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Srimad Ramayana Tatthva Deepika - Ba:la Ka:nda (8)

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Ramanujamma Mudumbai • April 12, 2002 


Jai Srimannarayana!
Sri Jeeyar Thiruvadigale Saranam!


SriRamaÂ’s second friend is Sugreeva. SriRama goes
to him not as a friend but approaches him as a seeker
of protection. Lakshmana says:

"Sugreevam saranam gathaha
Sugreevam na:tha michchathi"

When Lakshmana says that SriRama sought SugreevaÂ’s
protection and accepted him as his prabhu, SriRama
agrees to it. Later SriRama takes the oath of
friendship with Sugreeva before the god of fire as
witness(agni-sakshi) and observes:

“Aekam duhkham sukham chanou”

oneness in joy and grief with his friend. Va:li was
SugreevaÂ’s brother and rival. As Vali troubled and
harassed Sugreeva, SriRama also regarded him as his
opponent and killed him from behind a tree unmindful
of all the blame he received from Vali and the
world. After ValiÂ’s death when Sugreeva grieved for
the demise of his brother, SriRama too grieved and shed
tears.
"sanja:tha bha:shpaha paravi:rahantha:"
One who finishes valiant , powerful enemies in the
war had shed tears. When Sugreeva hated Va:li He
too hated him. When sugreeva mourned for vali's death
SriRama too was grief-stricken. His closeness with
Sugreeva is astonishing. On reaching Lanka, seeing
Ra:vana standing on the terrace of a palace from the
outer reaches of the city , Sugreeva who was standing
beside SriRama, felt unbearable and leapt onto him all
of a sudden, without even asking SriRamachandra. He
wrestled with Ravana for sometime, came back and
stood beside SriRama again. SriRama tells Sugreeva:

“sugri:va! thvaya kinchith sama:panne: kim ka:ryam
si:thaya: mama?”
“If anything had happened to you, of what use is
Seetha to me?” The love and affection of SriRama on
Sugreeva is obvious in these words. His love for
him made Him just say, “if anything had happened!"
instead of actually saying ‘had you been killed’.
He could not utter those inauspicious words. Such
was SriRamaÂ’s incessant love for His friend who
was in no way comparable to Him by birth or
knowledge or lineage. That is the ‘sausi:lyam’
of SriRamachandra.

Vibheeshana, a demon, who was the brother of Ravana
that abducted Seetha was accepted by SriRama for
his mere words, “ra:ghavam saranam gathaha”.
SriRama granted him sarana:gathi though nobody
agreed. SriRama loved him not like a friend but
regarded him as his own brother. Thus in SriRamayana
SriRamaÂ’s dear friends were a tribal boat man,
a monkey that in forest and a demon with a different
attitude. In having them as His friends, His guna of
sausi:lya shone very brightly. Our elders mention
that sausi:lya is only the guna. This is the most
important attribute for a human being:

“gunyathe: a:varthyathe: punaha punaha ithi gunaha”.

A quality is that which is praised by all again
and again. SriRama as the incarnation of the lord
shone as a perfect human being in this world just
because of this chief attribute.

Lord Srimannarayana has taken birth as SriRama but
did not exhibit His Godliness (parathva). He carried
on as an ordinary human and exemplified in that. But
Va:lmiki’s question is “Who is that MAN in this
world now, who actually possesses ‘parathvam’”?
So the question “who is the gunavan” pertains to
the God too. He is omnipresent. That is His quality.
To support everyone and everything (de:va, manushya,
thiryak, stha:vara) both from inside and outside
is parathva. By asking “who is the gunavan”
Va:lmiki is actually questioning about parathvam.
Though parama:thma has innumerable attributes
like strength, knowledge etc., people who approach
Him and surrender to Him think sausi:lyam as His
foremost attribute. Hence sausi:lyam can be
regarded as the gunam. Parathva can be determined
by this quality only. Thus this is the most
important quality of all human beings too!



To be continued...

Jai Srimannarayana!
Ramanujamma Mudumbai


=============
ramanuja dasi
=============


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