get diseases. Who wants old age? But we all get old. There is nobody in our life, including our own body and mind which follows what we want.
4. But there is Someone who can make everybody follow Him. He can make anyone dance to His tunes because everything belongs to Him, and that is the Lord.
5. Bharatji demonstrated that instead of trying to be the ‘Nidhipati’, one should become the ‘Pratinidhi’. ‘Nidhipati’ means becoming the boss (owner) of the objects and people. While ‘Pratinidhi’ means becoming a representative and working on behalf of the Lord.

Advantages of being a Pratinidhi

1. Once you become a Pratinidhi, the beautiful bhaav (emotion) of surrender comes in your mind, which takes away your ‘bhog bhavana’ (desire to enjoy & indulge).
2. You become attentive as to what God wants from you. And you cease to have independent relation with anybody.
3. You see everything with Prasad buddhi and Puja buddhi. With what you have to do, you have Puja buddhi i.e., you perform actions as worship of God. And with what you get, you have Prasad buddhi i.e., you accept everything as Lord’s Prasad, be it good or bad.
4. This buddhi that ‘I am working for the Lord’ is very important. This is the crux of Karma-yog, which Bharatji illustrated. This is the only way to get out of painful bondages, otherwise the world becomes very difficult to handle.
5. One more beautiful thing happens when a person becomes a Pratinidhi – he gets tremendous energy. For whom you work, that person’s or that thing’s energy comes in you.
6. If you work for the Whole (God/Macrocosm), then the Whole will support you, Macrocosm will support the Microcosm. Moment you remove God and see any person or situation, it will be difficult to handle.

How to deal with difficulties in life?

1. Difficulty in life means – either there is a difficult person who is not toeing your line and you have to live with him, or you have to live with some difficult situation like poverty, or house issues, or office problems. You cannot run away from these difficulties.
2. To deal with any kind of difficult person, there is only one way, and that is to NOT repeatedly think that ‘he/she has given me a lot of difficulties’, rather think that ‘he is God’s person’.
3. The moment you think of him as God’s person, the very attitude of looking at him will differ. You will have less expectation. You will say, ‘O God, he is your person, now You deal with him’.
4. Your role should be just to serve the other person. Any relation in the world should be ONLY for serving & giving. You should just act as a medium to connect the other person to God.

Anusuyaji’s Beautiful Instructions

In Valmiki Ramayana, when Bhagavan Ram, Sitaji and Lakshmanji visit sage Atreyi, he introduces them to his wife Anusuya. Atreyiji describes Anusuya as a celebrated hermit, ever-free from anger. Anusuyaji gave some beautiful teachings to Sitaji, the essence of which applies to all seekers.

1. As men and women have different bodies, they also have different natures. In general, men tend to be buddhi pradhaan (intellectual); and women are manas-pradhaan (emotional). Please note, it is not implied here that women are not intellectual, or that men are not emotional.
2. There are various examples of highly intellectual women; and various examples of highly emotional and caring men. Here, the roles are being addressed ‘in general’ and said which qualities tend to be predominant in whom.
3. It is essential to have highly developed emotions, to be able to bring up a family but the flip-side of being predominantly emotional is that emotions like hatred, jealousy, expectations etc. also tend to dominate. Hence there should be a balance in one’s intellectual and emotional personality.
4. In a woman whose emotions are extremely dominant, there is a basic urge to surrender to someone. When such a woman gets a husband with extremely divine qualities, it is natural for her to have aadar buddhi towards him (feeling of respect and reverence). She then serves him whole-heartedly.
5. This then produces the superlative combination; where the woman has extreme surrender and the man is extremely divine and protective. It is such couples who have given birth to great saints like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, Tapovan Maharaj. Home is the first institution of a child. The child closely observes its parents’ behaviour.
6. A man gives identification to the house, but the joy and happiness of the house depends on the woman as she is the one who binds the house and lays the right foundation. Both are great in their own unique way. And hence both should live in perfect harmony so they can become facilitators in each other’s spiritual growth.

The monthly yagna on Valmiki Ramayana got off to a scintillating start as Swami Abhedanandaji drenched the listeners in the soothing showers of Shri Bharatji’s enamoring character. Here are few of the memorable takeaways from the first day’s satsang:

Shri Bharatji’s exalted love for Bhagavan Ram

When Bharatji heard that Bhagavan Ram had left for forest, he had tremendous pain. He was not carried away by the joy of power and kingdom. The joy of power is a very big joy, and to leave that joy is only possible when there is an even bigger joy in your heart. Bharatji had the biggest joy.

1. A person is defined by – whose joy & sorrow is reflected in his heart. A person is not what he does, but he is what makes him sad and what makes him happy.
2. You should ask yourself – ‘What makes me happy? And what makes me suffer?’ If you are happy or unhappy about something personal, such as getting or losing something, or because of some praise or insult, then understand that such kind of joy and sorrow is very low class.
3. In Shri Bharatji’s heart, the importance of joy of Bhagavan Ram was too big, and therefore the pain of Bhagavan Ram (going to the forest etc.) was also very big.
4. Bharatji’s heart did not have any reflection of his ahankaar (ego).
5. Unfortunately, in our hearts, it is our ahankaar alone that reflects, because all our sorrows and joys are selfish and self-centered.

Shri Bharatji’s Plight
Bharatji was devastated. He could have used many excuses to justify accepting the kingdom, but his thinking was too exalted for that. He found no joy at all in the prospect of power and throne.

1. When everyone in the Kingdom, including the Mothers, the ministers and Guru Vasishthji advised Bharatiji to accept the throne, Bharatji said, “It is my bad luck that you all do not understand my plight. My brother Ram is suffering in the forest, he is going through the pain of sleeping on the floor, and eating out of his hands, and my misfortune is that none of you understand that I am not able to think of anything other than the pain that he is going through.”
2. Here we should see where Bharatji’s mind is going. You are what your mind is!
3. Bharatji continued, “One should follow the teacher and mother and father without thinking, but I am very sad today as I cannot follow anybody. My plight is horrible.”
4. “Only one thing can quieten my mind,” Bharatji added, “and that is the darshan of my brother’s feet. This throne belongs to Him. You are asking me to sit on that throne and give it back to Him when he returns after 14 years. Have you heard anybody eating and then giving the Prasad to the God? One first offers to God and then takes.” Such was Bharatji’s heart.
5. Then Bharatji insisted that they all should go to Chitrakoot to Bhagavan Ram. When the people of Ayodhya heard this, they got their smiles back. Everyone was delighted and said, ‘Bharatji ki Jai!’
6. We all want to become a hero but we don’t know that for that, we have to first become ‘zero’. Those who don’t become zero, but try to become a hero, they are made zero. Either you are made zero, or you yourself become zero. Choice is yours!

Traits of a Mahatma
As Nishadraj praised Bharatji for his intention of persuading Lord Ram to come back and rule Ayodhya, Valmikiji writes, “The Mahatma Bharat was not available (mentally) to listen to these praises.”

1. Who is a Mahatma? A Mahatma is the one who lives for God. We generally live for our family, son, daughter etc. and are conscious of their joys and sorrows, but a Mahatma is the one who is conscious about the Lord’s joy alone. He constantly checks how he can do better, and please the Lord.
2. Shankaracharyaji describes a Mahatma as “akshudra chitta”, one whose heart is very big. Meaning, in whose life, there is nothing called as a personal agenda. He eats, and lives for the Lord alone.
3. A Mahatma does not desire something very cheap (of the world).
4. In his heart, the Lord feels very comfortable, because there is no kaam (selfish desire) & krodha (anger) present.
5. An unclean person will not bother about where he sits. But if someone is very clean, he would prefer to be seated in a clean place. Similarly, the Lord will only reside in a heart which is clean, i.e. without kaam, krodha, etc.
6. A Mahatma is the one who acts only as a representative. He doesn’t act in accordance to his ego or attachment. He constantly scans, what will please his Guru or God and acts accordingly.

Bharatji’s teaching as Avatar Purush
As the fire hidden in the hollow of a tree burns the tree from within, similarly, the fire of anxiety for Bhagavan Ram burnt Shri Bharatji.

1. You cannot enjoy something bigger, unless you have suffered for it. Who is a Guru Bhakt? One who has suffered without a Guru for many years.
2. Unless there is a pang of separation, Bhakti is not possible. This is the basis of love.
3. Unless you have love for higher, your mind will never be quiet. By reading good books you can never be quiet, you can at the most be an intelligent person. Intelligence does not guarantee happiness.
4. Happiness comes only from higher love. The challenge in life is – changing the heart, not the head.
5. Bharatji is an Avatar Purush, he has demonstrated through his whole life how to love the Lord.
6. Unless such depth comes in our heart, unless such joy comes in the heart, our small ego will not go.
7. What is ego? Ego is nothing but the feeling of, ‘I did not get this, he did like that, he made me bigger today, he made me smaller today’ etc.
8. Talented people, intellectuals, singers, dancers etc. are many in this world, but people with such depth and joy are rare. Life of a person changes when he discovers this higher joy.

Essence of Spiritual Life

1. Spiritual life is very difficult. It is easy to do puja, path, aarti, havan, go to the temple etc., but real spirituality means – you have no independent joy and independent sorrow. God and Guru’s joy is your joy, and their sorrow is your sorrow.
2. Bharatji had a much evolved intellect because he could think very big. Our thinking starts from ‘I’ and ends there itself. ‘What I got? What about my job, my house, my money? etc…’ That’s it!
3. Our thinking is very small. We are not able to drop the small issues to think about something bigger. We don’t think about God or Country or Guru.
4. To love the bigger, you can’t keep the smaller in your heart. One can’t love his Guru, his God, and his own ahankaar at the same time. One can’t love his comfort and his Guru’s comfort at the same time.
5. This is the essence of spiritual life, which we can learn from Shri Bharatji’s vast character.

On Day 2 of the Valmiki Ramayana yagna, the audience experienced Swami Abhedanandaji take the sharp needle of fine discrimination (viveka) and prick the balloon of our delusion (moha).

With his unparalleled insight into the Ramayana, Swamiji stressed upon us, with much love, how we should see the characters in Ramayana as a subjective teaching in our own lives—to learn from and evolve with—and not simply as an objective history that took place in Treta Yuga.

We bring you some take-aways:

Our Three-Balloons: Journey from womb to tomb

1. It takes lifetimes for a jeeva to understand that the world is not the source of his problems and sorrows. Problem is—not any person, or any situation, but his very own ahankaar (ego, or “I-ness”) and mamkaar (attachment, or “my-ness”).
2. We rarely realize that if our ego and attachment are lessened; we would be much quieter and more serene.
3. These two bondages (ego & attachment) express through three balloons of grossified ahankaar:
   i) Self-importance: Seeing ourselves as important in others’ eyes
   ii) Self-project: Undertaking projects for self-expansion
   ii) Self-joy: Seeking constant joy from the people & the sense objects around.
4. It is only for the promotion of these three balloons that we study, seek degrees, marry, have children, earn money, build a big house, buy expensive cars etc.
5. All our life we try to protect these three balloons; but situations keep pricking these balloons from time and time, and they are blasted.

As we fail continually to protect them, we become miserable. People don’t give us the love and importance we want, our projects keep failing, and the joy we expected never comes.

This is our pathetic journey from the womb to the tomb.

What is the Solution?

1. First, we have to understand definitively that this chase just doesn’t work. One cannot satisfy these three things (self-importance, self-project and self-joy). They are non-satisfiable. We must understand that our projects won’t work, everybody won’t give us the importance we crave, and nobody will give us lot of joy at all times.
2. Once we understand this clearly, then we can work on ridding ourselves of the two root causes of our sorrow: I-ness and my-ness. And the only way to get out of these is – to have love for the Higher.

Beware: The difference between Love and Attachment

1. Love has a beautiful nature. It is an ahankaar-dissolver, mamkaar-dissolver. In love you don’t want self-importance or self-joy. You don’t want your own identity. You want the joy of the one whom you love.
2. Attachment has the opposite nature – it is selfish and looks for self-interest: ‘Are you making me happy? Am I important for you?’ These thoughts dominate.
3. Love has one very big theme, that is give up, renounce! This is the soul of love, which we see shining through every pore of Bharatji’s character. Without sacrifice, love cannot flourish.
4. Attachment on the other hand, is demanding: ‘sacrifice for me’.
5. More you give up for the beloved, happier you will be. People do prarikrama (circumambulation) of Giriraj Parvat in Vrindavan, where they walk for 22 kms barefoot, with the only intention of pleasing the Lord.
6. If somehow, ‘pleasing the Lord’, becomes the goal of our lives, our character will change.
7. Bharatji’s character is not easy, some people say, ‘I don’t understand Bharatji’s character’.
   His character is not for understanding, it is for identifying with!

