Tulsi Ramayana: Bal Kanda, doha 196 onward — the naming of the four princes
Don't define yourself in the terms of the world.
Don't define yourself in terms of your body, your senses, your mind, your prāṇas,
your wealth, your house, your popularity and your
relations don't define yourself on the all the.
So every day when you sleep all this moves away from you.
So deep down, try simple understanding.
I'm not the body, I'm not the mind, I'm not the intellect, I'm not the ego.
I am Saccidānanda—existence, consciousness, and bliss absolute.
nīlāmbuja-śyāmala-komalāṅgaṃ
sītā-samāropita-vāma-bhāgam
pāṇau mahā-sāyaka-cāru-cāpaṃ
namāmi rāmaṃ raghuvaṃśa-nātham
Adorations to Lord Rāma, whose complexion is like a blue lotus,
who is very tender and delightful in appearance.
Sītā is seated on His left side,
and He is carrying a powerful bow and arrow in His hands.
We are in Bālakāṇḍa, moving towards Dohā 196.
Lord Rāma has incarnated in four aspects: Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, Bharata, and Śatrughna.
You are at this stage of immense rejoicing
within the palace in Ayodhyā and all over the world.
Good news has broken.
Rāma has incarnated.
tehi avasara jo jehi bidhi āvā, dīnha bhūpa jo jehi mana bhāvā
During that time, King Daśaratha opened his treasury
and generously distributed his wealth.
Whosoever demanded or asked for anything was given.
Gaja, ratha, turaga, hema, go, hīrā.
These were the things in old-time history; these are considered the wealth:
elephants, chariots, horses, gold, cows, diamonds, pearls.
That's, I'm not focused on history, you see. I'm focused on subtle insight.
Elephant relates to faith-based energy when you have
inner confidence and walk like an elephant,
Let the dogs bark.
You are abused by people criticizing you.
by obstacles around you, but simply amused. The elephant goes his own way.
And this simile is further elaborated.
when you hear these stories of Bhīma having
the strength of ten thousand elephants.
Ratha, chariots, implying bringing integration into your personality: allow
your horses—the senses—to be under the control of your mind, the reins.
Your intellect should not do drunk driving; it should be in order.
So putting things in order.
Their chariot
And the whole picture is of jñāna-yajña.
If you become the source of jñāna-yajña,
And that's what your objective is.
You allow elephant energy to rise in people around you.
bring their chariots in order.
and render their horses healthier.
that can follow the order. Horses are senses.
Gold
Spiritual value
allow divine qualities to develop, that's gold.
All other way
values they are
not so bright and not so
Unshakeable type, gold remains shining even in adverse even when melted etcetera.
And
Cows represent Upaniṣadic wisdom.
If you can't give cows, at least give them cow milk.
bring the wisdom of the Upaniṣads to nourish
People
And hīrā, the diamond of spiritual wisdom.
So these are the profound
Objects of charity
mana saṅtoṣe sabanhi ke jaham̐ taham̐.
dehi asīsa, sakala tanaya cira jīvahum̐ tulasidāsa ke īsa
the king
brought about
contentment in the heart of people.
His charity produced contentment.
for the stutter meeting.
Contentment, santoṣa.
That's one of the great gatekeepers.
gatekeepers for the palace of liberation.
If you want to enter into that palace.
You have to
Please
the one of these gatekeepers.
By pleasing one gatekeeper, all others are so interrelated that they are all pleased.
But learn to please them not by
by wrong means.
Now just to give you the idea.
Santoṣa is contentment.
And I have already related to you. It's not false contentment.
It's a dynamic quality.
If you have santoṣa, you will put forth all your energy in the right direction.
If you don't have santoṣa,
Then your energies you hold under nervous tension.
We're looking for, is it going to give me what I want? Then I will put my.
It will not
I will
achieve them
Santoṣa is a profound understanding that you lack nothing.
So don't compare yourself with others.
Trust God. He has given you all that is needed for your evolution.
So therefore, utilize what you have.
and wait what comes to you. It's wow.
Another gatekeeper is śama, serenity.
allowing your mind
not to swing to
changing situations that present themselves in your daily life.
But allow your mind to be calm, serene.
that quality can be developed by satsaṅga, study of scriptures, japa.
As you gradually begin to taste the joy
of discovering
the immense potentiality of your soul.
And the whole project of discovery so profound and joyous.
that happenings of the world have very little meaning.
Clouds and their all their activities have very little meaning for the sky.
If that type of
Development, movement commences. That's called path of serenity.
You don't allow your mind to just let it swing.
The trees have to swing, but swing in order to be rooted.
