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Spiritualseeker
30 July 2009, 08:42 AM
Namaste,

Who is Lord Rama? Is the stories about him symbolic? Is Hanuman really a monkey ? or is that symbolic aswell?

Sherab
30 July 2009, 09:05 AM
They are literal, and symbolic. However, for people to "understand" it better, it can be presented symbolically. Just my 2c.

rkpande
31 July 2009, 07:17 AM
dear spritual seeker,

in my view, those rishies who can propound such classical theories as are in upnishads, could give the world the decimal system, the zero, even concept of infinity- the brahm, could talk like- past, present, future and beyond future. i dont know what they mean by beyond future, how could they think of a demon king with 10 heads or a monkey god.They must be meaning something else.
the above and the following set me thinking- why was hunuman thought son of vayu, why only Laxman accompanied lord rama, why sita came alone and not laxman's wife; she coulld have given same arguments as sita.why banwas of 14 years (was it 13 years for pandavs)
without offending any Rama Bhakt, let me tell u what i think of Rama:-
lets consider Rama as proccess and not some manifestation and consider him to represent Ataman, Sita the Manah,laxaman the body.
In many yoga books it is said it takes about 12 to 14 years to estabilish oneself in yoga. tapas of 14 years where can one find a place other than a jungle. body , manas and atamn have to be toghter.
now the manas is got over by greed in seeing the golden deer. and all the ten evils(mental vratties) depicted by ravana takes over sita the manas .
now in yoga along with yam, niyam and all that(Lord rama was Pursottam)
one stills the manas by prana--pawan putra( there are 5 main prana so are angad, nal neel,sugeeva and jamvant)
one has to win over the ten headed demon to get rid of the vratties of the manas. once you have stilled the manas , as Osho says u come to the state of no mind, he dint require sita at all.
it the physical gross body which physically gets wounded and so was laxman and was cured by prana and aushadhi. this may be a disguised proccess of yoga.
jai Shree Ram

Ganeshprasad
01 August 2009, 08:33 AM
Pranam

It is sad really when we use such example to reduce Bhagvan Ram to mere metaphor, I guess people use their intelligent to best of their ability. for some such creature like ten heads or thousand hands are bit much to comprehend and therefore they become apologetic about Sanatan dharma, I guess people get some benefit even though a bhakta may find such analogy a touch insulting.

What gets me even more is, when Hindu’s with little fund of knowledge describe Hanuman as monkey god Ganesh ji as Elephant god, may be it is forgivable for those who are not Hindu to make such statement.
Hanuman ji is Vayu putra or even known as Rudra ansa, but he is without doubt a great bhakta of lord Sri Ram. And Ganesh ji is the leader of gana, son of Shiva Parvati.

If one wants to know the history Of Ram then there is Valmiki Ramayan to read and Tulsidas has Given us the Ram charitra manas for developing pure love to Lord Ram

Jai Shree Ram

Sudarshan
01 August 2009, 11:07 AM
Namaste,

Who is Lord Rama? Is the stories about him symbolic? Is Hanuman really a monkey ? or is that symbolic aswell?

Probably both - although when you treat them as stories you might need to separate chaff from the wheat.

Hanuman's significance is clearly indicated in the story itself isn't it? Hanuman is the personification of bhagavad-bhakti or love for God. When Hanuman was a child he looked at the sun and thinking that it was a fruit he jumped towards the sun. Just examine what this statement means. Hundreds of vedic hymns are clear about what this sUrya is - sUrya is Parabrahman. The sUrya we worship many times a day. So what does it mean when we say that Hanuman is attracted by the sun? It is the natural instinct in man that drives him towards God. But baby Hanuman ( the initial love for God) is not sufficient to reach the sun - that is why he is struck by Indra with his vajra.

The Hanuman in us needs to become mature to avoid getting hit by the vajra and needs to loose his ahaMkAra which disturbs the sAdhana. We must make our Hanuman remember his strength and allow him to carry us towards Rama. Yes, love for God is so powerful that we often forget its prowess.