Love of Lord: Only source of permanent joy

1. What does Lord’s love do in our life? We learn to forget our own problems. We learn to accept even the harshest of situations smilingly. We are able to sacrifice easily.
2. When this love is present in us, then we continually see that beloved Lord in the heart, and there is a lot of joy.
3. Our only attention is – ‘What can I do for the Lord? Am I pleasing Him or not?’ And if we are not able to please, then we have pain. This is the only pain of a lover’s heart. And this pain is only worth having for the Lord, because He is the only One who will turn that pain into joy.
4. Why is loving the Lord so unique and joy-giving? Because the Lord alone is ever-present and ever-available.
5. For love to be fulfilling, it should not be scattered, it should be with one only, and that One should be Infinite, not finite.
6. Finite love is dangerous. It only leads to sorrow. Infinite love is our urgent need, and that is possible only when we feel the love for the Lord.
7. Bharatji had no other pain other than the pain of Bhagavan Ram’s hardships in exile. He had only One source of joy and sorrow, not many. His love was not scattered.
8. In Bharatji’s mind, only one thought was prominent at all times – ‘How much joy can I give to Bhagavan Ram?’ This is the gist of Shri Bharatji’s character.
9. It is only someone very evolved who doesn’t have his own personal sorrow. ‘My sorrow doesn’t mean anything. The only sorrow I have is that I could not please God today’ – That is called being a Mahatma.
10. A devotee asks only one thing from the God – ‘Give me a lot of pain… not for worldly matters, but of not pleasing You!’
11. We are so hard-hearted that we don’t have love for God. We don’t feel that God has given us everything in our life. Our character, our nature won’t change unless this love is born in our heart, and becomes the most important love of our life.

How can we evolve to become a Sadhu?

1. Seekers have a lot of pain, not because of somebody else, but because of their own nature. They spend numerous days and nights in remembrance of the Lord and seeking forgiveness. This is how Sadhus are made.
2. Sadhus constantly refer to the Lord. They have sensitized their minds to what will please the Lord. As a doctor sensitizes his mind to what is the disease, a Sadhu sensitizes his mind to what will make the Lord happy.
3. Whole spiritual Sadhana is sensitizing our minds towards the Lord. When we feel for the Lord and realise His unhappiness with us, we can go to any extent to please Him. This is how a Mahatma is made, this is how a character is made, this is how a pure mind is made.
4. If we don’t understand this, we will have the same, thick, gross, insensitive mind, and will commit the same mistakes repeatedly without ever rectifying them. Such a person never evolves, and has the same amount of kaam (lust), krodha (anger), iirsha (jealousy), dwesh (hatred) etc.
5. We must try to touch Bharatji’s character and personalize it. We should not see Ramayana objectively as some story which happened in Treta Yuga, we should try to see ourselves, and our own solutions in the characters.
6. A person becomes insensitive because he has made his mind deaf to the words of the Lord. He does not hear, what is right or wrong. When we do same mistake repeatedly, our shame too goes away, and we become highly insensitive.
7. We do not bother, whether the Lord is happy or unhappy. In Bhagwat the Lord Himself declares in the 3rd Canto, “Those who hate anybody, I don’t take their Puja.” Lord Krishna did not go to Duryodhana’s house, because he tried to disrobe the Lord’s devotee. We need to understand this point Bhagvana is making very, very clearly.
8. The day we will become sensitive to Lord’s joys and sorrows, we will become a devotee!

On Day 3 of the Valmiki Ramayana yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji explained why our mind constantly drives us to crisis after crisis. We need to learn how to make our mind employable, said Swamiji, and explained how, through the mesmerizing example that is Shri Bharatji’s character.

Key take-aways from yesterday’s discourse:

Our whole life is a training on various aspects. If you do something for which you are not trained, not only it creates disturbance outside, but it also creates dissatisfaction within. Just as a person who is not trained to drive, if he starts driving, not only will he hurt himself, but also hurt others.

Train the mind to follow Dharma

1. First aspect of training the mind is – Understanding clearly what is our respective dharma and duty; what we must do and what we should not do. Some actions are ordained for us and some are not. If we do that which is not our duty, it will be detrimental for us.
2. If we are honest, we will accept that there are a lot of things which we like and we do, but they should not be done. Similarly, there are a lot of things which we don’t do; which we should be doing. We have an untrained mind, but the good news is: it can be trained.
3. To live a dharmik life is not natural. Natural is to live how we like and want to live, without thinking about dharma. To respect parents, to sacrifice for them is not natural, because it involves leaving our comfort and ahankaar (ego). Serving is not natural. Speaking truth at all times is not natural. To drop laziness, anger and lust is not natural. Dharma is not natural. But when we do only what is natural, we land up in big problems.
4. Dharma gives us the reins to keep our mind under control. A controlled mind is one that can do everything as it should be done. Not as we want. We should be in control of what we speak, when we sleep or get up, when to stay calm, when to focus on a topic etc.
5. Dharma provides you with the mind which you need. Adharma makes our mind scattered and untamed. It is an untamed, raw mind which runs after, or runs away from people and situations, or which has moods, which gets over-excited, or becomes stubborn.
6. Currently, our mind is unemployable. Such a mind is a liability because we are not able to do what we need to do. Dharma makes our mind refined, focused, and available, just like a servant who listens to you. The mind should be tamed and trained to serve us correctly.
7. We have unconsciously given wrong training to our mind. We have given it wrong things to do such as ‘Think bad about that person’ or ‘Get attached to this person’ or ‘Be jealous of that person’ etc. As a result, we have a mind which is unfocused, non-serving and arrogant.
8. Because our mind is in such an uncontrolled state, the initial training in following Dharma is very difficult.

But if a person puts in sustained efforts, he can get over his likes and dislikes; he can cross over all his weaknesses. It may take 20 or 30 years, depending on how his mind was when he started the training, but he does cross it and becomes much more refined later on.

Train your mind to Love God, with Bharatji as your Acharya

1. How to learn to love God? Follow Shri Bharatji’s character.
2. In Valmiki Ramayana, entire chapters are given to describe Shri Bharatji’s character and his love for Ramji. The teaching is for us, not for Bharatji.
3. The manifested form of thirst of Ramji’s seva is Bharatji. We should look deeply inside Bharatji’s heart, and see where his attention was at all times.
4. Bhakti means having one attention – ‘What is happening to my Lord?’ That’s it. The ability to give joyful attention to God is devotion.
5. Unless we identify with somebody’s joy, we cannot serve them. Who can serve God? One who feels the pain of not pleasing God, one who is restless to give joy to God. Such was Bharatji’s mind.
6. You are nothing but where you can give attention for a long time, where you can stay absorbed. Bharatji’s attention never wavered from ‘What is the joy of Lord Ram’.
7. We have to train our mind to feel, think and react like Shri Bharatji – ‘My joy is not important. Only God’s joy is important.’ This is the difficult portion of devotion.
8. Devotion is not easy, because you have to always find out what God wants, and you have to be ready to sacrifice.
9. Repeated practice of putting God’s joy first, and sacrificing our joy for the Lord’s, inculcates devotion.
10. Practice means – we repeatedly do something which is right. It may be very difficult, but still we persevere for a long time, and with a lot of effort. We have to keep practicing until what is right becomes effortless and easy for us.
11. Please note, Ramayana is a not mere story, for entertainment. It is to tell how we should be. If we are unable to take the essence from Ramayana then our problems won’t be solved.

The Lord knows His devotee’s heart, and He responds

In Chitrakoot, when Lakshmanji saw the army of Ayodhya coming towards them, he was infuriated and proclaimed that he would kill Bharat and everybody, if they tried to harm Lord Ram. Of course, this is only Lakshmani’s leela. He was not really infuriated at all, but wanted to bring out the stunning love between the Lord and His devotee, for us all to see. He wanted to bring out the glory of Bharatji, taking bad name on himself. We can never truly fathom the greatness of these characters!

1. Bhagavan Ram on hearing Lakshmanji asked him to quieten down. Lord Ram assured Lakshmanji that Bharatji’s heart was full of love for Him.
2. Love is where one cannot tolerate any mental distance from the beloved. Mental distance means, what gives you unhappiness, gives me happiness.
3. In love, you can tolerate poverty, insults and hardships, but not any mental distance from the beloved.
4. Lord Ram reiterated that Bharatji could never mean him harm, even mentally.
5. In Ramcharitmanas the Lord says, “Even if Bharat gets the kingdom of Brahma and Vishnu, he will never be intoxicated. Like in the milky ocean, if one squeezes one lemon, it won’t curdle; in the same way, kingdom and power cannot change Bharat’s heart, because it is full of love for Me!”
6. Can we honestly claim that the Lord is right now thinking of us as He thought of Bharatji? The answer is ‘no’. And the reason is that we have never really truly loved Bhagavan.
7. Love is a strange thing, unless the mind becomes absorbed in the Lord, the attachment to the world will not go. Worldly love only gives a lot of problems and takes us through the cycle of birth & death.
8. The love for Ram is rare. It is difficult to bring Bhagavan Ram to our mind straight away, but easier to bring Bharatji, Hanumanji and Lakshmanji. Let us start to emulate the great love of Bhagavan’s most exalted devotees, and they will surely bring Bhagavan Rama into our heart.

On the 4th day of the Valmiki Ramayana yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji, after having given a lot of emphasis on why one should develop a relation with the Lord, shared Shri Bharatji’s deep emotions and thoughts in order to explain how loving the Lord is very difficult & how one should give up his ego and be ready to renounce in life to cultivate true love for the Lord.

We share with you some snippets from the talk:

Seek your solutions from the Altar within

1. We should develop the habit of seeking solutions from the Lord, and not the world. Even though world may have some objective solutions to our problems, it cannot solve most of them. Seeking refuge in the Lord for finding solutions to our problems is called devotion.
2. As a small child runs to his mother for any problem, we must do the same and run to the Lord for all our problems. We have one Altar and Puja room inside our heart. When we do Puja outside, we are actually doing puja inside and trying to we make that Altar alive.
3. One must develop extreme closeness with that Altar inside so that a strong thought develops – ‘He will be there for me; I don’t need anybody else in my life. I have someone very big to solve my problems.’ This conviction is called devotion.
4. As you grow in your sadhana, you will find that devotion is of utmost importance for a quiet life. The acceptability of the outer situations, the ease of going through difficulties, the insecure future, the anxiety & worry about our present – all are taken care by the Lord.

Develop a deep relation with the Lord

1. Our relation with the Lord is very precious. We should try to build it every day and it should become strong gradually.
2. One simple way to find out if the relation is getting stronger or not, is that – you start missing the Lord and you are not able to tolerate any distance from Him. Our misfortune is that we don’t miss God.
3. The depth of a relation increases when you have no other area that gives you as much joy or makes you suffer. You have no sorrow regarding any issue except one – ‘I could not make my Lord happy… I should have pleased my Lord more!’
4. This is a very high stage of a seeker and it is portrayed very beautifully in Shri Bharatji’s character. His single-pointedness and his tanmayata in Bhagavan Ram was beyond any comprehension.
5. His only attempt was to see Bhagavan Ram smiling. His only want was that his beloved brother, Ram, should come back and be coronated on the throne of Ayodhya.
6. The more single-pointed a devotee’s love is towards God; more powerful he is.
7. Why are saints always happy? Because the love that an ordinary person seeks from the world, the saint gets it from the Lord. Meera bai used to say – ‘Why should I wed someone who will die? Let me wed Krishna, marrying whom my marriage will become immortal.’
8. One who starts experiencing the joy of loving the Lord and starts getting responses from the Lord, he doesn’t want anything from the world.

Shri Bharatji’s pure love for Bhagavan Ram

1. Shri Bharatji was very anxious and he rushed to reach Bhagavan Ram in Chitrakoot. When you have love, you are in a hurry to meet your beloved. Just as when you are very hungry, you are in a hurry to eat.
2. As Bharatji entered Chitrakoot, he saw Bhagavan Ram seated on deer skin, with bark of the tree around his body and his matted hair. Bharatji got extremely sad with this sight because he was used to seeing Bhagavan Ram in royal attire and nice ornaments, adorned with flowers and sandalwood paste.
3. Bharatji started wailing badly and exclaimed, ‘Fie upon me! I am the cause of all problem!’ To be sad in one’s sadness is not a big deal, even animals are sad when they are attacked. But to be sad for God, one needs a very big heart, because one’s ahankaar (ego) has to be crushed.
4. Love and ahankaar cannot co-exist. Ahankaar is – giving joy to oneself, while Love is – giving joy to the beloved. Thus an ahankaari person can never be a true lover.
5. This path of loving the Lord is the path for destroying our ahankaar (ego). Just as sandalwood doesn’t give out fragrance unless it is destroyed (rubbed), similarly unless a person is ready to demolish his ahankaar (ego), raag (attachment) & dwesh (hatred), he cannot love the Lord.

A devotee has a single-pointed desire of pleasing the Lord and he is ready do whatever it takes for making the Lord happy.

Love is futile without renunciation

1. One cannot Love without taking pains for his beloved. Hence loving is always difficult. Similarly, doing seva is difficult, because one must go through pain for serving. Unless one goes through pain he cannot serve and unless one serves, he cannot give joy to his beloved.
2. World demands lot of sacrifice. Any role we play, it demands a lot of sacrifice. There is no attraction or life in a person when he does not give up fulfilling his role and duties. ‘My style and my way’ doesn’t work on this path.
3. We must ask ourselves ‘for whom have we gone through pain in our life?’ Going through pains for our family and relatives does not count, as we do it because of our attachments. One must go through pains for the Lord alone. It is the Lord alone who always responds to our prayers and love.
4. It is for God that we should feel, ‘I should give all joy, I can leave all comforts, I can leave all insistences, I can leave anything to please Him.’ This is how Bharatji used to feel. He is the manifestation of renunciation & sacrifice for Bhagavan Ram.
5. Sorrow is nothing but our insistence on not dropping an issue. We try to resist and go against God’s will. Lovers don’t fight. Their only mantra is, “Thy should be done! Not mine.” Victory in love is, ‘I am defeated by you’. Stubborn person can never be a lover.
6. If you cannot merge with the God’s desire, then be assured you will be sad, because your desire will not be fulfilled.