Not to be scattered.
So that's the quality of śama. Varying situations, they are like waves.
But you are diving into the ocean.
Satsaṅga—good association.
Satsaṅgatve niḥsaṅgatvam, that I have discussed many times.
Satsaṅga allows you to
develop that subtle
Aspiration
Every soul has an instinctive urge to attain saccidānanda.
And satsaṅga awakens that urge, puts it in the right direction.
tāta svarga apabarga sukha dhariya tulā ek aṅga,
All the pleasures and all the prosperities, all the rejoicings.
of this world as well as
heavenly worlds, put them all together on one side of a weighing scales.
And few moments of satsanga that has rung the bell within your heart for
enlightenment, put it on the other.
And that outweighs all, because all this has only
one defect, just a little, perishable.
The other one, he turned it immortal.
So that's a big difference.
And vicāra, vicāra is opening the mind to understand.
Human mind faces so many things.
But what is most direct?
Most vital
That escapes the mind.
To make one understand you are not the body, you are soul.
It takes a long process, volumes have been written.
Lots of discipline are presented.
People can become great scholars reading all the Vedas.
And yet,
simple understanding that the real you
has nothing to do with the world of time, space, causation.
That's one point.
Another point, this entire world process.
that extends before your mind from beginningless
millions and trillions of years.
Also
going to stay on, unending.
The entire world process is I am.
Each time when you go to sleep,
the Divine Guru, God,
gives you simple lessons.
In deep sleep,
The entire world moves away from you.
And you don't miss anything.
implying the world has no bearing upon you.
Don't define yourself in the terms of the world.
Don't define yourself in the terms of your body.
your senses, your mind, your prāṇas.
your wealth, your house, your popularity, and your
relations don't define yourself on the all this.
Because every day when you sleep, all this moves away from you.
So deep down, try simple understanding.
I'm not the body, I'm not the mind, I'm not the intellect, I'm not the ego.
I am Saccidānanda—Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss Absolute.
The next big lesson that you receive every night while sleeping, you suddenly slip
from sleep into dream world.
You know, when while dreaming,
The dream world is a replica of day-to-day life.
You have all that same situation.
You're worrying about things that happened in the past.
You're worrying about how things will happen in future.
If in waking state you have 5 children, in dream you can have 10 children.
I'm joking, but it's the reality of the dream.
And people who don't exist, you are exceedingly worried about them.
You go through accidents.
Find yourself terrorized.
as well as you get amazing prosperity.
And,
How big is the dream world? How many people live in there?
All that
has emerged out of your consciousness.
All that is you.
lying on the bed.
follow that to come to higher level of understanding.
Exactly in the same way, all the world that your mind has conceived of.
All the world you have studied
gather different types of knowledge from so many branches of science etcetera.
All that world
I am
I'm not referring to this I am, all I am, the only one I am.
So that's
Profound lesson of Vedānta is being given to you day by day in a very simple manner.
But the mind doesn't grasp it.
Vicāra is that process leading you to understand
the point in a profound way and assimilate it.
So if you bring in your life,
And all these qualities, serenity.
Santoṣa, contentment; serenity is śama; santoṣa is contentment; satsaṅga, good
association; vicāra, Vedāntic reflection.
All these are inseparable.
described through four points just like a person raises his hand, look.
Showing four fingers, but four fingers are pointing to the same goal.
So I became diverted by that santoṣa word.
Man Santosh Sabanike
King Daśaratha
promoted that great quality of contentment with people around him.
Tulasīrāmāyaṇa has been written in, and all scriptures.
If you are highly advanced, you draw profound knowledge.
But if you are not, you are still drawing certain
Instructions
in in simple terms. Don't give gifts.
Those types of gifts that will make the receivers mad.
In other words, don't give them drugs and marijuana and things of that nature.
I'm speaking allegorical terms as well as practical terms.
In other words,
If you are giving advice, don't give wrong advice.
for some egoistic purpose.
or whatsoever you are giving.
I will elaborate on that as the whole story is weight.
So all those people receiving these gifts being highly contented.
Okay
drenched with enjoyment.
the
bestowed blessings.
for all the four children, babies.
May these
children of Daśaratha
Live long
Chirajeeva hoon
Jite raho
kachuka divasa bīte ehi bhām̐ tī, jāta na jānia dina aru rātī
Some time passed.
and
People were especially Daśaratha and the queens.
And of course, all people
associated with this Rāma's birth
speaking from a very advanced point of view, the whole world
rejoiced Rāma's birth.
at the birth of the four.
divine aspects of Rāma.
