Wednesday, 23 January 2019

Hanumans Ramayana

I was telling my daughter about a discussion yesterday on the need for claiming credit, versus the need to surrender the action, refuse credit and move on.
She told me that after Valmiki wrote the Ramayana, he saw that Hanuman had also written a Ramayana. That was far superior, and he told Hanuman, "Your Ramayana is infinitely superior. You have lived with Rama and Sita. No one who can read this will ever read my Ramayana." And at that, without a second thought, Hanuman tore up his manuscript.
I asked her where she had read this. She said it was in the original Valmiki Ramayanam, as a valid commentary by an ancient scholar
So the bar rises higher. Not only giving up name and credit, but giving up the entire work itself sometimes ... aparigraha, non-possession.
కొత్తావకాయ ఘాటుగా, Neha Srivastava and 32 others
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    • Sunny Narang Aparna Krishnan Hanuman is Pawan Putra . Valmiki is a human , a murderer thief who transformed . You can aspire to be a Divine Being , that's your swadharma. No swadharma is superior inferior , it just is , we each of us can only fulfill our swadharma of our present life . In Gandhian terms all our talents , skills , inheritances are resources we are trustees of , in a way kshatriya of , so to protect , utilize the resources is our calling to the best of our intent and integrity . No knowledge by any jati or sampraday is thrown , it has to be learnt by dedication . Anyways supatra is a deep tradition , Hanuman gave up his Ramayan as he knew that Valmiki was a true bhakt and deserved the reward for his swadharmic journey . In fact Valmiki would have put this in to show that even the best telling is low in comparison to the experience of Rama . As Krishnamurti said on his deathbed that whatever I said or wrote was a lie , meaning never just follow the text , follow your own journey . Mostly the effort of others is misused manipulated by the lazy and greedy and not to call them out encourages adharma . It is upto the creator , perciever , inheritor to daan it , gift it to the deserving . That's his choice . To allow it to be stolen , or have no credit is the individuals swadharma . And I will accept that individuals choice . A guru cannot ever be forced to take a shishya , he will impart to who deserves it . Anyways everything is divine , we all just are nimitt or vehicles , but aware vehicles and who flows with us and our expression is up to our awareness and vision .
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    • Aparna Krishnan I am speaking of the path for each one of us. Of the need to surrender the creation. Even as we practice our svadharma.

      As my village friends would tell me. We need to strive for our Dharma. What another does is his karma.

      In taking credit we slip from that final collective purpose of stepping beyond mamakara and ahankara. It could be a journey of lifetime s and yet the awareness is critical. 

      The entire Karma yoga is about surrender of the sense of doership.
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    • Sunny Narang There is no doer , we only allow life to flow through us , but it flows in billions of unique ways and each uniqueness is to be celebrated . That is leela . Krishna dances with each in their truths . To celebrate each uniqueness we need to give ourselves to that Krishna and understand that we , each one of us is there to nurture each ones swadharma . Like in Ayurveda each one has its balance to doshas . We come with our past karmic dna . And to go beyond we need to do spiritual effort . That effort is not possible to be taken or given , it's credit is ours only . Karma is ultimate credit .
    • Rahul Banerjee Interesting. Never heard this before but a net search reveals that it is common knowledge among scholars of ramayana
    • Aparna Krishnan My daughter said that Valmiki did not write it. It is part of the commentary.
    • Aparna Krishnan @Sunny, agree. And yet the purpose through lifetimes is to reduce mamakara and ahankara. That is all that Karma yoga is about.

      And the entire notion of possession, including the notion of credit, and even more so of awards etc, works against this. It       lowers us.

      Yes, we come with our prarabdha and our vasanas. I am speaking of the path we need to be aware of.

      My understandins here come from a learned teacher of the shastras, and which have got strength ed by seeing it lived in the village.
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    • Rahul Banerjee Aparna Krishnan since the ramayana and valmiki are both mythical it hardly matters if hanuman is also added☺.
    • Aparna Krishnan We call it Ituhasa. 'That which happened.'

      Western ers call it mythology.
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    • Sunny Narang Aparna Krishnan there is no one path . There is nothing universal about ones spiritual journey . There are multiple readings . And for one on the moksha path in this life your understanding is one , but you have no way of knowing how karma or play is performed with the attitude of non karma . In world life is about choices and Shiva refuses to come as Maya makes him make those choices . In the in world one needs to do many things which sannyasi will not do . Thats the sannyasi path . I have nothing against it . That's their choice . But a society with only sannyasi will not exist because there is nothing like a universal or collective realization . That's a modern and Marxist concept . Look at the various schools they are known via their Guru , that is credit or differentiation to pathways , each was realized one . Buddha or Mahavira , Ramanuja or Shankracharya . The moment you take a body there is credit to that soul as identified by that body . That is the catch 22 of existence , whatever we say or do will be credited to us whether we ourselves take credit or not . It will be credited in negative ways mostly . So the path is truly to follow the truth as shown to you within , I do not believe it's possible for any other to become your path .
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    • Ramanan Jagannathan i really feel that we should use the word 'ithihasa' and not the western 'mythology'. reclaiming and understanding our past also starts with using the right native words and not the borrowed ones.
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    • Aparna Krishnan @Sunny, the Karma Yoga Ch. 2, BG, was given by a Kshatriya to Kshatriya in the thick of battle. It is not a manual for sanyasis.

