Celebrating a clear conscience

There’s a Kaikeyi within all of us. It’s upon us to keep ourselves and our bhakti from getting influenced by Mantharas out there, writes Radhanath Swami

Ramnavami is the celebration of the birth of Lord Ram, the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu; this falls on the night day of Shuklapaksha as per Hindu calender and is the part of Chaitra Navratri. This year, Ashtami and Navmi happened to fall on the same day ie on March 25.

Lord Sri Ram Chandra was born to Dasarath and Kausalya in the Holy city of Ayodhya. Sri Ram Chandra is none other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead “the cause of all causes,” the Absolute Truth. He is expansion of the original personality of Godhead Sri Krsna. He appeared with his three ‘self-same expansions’ in the form of Bharat, Laxman and Shatrugna.

The Lord appears to annihilate the miscreants, to re-establish the principles of religion and to give pleasure to his devotees. And one who hears and understands the transcendental nature of the Lord’s appearance and activities attains the Supreme abode Vaikunta and never takes birth in this world again. Sri Ram took the hand of his eternal consort, the Goddess of fortune Sita Devi, in the Holy Dham of Mithila. They live happily in Ayodhya and all of the citizens loved them more dearly than their own lives.  Dasarath was becoming old and he decided that it was the proper time to coronate Sri Ram as the King of the entire earth. Dasarath as a true noble king would not perform any important activity without consulting the great Rishis and saintly persons headed by Vashista muni.

When Vashista Muni heard Dasarath Maharaj’s idea, he gave it his blessings and then the word spread throughout Ayodhya that Sri Ram Chandra tomorrow morning at the rising of the sun will be coronated as the king of the entire world. And the whole city was celebrating.

Kaikeyi, who loved Ram as much as she loved her own son Bharat, got influenced by Manthara, the hunchback maid servant, and asked King Dashrath the boon of sending Lord Ram to Forest for 14 years and making Bharat the King.   

This is the situation of all conditioned souls within this world; originally we are all like Kaikeyi — pure, unalloyed associates of the Lord.  Lord Sri Ram, Lord Sri Krsna is meant to be worshipped within the kingdom of our hearts. But however great and exalted we may be if we associate with materially minded people and believe in what they say, then all of our good qualities will be destroyed.  If you associate with saintly people you will be saintly, if you associate with materialistic people, you will become envious and materialistic.  Who you associate with is what you become and this is the law of God. Therefore all the Shastras and all the Acharyas have proclaimed throughout all of history that the most important principle of life is associating with Holy people. And associating with people who are too much attached to material enjoyment is more deadly than drinking poison willingly for our spiritual lives.  But see how expert Maya is, to enter into our lives with this material energy to pollute our consciousness and cause us to exile God from the consciousness of our heart.

Maya appeared through Manthara, the trusting servant in the own inner chambers of Kaikeyi to contaminate her heart with evil, Contaminating propaganda.  And here in this great land of India, the land of Dharma, which is meant to establish spiritual principles for the whole world to progress through, in so many ways Maya has come to give us materialistic association and force God out of our consciousness. Now, we have this cable television, right in the own inner chambers of the palace of your home appearing to be so innocent and a source of great pleasure and entertainment. And when you turn the switch, and the picture comes and the sound comes out and you and your children are listening, the most powerful agents of Maya, material energy, the propaganda of Western atheism is coming and that association more than anything else will destroy the very spiritual fiber of this land. And anyone can see, who wants to see that what the Islamic rule in India could not do in 800 hundred years, what the British rule could not do in India in 200 years and that is destroy the spiritual culture of this land, television coming from the West has done it within 20 years.  But we want to do something, Better we come to such Satsangs to hear and chant the glories of the Lord with our families.  So associating with material people and material things even if we are Lord’s personal associate it will destroy our consciousness.

Lord Ram was exiled for fourteen years and mother Sita and Laxman accompanied Lord Ram to the forest living all the comforts of palace. King Dashrath gave up his body in separation from Ram and Bharat Refused to accept the kingdom and abandoned his mother and set in search for Lord Ram. This is Bhakti; anyone who comes between us and our loving service to the Lord should not be accepted as our friend or relative. 

Krsna is non-different than his name by worshipping the name of Ram the name of Krsna will get the same results as worshipping them directly.  And Krsna is all pure and the name of the Lord is as pure as God. If we continuously associate with the Lord’s name, the Lord’s Lila, the Lord’s teachings and the Lord’s devotees, we gradually become completely purified. And the beautiful love and bliss of the spiritual world awakens within our hearts.

So, whether we are living as Sanyasis, or Brahmacharis or whether we are living within a family with wife/ husband, children/ parents — what is important is that we follow in the footsteps of the determination of Bharat to be completely dedicated and faithful in our service to Bhagavan. We must always remember him by chanting his holy name. In this way, we can feel real happiness. We  can come together to worship the Lord and his name.

Ravana was very powerful and resourceful yet was defeated because he was walking on wrong path he had a malicious intention. In this world, no matter how powerful you are, or how resourceful you, defeat is certain for people walking on the wrong path. Let’s choose the path of goodness, let’s have a clear conscience, surrender to the Lord and be victorious.

The writer is the spiritual leader of International Society for Krishna Consciousness