Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-3. Part - 10.

Chapter-3. Rama – The Apotheosis of Human Perfection ( Sri Ramanavami )


Part-10.


And the other side of the teaching of the epic is that through humanity we reach Divinity.

Sometimes, we are told that the ten Avataras – incarnations of Vishnu beginning from the incarnation as Fish, the Matsya Avatara; the incarnation as Tortoise, the Kurma Avatara; the incarnation as Boar, the Varaha Avatara; and so on – represent the process of the evolution of the human consciousness to the perfection of its Realisation.

From this point of view of understanding of human nature and its evolution, the stage which was enacted by Rama, God in human form was the penultimate step which Consciousness takes in its attempt at Self-realisation.



He showed what human perfection is and how it becomes a stepping-stone to divine perfection.

This we can know only when we read the whole of the Ramayana from the beginning to the end, reading also between the lines.

Most of us do not know what the whole Ramayana is.

We know only some outline – that Rama was a son of Dasaratha, he learnt archery from Visvamitra, married Sita, who was stolen by Ravana, and then he befriended Sugriva and Hanuman, crossed the ocean, went to Lanka and then killed Ravana.



Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...