Hanuman is the messenger of God. When people first encounter the faceless Parabrahman who cannot be seen through the senses and the mind, they first get the message from the Lord through him about the auspicious events about to happen in your yogic life. If your God is rAmA, hanumAn is the first vision you will have of rAmA, then as sIta and so on. If your God is Shiva, you will typically encounter him as Ganesha or Skanda - Hanuman is conceptually very similar.

Sudarshan
01 August 2009, 12:01 PM
Pranam

It is sad really when we use such example to reduce Bhagvan Ram to mere metaphor, I guess people use their intelligent to best of their ability. for some such creature like ten heads or thousand hands are bit much to comprehend and therefore they become apologetic about Sanatan dharma, I guess people get some benefit even though a bhakta may find such analogy a touch insulting.

What gets me even more is, when Hindu’s with little fund of knowledge describe Hanuman as monkey god Ganesh ji as Elephant god, may be it is forgivable for those who are not Hindu to make such statement.
Hanuman ji is Vayu putra or even known as Rudra ansa, but he is without doubt a great bhakta of lord Sri Ram. And Ganesh ji is the leader of gana, son of Shiva Parvati.

If one wants to know the history Of Ram then there is Valmiki Ramayan to read and Tulsidas has Given us the Ram charitra manas for developing pure love to Lord Ram

Jai Shree Ram

Dear Ganeshprasad-ji,

Namaste.

If you consider the story of Rama as historical, what dates do you assign to them? Do you take it as between 3000 B.C-8000 B.C as done by some modern Hindus or do you literally interpret it as a treta yuga story which occurred more than a million years ago?

I was a firm believer in the historicity a few years ago, but ever since I studied the history of the world from a modern perspective, my faith in the historical interpretation of purANa-s have diminished. I now increasingly look upon them as metaphors and this seems to explain many seemingly absurd purANic accounts well, for instance the traditional belief of eclipses caused by some demons swallowing the sun, river ganga descending from the sky, oceans formed by digging of the earth by the sons of Sagara, flying mountains, animal sacrifices and a lots of stories like these. .

yaTha bhaktasya bhAvaH taTha bhagavataH bhAvaH - whatever the bhAva of the bhakta, so is the bhAva of bhagavAn. Just because purANic stories may not be real does not mean that rAmA or kR^ishNa have no existance. Whatever the devotee imagines the Lord to be, he experiences the Lord that way. Appearing in a form the devotee wishes to see, the Lord ( or the guru) further instructs him in the secrets of Yoga to reach the highest goal.

God percieved by us is as per our understanding and maturity. In reality, God cannot be imagined by us, so the absolute experience of the Lord is beyond any description and can only be known by personal experience.

Sudarshan
01 August 2009, 12:25 PM
dear spritual seeker,

in my view, those rishies who can propound such classical theories as are in upnishads, could give the world the decimal system, the zero, even concept of infinity- the brahm, could talk like- past, present, future and beyond future. i dont know what they mean by beyond future, how could they think of a demon king with 10 heads or a monkey god.They must be meaning something else.
the above and the following set me thinking- why was hunuman thought son of vayu, why only Laxman accompanied lord rama, why sita came alone and not laxman's wife; she coulld have given same arguments as sita.why banwas of 14 years (was it 13 years for pandavs)
without offending any Rama Bhakt, let me tell u what i think of Rama:-
lets consider Rama as proccess and not some manifestation and consider him to represent Ataman, Sita the Manah,laxaman the body.
In many yoga books it is said it takes about 12 to 14 years to estabilish oneself in yoga. tapas of 14 years where can one find a place other than a jungle. body , manas and atamn have to be toghter.
now the manas is got over by greed in seeing the golden deer. and all the ten evils(mental vratties) depicted by ravana takes over sita the manas .
now in yoga along with yam, niyam and all that(Lord rama was Pursottam)
one stills the manas by prana--pawan putra( there are 5 main prana so are angad, nal neel,sugeeva and jamvant)
one has to win over the ten headed demon to get rid of the vratties of the manas. once you have stilled the manas , as Osho says u come to the state of no mind, he dint require sita at all.
it the physical gross body which physically gets wounded and so was laxman and was cured by prana and aushadhi. this may be a disguised proccess of yoga.
jai Shree Ram

Dear rkpande - Salutations to your maturity!

rAmAyaNa is indeed a yoga shAstra the seven chapters corresponding to the seven jnAna bhUmika-s. Its needs a lot of meditative practise and a very religeous way of life to be able to understand the secrets of rAmAyaNa.