Once there was a Mahatma who was going in a boat. When his boat started drowning, he started filling the boat with water. But when somebody saved him, he started removing the water from the boat. When asked why he was doing so, he said, ‘If the Lord wants to drown the boat, I also want to drown it. If He wants to save, I too want to save it. Whatever God is doing I am just helping Him.’ This is what makes love difficult. Therefore, it is very rare to find Ishwar Bhakt & Guru Bhakt in the world. A very big heart is required to be the lover of God!

On the fifth day of the monthly yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji, in all his compassion, assured the listeners that if one keeps on listening to Satsang, a time comes when one becomes a devotee. Swamiji also clarified with his insightful examples how devotion has very big role to play in our lives.

Let us see below some highlights from the satsang:

Know your Strength & Weakness

1. One should know his strong points as well as his weak points, along with their effects. Only after developing this understanding, there can be quietness in the mind.
2. Anybody’s strong point is his ability to easily identify with something bigger. The ease of identifying with a bigger thought, bigger goal, bigger joy and God, is a person’s strong point. While the inability to identify with something big and only remain contented with the joy of the small self, is the weakness of a person.
3. Any bad habit in a person indicates his identification with some small joy which is very dear to him and hence, difficult for him to leave. For a smoker, the joy of smoking is very strong in his mind, and when that joy of smoking comes, it prevails over joy of God, joy of conscience, joy of dharma. There is no reflection of bigger joy in his mind.
4. This same logic can be applied at the emotional level too. Attachment with a particular person or object shows that a lot of joy appears in a person’s mind when he thinks about that person or object. And that joy has nothing to do with God’s joy, Guru’s joy, or the joy of conscience. It is a very small independent discreet joy that he experiences.
5. Why is it a weakness?
   • Because that joy is very vulnerable; anything can snatch away that joy. There is dependency and sorrow associated with it.
   • Another problem is – for this small joy, the person is ready to renounce the bigger joy.
   • Thus, the person who is addicted to this impermanent body and its needs, or some lower emotion, puts in a lot of his time & efforts to get that joy.
   • Therefore it is very important to get out of that small joy. And for that, the reflection of some bigger joy is a must in the heart.
6. Scriptures claim that if someone doesn’t have the reflection of the bigger joy or the inherent love for God, then they should deliberately try to repeat in their mind that ‘Joy of God is big’. Then gradually that joy will become bigger. And to help us repeat that thought, the characters of Shri Bharatji, Lakshmanji, Hanumanji have been elaborated so vividly in Ramayana.

Devotion is Mandatory!

1. Some people feel that devotion is impractical but they don’t understand that without devotion, we will always have worry about our uncertain future and the inner problems such as attachment, anger, hatred won’t be eradicated.
2. When there is devotion and love for the Lord in your heart then all problems get sorted out:
3. There won’t be any thought of “doership” in your mind; you will think that the Lord alone is the “doer”.
4. Attachment will go away because you won’t need anybody when you have already opted for the One.
5. If Lord’s joy is there, them naturally you will do actions for the Lord. Karma yog will become very easy to practice.
6. If love for the Lord is there, you will accept even the harshest situations that come in your life with the thought, ‘I accept it. After all it is from my beloved.’
7. Devotees like Sudama, Shabari or Kewat, didn’t have good situations in life, but that didn’t make them sad or unhappy. They had immense love for Bhagavan and that made them very quiet.
8. Therefore, having devotion is not optional, rather it is mandatory! Otherwise your problems won’t get solved.
9. Without devotion, Karma-yog, Bhakti-yog, Gyaan-yog, nothing is possible.
10. When devotion is less in a person, he is not able to assimilate and absorb the higher knowledge because his mind is not purified.
11. More is the devotion, more a person will be fit to receive that knowledge; he will be quieter, surrendered, sacrificing, composed, and much closer to the God.

Give up your small self

1. Those who have a difficult life, it is because they are holding onto their own desires. There is no other way to get a quiet life other than to leave one’s small desires. Bharatji’s thoughts were – ‘I don’t want anything. What are my desires? Let God’s desire alone be there.’
2. Bharatji had no desire of his own. His heart was shoonya (zero), free from his own thoughts. Such people alone can serve and love God.
3. The difference between a saintly person and a worldly person is that – a worldly person is constantly running after his own agenda, his wish; but a saintly person constantly tries to find out what God wants from him and how God wants him to act in every situation.
4. The irony of our life is that we never think what Bhagavan wants from us. When this question starts troubling us then we will start doing what Bhagavan wants. Our ahankaar (ego) and our desires are so dear to us that they don’t let us get close to God.

Why is Spiritual path difficult?

1. Spiritual life is very difficult because you have to give up false. Vedanta says, ‘Your ahankaar is false. Body is false.’ All Upanishads, Gita etc. try to remove our wrong notions, and they repeatedly instruct us to falsify and negate the finite self. But we are not able to do that. And this is what makes our bhakti.
2. When we read about characters like Bharatji, for sometime, we start travelling with them. And even if we are not able to love Bhagavan as should we loved, at least we see how their love was for Bhagavan.
3. Loving means – giving your own self. You can’t love while holding your own self. We have to give up our raag (attachment), dwesh (aversion), ahankaar (ego).
4. It needs a hero to say, ‘Yes, I will give up. I will offer it all to God!’ This makes devotion difficult.
5. Meerabai went to her Guru (Raidasji) who gave her the mantra ‘Ram Ram’. When when Meerabai’s Ishta devata was Lord Krishna, he didn’t question her Guru even for a split moment. Her surrender was immense. When she used to chant Ram Ram, Krishna murti only appeared in front of her.
6. Let us not put a fake devotee and present ourselves as a devotee. People very easily say, ‘I am a devotee of Lord Ram or Lord Krishna,’ but there is no reflection of Lord Ram or Lord Krishna in them. The absence of anger, absence of laziness, soft speech of Bhagavan should be imbibed by us. That is when we become a devotee.
7. Like a good university student sincerely wants to achieve good percentage like his peers. We too, on observing the life of saints feel how we can become like them. When we hear Bharatji’s character, we must aspire to become like him. ‘Why I cannot have that emotion, why I cannot have that sincerity’ – these thoughts must arise in our heart.

Bhagavan Ram’s Advice to Bharatji

It is written in Valmiki Ramayana that when Bharatji met Lord Ram, He spoke very lovingly to Bharatji and started advising him on how he must rule the kingdom. Those instructions were not for Bharatji, he already knew them. They are intended for us. Some of those instructions are as follows:

1. It is better to prefer one intelligent minister rather than having thousands of foolish ministers.
2. Appoint that person as general who is dhritimaan, i.e. the one who has extreme patience.
3. Encourage priests to conduct sacrifice (havan etc.)
4. Do not fall prey to excess sleep or sleeping less.
5. Distribute provisions and salary to servants in due time. Never delay their wages.
6. Win over the hearts of elders, children etc. by good bhaav, daan (charity) and sweet speech.
   • A person should try to win the heart of others, because moment you win heart, you win everything.
   • If one does not have a good speech, he can never win other’s heart. And to have good speech, our bhaav should be very good. And we should not have anger, ahankaar or expectation. Otherwise sarcasm and hardness is expressed in speech.
   • Pujya Gurudev, is a beautiful example of this. When Gurudev started, nobody knew him, but after 60 years, he had earned place in millions of hearts. Gurudev was a pioneer in daan as well, if anybody needed any help, he gave it immediately.
   • A person is not known by what he gets, but he is known by what he gives. If anybody will remember you, it would be based on what he got from you.
7. Always greet (offer namaskar) your Gurus, elders, deities, and even the trees along the roadside.
   • ‘Namaskar’ comes from the word ‘Namaha’ (Prostrations). Namaha means – ‘In front of you, mine will not be done, na-mama. I have come to take your wish and fulfil it.’ The gesture itself is to suggest that, I have taken your wish and kept it in my heart.
   • In namaskar this bhaav has be to maintained that ‘I am not coming to get anything, but to give.’
   • Namaskar is not just a physical act, but it is an emotional matter. It is as if saying, ‘May you win.’ The one who chooses to lose from somebody, he wins the person but the one who tries to win somebody by argument or by qualification, he loses that person.
8. Perform such actions which result in devotion.
   • The fruit of any karma (action) should be that we get closer to God. Action should be to realise that unless God had helped, we could not have been able to complete it.
   • Maturity of a person is the ability to feel, how many components were involved in an action to complete it and how small was his role? ‘How much stake should I have in the success of this action?’ – The ability to analyse this and become humbler, is the fruit of any action.
   • An ahankaari person does not think on these lines and credits all the success of action to himself.

Ayodhya Kand of Valmiki Ramayana can be very broadly categorized into two portions. One is focused on Shri Bharatji’s immaculate character which gives a description of the love for Lord that is required for reaching our ultimate goal. And the other portion is where Bhagavan Ram instructs Bharatji & talks about the various aspects of Dharma, Satya (Truth) & Tyaag (Renunciation).

On the last day of the June monthly yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji took the second portion of Ayodhya Kand and shared some extremely relevant & noteworthy points regarding Dharma. We present below some snippets from Swamiji’s illuminating discourse:

Understanding the role of Dharma
After Bhagavan Ram explained the duties of a King to Bharatji, He illustrated how Dharma is very important in one’s life.

1. Each one of us is ordained to perform certain duty, and act & think in a certain way. Those duties and actions constitute our dharma. Just as a mango tree’s dharma is to give mangoes, and not any other fruit, similarly we are supposed to do only that which is ordained for us, and nothing else.
2. Dharma is that, when followed, it makes you feel confident, strong & composed. Even if it gives pains, you go through the pains and you do your respective duty what is tailored for you.
3. This applies not only to external actions, but to thoughts at the mental level too. You entertain only those thoughts which you are supposed to, and ward off all other thoughts.
4. The most straight forward way to find out what you are supposed to do is – Read the scriptures. Scriptures have a lot of details about each individual’s role (husband, wife, children etc.) and their dharma.
5. But if one is not able to go through the scriptures, another simple way to find out is – what is the general expectation of the society from us? What are the expectations from a husband, from a wife, from a teacher, from a disciple, etc.? We should analyze if we fit into that criteria or not.
6. Dharma should be at all levels – body level, vritti (thought) level, conduct level, projection level. And thus, a person who follows dharma, he leads a difficult life because he has chosen not to do only what he likes. He conquers his likes & dislikes.

Fruits of following Dharma

1. When you follow dharma, it increases your confidence and inspires you to take on bigger challenges & bigger vows in life. It gives a feeling of fulfilment. But if you don’t follow dharma, you lose self-confidence and you feel that you are not meant for anything big in life.
2. Second fruit of following dharma is that it helps you get out of your certain vasanas, selfishness & weaknesses like anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, laziness, harsh speech etc.
3. Dharma is a panacea through which we get out of our habits that pull us down and make us weak. If we don’t follow dharma, then our weaknesses may increase.
4. Life should be led such that, as we age, we should feel lighter, less attached and much quieter at the mental level. Most of the times, as we age, our tensions also increase. And that happens because we don’t follow dharma.
5. Third thing that dharma does is that – it brings outer prosperity. You become capable of giving a lot to the people, to the society around you.
6. It is a person’s negativity that stops him from giving to others. A person is not able to give when some aspect of his personality blocks him such as: his expectations, laziness, ahankaar (ego) etc.
7. Anybody who has not been able to give to his family, his parents, children etc., it is only because his nature was not good, and he was not dharmik. Hence, such a person does not have much blessings and grace in his life.
8. If one lives a dharmik life, then his death is very consoling and his next birth is better. Gurudev used to say, ‘It is a transfer with promotion.’ When you do good actions, those actions say ‘I will protect you now!’ It is said, “Dharmo rakshati rakshitaha” – Dharma protects those who protect dharma!

Consequences of not following Dharma

1. The biggest consequence of absence of dharma is one’s life is that God will not be pleased with him. And when God is not pleased, He doesn’t give good thoughts, a Guru (teacher) and scriptures. He sees that we don’t get the best and He takes away the lovable people from our life. To have God displeased upon us is a very big loss.
2. When God is not pleased, then we become a liability for others. But if He is pleased, then He supports us in whatever we do, and thus all our endeavours are successful.
3. The power of dharma can be so much in a person that whatever he touches, it can convert into gold, whatever he says becomes possible. His reliability and dependability is very high.
4. When you do things randomly without following dharma, then there will be no strength in your actions. Your presence & your words will not have any value. Contrary to this, if somebody has dharma, he will be like a magnet who pulls others.

How to ward away your weaknesses?

