sunderkand

 

Sunder means beautiful, since Hanuman has a cute face he is called sunder, sunderkand is his story in search of Sita, the story of his awakening, his selflessness, his virtue and his deeds.

 

Hanuman is kapi / Vānara (a forest dweller) depicted as a monkey which symbolizes a restless mind, his story tells us that an individual who has achieved self-realization, with a controlled mind becomes useful to the lord

 

 

The allegory of the sunderkand

 

Sita represents the kundalini Shakti which is trapped in the muladhara (root) chakra, waiting to unite with the lord, the top chakra is north while the lower root chakra is at the south end and the journey of Hanuman is southwards towards the Kundalini

 

Motivation, self-realization and increase in consciousness

 

Ram had formed an alliance with the forest dwellers; he helped Sugriv by killing Bali from behind which seems to be an unrighteous act, it is said that when Ram reincarnated as Krishna, he had to pay back this karma when an forest dweller hunter shot him with an arrow, even God’s cannot escape karma

 

Now in turn the forest dwellers are helping Ram to search sita, someone has to cross the ocean and go to lanka to carry out the search, but who can carry out this seemingly impossible task; Jambavan, the king of the bears motivates Hanuman, he asks him to remember who he really is (note that The bear spirit animal is the energy of courage that replenishes you with power. This animal will take you through any challenging situation with your head up; the bear spirit animal personality makes you fearless—hence the allegory of a bear)

 

Hanuman had forgotten his true self, now he gets the self-realization; he is ready to leap

 

He prays to the God’s and celestial beings, he starts growing in size, for lord Ram’s successes, which signifies the increase in consciousness, he turns south, and under his force immovable mountains shook and with this the people also ascetics who had their abode in these mountains started fleeing leaving behind worldly pleasures, this signifies the unrest around when one achieves higher consciousness, he literally kicked the worldly life, huge trees uprooted along with him but fell and sank in the ocean—the world cannot keep up with the one of higher consciousness

 

He leaps southwards towards the kundalini Shakti which is trapped in the muladhara (root) chakra, he fly’s across the ocean the ‘abode of crocodiles’

 

He refused help from those who wanted him to rest for a while, since even taking rest was considered as an obstruction to him; on seeing hanuman flying in the sky Devas, gandharvas and danavas showered flowers on him, the sun did not scorch him, the wind served him with delightful breeze and all creatures praised him

 

He fought with the ones who blocked his path, surasa the mother of the nagas tested him too—the story of his encounter with surusa is explained in the sub-title—nature of women is written at the end

 

He reached the well protected city of lanka

 

He realized that only 4 beings on Earth could enter this forbidden City, it was not possible to overcome this city with strength alone. He encounters lankini—she said she herself is the city of lanka (the spirit of lanka)  he overcame her fulfilling the prophecy that when lankani the spirit of lanka falls down it was time for the end of the region, this is always the case when the spirituality is destroyed what follows is physical destruction

 

On entering the city; ravanas magnificent place appeared to hanuman like a turbulent ocean filled with crocodiles, sharks and whales and a variety of snakes even though what wealth possessed by vaishvakarma, kuber and indra—ravanas place had it all

 

 

The lesson for us in the episode when hanuman enters ravanas bedroom

 

After roaming the city of lanka, hanuman enters ravans palace, he enters his bedroom, there are chapters in the Ramayana which give describe the erotica of what hanuman saw

 

He saw the sensuous women sleeping, some of ravanas wifes in their intoxicated slumber got close to the mouths of other women thinking them to be ravanas, the others to out of their interest and love for ravana responded to such advances with love

 

Then there is a description of the various wines and meat kept, we wonder why such erotic description is given, the answer we get the answer from the thoughts in hanumans mind

 

The noble minded hanuman

 

Hanuman thought to himself that spying on the wifes of others in their inner chambers is definitely not as per dharma, further hanuman thinks—my graze towards these women, was not towards sensual pleasures and my intension was not to possess these women, another clever thought entered wise hanuman, which gave him clarity of vision towards the task ahead, all the loyal wifes of ravana were indeed seen by me but within my mind no ill intension towards them arose, it is indeed the mind which propels the sense organs to act either in auspicious or inauspicious ways and that the mind of mine is firmly established in righteousness

 

Such should be the character of a being as taught to us in the Ramayana

 

 

Never let despair (the state of having lost all hope) overcome you

 

