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Thread: Who is Rama?

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    Who is Rama?

    Namaste,

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

  2. #2

    Re: Who is Rama?

    They are literal, and symbolic. However, for people to "understand" it better, it can be presented symbolically. Just my 2c.

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    Re: Who is Rama?

    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

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    Re: Who is Rama?

    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
    Rig Veda list only 33 devas, they are all propitiated, worthy off our worship, all other names of gods are derivative from this 33 originals,
    Bhagvat Gita; Shree Krishna says Chapter 3.11 devan bhavayatanena te deva bhavayantu vah parasparam bhavayantah sreyah param avapsyatha Chapter 17.4 yajante sattvika devan yaksa-raksamsi rajasah pretan bhuta-ganams canye yajante tamasa janah
    The world disappears in him. He is the peaceful, the good, the one without a second.

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    Re: Who is Rama?

    Quote Originally Posted by Spiritualseeker View Post
    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.
    Guard your Dharma, Burn the Myth, Promote the Truth, Crush the superstition.

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    Re: Who is Rama?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ganeshprasad View Post
    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.
    Guard your Dharma, Burn the Myth, Promote the Truth, Crush the superstition.

  7. #7
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    Re: Who is Rama?

    Quote Originally Posted by rkpande View Post
    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!
    Guard your Dharma, Burn the Myth, Promote the Truth, Crush the superstition.

  8. #8

    Re: Who is Rama?

    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.

  9. #9

    Re: Who is Rama?

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

    It no longer looks absurd.

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    Re: Who is Rama?

    Quote Originally Posted by chandu_69 View Post
    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.
    Guard your Dharma, Burn the Myth, Promote the Truth, Crush the superstition.

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