1. One must not think that a person who follows dharma is dry, and without any emotions. A dharmik person has lot of emotions, but the main difference is that he is not weakened by his emotions. No person or object can become his weakness.
2. What do we mean by “Weakness”? Weakness means nobody can be the source of my disturbance, neither positively nor negatively.
3. When we like someone, we miss them and we want to live with them. We constantly think about them, when they are not around. This is a positive kind of disturbance. Similarly, there is negative disturbance when we do not wish to see a person, and his thought creates agitations in us and we mentally deride him.
4. A person may be good, beautiful, excellent in his conduct, but he should not become our want. The moment we put a want; it gets us in big trouble. We should make it our goal to get out of such disturbances.
5. One must be intolerant to his weaknesses. Don’t cuddle, love and pamper your weaknesses. You ‘have’ to get out of them… the sooner the better! Only then your mind can be free and when you reach the end of your life, you can be easily absorbed in the thought of the Lord.
6. Our weaknesses are the hurdles in our contemplation of the Lord. The moment we think about the Lord or do Japa, or do seva, the thoughts of our weakness (particular person/object) come and we are unable to think beyond them. It is as if, we get blocked by our attachments and aversions from all sides.
7. Thus, it is important to overcome our weaknesses, so that when this life ends, we can depart from our loved ones without pain. We have to make our mind and nurture it so that we become emotionally painless.

Physical pain at the end depends on our prarabdha but to reduce emotional pain depends on how much dharma we have done!

Right of Elders
Bhagavan Ram, while giving all valuable lessons to Bharatji for ruling the kingdom, also explains to Bharatji that it is the right of one’s parents (elders) to ask anything of their children.

1. Elders have have given a lot to the youngsters and hence, they have the right to ask & demand. We can make someone feel they are elder, by giving them the right to ask us anything, and if required, even to scold us.
2. However, if we question the elder’s requests or orders, it means we are robbing them of their status. Elders don’t suffer because they have less money, they suffer more because they have no right on you.
3. We owe a lot to our elders. Elders are like a bank; we have taken a lot of things from them – their time, energy, experience, protection and given them a lot of pain too. So, we already are under a big debt.
4. And when they ask us something, we should see it is as a good opportunity to payback. If in such instances we don’t do what is asked of us, it is adharma on our part. This is of course when our elders are not asking us to do anything wrong. It is our dharma to follow the legitimate and dharmik desire of the elders.
5. Dharma expresses as some desire of elders for you. Elders may want you to fulfill a certain desire of theirs, it could be your father, mother, teacher etc. When it is a legitimate desire, it is our dharma to follow and fulfill those desires. We are thus, not just fulfilling their desire, but via them we are following our dharma only.

Essence of Serving
Giving up your right is ‘Seva’. Bharatji could have chosen to be the King and rule the kingdom. But Bharatji chose not to take the throne, instead offered it to the Lord and took care of the kingdom and performed seva.

1. When you have earned your money righteously, it is your right to enjoy that money. You can go on vacation or spend it as you wish. But when you donate that money to an ashram or an institution, you are giving up your right to enjoy it and that becomes your seva.
2. More right you can give, bigger will be your seva. God has given you, hands and feet, it is your right to use it for yourself, but when you use it to press somebody else’s feet and work for someone else, it becomes your seva.
3. More you are able to give up your right; you evolve more and become free from the bigger pains in life. No seva is without pain. Moment you chose pain to give joy to the higher, you transcend certain lower pains in life.

Humility: the ornament of every individual

1. Humility is the ability to see ‘how small I am’. To the extent one can become small, to that extent he is liked by others. Moment you try to be bigger and impose your bigness, people do not like your company.
2. When we become small, our speech becomes very soft. Humility should not only be portrayed just externally, but we must sincerely feel it inside too. Gurudev used to joke, ‘Humility is a strange thing, the moment you think you have it, you have lost it.’
3. We hardly possess any special qualities . Our knowledge and physical endurance is also very little. There is no reason for us to think that we are great in any aspect. Even if people are praising us, we must think that they are praising the Lord and not us. We are not the one who deserve any praise. Therefore, humility should come naturally to us.
4. Arrogant person on the other hand, feels ‘why should I serve, why should I leave my sleep’ etc. Most of us are quite complicated people, full of laziness, ahankaar (ego), kaam (desires), krodha (anger) etc. We are so full of our own thoughts, ideas and desires that nobody can put their good thoughts and sankalp in us.
5. Serving means – someone is willing to execute their higher and dharmik desire through you. But because of lack of humility and our fullness, we are unable to take their desire and execute it.

The monthly gyan yagna had a beautiful beginning yesterday as Swami Abhedanandaji described that all things & situations in life have one very essential underlying component called as ‘thought’ and Valmiki Ramayana is the treatise to tell us which thoughts are important to cultivate and hold on to, and which thoughts are highly unimportant and should be discarded.

We share the summary of first day’s talk for our online audience (below is only the first part, stay tuned for the next part):

The most essential ingredient – Thought

• We enjoy and suffer with regard to many things in life; from what we have or don’t have. But what we have to understand is that in anything we enjoy and suffer, we mix in one important aspect and that is the predominant thought in our mind.
• It is through this ingredient called ‘thought’ that we experience good, bad, worst, wonderful, beautiful etc. And therefore, scriptures have laid too much emphasis on what is our thought.
• You don’t taste a situation per se. There is nothing called: ‘only taste of situation’. The situation itself is not good (or bad). It is because of mixing of your thought with situations, that it appears as a good (or bad).
• You mix what you have. What you don’t have, you don’t mix. So it is very important to understand which thoughts are very essential to have, and which thoughts are a liability for us.
• Every thought has its own nature. Like fire has its own nature and water its own. Fire if you touch it will burn, Water if you touch, it will wet. The thought of gratitude has one nature, the thought of non-gratitude has another nature. The thought of selflessness has one nature, the thought of selfishness has another nature.

Outer Situation v/s Inner Thought

• We fail to see ‘thought’ as an asset in our life. And therefore when difficult situation comes, if the thoughts are not of high quality, then we are broken.
• Corresponding to each situation, a certain thought is required, and if that thought is not there in us, we will feel incapable to handle the situation. But if we have the right thought, then we can easily handle it.
• Bhagavan Ram’s situation was not good when He was told to go to exile for fourteen years and that too for no fault of His. But He had a very strong thought of tyaag (renunciation) & vairagya (dispassion). These thoughts were so strong that He could give-up the whole kingdom in no time.
• If Bhagavan Ram did not have the thought of Pitra-bhakti and Matra-bhakti, devotion to His mother and father, the situation of exile would have been very big and difficult for Him.
  • If Bhagavan Ram didn’t have thought of dharma and tolerance, sleeping on the floor would have been very difficult.
  • If Bhagavan Ram did not have thought of egoless-ness, then getting dressed in the bark of a tree, taking the attire of a muni and walking barefoot would have been very hurtful for Him.
• When Kaikeyi told Ramji that it is because of Him that His father was in a bad state, Ramji said, ‘I think I have done some bigger mistake. For this small reason, my father need not be so sad. Why didn’t you call me earlier. It’s a very small matter for me.’ The thought of gratitude pervaded His mind. The thought that ‘I don’t need the Kingdom to make me happy,’ pervaded His mind. Bhagavan Ram’s thoughts were extremely beautiful and exalted at all times.
• So it is not that a situation is very powerful, but it is our thought that creates an image about the situation, and that image about the situation gives us sorrow or joy.

Develop the Right thought

• We never pay attention to what we have inside. Our whole life goes in accumulating something outside (wealth, name, fame, people etc.). Our inner wealth is our right thoughts, and we need to shift our attention towards it.
• When we go through Valmiki Ramayana, there are a lot of stories and characters. Each character is a personification of a particular vritti or a thought, and thus through each character, a thought is being put in our mind.
• Even if one right thought is missing in a person, it can create havoc in his mind; he doesn’t need another hell. In Vedant, it is called ‘Adhyaatmik Narak’.
• If Kaikeyi had simply thought that “There is no distinction between Ram and Bharat. Ram is as good as my son”, then everything would have been just fine. Only this thought was required. The cause of Bhagavan Ram’s exile was nothing but ‘Bhed budhhi’ (sense of separateness) that came in Kaikeyi’s mind; the vritti of ‘mine’ & ‘not mine’.

Character of Mother Kaushalya
In Valmiki Ramayana, Bharatji uses the below words to describe Mother Kaushalya:

1. Dharma-rataha: Mother Kaushalya always abided in dharma. Dharma means doing something which will bind the mind, which brings confidence in the mind, which makes one feel independent. Dharma-rataha means doing that by which one knows that his future is good, doing something to bring bigger thoughts in the mind.
2. Dharmagyaha: Dharmagyaha means Kaushalyaji knew what is right, what is wrong, what is dharma, what is adharma, what to speak, what not to speak. One should know what thought and what action will restore peace inside; what attitude will give more disturbance; what bhaav will make the mind inspired to do good things. Such a person becomes non-vulnerable or unbreakable.
3. Dharma-vadini: Kaushalyaji spoke what is dharma. One should speak the truth, but one should not hurt anybody. Whatever is in your mind, don’t just blurt it out. Put some sweetness, some joy, some depth and some scriptures into it, and then say something good.

Character of Kaikeyi
In contrast to Kaushalyaji’s character, Bharatji uses some negative words to describe his own mother, Kaikeyi:

1. Aaptkaama: Who always tries to find his/her own way. The only attempt of such people is to get their work done, by hook or by crook. They don’t consider others; wherever they go, they try to fit their own agenda, their own plan.
2. Sada-chandi & Krodhana: Kaikeyi was quite violent and angry too.
3. Praagyamaanini: Kaikeyi used to think that she was very intelligent. That means she was not subject to correction. If you don’t know that you don’t know, then no one can help you. So one should know correctly what he does not know.

Shri Bharatji’s beautiful character

1. Valimikji says about Bharatji that inside he was Dyutimaan; outside he was Veeryavaan. Veeryavaan means full of valour. Dyutimaan means he had a lot of dignity. He had tej (luster) and had a very graceful appearance.
2. When a person is not subject to falling prey to any thought, then he is called Dyutimaan. More a person masters his mind, more his thoughts are higher. Shri Bharatji’s mind was always pervaded by higher thoughts.
3. Valmikiji calls Bharatji as ‘Dharmatma’. Dharmatma means one who doesn’t have to struggle with his mind, who doesn’t have to fight with his mind to get out of a certain thought. When you do sufficient dharma, your mind becomes very conducive to you. Such was Bharatji’s mind.
4. When Bharatji heard the news of Dashrathji’s demise, he was so sad, he collapsed on the ground. He was distraught, as he loved his father, and his father also loved him very much. A person should have emotions also. Crying is not bad, please understand. Now-a-days people say, ‘he has become emotional’, as if becoming emotional is a bad thing!
5. In anything, unless we mix emotion, it will become dry and useless. If you can’t work with emotion, you can’t bring out the best in you. For instance, if we don’t listen to satsang with emotion, we will not enjoy the katha of the Lord.
6. While consoling Bharatji, Kaikeyi uttered a beautiful shloka about the character of Bharatji:
   • Daani: She said Bharatji was very good in doing charity. Charity is the emotion in which one feels he will be happier after giving.
   • Sheel (Joy giving conduct): Sheel means one who has good and pleasing conduct. A person with sheel is never harsh or hard towards others. We feel like spending time with only those people who have sheel because one feels secure in their company.
   • Shruti-vaconugaa: This means Bharatji was the one who followed the teachings of the scriptures. He was also the one who had a strong tap-buddhi (ability to perform austerities) and also sam-buddhi (a very balanced mind).

Bharatji’s intense feeling of being Lord’s servant

1. While talking to Kaikeyi, Bharatji referred to himself as Daas (servant) of Ramji (daasosmi). Softness of a person is his ability to become small. Small means, not physically small. Small means, “my desires are very small and I will drop my desire in front of you!”
2. Anybody is a difficult person because he cannot drop his desire.
3. Our desires won’t work anyway, so best is before your desire is crushed you surrender to the Lord.
4. Bharatji felt, “I am the beloved servant of Ram”. He didn’t feel “I am the brother of Ram and therefore I have rights just like him”. Bharatji never tried to assert his right.
5. Moment you talk about your right, you will go wrong. This is the rule! You will always feel: what right I had, I didn’t get it. And moment you feel like that, you will feel victimized. All troubled people are those who are trying to assert their right.
6. When you think you are a servant, you are giving up your right. This is called karma-phal tyaag (renunciation of fruits of actions).
7. Surrendering means being available to be ruled. Happiness can come only when you learn to become a puppet of someone higher.
8. Moment you live your own life, it will create a lot of problem. We should go to Bhagavan and say “Oh Bhagavan, I want to live the life that you want from me. I want to become your daas, your servant.” When we feel we have no option other than the Lord, and we are ready to do anything which the Lord commands, we become a true servant of the Lord.
9. Bharatji says, “Pita hi bhavati jyeshtah”: Elder brother is like a father, I will go and hold His feet. He is my support. This should be our bhaava too towards the Lord, “He alone is my support!” We can’t expect another jeeva to be our support as he himself needs support. Nobody else can be our support other than the Lord!

On Day 2 of the yagna, Swamiji delved into the psyche of the jeeva, exposing our most persistent errors in thinking, and how these lead to our own misery. Then, Through Bharatji’s unparalleled character, Swamiji explained how to break the chains of the delusions we cling to, how to surrender in total humility to the Lord, and how to win His infinite grace in our lives.

Actual life Vs Life we dream of

1. Often, we find we are living the life we didn’t want to live. And we are unable to live that life which we really wanted to live. Unless we understand the reason for not having that expected life, we will keep making mistakes.
2. The core reason is our denial to live as per the laws of the God.
3. There are certain laws in the cosmos which cannot be changed. A thousand years ago, gravitational law was there and today also it is there, it does not change with time. Laws made by God don’t change. Similarly there are certain unchanging laws of life which we fail to recognize, and that is why we keep getting ourselves into trouble.
4. Shri Bharatji’s character is a very beautiful demonstration of how one should understand and follow God’s laws.