Not finding sita in the inner chamber of ravana, hanuman begain to lose hope, but he soon overcame this, he told himself—freedom from despair is the root cause of prosperity, it is the cause of supreme bliss and it is definitely one which leads one on the path of attainment  

 

The freedom from despair is what makes human action fruitful and he continued his search

 

Hanuman finally finds sita in ashok vatika

 

Ashok is a type of tree and the meaning of ashok is without sorrow, yet sita was in a miserable plight in spite of being in ashok vatika, she was in a shabby physical state but having strength of character and rich only in her austerities

 

Hiding on a tree hanuman heard the conversation which sita had with ravana who had come there to persuade her to accept him willingly

 

Keeping a leaf as a border in front of ravan she gave him these wise teachings—there are no pious ones in this place neither you follow the righteous ones that is why your mind has become fickle and lacks proper conduct. In the hands of a king who is engaged in improper deeds even prosperous ad wealthy cities and kingdoms perish—bad behavior forebodes ill luck, man uses his good karma to enjoy but creates bad karma by evil deeds

 

Sita the entrapped kundalini will not give up her virtue in spite of surrounded by evil

Then Hanuman meets sita

 

 

The wise hanuman before leaving lanka wanted to collect all possible information of the strength of the enemy hence he started destructing ashok vatika

 

 

Like a sacrificial fire which cannot be destroyed by weapons he defeated most of the great warriors including the son of ravana as finally inderjit was sent after ravana briefed him on the tactics of war and assessing ones enemy, inderjit fired a Brahmastra to bound hanuman, even thogh hanuman who assesses before he acts had been blessed to overcome this he decided not to evoke the power given by Brahma so that he had the opportunity to see the demon king

 

He was brought in front of ravana, hanuman too gave some wise words to ravana—the fruit of dharma does not occur to one who has reached the culmination of adharma, unrighteousness will destroy the fruit of righteousness

 

The words of righteous conduct had no effect on ravana, he ordered that the tail of hanuman be lit up and he paraded in the city since he could not be given a death sentence because he was a messenger (on advice of vibishan, ravanas righteous brother)

 

Hanuman destroys lanka

 

His tail on fire, hanuman takes a gigantic form once again increasing in size, he destroys and burns down the city and kills the army of lanka, the only place which is not destroyed and which stands intact amidst destruction is the house of vibishan the devotee of Ram

 

Sita prays for hanuman and the fire on his tail does him no harm it stays cool

 

Hanuman returns from the south to the north, crumpling the hill he leapt from

 

The good news is conveyed to Ram

 

Hanuman approaches the shore screaming in excitement, on hearing the happy sounds the monkeys get the message that sita is alive and found, the monkeys in their great joy climb up the trees and shake the tree branches just like clothes and welcome him with folded hands  

 

The army of forest dwellers, monkeys march happily to convey the good news to Ram on their way they shatter the honey collecting garden of king sugreev, but they are forgiven, because once you are on a path of doing good deeds towards the lord, ones small mistakes are easily forgiven

 

On reaching the place where Ram stayed, the monkeys wanted to come close as near as possible to see the face of Ram

 

The nature of women

 

With the story of surusa (the mother of nagas) who tested hanuman by blocking his path and wanting to consume him; at first hanuman grows in size and to counter this every time surusa grows double in size to the form hanuman had taken, finally hanuman reduces to a tiny size enters the mouth of surusa and exits out, signifying that one cannot directly defeat the feminine energy but sometimes one has to bow down

 

Sita

 

She had the lord with her; it is written in the ramayan

 

जनकसुता जग जननि जानकी । अतिसय प्रिय करुनानिधान की ॥

ताके जुग पद कमल मनावउँ ॐ जासु कृपा निरमल मति पावउँ ॥

 

janakasuta jag janani janaki. atisay priy karunanidhan ki॥

take jug pad kamal manavun. jasu kripan niramal mati pavun

 

Meaning that she is the one who is the universal creator, the mother of all beings and with her mercy ones intellect (the power to discriminate between right and wrong) is cultivated

 

yet on seeing a magical golden deer she wishes to possess it, even lakshman on hearing her request goes chasing after the deer not realizing that golden deer’s do not exist, now when lakshman is away ravana kidnaps her and takes her to lanka the magical city of gold and promises all the wealth in the world, rejecting all this, now she longs for ram