Does anyone really understand why rAmA asks sIta to undergo agni parIksha and then abandons her cruelly in the end? Because, in the climax of jnAna yoga, sIta denoting mAyA shakti of Brahman(rAmA) must really vanish. To understand Brahman and mAyA as different is a lower realization and what is abandoned is only the lingering ignorance of the advanced jnAna yogi who still percieves mAyA as different from Ishvara! rAmAyaNa is a very great esoteric story and an incredibly powerful mantra - reciting it daily will cause you to experience miracles in life! Try it and see for yourself!

chandu_69
01 August 2009, 04:04 PM
Do you take it as between 3000 B.C-8000 B.C as done by some modern Hindus or do you literally interpret it as a treta yuga story which occurred more than a million years ago?

The dating done by some people is faulty.I assume you are referring to stephen knaph article.The Birth chart of Rama doesn't agree with the dating given.

chandu_69
01 August 2009, 04:08 PM
With regards to eclipses the description appears to be symbolic but the calculations developed by sages to forecast Future eclipses is accurate to the minute.


river ganga descending from the skyI suggest researching about Oort cloud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

It no longer looks absurd.

Sudarshan
01 August 2009, 04:41 PM
The dating done by some people is faulty.I assume you are referring to stephen knaph article.The Birth chart of Rama doesn't agree with the dating given.

The birth chart of rAma is actually astronomically incorrect. It has punarvasu and navami in the month of chitra which is impossible except when the zodiac is unequally partitioned. I dont know whether this practice of unequal divisions of the zodiac was prevalent in the past, but there appears to be no evidence. Even the earliest texts on Hindu astronomy do not describe this.

A well learnt christian scholar and astonomer named Swamikannu Pillai published this information for the first time in the 1890(?). Hindus seemed to have overlooked the inaccuracy for centuries. Probabaly even if a Hindu had dared to point out he may have feared severe opposition in those days. As we know AryabhaTa had to face some social alienation because some of his views attacked the vedic religion in his times.

The only argument we have to rebut this charge on rAmA's horoscope is by positing the theory of variable length constellations ( each of which is not equal to 30 degrees). If history is not important, I view this rAmA's horoscope as the horoscope of a jnAna yogi with inner planets ( the yogic AdhAra-s) suited for Self Realization. So it is no big deal.

Sudarshan
01 August 2009, 04:50 PM
With regards to eclipses the description appears to be symbolic but the calculations developed by sages to forecast Future eclipses is accurate to the minute.

I suggest researching about Oort cloud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

It no longer looks absurd.

ganga, yamuna and sarasvati are well known in the Yogic traditions to represent the iDa-pingaLa-sushUmna nADi-s. So gangAvataranaM is pretty much straight forward to explain. I have heard of the Oort Clouds, but how do you think that explains Ganga being the pApanAshini or that Ganga has three branches one in heaven, earth and the pAthALa?

chandu_69
01 August 2009, 05:03 PM
ganga, yamuna and sarasvati are well known in the Yogic traditions to represent the iDa-pingaLa-sushUmna nADi-s.
And they are also real including Saraswati.


I have heard of the Oort Clouds, but how do you think that explains Ganga being the pApanAshini or that Ganga has three branches one in heaven, earth and the pAthALa?There are still huge clouds of water out there in universe(Heaven let us say).The hymn that there is water everywhere could indicate that.