What is it that we keep chasing?

1. For the majority of us, it is true that we do most of our work for our ahankaar (ego) or for our attachment.
2. We have an insatiable thirst to see ourselves as higher and bigger. We strive to maintain our ahankaar (ego), and at the same time we want a bigger ahankaar. Ahankaar means – we want to have bigger rights in life. This is why we go for a better job, bigger house, more expensive car etc.
3. Second problem is – we want to possess somebody. We want at least 3-4 people whom we can say ‘she is my wife, he is my son, he is my husband’ etc. And this is why we have a family life, social life etc.
4. Thus, the two main sources of joy for everybody are:
   • Ego: I want to be seen as bigger and better than others.
   • Attachment: I want to possess more and more people, objects, luxuries.

And we keep chasing these two thinking that it is very natural to do so. But in reality, these two alone become the biggest source of sorrow in our life.

Why is Ego considered as a big cause of sorrow?

1. Life is not meant to keep nurturing your ego because whatever bigger aham (identity) you want, you won’t get it. The bigger “I” you want through somebody, or through some position, you will not get it. This is the law.
2. People will give an identity but not that identity which you want. Even if they give, they will give for a short time only. And who will give identity to you, it depends on them, it doesn’t depend on you. Then, to make matters worse, sometimes the person who was giving you a good identity, he suddenly takes away that identity.
3. Anybody who is sad, he is sad because he is not getting the identity which he wanted from somebody, or from the office, or from the system, or from his own prarabdha.
4. We repeatedly fail to realize that we are never going to get the identity that we want from the world. This is one of the rules of God.

Why is Attachment such a terrible poison?

1. Attachment means that the thing or person whom you are attached to, that is a big source of joy for you, and you want him for yourself exclusively. This creates the thought that: ‘My joy is dependent on you, if you are not there my joy will go away”.
2. When you have such my-ness, the problem is – either you are already sad or you will be sad. There are only these two possibilities, there is no third possibility. No person or object here is truly yours who you can call ‘mine’.
3. The reason for sadness is that the object or person whom you are attached to, that won’t be under your control. Any person, object, house, car, money, even this body, cannot remain with you forever.
4. This is all our false mental creation that the house, or car, or children etc. belong to us and that they are a source of joy for us.

The Solution, through the character of Shri Bharatji

1. Both the notions of ‘I-ness’ (ahamta) and ‘My-ness’ (mamta) are very, very false notions, and they are the biggest cause of sorrow in life.
2. More you understand that these two things are your problem, more Shri Bharatji’s character will touch you.
3. There is only one way out of these and that is to develop ‘Samarpan’ vritti (thought of surrender). ‘I am very small in front of my Guru, God, I have no desire to become big in front of God’. This desire to be small, to be insignificant is the samarpan vritti which Bharatji had.
4. Would such a person have no ambition whatsoever? No, he may be ambitious, he may go and apply for a big job, but that would be not to prove himself big, but to prove to himself ‘I can serve in a bigger manner also’.
5. The tendency to show, to seek, to get identity, this is the self-killing instinct of a person.
6. Bharatji had the attitude ‘Daasosmi sammatah’ – ‘I don’t want to become big. Nobody should see me as big.’ This is the essence of character of Bharatji. And without this attitude, our problems of ‘I-ness’ & ‘My-ness’ won’t be solved.

What should we want?

1. Our want should be, “God is very big in my life and I just want to be near Him!” Does this mean that we should not take a bigger role? No, you take a bigger role but be a representative of God in that bigger role. Have the bhaav that – ‘In that bigger role, bigger is the God, I am just a tiny dot at His feet.’
2. Difference between a humble person and an arrogant person is this only: that a person who is having ahankaar (ego), he has a tendency to see himself as more respectable. A humble person has no such desire. He only wants to see God as respectable.
3. This is the essence of Shri Bharatji’s character. One should imbibe it. It will make life simpler; perspective clearer.
4. World is not meant to get attached to anyone. Then whom shall I posses? Say to God ‘I am yours!’ Don’t have independent relationship with anybody. You will not be able to maintain the relationship; it will become a heavy load on your heart. Then how shall I treat my son, daughter? Treat them as God’s children and you just be the care-taker of God’s children.
5. If you don’t bring God into your relations, those relations will eat you in due time, and you will become worried, anxious, attached and possessive – all these words in the superlative degree. This is the truth!
6. Gravitational law doesn’t change, and neither does this law. All sad people are those who are not accepting certain laws of the Lord.

The superlative teaching that is Shri Bharatji’s character

Bharatji’s character shows that the two things: I-ness and My-ness, were absent in him. Let us see the demonstration of these truths in Shri Bharatji:

1. Bharatji after finding out about his father, asked Kaikeyi ‘Where is Ram? Where is Lakshman? Where is Sitaji?’ Out of deluded joy, Kaikeyi said, ‘Along with Sita and Lakshman, I have sent Ram, into exile’.
2. Bharatji got a shock. ‘What? Forest? Why?’ When Kaikeyi told the story in more detail and said, ‘For you only I did all this manipulation,’ Bharatji was devastated. He got very, very angry. Bharatji’s nature was not to be angry and so this is the only instance where he gets angry and says very harsh words to Kaikeyi. He said, ‘Paapini! Cruel!’ He didn’t call Kaikeyi ‘mother’, he took away the ‘mother’ word.
3. One of the causes of Bharatji’s anger was his deep love for Bhagavan Ram. His anger had no ego or hate in it. The foundation of his anger was devotion for Bhagavan.
4. Please note, when an ordinary person becomes angry, it is because of his ahankaar. Our anger is ego-oriented or hate-oriented. We are angry when we don’t get recognized or we are insulted.
5. And the second, beautiful reason why Bharatji was angry is that – he felt that Kaikeyi was too attached to him, and therefore she left Bhagavan Ram. Bharatji thought, ‘If I say something very harsh to her and I stop talking to her, she will naturally get detached from me and will again go to Bhagavan.’
6. Bharatji was maha-saadhu. A sadhu wants that others should be attached to God. This concept was paramount in his mind.

Anger with a difference

1. Generally, when we are angry, we talk non-sense, we talk too much, our language becomes cheap and we lose grace. But Bharatji even in anger did not talk non-sense, his words were highly deep. Bharatji’s anger was out of deep love and devotion towards the Lord.
2. Bharatji reprimands Kayikeyi saying, “How can you send that sinless Ram to forest who always smiles seeing us; who always greets you and prostrates to you? I will see that he comes back. You know that everybody loves Him so madly. I will bring him back and I will become His servant!”
3. If we could be angry like Bharatji for the reason ‘why I caused displeasure to the Lord’, we will become seekers! For a seeker, his wrong thinking, attachment and aversion gives him tremendous pain, and that becomes an inspiration for his sadhana.
4. Only when we are hard towards our negativity, we can be soft towards our divinity.
5. Bharatji was very, very soft. Somebody is soft when they cannot tolerate Lord’s displeasure even for a moment. Your softness can be measured with regards to how soft you are to your inner God, how soft you become when you do puja or japa, how soft you become when you are with your Guru, how soft you are when you are thinking about God.
6. You cannot be soft towards both, ahankaar & God. If you are hard towards your ahankaar, then only you can be soft towards God and Guru. If you are soft towards your ahankaar, you will be hard towards God and Guru. And therefore our spiritual progress is slow, because we are very soft towards our ego.
7. Loving means becoming extremely soft in front of your beloved.

Imbibe Mahatma like qualities

1. Valmikiji through Bharatji’s sublime character is teaching us the qualities of a Mahatma. Bharatji is a Mahatma, because he never brought his small self into calculation. The moment we bring our ego into calculation, our analysis about any subject or issue becomes completely wrong.
2. In any situation, the moment we think, ‘what I am getting’, or ‘what I am losing’, we will be in trouble.
3. Mahatma is the one whose only focus is, ‘whether God is pleased with my action & intention, or not’ – Full stop! Nothing else.
4. The only way to live life beautifully is, not to push our own will. We must align our will with God’s will! ‘May the Lord’s will alone prevail. If God wants to make me poor, I will be poor. If He wants to make me rich I will be rich. I am living only for Him!’
5. The moment we say, ‘I am living for my son, for my husband, for my wife, for office, etc.’ they will become the source of our sorrows and joys.
6. When we have gotten everything from the Lord, then we should give everything back to Him alone. We have to worship the Lord through the people around us!

On Day 3 of the Valmiki Ramayana yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji took us ever closer to the Lord, by systematically disenfranchising our small ideas of personal joys and sorrows, and leading us to that one divine fact: to live for Bhagavan’s joy ALONE, is the way to our own joy.

Whose joys and sorrows do we live for?

• We find a lot of charm in living our own life. We want to do and enjoy whatever-wherever we want. But we fail completely to understand one simple fact that – jeeva is not meant to live his own life!
• When a person is working for his own sorrows and joys, he is trying to live his own life, which he can never live. Life is not meant to execute our plans, and go through our own sorrows and joys. Life is meant to live somebody else’s life. The question is, whose?
• Whose joys and sorrows shall we be happy and sad with? Lord’s joys and sorrows!
  • If it is difficult to identify with Lord’s joys and sorrows, then best is that we have some Guru or saint whose joy & sorrow we can identify with. But it needs a lot of punya to get somebody Higher for whom we have such a bhaav and with whom we have such identification
  • Identification with somebody means – his joys become my joys, his sorrows become my sorrows. My own sorrows and joys have no meaning.
• Moment we possess our sorrow, and possess our joy, problem will be that we will become vulnerable. We will have insistence that a particular person/object should be with us or should not be with us, otherwise we won’t be happy. We as if sign a ‘dependence contract’ with the other person unconsciously.
• We particularize our life to such an extent, that a single person or object can cause havoc in it. This is our fundamental mistake. We crystallize ourselves.
• We may lose money but that is not a problem, problem is that we develop a personality that ‘I have lost money, therefore I am sad, I am unhappy’. With this thought, you develop a source of unhappiness, you develop some kind of inner abscise.

Shifting the compass of joys and sorrows

1. De-personification of our joys and sorrows is called sainthood. Shri Bharatji’s character illustrates this principle.
2. Bharatji’s life says – if you have to be happy, be happy for God and Guru, and if you love God and Guru, then let yourself dissolve so much that your personal happiness and sorrow don’t matter at all.
3. If you have to be sad, be sad with the thought ‘Why God is not happy? Why I could not do my japa & puja?’ When you are sad for an ego-centric reason, that sadness is going to trouble you a lot.
4. There is no need to be sad for your personal loss. Accept it! Think that ‘God’s will is there. In His happiness, I am also happy’. The joy of the Lord’s will being fulfilled should be bigger than the sorrow of our personal loss.
5. There is something called ‘Lord’s joy’. How do I know? You will know in your heart. You do some action, and inside a report comes immediately, ‘you did good or bad’.
6. a) When you do wrong, you will realize that there is some upset God in you from whom you can’t run away. The day you start recognizing his sadness, is the day you will start living for His joys.
7. b) When you do good, there is someone inside who says ‘Good! I am feeling happy.’ When you start seeking compliments from inside, you become a seeker.
8. When you become sensitive to this God’s sorrows and God’s joys, by God’s grace, you become a saint like Shri Bharatji.

Bharatji’s joy and sorrows

1. Life is not difficult because situations are difficult. Lack of money, or people around are not the issue. The issue is – we never identify with the joy of God and sorrow of God. Unfortunately, we are very fond of being sad and happy about our own personal things.
2. How should our attitude be? “Lord’s joy and Lord’s sorrow are biggest in my life. My sorrows and joys, my success and failure, my honor and dishonor are very small issues.”
3. This is what Bharatji’s personality demonstrates. We saw how distraught Bharatji was when Kaikeyi told him she had sent Ram, Lakshman and Sita into exile. The cause for Bharatji’s sorrow was the pain he had when thinking about the hardships that Bhagavan Ram, Lakshamji and Sitaji would be going through in the forest.
4. Unless the desire of wanting Lord’s joy is not there in the heart, a person is very shallow.
5. If you mix sugar in the water and stir it to the point where sugar dissolves, you can’t see sugar particles separately in the water. A devotee is like that – his personality, his sorrows and joys dissolve so much in Lord’s sorrows and joys that he doesn’t even see his sorrows and joys clearly. He may feel it, but it’s not very important for him.
6. We have to make a habit of this. If somebody says some bad words, go inside and call Lord, ‘What do you want? I accept it. If you want he should say some bad words, let him say more.’

‘Lord’s happiness is most important for me’ – this is what we should all be training for, by learning from Bharatji’s diamond of a character.

