Reinvent The Self!

Knowledge, vedas, science, logic, reasoning, intelligence! These all things or qualities were very well present in or very well known to Ravana if you remember. Ravana is also called Dashanana to signify his mastery on the knowledge.

Are these qualities or knowledge necessary or helps us to know Rama? Of course not! Otherwise Rama would not kill Ravana.

We have a fear, rooted deep within ourselves. As mentioned in the other blog, anger, greed, pride and so on… all these qualities are the derivatives of the root cause, that is, attachment. Fear is that we lose the object of the attachment, most often, our own identity, our ego! Ravana tried everything to preserve his identity. Fear is indeed that deeply rooted within!

We do whatever we do as a response to that fear. We study hard. We try to insure our future. We acquire wealth. We acquire knowledge. We acquire power. To get rid of that Fear. At least I am not able to recall anything that I do which is totally independent or unconditional. Therefore, these acts tend to be adharmik. Not selfless.

We often label a person as active. Perhaps because that person is active in responding to fear. We say, he/she is active, when we notice him engaging in all activities mentioned above. For example, exercising, studying, working, doing charity, etc.

We fear disease (Jarasandha) and therefore we exercise, do diet to achieve longevity. For that, we acquire knowledge about the disease, health, medicines, etc.

We fear or doubt that tomorrow we won’t be able to live, or earn or gather the resources required for longevity. Everything we do is to outlive ourselves. We invest, we work. Doubt is a part of fear. We doubt our abilities.

However, these so called active people are optimistic about the future, about their longevity, about their life, in general. Ravana means Roaring. Fearsome. Again enough to make others cry with fear. These people have ego. That ego, imparts fear. Fear evokes response in terms of actions.

What if we become inactive? Or lazy? Again it is because we want to preserve the state of inertia. We are, of course not happy with that state, the state of slumber, sleep, passivity. We fear to fight that state. Fear to fight with the disease. We doubt ourselves and our abilities so much that we give up fighting that disease or give up our fight to improve the situation. In short, we lose hope. We accept the situation by stopping to fight. This is not what is meant to be spiritual. We become proponents of Fate. We become Hopelessly pessimistic. Fatal.

These people are pessimistic about their life in general. Like Kumbhakarna. Kumbhakarna means pot like ears, signifying huge proportions enough to invoke Fear.

Active state is associated with optimism or hope or Rajas Guna. Passive state is associated with pessimism or hopelessness or Tamas Guna. Both these states are the result of the root cause Fear. Or Doubt. Naturally, actions they evoke are adharmik.

Ravana connotes state of being active whereas Kumbhakarna connotes the state of inactivity. Therefore Ravana could be the embodiment of Rajas while Kumbhakarna is embodiment of Tamas. One is hopefulness while the other is hopelessness!

That is why it’s Kumbhakarna who first has to die! Hopeless, pessimistic, idle and lazy life full of Tamas! Then, it’s Ravana who needs to die! Hopeful, optimistic, active life full of Rajas, to protect, preserve and grow our false identity, the ego. Only when these two die will the Vibheeshan within you be recognized and conferred upon Lanka by Lord Ram.

Having discussed much about Hope in the context of Fear and Adharma, let us now discuss Faith in the context of Dharma. You know by now who are we going to talk about in the next blog!