 

When she had ram she wanted the magical golden deer and when she was taken to a full magical golden city she was miserable without Ram

 

One story she told hanuman so that he could convey to Ram that he had meet the real sita was that once a celestial crow was disturbing her and he hurt her in the breast, seeing this Rama took out a straw from the mattress and uttered the magical mantra and fired a Brahmastra at the crow (astra means a weapon and Shastra means a weapon which is activated by the power of prayer). Brahmastra is a powerful weapon yet on seeing a womans plight that a man loves he loses all control and takes such a drastic step

 

First time when sita met hanuman he told her that he can carry her across the ocean to her husband, she refused and told him Ram will not send anyone specially to me without testing him or his valor yet she had doubt that he would not be able to overcome the army who would be unleashed to prevent her from fleeing, later when Hanuman proved his worth by destroying lanka and defeating an entire army she told him that he was indeed capable of taking her but again refused to go away with him, since she wanted her husband to come and avenge her insult of abduction which would be the ultimate disgrace of ravana—such is the character of a woman who is not capable of forgiving, she is ready to suffer more waiting for the revenge

 

Hanuman told ravan that you do not realize that by abducting sita you are keeping a five hooded female serpant in your home—such is the dangerous state of a man lusting for others wife

 

 

After many months of studying I have written this article; note this that the Ramayan was written in treta yug where there was one ram versus one ravan a 1:1 ratio of good to evil, the mahabharat was written in dwapar yug where there were 5 righteous pandavas  against 100 evil kaurav brothers, a good to evil ratio of 5:100

 

Let us learn from these great epics

To read other interesting stories from the ramayan, you may click on the topic ramayan on the right hand side

 

To understand the Sanskrit translation I have referred the below youtube video

 

 

  

 

     

   

 

                                                                                                  

 

 

Sanyas, ascetic, sadhu, leaving the world, staying in a cave

 

Sanyas, renunciation, ascetic, sadhu, leaving the world, staying in a cave, joining spiritual organizations / cults

 

There are people who have a wish to take sanyas, leave the worldly life

 

I will share my hands-on practical experiences and some spiritual teachings

 

The Ashtavakra Gita which is essentially the philosophical dialogue between Janaka, the father of Sita and the sage Ashtavakra, tell’s us:

 

“One who is attached to the world wants to renounce it in order to avoid sorrow. But one without attachment is free from sorrow and does not feel miserable even in the world.”

 

“Those who desire pleasure and those who desire liberation are both common in the world.Rare is the great soul who desires neither pleasure nor liberation.”

 

“A Bhogi (who is after more and more of enjoyment) as also a yogi who is bent on renouncing all enjoyments are both qualitatively on the same plane, the minds of both are on "enjoyment' one for grasping it and the other for leaving it.One has to go beyond both by adopting the attitude of a witness (Sakshi) i.e. by neither accepting nor rejecting.”

 

Having left the world life twice, I have this to say that the best spiritual progress is achieved by keeping in contact with the world and at the same time being aloof from the masses

 

The world is like the water and the self like the ship, the ship cannot leave the water, but at the same time it cannot let the water enter in it

 

The world is meant for the unfolding / realization of the Self: why should we then seek to run away from it? One example is the life of Shri Krishna, the Bhagavad-Gita he spoke it out on a battle-field, and not on a mountain peak. The person on the spiritual path is always fighting the great Mahabharat war against his vices whom he believe to be his own hence difficult to kill, just like Arjun initially throwing away his weapons and saying they are my own how can I kill them

 

People desire to find God; even when they were unable to open their heart to find their love / soulmate, to be a true friend to someone, to develop love but instead have prejudices, again quoting Ashtavakra Gita--“Bondage is when the mind longs for something,grieves about something, rejects something, holds on to something, is pleased about something or displeased about something. Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, grieves about anything, rejects anything, or holds on to anything, and is not pleased about anything or displeased about anything”

 

If one cannot find the Divinity within, one can never find it outside, if one could not achieve peace staying in the world, one can never be peaceful staying far away

 

A man at peace does not run off to popular places or to the forest. Whatever and wherever, he remains the same

 

It is not right to forsake karma to become a sanyasi and further no one can escape karma, from the movie Kung Fu Panda “one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it” 

 