Beware of your inner Manthara

1. Unfortunately, instead of learning from Bharatji, we seem to have Manthara for our teacher. Our own petty joys and sorrows, position and self-importance are so meaningful to us, that the Lord has no meaning in our life.
2. Let us look honestly at the Manthara in us and pray to the Lord that we have His grace to become students of Bharatji’s character, and surrender our inner Manthara once and for all at His compassionate feet.
3. Kaikeyi represents ‘kriya shakti’ – the power of activity, and when Kaikeyi was given by her father to Dashrathji, he also sent Manthara to Ayodhya along with Kaikeyi. Manthara represents the sense of difference – ahankaar. She represents the attitude ‘What will I get? Why others are getting and I am not getting’, all these selfish understanding is the Manthara associated with all action.
4. Therefore, the moment we enter into this area of action, there is a lot of trouble, as we tend to evaluate, what will we get in return. This constant evaluation makes a person very hard, meaning, he is unable to give joy to others; he seeks joy only for himself. Also it is likely that he develops liking for somebody (who are conducive to him), and dislike for somebody (who are un-conducive).
5. This is because Manthara is behind every action and her only work is to send Ram to exile. She wants that the Ram and Sita who are in us, that knowledge and peace which is in us, are thrown out. She only wants that her rule should prevail.

Manthara should be punished

1. ‘Activity’ represented as Kaikeyi is not the problem. Kaikeyi miss-guided by Manthara is the problem. Action is not a problem, you can act a lot. But your action should be guided by Bharatji and not by Manthara.
2. Don’t become Manthara; otherwise Shatruganji will beat you. Shatruganji is seva bhaav. Seva bhaav kills this Manthara or atleast it makes her ineffective.
3. Dharma and seva bhaav is the attitude that, ‘I am meant for God; I am meant for serving the saints.’ This is the bhaav of Shatrughanji. His bhaav was that his life was for serving a saint, nothing else.
4. This Shatrugan bhaav beats that Manthara and she deserves to be beaten. So that she is does not send our inner Bhagavan into exile again. We should make sure that we don’t obey the Manthara in us.

Recognise the soul of Dharma

1. After the performance of last rites of King Dashratha, the ministers expressed their desire to coronate Bharatji. Bharatji, was however distraught at the thought of being coronated. Such was his devotion, tyaag and bhaav for the Lord.
2. Bhagavan Ram alone was important for him and his personal glory was not important at all.
3. If Bharatji was a bhogi (indulgent) and ahankaari (egoistic), he would have been very happy. He would have accepted the proposal of becoming the king but all he wanted was to bring Bhagavan Ram back from the forest.
4. In the guise of Dharma, we generally fulfil our vasanas. Devotion is the extreme thirst of giving joy to your beloved and having non-tolerance to his pain.
5. Bharatji took the soul of Dharma and not it’s skeleton. We should also take the essence of Dharma and not hold on to something rigid. Dharma is not for bhog and compromise. Dharma is to teach us, how to renounce our insistences, likes, dislikes and ahankaar.
6. Bharatji wanted to stay in the forest on behalf of Lord Ram for 14 years. The soul of love is ‘sacrifice’.

Discover Bharat the lover of the Lord in you

1. A person is defined as, whom he lives for, whom he loves.
2. You are known by what pain you have. Centre of your life is what your pain is. If you have pain because of your wife, you have a ‘wife centred’ life. And if you have pain because of your mother-in-law, you have ‘mother-in-law centred’ life. If you have pain because of money matters, you have a ‘money centered’ life.
3. What you did not get or what you are not able to do, that is your pain.
4. When you have pain for God, that is ‘God centered’ life and there you will start searching joy from. If you have pain that, ‘I should serve my Guru more,’ you have ‘Guru centered’ life. A good disciple is one who has a pain to serve more.
5. Everybody has a pain, find out where is your pain. Otherwise everything will be in vain.
6. We are essentially lovers. But make sure that you don’t become a lover of small things. That is a superficial personality.
7. Be a lover of the highest. Seek the one to love, who will not leave you. I want to love the one who is biggest, who is purest, and who is most divine.
8. There is a Bharatji hiding in us also, bring him out. Life belongs to those who don’t live for themselves & life is lost to those who only live for themselves.

Commencing the Monthly Yagna on Valmiki Ramayana, Swami Abhedanandaji began the discourse with a beautiful chaupai of Tulsidasji – ‘dhanya so kari jab satsanga’ which means, that time is fortunate when one hears satsang. Swamiji impressed upon the fact that in satsang one hears about what truly is the deciding factor of one’s joys and sorrows, and that satsang is not just a pastime that one does when one is free, rather one should hear satsang to become free!
Swamiji then wonderfully elaborated upon the innumerable qualities of Bhagavan Ram as they appear in Valimiki Ramayan. Some of those qualities are summarized below for our online readers:

Beautiful Qualities of Bhagavan Ram

• ‘Ana anusuyakah’ – It is the quality which gives the ability to have such a thought and attitude so that the outer situations don’t take away our discrimination and peace of mind, rather it brings out our inherent beauty and divinity, which pleases the God. This quality was possessed by Bhagavan Ram in great measure.
  • When we read Ramayan, we find that there was not even a single occasion when Bhagavan Ram was disturbed because of some issue.
  • Every situation can bring out some divinity, purity and devotion in us if we know how to see it correctly.
  • Bhagavan Ram never saw faults in others because He didn’t have any ‘bhed budhhi’ (sense of separateness).
• ‘Sa cha nityam prashaantaatmaa’ – Bhagavan Ram was very quiet and joyous at all times because He didn’t have any ego or attachment.
  • Ahankaar (Ego) means taking somebody’s words or some situation on oneself, and suffering and enjoying because of that. Bhagavan Ram was never an enjoyer or a sufferer of the good and bad words He heard. Even when Bhagavan Ram had to hear scolding from Parshuramji, He was not disturbed at all.
  • Disturbance means a person is not able to do what he is supposed to do. A person with a disturbed mind, can’t talk properly, can’t write properly, can’t drive properly, and surely he cannot do jap or meditation properly.
• ‘Mridu purvam’ – Bhagavan Ram was very soft spoken. He used to always greet first, and didn’t expect or wait for others to greet Him first.
  • In giving, one should always be first. If you speak first, you get the punya of quieting the mind of somebody.
  • Mridu means soft. Soft indicates that Bhagavan Ram’s heart was soft. You cannot have a hard heart and speak soft for a long time because thoughts alone convert into words.
• ‘Uccha maanopi paarusham’ – Paarusham means that if somebody said hard words, then also Bhagavan Ram never answered in a hard tone.
  • Depth of a person is measured by how much hardness he can take and still remain soft.
  • Generally, if I am soft with you, you will be soft with me, but if I become hard with you, I bring out the hard personality in you. Therefore, we are devata (good) for somebody and demon (bad) for somebody, depending how they behave with us.
  • The real quality is, when you are attacked by harsh words, and still you don’t become hard. If a person has such response it shows he has done a lot of sadhana and meditation, and your mind is revelling in God or in the Self.
  • Independently the world cannot give you sorrows and joys. Where your mind is located, accordingly you will experience sorrows and joy. A harsh situation can transform into joyous situation if your mind is situated somewhere near the Lord.
  • Our sadhana should be, to take our mind again and again to the inner corner. Sadhana takes our mind from ego to Guru seva and Ishwar bhajan.
• ‘Kadaachit upkarena kritenekena tushyati’ – If somebody did little good, Bhagavan Ram was happy with him for the whole life. It is a very difficult quality because we see what others have not done for us, rather than what they have done for us.
• ‘Na smarati apakaranaam shatamapi’ – If somebody did bad hundred times, then also Bhagavan Ram did not remember the bad but He only remembered the one good that the person did.
  • To have this quality one should have a lot of source of joy in himself so that he is not affected by others actions.
  • It is your freedom what to remember and what not to remember. Life becomes easier by your memories and it can become difficult by your memories. Somebody hates because of his memory; somebody loves because of his memory. The assertion of what should be remembered, what should be forgotten, should be in your hand.
• ‘Buddhimaan’ – means not just that Bhagavan Ram was academically very good, but it means that He knew every aspect about everything; and hence He responded to everything and every person in the best possible manner.
  • There are a lot of things we have to know but we don’t know that we don’t know, and we also don’t know that not knowing creates a lot of problems.
  • What is the meaning of love? What is the meaning of devotion? What is the meaning of living with people? What is the meaning of living with our own mind? What is the meaning of meditation and sadhana? What is the meaning of controlling the mind? What is the meaning of anger and passion? What is the meaning of teacher and scriptures? All these things we should know very well. Only when we know something, we can control it well.
  • All disturbances are nothing but the effect of not knowing something.
  • Anything which you interact with, as much as you know about that thing, so much better will be your interaction with it.
  • On one aspect, there are a lot of things to think about. It takes just one vritti (thought) to take you to heaven or to hell. One vritti of Kaikayi of attachment with Bharatji took her to so much of problem.
  • Life demands more alertness and more knowledge about things. We should live in illumination. We are bad thinkers and therefore we make a lot of mistakes.
  • Anybody walking in the dark gets hit, similarly if we have dark thoughts within, we suffer.
• ‘Madhur bhaashi’ – means Bhagavan Ram was very sweet spoken. Sweet speech means choosing such words which makes the sentences beautiful and makes others listen to you. Speech is the best balm to anybody’s wounds.
  • Madhur means ‘madhuk ksharati’ – that which sprinkles honey. One should speak something which other person also admires and likes. Boring people are those who only talk about themselves.
• ‘Veeryavaan and Veeren mata na swen vismitah’ – Bhagavan Ram was very brave but at the same time He was not proud that He was so brave.
  • Being unaware of your goodness is called humility. Moment you become aware of your goodness, and possess your goodness or success, it is called pride.
  • More you possess your goodness, more you dispossess God, and more you dispossess your goodness, more you possess God.
  • Talent and ego are very close. So if you become over-aware of your talents, then you create a false image about yourself and you want others also to see you like that. But others see you as per their own nature and wish, and thus a clash happens.
  • Beauty of Bhagavan Ram was that He never carried a wrong self image. When He went to Vasishthaji after returning to Ayodhya, He introduces his friends like Sugreev and other monkeys saying, ‘Because of them I killed Ravan.’ Such was His humility!
  • Bhagavan Ram was absolutely equanimous in every situation – one day He was sleeping on a golden bed, and the other day on the floor but He never felt that He became small by sleeping on the floor. We put unnecessary worth upon ourselves and try to impose ourselves on others in the world.
  • Depersonalizing the personality makes the life very easy. You are free from the person from whom you don’t need anything but you are bound from that person from whom you need something. Bhagavan Ram was not bound by anybody.

On the second day of the monthly yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji continued to unearth the hidden treasures of Valmiki Ramayana. We bring to you some snippets from yesterday’s soulful satsang:

Highlighting the Dharma aspect

Valimiki Ramayana is focused more to emphasize on the Dharma aspect of Bhagavan Ram while Tulsi Ramayana is focused more on the Sharnagati (surrender) aspect.

• Dharma means – responding to the outer situations such that our responses take us to realization and not reaction. Thus, after responding, we become quieter and we feel more in control of ourselves. If we do something, after doing which we feel we have lost control, then that is called Adharma.
• Dharma is that through which we get back our own hidden divinity, strength and piousness.
• In the first few chapters of Ayodhya Kand of Valmiki Ramayan, Bhagavan Ram’s dharmic qualities are mentioned in great detail. These qualities have a lot to do with us; they are mentioned so that we can imbibe them and know their value in our life.

Lord Ram – Embodiment of Dharmic Living

• ‘Na cha anrit katha’ – Bhagavan Ram had the quality of truthfulness; He did not utter any lie.
  • A person lies either to hide some of his negativity, or he wants to show something that will earn him more respect, or he wants some immediate gain.
  • By lying, something very dangerous happens inside. There is a personality born within which says ‘you are a liar’. So somebody constantly accuses us from inside.
  • By lying, we create a kind of split personality; a personality that is weak and incapable of doing anything whole-heartedly because we have contradicted ourselves.
• ‘Vridhhanaam prati pujakah’ – Bhagavan Ram was the worshipper of the elderly people.
  • It is an unfortunate part of the modern society that the elder people are neglected more; there are more old-age homes than ever before.
  • The society in which elders are not respected, is an ungrateful society. And it only indicates that the future generation of such a society will have more difficult times because they have not done sufficient punyas (merits) to get good wishes & blessings from their elders.
  • When you serve somebody, the purpose of serving should be to create such an image in the heart of the person that he feels like pouring blessings upon you. His thoughts for you should be – ‘May lot of good come to him. May he never face any kind of problem in his life!’ When such thoughts are created, serving is fulfilled. By serving, you create softness in other person’s heart for yourself.
  • But in the modern age, in a rush to make our career, and earn more money, and name & fame, we are forgetting the essence of serving.
  • Our arth (wealth) should be for Dharma and not for kaam (selfish desires).The valuables should be for values and not for indulgence.
  • We want to live a happy life but we don’t know that happiness comes from blessings which we need to earn by serving.
  • We must not think that by serving we do great to somebody else; we do great to ourselves only; we are not obliging anybody.
  • We should replace the word ‘helping’ by ‘serving’. Helping is very different than serving. In helping you feel the other person needs your help and thus your helping creates an abhimaan of helping, but in serving you feel that if you had not done, somebody else would have done and it was your opportunity to serve.
•  ‘Anuraktah prajabhishcha’ – Bhagavan Ram was highly loved by all the people.
  • Love does not come free of cost. One has to be worthy of being loved.
  • You can’t force anybody to love you. It is easy to bring out cheap emotions, but to bring out love from somebody can take years.
• ‘Prajaha cha anurajyate’ – Bhagavan Ram loved His praja.
  • In loving, many things are needed. One has to forgive, one has to tolerate, one has to serve, one has to talk sweetly, one has to be very selfless and one can’t live his own personal life. Bhagavan Ram had all these qualities in plenty.
  • In Ramcharitmanas, Bharatji says that Bhagavan Ram was such that He didn’t even disturb His enemies.
• ‘Jita krodhah’ – Bhagavan Ram was the one who had conquered anger.
  • It is a very difficult virtue to have because when we go in the world, a lot of things happen that are not as per our wish. There are more people who do not act as per our wish, and lesser who act as per our wish.
  • Jita krodhah means one who has conquered the three most dangerous emotions namely ahankaarh (ego), raag (attachment) and dwesh (hatred).
  • Biggest problem with anger is that it loots our capacity of self-control.
  • For most of us, anger is pocketed in our heart, it just needs to be provoked. In Bhagavan Ram’s life, there were a lot of situations where He could have been angry, especially when He was banished to the forest, but there was never a trace of anger in Him.
  • There is no person in whose life there is no situation to be angry. There are various situations which are provoke-able, but if a person lessens his ahankaar, raag and dwesh then he becomes non-vulnerable. It is as if, someone is throwing a ball but the wicket is not there so it won’t hit anywhere.
  • Gita warns us, ‘Know anger to be your enemy’. It is said so because anger can eat your life, it can burn your mind. Anger has disturbed and broken more houses than anything else.
• ‘Deenaanukampi’ – Bhagavan Ram used to have a lot of compassion for those who were down trodden. He wanted to uplift all.
  • Anukampa (compassion) should be there in our heart too; we should not neglect anybody.
  • Bhagavan Ram was such that if anybody came to Him for charity, He would empty His whole room and give away everything.
  • The one who has more money he has responsibility towards the one who has lesser money. Somebody’s wealth appears good only when he shares his wealth. If somebody doesn’t share his wealth, his wealth pricks.