The ort cloud thing is not yet Fully developed.So we have to be content with the basic idea we have, for now.

Don't rule out anything in a hurry.that is how i take it.

Spiritualseeker
01 August 2009, 05:38 PM
Namaste,

I do want to clarify that I was not questioning if Hanuman exist, I was just wondering if he really is a Monkey type being or if that is just symbolic. etc..

Ganeshprasad
02 August 2009, 09:10 AM
Pranam Sudarshan ji



If you consider the story of Rama as historical, what dates do you assign to them? Do you take it as between 3000 B.C-8000 B.C as done by some modern Hindus or do you literally interpret it as a treta yuga story which occurred more than a million years ago?

Dates have no value for me, time ‘past’ is history and that is precisely what is puran I don’t have to spell it out what that means. In this case I have to go by what Ramayan is telling me and not someone’s speculation.
 
 


I was a firm believer in the historicity a few years ago, but ever since I studied the history of the world from a modern perspective
 
 
Modern history is ok but unfortunately that is mainly dominated by western mind, many a times truth has been a casualty in preference to their personal agenda. It is a known fact that lots of our scripture has been tempered with a view to discredit the Vedic dharma, it was unpalatable for them to see a culture so advance then theirs, so they did not hesitate to spread lies about our dharma. I dare say even today everything Indian that is good will be absent from news where else they will not fail to highlight the bad.

So forgive me if put more faith in our scriptures, (even though at times something seems unfathomable) then the modern history.



my faith in the historical interpretation of purANa-s have diminished. I now increasingly look upon them as metaphors and this seems to explain many seemingly absurd purANic accounts well, for instance the traditional belief of eclipses caused by some demons swallowing the sun, river ganga descending from the sky, oceans formed by digging of the earth by the sons of Sagara, flying mountains, animal sacrifices and a lots of stories like these.
 
I put my faith in the Rishis of yore who are very powerful, just as Chandu mentioned if they can precisely predict eclipses then who am to judge their view on Rahu, how ever absurd it may seem. There are stories in puran that is way beyond my understanding but then nuclear science is also lost to me.

How a simple atom can have a chain reaction and capable to destroy the world?

To a modern thinker few decades ago, Ravan’s and ahiravan’s ability to converse at a distance apart must have sounded like a fairy tale but now we are having argument in the comfort of our house, continent apart.
The difference being they did it without the aid of modern yantras.

If for some reason the world were to be destroyed by a trigger happy lunatic and only some primitive being survived, I am sure they would find all this modern advances, well beyond their understanding.
It is suffice to say those puranic Rishi knew the Naksatra, while not so long ago world was perceived to be flat.
 


Just because purANic stories may not be real does not mean that rAmA or kR^ishNa have no existance.

If I believe the stories to be wrong then I have to concede the whole foundation is shaky
 
 


Whatever the devotee imagines the Lord to be, he experiences the Lord that way. Appearing in a form the devotee wishes to see, the Lord ( or the guru) further instructs him in the secrets of Yoga to reach the highest goal.
God percieved by us is as per our understanding and maturity. In reality, God cannot be imagined by us, so the absolute experience of the Lord is beyond any description and can only be known by personal experience.


Do you see the contradiction here in bold, but I do understand your sentiment.

And yes I agree Lord is known by personal endeavor , as the saying goes
“ The taste of the pudding is in the eating.”
Yet without the description of the Lord as given in Shastra I am lost, his address is well documented in those scriptures.

Jai Shree Ram

kd gupta
28 August 2009, 12:53 PM
Namaste,

Who is Lord Rama? Is the stories about him symbolic? Is Hanuman really a monkey ? or is that symbolic aswell?

Alas..in blunderland...wikipedia is a good source

yajvan
28 August 2009, 10:17 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~


Namasté

rāma राम - pleasing , pleasant , charming , lovely , beautiful.
One root is ram - to delight , make happy
rā is acquiring , possessing , yet as a noun it is splendor, luster. That is why 'rā' and ravi रवि is associated with the Sun. And what then is Sunday? ravidina , Sunday .

