Your efforts, plans and the bigger picture....

Eastern Wisdom Weekly #2: An insight into the life of Lord Rama, and what you can learn from him.

Happy Tuesday everyone, let’s go through the story of a king who lived up to his ideals, and values, and always fulfilled his duties to such an extent that he is considered the best amongst all humans.

The 7th incarnation of Vishnu

The story is about the life of Shri Rama and his struggles. For those who don’t know about him, Shri Rama is the 7th incarnation (avatar) of Lord Vishnu. In Sanatana Dharma (the eternal religion, also interchangeably used with Hinduism), existence is ruled by three primordial forces, creation, preservation and destruction. Each of these three principles is attributed to the three major gods Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh respectively. The preservation of existence is done by Lord Vishnu through different incarnations (avatars) that take place at different times, to balance the good and evil forces in existence.

The trinity in Hinduism: Brahma (creation), Vishnu (preservation), Mahesh (destruction).

For this Lord Vishnu is said to take 10 incarnations, of which the 7th incarnation is Shri Rama. Shri Rama was born in the city of Ayodhya as the first child out of four to King Dasharatha. His birth was predicted by divine sages to his father, and he took birth to eliminate the evil forces that were on the rise in the world. It was clear that he took birth as part of a divine plan to create a balance by punishing the wrongdoers. Shri Rama’s brothers’ names were Lakshmana, Bharat and Shatrughna. Shri Rama married a princess named Sita from the state of Nepal and was happily living in the kingdom.

The 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu, who are responsible for creating balance in world.

The tale of King Rama

Everything was going just fine in their lives, but the situation in the world was deteriorating day by day as the evil forces were rising. After Shri Rama’s marriage, things went unusual when the rightful heir of the kingdom was given to Bharat, one of his younger siblings and he was also told to leave the kingdom for 14 years and stay in forest, due to a political drama created by Bharat’s mother (who did not want Shri Rama to take over the kingdom). Shri Rama left for the forest with his brother Lakshman and his wife Sita to the forests without getting resentful and following his father’s command and wish. Later on, his wife Sita gets kidnapped by the demon king Ravana, and in search of her, Shri Rama has to go through major struggles, meeting up with the local group of men, creating an army, slayed many evil demons, fighting the powerful army of the demon king Ravana, finally killing him and then bringing back his wife again to go back. This way not only he brought back his wife, but he also maintained the balance of the evil and good forces in the world. Shri Rama showed the values of absolute patience, strength, perseverance, and faith in god. Everyone around him got tired, frustrated, angry, resentful, and hasty but he never lost his patience and calm. Finally, he brought back his wife and ended a great empire of demon kings who were already troubling the world. These collections on the life of Shri Rama is known as the Ramayana, which is one of the major epics in Hinduism.

Shri Rama, his wife Sita, accompanied by his brother Lakshman during 14 years of exile.

We will be posting more stories from his life and Ramayana in the coming editions of Eastern Wisdom. If you still have not subscribed, please do so to get more stories like this directly to your mail weekly on Tuesdays.

Self-efforts and divine will

We briefly discussed his life and Ramayana. Let’s look into the story before all this happened. On the day of the coronation of Shri Rama, suddenly things go out of control and the news came that King Dashratha has declared Bharat as the new king of the kingdom which was a shock to everyone, Lakshman who was Rama’s younger brother was very angry.

Lakshmana: “Brother, did you hear the news? Our father has given up the kingdom to Bharat, whereas the rightful heir is none other than you. The old man has become crazy, and fallen to the lust of women (Bharat’s mother) to take up such a decision. If you just command me, I will kill everyone including my own father and we will take what is rightfully yours, dear brother.”

Shri Rama: “Dear Lakshmana, you are very angry, please calm yourself down. Firstly, you should not speak so low of our father, as a son it is our dharma (duty) to follow his orders and bring justice to his words. After all, we are his sons, and a son’s duty is different than that of a prince.”

Lakshmana: “Brother, you don’t understand, how can you keep calm in such a situation? We are not at all responsible for the actions and decisions of our father, it is just against the justice of the kingdom, as the rightful heir is the eldest son of the king.”

Shri Rama: “Dear Lakshmana, let me tell you something. Till tomorrow, everything was going just fine, things were in their place, preparations were done, I was going to be coronated as the future king of Ayodhya. But today, all of a sudden everything just changed, and I cannot find any reason for this except that this is God’s will (Ishwara Sankalpa). God wills it that I should not be coronated as a king now, maybe he has different plans for me, but unless I follow the path that is shown by God, I won’t know what lies in my destiny and what plans God has for me. The only way to know that is to walk on the path shown by God.

This brief conversation has a deep meaning. We can do whatever we want, plan all we want, execute it with all our might, and finally after everything things just won’t work out. You retry things repeat and then you realize after many trials and errors, it’s just not meant to be. You have to leave some things as it is.

If Shri Rama had been rightfully coronated that day, he might have lived a fulfilling and happy life ever after. Had it not been for the sudden coronation of Bharat, Shri Rama would not have gone to the 14 years of exile to forests. Had it not been for this exile, Sita would not have been kidnapped by Ravana. Had it not been for Sita being kidnapped, Shri Rama would never have created an army, gone to look out, killed all the major demons in the way, and finally eradicated Ravana’s evil empire.

So, had it not been for that initial setback, the divine will and Shri Rama’s destiny of maintaining balance by eradicating all demons would not have been possible.

Shri Rama praying to Lord Shiva for guidance in his path while fulfilling his duties.

Finally, in life, there will be many instances, when you initially think that you can just solve it logically, you can plan all the minute details, you can give all your might, efforts, everything just to mess up big time. After many trials and errors, the same things prevail, and finally you realize you just have to leave that thing and move forward.

A few learnings from the story:

1. Never stop trying, no matter what. Keep walking, trying your best at every situation, and just leave everything else to the environment, god or whatever external influence you have faith on. Because unless you keep trying or walking the path that is ahead of you, you won’t realize your true purpose.

   If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.

   - Martin Luther King Jr.

2. But also remember, in the end, there is a plan that is not visible and you have a purpose, which will unfold as you move forward, it’s not important to have a clear picture right away as some of your ventures might take longer than a year or two to flourish (maybe more). But this does not mean you will stop trying, take a break, dance, maybe go for a trek or a short trip but don’t forget to bounce back up.

3. All the incidents, mess-ups, and breakage, will eventually make you stronger to deal with a different set of problems later, but in the end, you will be fulfilling your life’s purpose. The beauty about it is that you won’t be able to make sense of it now but as you look back everything will be clear.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.
- Steve Jobs

So keep trying, working towards your goals, remain balanced, take a break whenever you think like it, and just have strong faith that things will work out eventually. We will be covering, such stories in the coming editions, we started with Shri Rama, because after 492 years of struggle, the foundation of a Shri Rama temple has been laid on 22nd January 2024 in Ayodhya, India. This was successful because of the efforts of many people, but most importantly patience and faith on the ideals of Shri Rama. Have a great day ahead….

🕉️ Hoihi Soi Jo Ram Rachi Rakha🌞
Whatever has been decided by God, will anyway happen. No point in overanalyzing things, just keep working and moving forward.