Lord Ram – Embodiment of Dharmic Living

• ‘Nityam pragrahavaan’ – Bhagavan Ram always had self-control.
  • If a person doesn’t have self-control, you don’t know what he will do, what he will speak, where he will fall. Absence of self-control makes a person highly unpredictable.
  • No fall is all of a sudden, it starts from a small fall. What is a casual matter in the beginning becomes a serious matter eventually and binds us. One who doesn’t have self-control, he loses his grace and his worth very soon.
• ‘Shuchihi’ – Bhagavan Ram had a lot of purity both inside and outside.
  • There is a difference between purity & cleanliness. Cleanliness with divinity is Purity.
  • When something is not only clean, but it also has some power giving tendency, it becomes pure. Food is clean is one thing, but when you chant some mantra and offer prayers, all the molecules of the food have more healing power.
  • Clean water is one thing and pure water is another thing. When you say ‘this water is devata’ then you bring out the purity aspect.
  • One is called physical nourishment, other is mental quietness. When you invoke the purity in the food, it starts giving you mental quietness apart from physical nourishment. Therefore we offer prayers so that the devata of the food can orient itself towards us.
  • There was suchi in Bhagavan Ram also in the sense that He didn’t have the thought that anybody is bad. His mind was clean because He was always had pure thoughts.
  • Mind, by itself, is not impure, but thinking about something impure, it becomes impure.
• ‘Shatram swadharmam bahu manyate’ – Bhagavan Ram thought that Swadharma (one’s prescribed duties) is very important to practice.
  • Everybody is designed for a certain role. If you don’t do what you are supposed to do, then you will lose your value.
  • You can’t decide your own duties. Scriptures are there, society is there, father & mother are there to tell us our duties. If you don’t practice that, you will lose your value.
  • Everybody’s swadharma requires some sacrifice; you have to give up certain things to perform your swadharma. And if you can’t give up, you will be failing in your swadharma.
  • In Gita, Bhagavan says, ‘It is better to die in doing your swadharma than to follow someone else’s dharma.’ Your swadharma alone decides your reputation, your future, your credibility and inner satisfaction, and the joy of the people around you.
  • Everything is governed by swadharma. Swadharma involves that you leave your likes & dislikes, and your ahankaar. Bhagavan Ram, if He had attachment for the kingdom or the comforts or attachment for his wife, He wouldn’t have done His swadharma.
• ‘Saadhu’ – Bhagavan Ram was a saadhu, a great saint.
  • Saadhu means one who is not having selfishness, who does not live for himself, who doesn’t say that only two or three people are his and rest are not his, he considers everyone as his own.
  • Saadhu is the one who can leave any place at will without hanging on to it. In his life, tyag or sacrifice is very prominent.
  • Saadhu means one who has a big heart, who has conquered kaam and krodha, who can accommodate everyone.
  • Bhagavan Ram was the greatest saadhu. He gave up His kingdom in no time., and never had anger on Kaikeyi.
  • We want a sadhu around us – a sadhu wife, a sadhu husband. We don’t want a demanding person around us.
  • Saadhu is totally unassuming just like Bhagavan Ram who never asked for anything from anybody. Saadhu is one who doesn’t hold on to anything small.
  • A saadhu doesn’t want to express his greatness to anyone. In Sitaji’s swayamvar, when the bow was not breaking, Bhagavan Ram was not impatient to break it.
  • In Bhagavan Ram, ssadhutva was pervading everywhere. He just didn’t want anything. He was as happy to live in the forest as in the palace.
• ‘Kalyaan abhijanaah’ – Bhagavan Ram was the abode of all blessings; everyone wanted to bless him.
  • He was the patra of all kalyaan, everyone said, ‘Ram, anywhere you go, you should be very happy.’ Even Kaikeyi said the same thing when Bhagavan Ram was leaving for the forest.
  • When the demons, Khar & Dushan, saw Bhagavan Ram, even they thought that they shouldn’t fight such a lovely person.
• ‘Dridh bhakti’ – Bhagavan Ram had firm devotion.
  • Every morning Bhagavan Ram used to wake up and make Paarthiv Shivlinga (Shivlinga made of mud or sand) and offer prayers religiously.
  • Everyone has to deal with a lot of uncertainties and a lot of things that are out of his control. Our worries go away only when we have devotion and we are assured that God will take care.
  • Lord is such that He has kept all the important things to Himself. Outer face and limbs etc. can be touched but you have no accessibility to your liver or stomach because Lord has kept important things to Himself. You can have a relationship with someone, but whether that would be joyous or not, is not in your hands. God has kept that area to himself. You can work somewhere, but whether that would give you joy or sorrow is not in your hands. You can take medicines, but whether health will be fine or not is not in your hands. So main things He has kept in His hands. Pandavas and Kauravas fought, but who will win, was in His hands. Then what shall we do? Go to Him! Make Him happy with your behavior. He is observing all our actions and intentions day and night and He will give us the fruits accordingly.
  • If you don’t have devotion, God won’t be on your side. Your relations will turn sour and any work you do will not give good fruit. You should invoke His grace, keep a selfless attitude and have purity of thought.
  • Don’t just see what your outer achievement is, but observe what is the inner state of the joy of the Lord. There is only one responsibility that we have and that is to please the Lord and rest He will take care.

On the third day of the Gyan yagna, Swami Abhedanandaji beautifully put forth the point that Bhagavan Ram took avatar to illustrate and demonstrate the values that every human being must have.

From the elaborately described traits of Bhagavan Ram in Valmiki Ramayana, one should come to realize what kind of nature one must develop.

Swamiji explained that a person’s nature is nothing but that which comes out when he is pressed into certain difficulties. If one is surrounded by goodness and is happy then we can’t say that happiness is his real nature, but if one is surrounded by saddening situations and then also he is happy then that is his real nature.

In Bhagavan Ram’s life, we can see that whenever He was pressed beyond a point, He always exhibited his beautiful fragrant nature.

Bhagavan Ram’s Inexplicable Virtues

• ‘Sthir pragnyah’ – Bhagavan Ram was very stable minded.
  • We need stability in life. We should hold onto one thing and continue with that. Some people are very unstable minded; their likes and dislikes, their moods change very frequently. Even their spiritual sadhana is very scattered and they don’t focus on one Ishta, one mantra and one Guru.
  • We don’t stick to one principle, one ideal. If we want to hold on to anything higher, there will be pain in that, but the moment pain comes, we drop it. One should not have such unstable mind. No sadhana can be done with an unstable mind.
  • Bhagavan Ram was Sthir pragnyah. When Nishad Raj invited Him to come in the city, Bhagavan Ram politely refused saying that He has been asked to go in the forest for 14 yrs. Similarly for Sugreev’s & Vibhishan’s coronation, Bhagavan Ram sent Lakshmanji in the city and did not go Himself.
• ‘Na durvaachah’ – Bhagavan Ram never said any bad words for anybody, neither physically nor mentally. When we are angry, we mentally say some bad words if not physically. This way it becomes a habit to create dur-bhaav for other person in our heart. So moment that person’s name comes, it will come along with some abuse. This is not correct. Thus one should be careful to even think bad for anybody.
• ‘Nistandri’ – Bhagavan Ram was free from sloth and laziness.
  • A very typical problem with laziness is that a lazy person is an under-performer; he is unable to pursue anything sincerely. He cannot serve because to serve one has to be available and to be available one has to sacrifice his sleep and comfort.
  • A lazy person has very less friends because he does not please anybody. He runs away from doing any work; he is neither forth-coming nor prompt. Such a person cannot do any upasana or Guru-bhakti or Ishwar-bhakti.
  • Lazy people are forgetful and they have to be reminded many a times what they are supposed to do. They become non-promising people.
  • A lazy person cannot be satisfied in life because he has not done sufficiently. All his life, he remains a consumer and not a contributor.
• ‘Shaastragnyah’ – Bhagavan Ram was the knower of scriptures.
  • One has to know the scriptures. If you have not known scriptures, you will not know dharma, you will not know adharma, you will not know Atma. Then you will be handicapped in your interactions because you won’t know what is right and what is wrong.
  • If you don’t know the scriptures then you will falter at many places. You will only do karma and not karma-yog. You will not know that karma will always take you to disturbance and karma-yoga alone is the life of quietness.
• ‘Kritagnyashcha’ – Bhagavan Ram had the quality of being grateful.
  • The mother of Seva is Gratefulness. One won’t have the feeling of giving unless he has the feeling of getting a lot. One who feels that we has got a lot from the God, he alone can serve the God.
  • If this quality of being grateful is not there, then a person becomes very dry, non-serving; he keeps on getting but he doesn’t give back.
  • A person becomes a Guru bhakt when he has a lot of feeling of getting from the Guru. Strong sense of getting alone makes a person a devotee, makes him surrendered. This sense of getting is not developed in most of the people.
  • The virtue of kritagyata makes the personality very fragrant. Bhagavan Ram was kritagya to even Mother Kaikayi.
• ‘Sat sangraha anugrahanena’ – Bhagavan Ram was fond of having saints around him; He used to listen to a lot of satsang.
• ‘Sthaan vinigrahasya cha’ – Bhagavan Ram knew where to use violence. Violence is also required at times when some people have to be eliminated from the system. Bhagavan Ram killed demons like Tadaka, Khar-dushan, Ravan etc. and brought harmony everywhere.
• ‘Na avagyeyashcha bhootanaam’ – Bhagavan Ram’s presence was such that He was non-negligible.
  • Some people shine by their presence alone, they need not even speak or do anything.
  • If you have character, if you have upasana, if you have strength then you can’t be neglected; you will be counted everywhere. Like if a diamond is lying somewhere it will not be neglected.
  • When Hanumanji went to Lanka to Ravana’s palace, everyone started seeing him as a very powerful and strong monkey. Hanumanji’s force was non-negligible.
• ‘Vasudha kshmaya’ – Bhagavan Ram was forgiving like Earth. By seeing someone’s fault as small, you take him out of your mind. By not seeing someone’s fault as small, you bring him much closer to yourself unnecessarily. More you see the fault as small, more you are able to work and live with the person.
• ‘Sheelvaan’ – Bhagavan Ram’s behavior was such that it showered coolness. Nobody ever felt neglected in His company, rather they felt valuable in front of Him.
  • You don’t live with people, you see where you are in their heart.
  • When other person feels that he has a place in your heart, he will also create a place in his heart for you. But who will initiate? One who has more sheel initiates. Keeping in heart means identifying with other’s joys and sorrows.
  • It is written in Ramayan that whenever Bhagvan Ram met anybody, be it a small ordinary person or a known reputed person, He would appropriately enquire about their well-being and their families and would always be ready to identify with their happiness and sadness.
  • Bhagavan Rama had such a sheel that when He saw Jatayu, He addressed him as ‘taat’ (father). And Bhagavan opened His matted hair to brush off the dust from Jatayu’s body because He thought if He used His hands, Jatayu might get hurt. So much softness Bhagavan Ram had in His heart.

Each aspect of Lord Ram’s character was very perfect and divine, and that is the reason why everyone was so happy with Him and wanted Him to become the King of Ayodhya.

Swami Abhedanandaji continued to shower the bliss of Ramayana satsang as he illustrated on the fourth day of the yagna how Valmiki Ramayana is intent on telling us that joy and security in life comes not because of external factors, but because of something called Dharma.

Essence of Dharma

In Valmiki Ramayana one can see how Bhagavan Ram is the personification of dharma and in which way He followed His dharma at all times.