People abandon their loved ones in the pursuit for God—mostly men do it—you will hardly find a mother who has abandoned her children and taken sanyas. For those who want to leave their loved ones, let us take a teaching from the Mahabharat (all teachings and guidance for the present age are given in the Mahabharat in form of stories) I once met a man on the path to swargarohini, the trek route from Badrinath to the sacred chaukhamba massif (the origin of both ice glaciers of Gangotri and Alaknanda, which later merge to form the Ganga) via satopanth lake. He was thinking of leaving his family to take sanyas. I told him the story of Yudhisthir on his last journey to swargarohini he was followed by a dog, when the Gods came to take him to heaven he refused to abandon the dog, since the dog was his companion on the journey and he could not leave him behind now, I told him you are walking on the same route now where  Yudhisthir did not even abandon a stray dog how could he think of leaving his family, I asked him that at the time of his honeymoon did he get this same thought of leaving his wife?. I am happy that what I wanted to convey he understood

 

The current scenario

 

Those sadhus we find mingling in the society are freeloaders, much more worldly (connected with ordinary life, not with the spirit)

 

Now a days it is not possible to live in a cave, since forest have become barren, not able to provide the necessary food /herbs, the local people have come to know that the Sadhus are not sincere like before and hence stopped providing support, the sadhus having claimed to abandon the world, fight for the cave, built a door and put a lock with their name plate, extort money from the ones who want to stay in

 

Life is very difficult staying in a damp cave with is occupied by various insects and pests, getting up and using a decent washroom and having a hot cup of tea is such a big blessing we realize this when staying in isolation, it is very difficult to carry out days activity in the cold Himalaya. Before the sadhus stayed as a community, were trained, had local support, hence could manage staying in caves

 

The different akharas are directly affiliated to political organizations, religion was politicize in India; what better way of mind control then Religion, which helps politicians to gain vote, I have written how this was done in my blog Hindus destroying Hinduism

 

In the world of the so called renounces there is a power struggle, big money is involved

 

Sadhus and drugs

 

So many sadhus are drug edicts, many are also drug sellers, about narcotics and spirituality, you may read my blog:

http://bhoj11.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-trinity-and-why-are-bhang-ganja.html

 

To be a business man you require wealth; to be a sadhu your prerequisite is wealthlessness that enables a sadhu to live a life he lives; but today some wearing orange robes have entered politics while others turned businessmen

 

I would also like to share that I have met a few sadhus who are staying high up in the Himalayas; they have surrendered themselves to God and are living in the hands of God, they told me that there was never a time when they slept on an empty stomach, by miraculous arrangements someone provided them with what they required, they do not have any worry of their investments or financial meltdown, the fears that we live with or the day to day problems we face in city life, they own nothing yet have all their basic needs without any attachments and are always happy, such sadhus are very rare and you will not find them mingling with crowds  

He indeed is lucky who sole worldly possession is his underware—Adi shankara

 

 

Spiritual organizations / cults

 

All have the same theme—the founder communicated with higher realms, the people who join the organization are the chosen ones, and they induce fear and greed , the fear of apocalypse, the greed that they would be saved and be the seed people for the next good age which will come

The heads of such organization live a lavish lifestyle, travelling in bullet proof cars, a life far away from simple living and high thinking

 

I know an old lady connected to the Brahma Kumaris, she told me that films were showed to members showing the end of the World, they were told that only they would be saved, in 2012 she told me the date of the end has come now, a few days before the date I saw her in the tailors shop, and asked her if the world is coming to an end why was she getting new clothes stitched, the old lady was offended and said only the members of  Brahma Kumaris will survive—people are so easily fooled, it is so easy to control the minds of the people

 

People are easily fooled-- The stupidity of humans

 

Let me give you a few examples

 

There is a YouTube channel named Liziqi, it follows the life of a girl leading her life amidst natural surroundings, she grows bamboos and makes bamboo furniture, breeds silk worms makes silk and then makes a dress of silk etc, she has millions of followers, people just do not realize that this is all made up, her life seems to defy the rules of reality, all her videos are professionally crafted videos, from the thousands of appreciative comments one can see how people get fooled, now there is a legal dispute with her business partners and it has come out that millions of dollars were involved and she is in a professional business of making videos and selling natural products

 