      Verse 47 is also about surrendering the sense of doership.
    • Sunny Narang It was given in Vishwa roopa form , the darshan to the divine as a possibility but only as a moment before Mahabharat continues . And the kshatriya doesn't go to heaven . We will suffer every karma , good or bad in further lifetimes . There is nothing universal never was never will be . Each can take whatever we want out of the message . The texts are great for opening possibilities not commanding anything
    • Sunny Narang As I say each of us will read onto the text what is our life 's swadharma . No text is above life , never can be . That is the joy of life .
    • Rahul Banerjee The BG describes all the various paths to truth and says they are all valid and most importantly that even a partial journey on any of these paths counts.
    • Aparna Krishnan The paths are many in the sense that names are many..

      Karma yoga, detachment from the sense of doership, the learning to surrender the action at the feet of the lord, and to accept the results as ishwara prasadamis the path for reducing raga, dvesha a      nd ahankara, mamakara.

      That stabilizes the mind for focussed understanding. Upasana yoga takes one on this path. And then one can enter the learning s of Gyana na Yoga. In reality all go on parallel y. Everything comes under Bhakthi Yoga, and with out Bhakthi none of these are valid.

      Everything that strengthens the sense of My Act, deviates us from this path.
    • Sunny Narang Aparna Krishnan there is no way anyone can know who is full of "myness of action" . The one who says there is no me can be the biggest ego slave and someone who says it's my doing can within have no connect with ego. That's my main point , there is no one outside who can judge . A Mother Teresa is doing the work of God and all credit goes to her and she says it's not mine while secretly loving the Saintliness . For me it's each ones truth to themselves . It's between their God or path and them.
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    • Aparna Krishnan Agree. No one can know. And no one needs to know.

      This is the path we all walk in one or many life times.
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    • Aparna Krishnan Morning satsang !
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    • Sunny Narang Aparna Krishnan many will be happy to read it .
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    • Aparna Krishnan Even if not a soul reafs it, it's ok. 
      As Hanuman would say ....
    • Ramanan Jagannathan Aparna ji, we say this mantra at the end of sandhyavandan - Kayena Vacha Mana-Sendriyair Va
      Budhyaatmana Va Prakruteh Swabhavath
      Karoami Yadyad Sakalam Parasmai
      Narayana Yeti Samarpayami
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    • Aparna Krishnan Yes, that's one of the finest verses.
    • Sethuraman Pasupathy Sunny Narang Tagore puts it nicely in his play Gardner which I recollect (unable to retrieve quote) ..... " even as I bring my garland of flowers (poems ) as an offering to you, O' lord, there is a secret desire in me that people will come and admire me for this"...
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    • ऋषि दशोत्तर though this post is out of context with the original post you are referring to but refers to a great incident nonetheless. This post could had some context if there would had been a thief who stole The Ramayana from bajrangbali and tried to usurp the credit and publish in his own name. फिर हनुमान जी जो करते - और जब वो करते - तो राम जी की कृपा से किसी के मन में एक तनिक भर भी illusion नहीं रह जाता
    • Aparna Krishnan Once one relinquishes ownership on ones work, it ceases to be ones work.

      If I pain a beautiful picture, and accept that I was the instrument of god, that work is gods. 

      And then the very idea of 'stealing' it takes a different understanding.

      Anyway, as I said in that post also, these are the understandings I have received, and which I stand by. I know that is the path to walk on. I stunble, fall, takes many steps backward, lose my way. And yet, I know that this is the direction to advance on.
    • Aparna Krishnan Every patent, every award, every watermark, every Facebook Like (!) takes us away from that path. Unless we accept that we are not the doer.
    Write a reply...

  • Arindam Ghosh This really happened with Chitanya Mahaprabhu. Even before he became Chaitanya. He wrote a treatise on NayaShastra far superior than one of his fellow students and seeing him sad threw it in the river Ganges.
    Write a reply...

  • Balaniveditha Surenthirababu Thanks for this knowledge
    Write a reply...

  • Sudha Gupta Very enlightening discussion Like the one of rope and snake You don't see them at the same time Aparnaji
    Write a reply...

  • Nitesh Kothari So nice to hear one of the best example for Aprigrah.
    Thx
    • Aparna Krishnan Yes, a new bar for aparigraha. For giving up of mamakara, the sense of mine.
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