In that rejoicing, they forgot about day or night.
And that's simply simple truth.
If you are doing something extremely fascinating to your mind.
Families involved with
marriage, celebrations, or any type of great festivity, birthdays, or so forth.
It doesn't matter, day or night.
You're busy counting the things that you have
to give even in the middle of the night.
Time passes on, who cares.
and profounder truth. Time relates to the mind. It is not the truth.
Beyond mind, there is no time.
Sleep is your illustration.
And therefore, if inward peace and joy has been restored,
I'm talking about even in degrees, if you don't have to be absolutely enlightened,
but to the extent you develop that inner peace.
You are not burdened by time.
Time passes on and you don't go on building stress.
nāmakarana kara avasaru jānī, bhūpa boli paṭhae muni gyānī
And now came the occasion for the naming ceremony,
Nāmakaraṇa Saṃskāra
kari pūjā bhūpati asa bhāṣā, dharia nāma jo muni guni rākhā
inake nāma aneka anūpā, maim̐ nṛpa kahaba svamati anurūpā
King Daśaratha
having adored
Sage Vasiṣṭha, who is the muni.
Said, "O muni, O sage,"
Please give suitable name to my child.
That's Rāma
And Sage said, okay.
This divine being
has many names.
I will give him one name.
according to my wisdom, according to my intellect.
jo ānaṅda siṅdhu sukharāsī, sīkara tem̐ trailoka supāsī
so sukha dhāma rāma asa nāmā, akhila loka dāyaka biśrāmā
that
Absolute Self.
who is the ocean of bliss.
an abode of joy.
Just a drop from that ocean.
makes the three Lokas
Happy
His name is Rāma, the abode of joy and bestower of peace
to all the lokas, all the planes, all the universe.
Now this Rāma mantra, the Rāma mantra here,
is the same as Brahman of the Upaniṣads.
Upaniṣads
Evolved, first they evolved the name Om.
Om became more
Abstract
With Om, there is no story about Om.
Where was it born?
So it requires a totally different type of mind to become fascinated by Om.
Sages therefore
came up with another.
Rāma
With the only difference is, Om starts with O, Ra
starts, Rāma starts with Ra, all end with M.
Om Rāma, M is Ānanda, Absolute.
or sound is the bījākṣara of the navel center.
Agnibīja
And when people talk about kriyā, yoga, etcetera,
that kriyā starts from the navel center.
the real spiritual involvement.
In the navel center, it's also called karma-granthi.
If
That navel center is spiritually charged. If kuṇḍalinī were to pass through it,
and awaken that center.
Soul will become detached from the body.
You will be in the body, but you will not view yourself, I am the body.
You will have bodyless experience even though living with the body.
That's with the Ra, you open up kuṇḍalinī through the navel center.
With the A-M, ājñā-cakra opens.
And sahasrāra-cakra begins to shower all the nectar.
Rāma as a mantra
has immense impact upon your nervous system.
even without going through spirituality.
Languages use the word Rāma automatically by instinct.
All over the world in every literature.
R and M are involved.
I have not to elaborate to you.
That's Abhirāma, panorama.
Panorama. Rome.
Ramjan.
There is there is a language where R and M do not shine forth.
because all languages
Follow the subtle science, universal science.
So that's the name of Rāma.
Rāma being
Rāma representing Brahman as well as many stages of Brahman, many aspects.
beginning with Saguṇa Sākāra. Rāma as His story is being told, He is Saguṇa Sākāra.
Saguṇa Sākāra means He has a form.
And you can come close to Rāma, be touched by Rāma, you touch Rāma and so forth.
And that aspect of Rāma is highlighted.
in the Rāmāyaṇa to make people understand that God is not out of your reach.
develop that type of
mental understanding, mental reflection.
And that we will gradually detail on that.
So as he was describing, let me conclude on that. Saguṇa Sākāra.
That's how you allow.
your Godward movement to commence.
Then you come to next level.
Saguṇa Nirākāra
Even in human relations, when you are separated from
someone, you wait for the person to come.
Seeing the body is that saguṇa sākāra
But after a while, you don't go on staring on the person from the toes to the head.
You become to communicate with the feelings.
Person is there, but that doesn't matter. It's a feeling aspect.
That's called saguṇa nirākāra.
Guṇa is there, all the qualities, but nirākāra, ākāra doesn't matter.
you know, someone, some dear relative, your son has come from
a distance or after several years you met the son and in the
beginning you showed tremendous affection and joy.
But afterwards, you are not constantly looking at his hair.
Why do you keep that hair like that? I'm joking, but make things clear.
