RAMA - THE APOTHEOSIS OF HUMAN PERFECTION -1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, April 21, 2022. 06:00. AM.

Post-1.

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Let us observe this auspicious occasion of Sri Ramanavami as a moment of contemplation on a special spark of Divinity that made its advent on the earth. Popularly speaking, in ancient historical times, to emphasise the historical advent of this great Divinity on earth has been the exoteric side of the Epics as people generally understand it. This popular emphasis on the incarnations of God on earth has taken the form of Epics like the Ramayana. We are told in the Ramayana of sage Valmiki, the earliest of these documents, that it was a history par excellence, a history of a chronological procession of divine exploits which is what we generally mean by a divine Epic. It is believed that the earliest record of the history of Rama, the Ramayana of Valmiki, was written during the life-time of Rama Himself. It was not a biography written later on after several years. It was composed then and there, by a contemporary of Rama, sage Valmiki, and so it is but proper that devotees take it as the most authentic of documents pertaining to the humanity as it ought to be properly understood and brought to bear on practical life. 

The whole of the Ramayana is an Epic of humanity. Humanity does not mean mankind but that which particularly characterises human nature. It is in this sense, Sri Rama is oftentimes called the paragon of humanity, an example of the perfection of human nature. This perfection of human nature is not inclusive of the foibles of man in his lower endowments. In the majestic words of Valmiki with which the Epic commences, we are given a description of what this perfection of humanity is, as an answer given by sage Narada to “The whole of the Ramayana is an Epic of humanity. Humanity does not mean mankind but that which particularly characterises human nature. It is in this sense, Sri Rama is oftentimes called the paragon of humanity, an example of the perfection of human nature.” history or life-story of Rama. Surprising though it may appear, this master-poet who composed the Ramayana was an illiterate brute in his earlier life, but suddenly transformed into a Master whose genius is today regarded as incomparable in the history of Sanskrit literature. This total transformation by a magical touch, as it were, was given to Valmiki by another genius, sage Narada. 

One genius created another genius, and this genius has written an Epic, stirring the soul of man, on a genius of human perfection, Sri Rama Himself. And so, even today a contemplation on these a question put by sage Valmiki as to who is the ideal of human nature. “Whom do you think, O sage, is the perfect embodiment of humanity in this world and can you give me an example of such a perfection?” was the question put by Valmiki to Narada. And then, Narada commences a dignified description of a personality whom today we know and adore as Sri Rama. That majestic feature of bodily personality, the ideal perfection of physiological structure, the profundity and beauty of understanding, dignity of behaviour, exemplary nature of conduct - to put it in one word ‘perfection’ as conceived or as conceivable by the human understanding - this is what comes forth as an answer from the great sage Narada. aspects of holiness and perfection brings us into contact with a unique feature, namely We have two Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. 

These two parallel movements of Epic stories, known as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, give us a complete picture of the process of the advancement of the human soul towards its Perfection. It is not to be taken as a surprise that the culture of Bharatavarsha is a culture of the Spirit, so that anything that is said and done or believed in, is directly or indirectly connected with the march of the Spirit to the recognition of its Perfection. We have no other culture here except the culture of the Spirit. A connecting of the visible phenomena with what underlies the phenomena, is the significance of the Epics. And these two master-strokes of genius given to us by Valmiki and Vyasa, in the form of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, give us the religion of India. There were some over-enthusiastic orientalists in the West particularly, and sometimes in the East also, who began to believe that the culture of India is in the Vedas and the Upanishads. 

But, if we bestow a little thought on the actual situation, it will become clear that if the Vedas and the Upanishads were the sole basis of the culture of India, the Indian culture would have been wiped out like the cultures of Egypt, Greece or Rome. These cultures are only names to us now. They do not actually exist now. They vanished from the process of time on account of their inflexibility, their rigidity of character and their emphasis on a particular aspect of human life. If, as people often believe, the dicta of the Vedas and Upanishads alone were to be taken as the foundation of Indian culture, there would have been no Indian culture today. It would have gone to the winds, because what we have in the Vedas and the Upanishads are ‘principles’, like theorems of geometry or algebra, which are wonderful enough, which are the basis of all scientific approaches and discoveries. 

Nevertheless, they are principles, and the masses do not live on principles. When we talk or when we move about in the streets, we do not think of the principles behind speaking and walking. We work with the peculiar manifestation of our personality which is spontaneous in its nature. Principles somehow have the aroma of fixity and rigidity. They cannot be changed. But, emotion seeks a spontaneous expression of itself and this feature, this peculiarity of human nature was taken notice of by the sages of the Vedic times themselves. In the Srimad-Bhagavata, one among the eighteen Puranas, at the very commencement itself, we are told that Vyasa felt the necessity of composing the Mahabharata and the Srimad-Bhagavata. And for a similar reason, was the Ramayana composed. We believe what we see with our eyes, what we hear with our ears, what we perceive with the other organs, and what we feel from our hearts. We are incapable of believing anything else. Pure principles, though they may be eternal facts, are incapable of evoking the emotion of man. 

Hence, even the elite and the intelligentia of mankind today think of God in the Epic parlance, and not in the Upanishadic parlance. When you and I think of God, we think of the Epic God only and not the Upanishadic God or Vedic God. The meaning is that we think of a humanised relationship between ourselves and the Creator. When we dehumanise the Creator or take Him above what the human mind is capable of conceiving, the relationship between man and God gets snapped, and the vast majority amongst us, excepting perhaps the very few spiritual heroes, fall down to a level lower than that of the human being. So the need was felt to bring home to the mind of man, that concept of Perfection and Divinity, which can be contained in the human mind, in the form of human perfection, animated by the force of that which is superhuman. Such was the personality of Sri Rama, the superhuman element infusing a personality of a human being. It is difficult to understand this peculiar blend, just as it is difficult to understand Masters, Sages and adepts in Yoga and even spiritual life. This is because they are a blend of what we see and what we cannot see. What we see is the form of their lives and what we cannot see is the essence, the meaning and the significance of what they live. 

To be continued .....

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