Another view of rāma is rāmacandra and balarāma 'the strong rāma', regarded as elder brother of kṛṣṇa. I have read śrī rāma as the 6th avatāra of viṣṇu and is sometimes called jāmadagnya; I have also read He was the 7th avatāra.

Yet if we look to an authoritative book, the śrīmad bhāgavata mahāpurāṇa, it clearly calls out śrī rāma as visnu's 18th avatāra.
Here is the reference : http://bhagavata.org/canto1/chapter3.html (http://bhagavata.org/canto1/chapter3.html)

Is there more on this name? Lets see what M.Monier-Williams Sanskrit to English Dictionary ( 2002 version) has to offer us:

rāma = noun for varuṇa
rāma = a kind of deer; a horse ; a lover; pleasure , joy , delight
rāmā = a beautiful woman , any young and charming woman , mistress , wife , any woman ; red earth ; a kind of pigment; a river;
rāmā = a kind of metre i.e. (in music) a kind of measure.
rāmī =darkness , nightpraṇām

kd gupta
28 August 2009, 11:42 PM
Thank you Yajvanji
Ramnam mani deep dhar jeeh dehri dwar,
Tulsi bheetar bahrehu jo chahasi ujiyar.
Rama is a truth , Ramnam is a truth , where there is no Ramnam , there is a deep Darkness . Rama is here , Rama is there , Rama is everywhere…jaisriRAMA .

yajvan
29 August 2009, 10:15 AM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~


Namasté

… more on śrī rāmaḥ's name, mantra-s and the sage vālmīki-ji can be found at this HDF post: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1116&highlight=mara (http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1116&highlight=mara)


praṇām

ranjeetmore
21 November 2009, 05:20 PM
Namaste,

Who is Lord Rama? Is the stories about him symbolic? Is Hanuman really a monkey ? or is that symbolic aswell?


Sri Ramacandra and Sri Hanumanji were EXACTLY THE SAME PERSONS as depicted in Tulsi Ramayan.

There is NOT A SINGLE SYMBOLIC meaning to it.

Why should a liberated,supremely intelligent person,just some 400-500 years ago fabricate such tales ???? Was he so dumb ???
No.

even Ramkrishna Paramhamsa,who is the most recent example,narrated tales of Sri Rama and Sri krsna as reality WHICH THEY ARE.

Sri Rama is God.Supreme Person.By a mere fraction of Himself,He creates innumerable universes and creates innumerable Brahmas,Visnus and Mahesas.

He has a spiritual abode,which other religions call the kingdom of God.His names are all powerful,which guru nanak describes and which Sri Ramkrishna confirmed to be as taarak brahm that Sri shankara delivers in the ears of dying pple at Kashi.

He is cent percent a historical figure Who is eternal and not a avatara.

ranjeetmore
21 November 2009, 05:23 PM
Sri Rambhadracchryaji famously presents Sri tulsidas' view.

Rama = Ra- Ramapati(Sri Vishnu) and ma-Mahesvara

Rama is He Who is the Father of Sri Visnu and Sri Mahesvara.

Suhita
29 March 2016, 07:24 AM
Rama is one of the significant deities of Hinduism who is considered as great and ideal person in other words Maryada Purushottama that one can learn from his life. He was seventh incarnation of god Vishnu. He was born in Ayodhya and one of the eldest son of king Dasharatha. It is said that lord Rama is one of supreme being. Meanwhile his birthday celebration is celebrated as Ram Navami festival (http://www.rudraksha-ratna.com/ram-navami.html) in India.

yajvan
30 March 2016, 06:37 PM
hariḥ oá¹
~~~~~~
namasté


SÄ«ta speaks to hanumÄnji - Know rÄma to be the Supreme Brahman - One without a second. I, in the presence of rÄma, His power (or Prakriti) created the Universe unwearied. AdhyÄtma RÄmayÄna, Bala Khana, Å›loka 32-43


इतिशिवं
iti Å›ivaá¹