And the third level which reaches the climax, Nirguṇa Nirākāra.
Even saguṇa, great concepts of God that come to your mind. Sac-cid-ānanda.
God is
Infinite
Existence, knowledge, bliss, absolute. Thousand names.
And devotees who know 1000 names, see, don't you know that?
They say only 5 names.
That's how we have learned. I'm joking, but to make you understand. Concepts.
are not the reality. No matter how best the concepts.
Brahman defined as Sat. Sat is a most wonderful definition.
But it is a concept in your mind.
Knowing Brahman is Sat, we have not attained sākṣātkāra.
You attain sākṣātkāra when all concepts move away along with the mind.
That realization of Brahman cannot be brought into your world.
So
This divine baby will be known Rāma.
akhila loka dāyaka biśrāmā
He is the giver of peace, śānti.
to to the entire world.
When you talk, the entire world focuses on every individual.
The world itself doesn't have any reality other than human beings
using their brain and nervous system and trying to experience what
you experience through your brain and nervous system.
That's the world.
But what?
Whatever world is experienced by all souls.
That world is always understand is the same. I am pure consciousness.
Whatever type of news or
programs that you receive through your so many
Cell Phones
or your baby computers.
Each computer is giving a whole different type
of news and different type of contents.
But the energy behind all computers have nothing to do with all the information
that comes through your computer.
Brahman is beyond
Though Brahman is the source, Rāma is the source of all.
Nothing can be possible without Rāma
But,
At essential state, Rāma is beyond all.
That point has to be Nirguṇa Nirākāra
akhila loka dāyaka biśrāmā, all the lokas.
In every plane, there are three planes.
Bhūrloka, the plane of practical reality.
Bhuvarloka, the plane of your reality based on your feelings, sentiments.
Svarloka
the plane of
Intellectual understanding, intellect and ego.
All these three lokas.
They are permeated by Rāma
Rāma is the reality behind them.
And when the intellect comes to realize Rāma by intuitional
transformation, that's called sākṣātkāra.
And prior to that, when your heart begins to love Rāma,
Rāma-bhakti.
And prior to that, if you bring about purification in your karmas,
All these three are interrelated and I will detail upon it gradually.
So that's the name Rāma given to baby Rāma, the
first-born child of Daśaratha and Kauśalyā.
bisva bharana poṣana kara joī, tākara nāma bharata asa hoī
son of Kaikeyī, Bharata.
The word Bharata means one who sustains all the three planes, nourishes them.
sugandhiṃ puṣṭivardhanam
And what is that? He's the embodiment of bhakti, devotion.
So bhakti, if bhakti develops within you, then
All the three planes are nourished in a profound way.
So much so that you don't have to worry about liberation.
And the general saying is, "mukti bhakti kī dāsī hai."
You don't worry about liberation.
Previously you thought liberation is like a big queen,
so majestic you are frightened to reach.
But if we have bhakti,
liberation will come crawling to us.
These all these abusing literature has come from sages.
So therefore the role of Bharata
That role is very profound in the Rāmāyaṇa.
And therefore entire India was fascinated by that particular role,
Bharata.
The literal meaning is bha relates to bhā. Bhā means light—
light in all aspects:
light of love,
light of knowledge,
light of practical reality,
all light.
They proceed from love of God.
And it is that love that sustains all creatures instinctively—the love, even
with the animals and birds,
How little babies, baby animals, baby birds.
How they become fascinated by their mother.
The mother goes on a big tour without holding cell
phones, and remembers to come back to her baby,
lovingly pouring down into the beak of the baby.
See all that work goes on out of love.
That love, when purified,
it becomes love of God. It is God's love that has become
distracted, becoming manifold.
Just as the sun becomes manifold, reflecting in so many jars,
the love of God has become
turned into millions of aspects.
ek dil ke tukde hazār hue.
The heart broke into a thousand pieces.
kuch idhar gire, kuch udhar gire. Sab failure, sab failure.
That's the type of world the soul goes through.
In every embodiment, you had so many near and dear ones,
and when you kick the bucket and get into another embodiment, all the pieces of your
heart—you don't know where they've gone: kuch idhar gire, kuch udhar gire.
But instead of going after the pieces, understand the love of God.
Again, the moral is not to move away from the pieces. Make peace with the pieces.
In brief,
understand that you are loving God through your children, through your relatives,
through your friends, through humanity.
Loving God—any form of love has no validity unless you know that it comes
from God and moves towards God.
jāke sumirana tem̐ ripu nāsā, nāma satruhana beda prakāsā
And Sumitrā's twin children,
one is known as Lakṣmaṇa, another is Śatrughna. This one is Śatrughna, who
always went close to Bharata.