There is a blogger Capt Ajit Vadakayil, who is a self proclaimed most intelligent person on the planet, he certainly does not believe that the more you know, the less you speak, he always boast that he has millions and millions of profile view, people do not even realize, that when he had less profile views compared to now he had the same number of followers, so only his profile views are jumping day by day with no increase in followers which is not possible , also there are hardly any views on his youtube videos, people do not realize that he himself has manipulated / generated his profile views, he does not display his actual blog page views, which should be thousands of times more than profile views, he is such a pompous person that he would have declared page views if they were more, but he is fooling people by generating his profile views. Anyone can find contradictions in all he says, he gives dikshas in his blog asking people to write numbers on their body, now he has started a Kalki army where people are initiated, given ranks, people just lack basic common sense and are misguided, people will waste their precious time, while I criticize him, I also add that he has written very good blogs on chemical tankers (ships), but he is certainly misguiding others by writing everything under the sun from Vedas to women’s problems

Common sense is not very common, so if people get carried away by reading a blog of an egoistic person who is so foolish as to give advice to world leaders, how easy it is for Godmen to fool people by establishing their grand ashrams

 

So you see, people do not think, what differentiates humans and animals is that humans have buddhi (intellect) by which they can discriminate between right and wrong, but when people lack proper reasoning power (the ability of the mind to think and understand things in a logical way) custodians of Religion and politicians take advantage and control the minds of an entire nation. What can be the best example of mind control then the current government of India, by controlling the social media and mainstream media they have projected a false image, they are no different from other politicians, but have managed to create a clean image, they have filled the minds of people with hate against neighbouring country and communities and have kept them busy by diverting their minds with no on to question their misdeeds and unfulfilled election promises

 

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I once again say, that the best spiritual progress can be made by staying in the world, while leading a simple life, people can form communities and live amidst nature following a Vedic life style leaving behind a world of constant comparison and competition, and I myself have such a dream and trying to find likeminded people with whom I can travel and eventually find a suitable place and settle

 

The advantages of living amidst nature are explained in the link below; giving an example of astronauts who cannot survive in space unless a magnetic pulse generator mimicking the Earth's frequency is fitted in their space craft, such natural frequency may be disturbed in a city

https://bhoj11.blogspot.com/2014/02/astronauts-earths-heartbeat-living.html

 

The sanyasi is not enslaved to any specific doctrine but instead follows his own consciousness, his own conception of the absolute but there are also some Upanishads on Sannyasa

 

People are bound by rites (rituals), and liberated by direct experiences

 

The best renunciation is one, states Maitreya, where one abandons pride, wealth, delusion and lust; when delusion dies in a person, enlightenment is born

 

If we reflect deeply we can understand that we all are under some delusion in our religious beliefs and the rituals that we carry or otherwise

 

From the book Mother by Maxim Gorky “There are extremely few free men in the world–that’s its misfortune”

 

There is a beautiful poetry in urdu by Mirza Saadiq Sharar; which applies to us all on the spiritual path

 

गए दोनों जहाँ के काम से हम न इधर के हुए न उधर के  हुए

न ख़ुदा ही मिला न विसाल-ए-सनम न इधर के हुए न उधर के हुए

रहे दिल में हमारे ये रंज-ओ-अलम न इधर के हुए न उधर के हुए

 

Gaye dono jahaan ke kaam se ham, na idhar ke huy en audhar ke huye

Na Khuda hi mila na visaal-e-sanam, na idhar ke huye na udhar ke huye

 

I found neither faith, nor union with my lover/and now I belong neither there nor here

 

 

Some more from The Ashtavakra Gita

 

To be free, shun the experiences of the senses like poison. Turn your attention to forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, simplicity, truth.

 

If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true,

"Thinking makes it so".

It is true what they say:

“You are what you think.”

If you think you are bound you are bound.

If you think you are free you are free.

 

You are really unbound and action less, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind.

 

Of all four categories of beings, from Brahma down to the last clump of grass, only the man of knowledge is capable of eliminating desire and aversion.

 

Enough of wealth, sensuality and good deeds, in the forest of samsara the mind has never found satisfaction in these.

 

Trying to think the unthinkable, is doing something unnatural to thought. Abandoning such a practice therefore, I am now established.

 

Liberation is distaste for the objects of the senses. Bondage is love of the senses. This is knowledge. Now do as you please.

 

 

I see statistics of readers mainly from India, USA and Europe who visit the blog but they do not interact so I have decided that after one more blog I will take a break and stop blogging for some time, I do not feel like writing for ungrateful readers