• The core of dharma is that – we respond and live a life which is devoid of ego, attachment, hatred and selfishness. Dharma is a methodology, it is a procedure through which such kind of lifestyle could be adopted.
• Dharma alone is the holding power of a person’s confidence. The strong conviction that I cannot be overpowered by my lower emotions, or by the external success and failures and I can still give out my best, this kind of conviction is called self-confidence and it comes only when one follows dharma. If one does something wrong repeatedly then he is sure to lose his confidence.
• Dharma is such an important aspect that it governs everything in our life, our relations, our joy, security, family, present, future; it has so much of ramifications that it is difficult to understand also. If dharma isn’t there in a person, he will be subject to a lot of vulnerabilities.

Devotion of Dashrathji for Bhagavan Ram

• It is written in Ramayan that when Kaikayi asked two boons from Dashrathiji, firstly that Ram should go to the forest and live like a rishi, and secondly that Bharat should become the king of Ayodhya, then after listening to Kaikayi, Dashrathji fell on the ground and almost fainted.
• Dashrathji told Kaikayi that he can leave everybody in the world but he cannot leave Ram, and that, if he didn’t see Ram every day, he will lose his praan (life). Such an intense bhakti Dashrathiji had for Bhagavan Ram!
• Devotion towards anything means that you cannot live without it. Tulsidasji says in Ramcharitmanas that when Dashrathji, in his last birth, asked for a boon from Lord Vishnu, he said, ‘May I have such a devotion, that just like a fish dies out of water, and a serpent dies when it’s head jewel is taken out, similarly I should die without Ram.’ Such was Dashrathji’s devotion!

Bhagavan Ram’s Impeccable Responses

• Response to Dashrathji’s condition
  • When Bhagavan Ram saw his father lying on the ground and his mother Kaikayi very upset, first He offered His namaskaar. Then, without losing His composure & balance, He said, ‘I hope I have not done anything wrong because of which my father is in this condition.’ A person who is humble, he starts thinking of his own faults first before others.
  • Bhagavan Ram then said a very beautiful line, ‘O Mother! If my father is angry with me, I would not like to live even for a second. I would rather die but see my father like that.’ Such was Ramji’s love! When you love somebody too much, or you are too devoted, or you are too much surrendered at a place, there you do not want that your Altar should be upset on you on any account, be it logical or illogical.
  • Bhagavan Ram continued telling his mother, ‘I owe my existence to my father. He is my living God. And if living God is unhappy with me because of any account, I think I have no right to live. You please tell me mother what I can do so that he can be back to normal.’ Such are the higher ideals set by Bhagavan Ram.
  • A person is known by where he is sensitive. Everybody is sensitive somewhere. Some people are sensitive to their father, mother, teacher, and others are sensitive to money, name, fame, relatives, and sensual pleasures. Where you are sensitive, there you owe your existence, and there you are ready to sacrifice. Here we can see how Bhagavan Ram was extremely sensitive to his father.
  • Bhagavan Ram also added, ‘For the sake of my father, I am ready to jump in the fire. For my father who is my Guru also, who is the King also, I can drink poison also, I can plunge into the ocean too. There is nothing which I cannot do to please him.’ To please anybody, one has to be a very selfless because he has to give up his ego, attachment and hatred.
  • Bhagavan Ram said, ‘O Mother, you just tell me what I should do. One who has done so much for me, who has loved me so much day and night for so many years, if he is unhappy then what is the purpose of my living? Please tell me how he will get out of his remorse and sadness. Whatever he wants, I will do it straight away.’ Such was Bhagavan Ram’s sacrificing nature.
• Response to the news of exile
  • When Mother Kaikayi told Bhagavan Ram about the two boons, her words were like death itself but Bhagavan Ram was not perturbed or shaken-up at all. There was no grief on His face because He didn’t feel that He was losing anything. One who himself has a lot of joy, who has no attachment for anything, he remains ever quiet no matter what is take away from him.
  • If one is attached to something then the loss of that object or person gives shock. Every shock tells that we were too attached somewhere, that we were mentally engaged with something.
  • Bhagavan Ram smiled and said with the same calm face, ‘I will go to the forest Mother, I will go. I can give up Sita and the Kingdom. Whatever is agreeable to my adorable father, it should be accomplished even if I have to give my life.’ A person is known by what he can give up without being upset or sad.
  • The essence of dharma is tyaag (sacrifice). The moment you start doing dharma, you will have to renounce. Every role in life, be it the role of a father, or a mother, or a wife, or a disciple, or a teacher, it requires a lot of sacrifice. You cannot play any role correctly unless you are ready to renounce everything for it.
  • Bhagavan Ram was ready to do so much of sacrifice. There is no bigger dharma in life than serving somebody. Serving means giving-up our own joy and individuality. Unless this capacity to give up is there, a person’s inner potential divinity doesn’t come out.
  • Even after knowing that for the next fourteen years, He will have to live in the forest, put on the bark of a tree, sleep on the floor, eat roots and bulbs, Bhagavan Ram’s face was blooming and shinning. This is possible only when one is established in dharma, devotion and knowledge.
  • When Ishwar bhakti is less, Guru bhakti is less, Atma nishtha is less, then we get very easily flustered and sad. One should make himself such that if in a moment it is required for him to leave everything, he can easily leave and walk away.

Bhagavan Ram’s strength was the strength of dharma!

Swami Abhedanandaji concluded the monthly Gyan Yagna with wonderful elucidation on Dharma and also on the deep characters of Mother Kaushalya, Lakshmanji and Sitaji which are indeed to be contemplated upon. We are pleased to share with you Swamiji’s concluding advice from the final day’s satsang:

Understanding the core of Dharma

• The avatar of Bhagavan Ram was meant to establish the greatness of righteousness and dharma. Unless Bhagavan Ram has gone through our mind, and heart and actions, the required nobility and inner beauty won’t come in our life.
• Dharma is to follow somebody elder in your life whose injunctions are as per the scriptures, he can be father, mother, or teacher. Those who obey somebody higher, they don’t go on the wrong path.
• Bhagavan Ram happily followed the words of his father without any grudge or irritation. If He had ego, or attachment or hatred, or jealousy, He would not have been able to follow dharma:
  • If Bhagavan Ram had ego, He would have felt very small because what was asked of Him, was almost like making a beggar out of a king and that too without any cause.
  • If Bhagavan Ram had attachment for the kingdom or his wife, He wouldn’t have been able to follow the words of his father and mother.
  • If He had hatred for Kaikayi, He could have thought of taking revenge.
  • If He had jealousy with Bharatji, He wouldn’t have gone to the forest at all.
  • If Bhagavan Ram was fond of comfort, He wouldn’t have left the kingdom.
• One should try to develop this kind of personality where our ego, attachment, hatred, jealousy and laziness don’t subdue the capacity of doing right in us. If somebody can develop this dharmic personality, then he will feel he is invincible and he cannot be conquered.
• Another important aspect required to follow dharma is, a very developed emotional personality. We all have emotions, but we may not be developed in our emotions. When Bhagavan Ram said that He can’t see His father sad, and He would rather die than seeing his father’s sadness, that shows there was too much of love in Him for his father and mother. Love means – going to any extent for your beloved’s joy.
• It is not possible for an egoistic person to love because the moment his joy, his ego and his bigness is challenged, he will leave his love. Loving is not everybody’s cup of tea because it requires tremendous sacrifice.
• Dharma is difficult because you have no life of your own. Giving up your right for some higher purpose, giving-up your joy for some higher purpose that is the essence of dharma.

Meeting with Mother Kaushalya

• When Bhagavan Ram went to Mother Kaushalya and declared the news, she got very unhappy and sad. She detested that Ramji shouldn’t go to the forest. But Bhagavan Ram said to her, ‘O Mother! I don’t have the power to overcome the words of my father. Please give me your consent. This whole world is dependent on dharma only. Please allow me to go to the forest and follow my dharma.’
• A house is worth living only when everybody follows their dharma and does what they are expected to do. If everyone does as per their selfish wish, then the house becomes a political center and breaks after sometime.
• If you follow dharma, it creates credibility, confidence and faith towards you in other person’s mind. If the younger person has done his dharma, then the elder person is assured that he will serve when required. And if the elder person does his dharma, then the younger person will think of him as an example to follow, as a guiding factor.
• The binding factor between two people exists not because they eat and drink together, but because they both perform their dharma and following thus they are able bring out something which could serve the society.
• After having heard Bhagavan Ram’s words, Kaushalyaji held herself and said, ‘If you are firm on following the dharma, then the dharma that you are protecting, let that dharma protect you!’ Then she poured a lot of blessings upon Ramji and gave her consent for Him to go.

Reaction of Lakshmanji

• Lakshmanji was witnessing the play of events and he got extremely furious and angry. Bhagavan Ram told him to curb his anger and said, ‘O Lakshman, there is something called fate (providence) and the cause of all this is fate only. Kaikayi was so good with me all through but something entered her mind and she became like this.’
• Bhagavan Ram explained to Lakshmanji that because of fate something completely unexpected can happen anytime. And from unknown sources something can come which cannot be stopped, so Lakshmanji should not be furious, angry and upset over all this.
• When you accept something which is un-conducive as your fate, then that thing doesn’t give you sorrow. One cannot avoid the providence; whatever is there, he has to go through it.
• When we accept our fate, we save a lot of energy to work on that area where we can do something.
• It is said that Lakshmanji was shivering with anger at that time; he was happy because Bhagavan Ram was happy but anger was also there that why Bhagavan Ram was not reacting. Lakshmanji was very upset with both Kaikayi and Dashrathji. He said, ‘O brother! How can they throw you out of the kingdom? Nobody can sit on that throne which is meant for you. I will cut everybody’s head who comes in between you and your throne. I will not allow that you should go in the forest and live like a hermit.’
• Lakshmanji is like a staff and Bhagavan Ram is like a flag, so Lakshmanji tries to always lift Bhagavan Ram and if somebody tries to pull down Bhagavan’s glory then Lakshmanji is very unhappy. But the best quality of Lakshmanji is that no matter how much he was angry, he never did anything which was opposed to the wish of Bhagavan Ram.

Devotion of Lakshmanji

• It is said that Lakshmanji clasped the feet of his brother and said, ‘Please take me with you! I have nobody else other than you.’ Not even for once, Lakshmanji had the thought of attachment toward his wife or the comforts of the kingdom. Such was the ananyata (single pointed devotion) of Lakshmanji.
• In Ramcharitmanas it is written that Lakshmanji said, ‘O brother Ram! I don’t know father, mother or teacher. Only you are there in my life and I want only you.’ This is called para-bhakti.
• Lakshmanji was standing with his palms folded and pleading, ‘I will go with you, please don’t say no. I will never disturb you. I will construct a nice hut for you, so that you can comfortably sleep. I will search and pluck very good fruits for you. In the night, I will be standing with my bow so that nobody can touch you. I will just serve, I will press your feet.’ Those who want to serve, they will find thousand ways to serve. Finally Bhagavan Ram agreed to take Lakshmanji along.
• To serve the Lord, you have to go through a lot of pains. Serving involves – giving up your comfort, your emotional joys and your ego.

Devotion of Sitaji

• When Sitaji came to know about Ramji’s exile, she wanted to go with Ramji. Sitaji said to Ramji, ‘O Lord! I am like your shadow; whatever is your fortune is my fortune. I cannot live without you! When you will walk in the forest, I will walk in front of you and clear the thorns etc., I will put soft mud for you to walk on. Other than you I have nobody in my life. I just love you madly and passionately. I don’t want anything else… I only want you!’
• Then Bhagavan Ram explained to Sitaji that the life in a forest is very difficult and there are fierce animals all around and there is no proper food nor any comforts. Ramji said, ‘O Sita, you are not fit to be there, you are born as a princess, you should live like a princess.’ As much as Ramji was explaining, so much tears were trickling down her eyes. Sitaji told that she is not afraid of anything because when she is with Ramji, even Indra cannot touch her.
• You cannot love anybody unless you are ready to go through a lot of discomfort. The people who love comfort, they cannot live with any Mahatma. When you live with a renunciate person, you have to have a lot of renunciation.
• Sitaji said to Bhagavan Ram, ‘With you, I can live anywhere.’ So much devotion Sitaji must have had! She saw joy in Bhagavan Ram alone and no one else. This is called Ananyata in devotion! Ananyata means the feeling that other than the beloved, nobody else can give you joy, neither do you want joy from anybody.
• Sitaji cried and said, ‘How can you leave me? If you leave me, my praan will go with you.’ We don’t want God because we can live without the remembrance of God. Therefore God doesn’t appear in front of us. God knows that we are happy without him too.
  Sitaji didn’t change her mind and eventually Bhagavan Ram agreed to take her with Him to the forest.

Leaving from Ayodhya

• Before leaving from Ayodhya, Bhagavan Ram distributed all his wealth among the Brahmins. So magnanimous He was. All the people of Ayodhya started crying and weeping as they saw Bhagavan leave. They remembered the qualities of Bhagavan Ram:
  • He was extremely harmless by nature.
  • He was very compassionate.
  • He was well versed and learned also but not blunt.
  • In Bhagavan Ram, amiability of character was there as if He was sprinkler of joy and coolness everywhere.
  • He had self-control and a quiet mind and He was ever smiling
• When Bhagavan Ram was given the attire of a rishi by Kaikayi, He had put it on with the same ease as He took out His royal attire. He had the same luster and smile and beauty on His face as always. So much internal joy one should have, so much piousness one should have!
• Life is about how many sorrows you can gulp without distributing it to others.