Bharata and Śatrughna became an inseparable pair;
Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa became inseparable.
That again has a mystic psychology behind it.
Śatrughna—the name śatru relates to enemies,
and Śatrughna relates to one who destroys the enemies.
But the enemies are kāma, krodha, lobha, moha,
mada, and mātsarya—the six impurities,
perverted passion,
anger, greed,
pride, and so forth.
that spirit of removing the malas—that aspect
of God within you is called Śatrughna.
Śatrughna promotes purity of heart.
And another way to understand: Śatrughna plays the role of karma-yoga.
If you are bringing Rāma within your heart, then you
are bringing all the four brothers within you.
Śatrughna turns your action into karma-yoga.
And karma-yoga purifies your heart.
Bharata aspect begins to shine.
Bhakti begins to shine.
Bhakti endows you, promotes the will aspect that is represented by Lakṣmaṇa.
And Lakṣmaṇa becomes
the source, the fountain source of all divine
characteristics of spiritual progress. In simple terms, daivī sampat.
And that sampat puts you close to Rāma.
When daivī sampat advances, tattva-jñāna develops.
Rāma shines, which is wisdom.
So coming back to the storyline:
lacchana dhāma rāma priya sakala jagata ādhāra,
guru basiṣṭa tehi rākhā lachimana nāma udāra
And Lakṣmaṇa, who is very dear to Rāma, is the sustainer of the world process,
Following the allegorical story of the Purāṇas, Lakṣmaṇa is Śeṣanāga, the cosmic
serpent with thousands of hoods, on whom the entire universe is sustained.
The picture is hard to understand, but the simple point to understand is that
all world experience is based on thought waves of the mind.
There is no reality, no object.
It's a thought wave; it's the mind that makes you experience physical objects,
physicality—even in a dream you touch people
and describe what you feel.
All that comes from the mind.
Therefore, when anyone is rendered unconscious by an injection or whatever,
immediately, so many things are done to the body and they are not aware of it;
the body doesn't exist.
It's the mind. That mind, the cosmic mind, holds Lord Viṣṇu, and that's it.
Figurative description.
In other words, when you turn, when you think of God,
you are bringing God in, sustained by the vṛttis of your mind, the thought waves.
But you make a distinction. Your mind has little thought waves.
Cosmic mind has all thought waves.
These are boundless hoods of the Śeṣa serpent, what is called Hiraṇyagarbha.
That Hiraṇyagarbha enfolds Saguṇa Brahman.
In the storyline, Viṣṇu is always sleeping like that on Śeṣanāga.
That Śeṣanāga, which in practical day-to-day life of
sādhanā plays the role of dhyāna, meditation.
Meditation enfolds, as it were, the divine realization.
Without meditation, there is no realization.
But meditation has to be understood.
Meditation doesn't really mean that we will always
be in a steady pose, in a cross-legged position.
It is a process of internal understanding, an inner flow
of divine feeling, an inner flow of divine understanding.
And that Lakṣmaṇa, how much Lakṣmaṇa is operating through you depends upon how
many good qualities you have developed.
And so from the very word Lakṣmaṇa comes lakṣaṇa, the Hindi word lakṣaṇa.
And it is used in all branches of practical reality.
Given in the hospitals, 'What are the lakṣaṇa of this patient?
What are the symptoms?' They are lakṣaṇa.
When you are practicing sādhanā, 'Am I making progress?
What are the lakṣaṇas of my progress?'
Lakṣaṇa relates to characteristics; it gives you a diagnosis, whether it is
positive or negative, whichever way.
So Lakṣmaṇa is the abode of good qualities, daivī sampat.
And thereby the entire world is sustained; the
whole world has a purpose for its existence. That purpose is
dharma, and the Lakṣmaṇa personality
brings out the situations that will lead dharma to victory.
Yato dharmas tato jayaḥ.
But how will dharma within you attain victory?
By developing those divine characteristics.
Dhare naam guru hriday vichari Veda tatva nipastava sutachari Munidhan jan sarbas
shiv prana Bal keli ras teh sukha mana
Thus the guru gave these four names and said, O King, these four sons of yours,
they are the essence of all the Vedas.
They are the wealth of sages and saints.
They are the supreme treasure for all devotees.
They are the very life and soul of Lord Śiva. And now,
you have all been given this amazing opportunity
to enjoy them as your children,
vātsalya-sukha.
And with this, I am concluding.
oṃ pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidaṃ
pūrṇāt pūrṇamudacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya
pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