One of the differences between the Avatars Rama and Lord Krishna(both being the Avatars of Vishnu) is that Lord Krishna was aware all the time He was the Avatar of Vishnu, while Lord Rama was not aware of it.
Lord Sri Rama
Excepting in one instance.
Lord Rama was facing Ravana in the Final battle in the penultimate day before the death of Ravana in the Battle field.
The battle was fierce and both Rama and Ravana were fighting each other fiercely.
Ravana was matching Rama arrow for arrow(Astra) and Castra(Divine Weapons).
Rama got weary and sent his Rama Bana, which can never return unconquered.
There is famous saying about Lord Rama in Telugu,
Oka Mata,Oka Bana, Oka Baarya’
One word, One Arrow, One Wife -That’s Sri Rama.
This Rama Bana went screaming at Ravana.
Ravana saw this and realized he could do nothing about it.
He remembered the Sathi Ayudha, given to him by his Grand Father, Lord Brahma, who told him thus,
“In battle field when everything fails for you, you us e this.
Nothing can stop it. It will destroy everything’
Ravana sends it across.
It meets up with the Rama Bana and goes past it towards Lord Rama.
Lord Rama was stunned.
He was helpless.
It was nearing his neck.
Without being Conscious, He utters the Pranava ‘Om from His Navel (Nabhi)
Pranava, coming from the Reality, shatters the Sakthi Ayudha.
Rama realizes He is more than the son of Dasaratha, husbanf Sita or the Preceptor of Hanuman.
Ravana recalls the second part of his Grand father‘s Boon,
‘ If and when this Sakthi Ayudha fails, understand thatwho is facing yoyu is Para Brahman‘
Ravana gets down from his chariot and prostrates before Lord Rama, saying,
‘ Now In Know You are The Brahman,
I can not win you,
Dying in Your hands will grant me Mukthi.
I can not surrender for people have died, including my brothers and son,s for Me.
I can not sully them’
Ram replies,
.’Ravana, you are with out Arms to-day,
Go to-day and come forth prepared to morrow’
Related:
Following is the procedure for performing Sri Rama Navami Pooja.
For Sankalpam, please refer my blog on Sarasvati Pooja and make necessary changes-Kara nama Samvatsaram,Punarvasu,Ashtami/Navami)
As for as The Ramayana goes, external evidence is provided in the Puranas(means ‘ very old’) , Eighteen in Number( in Sanskrit) and in regional Languages of India, be it Tamil,Telugu,Kannada, Malayalam,Hindi,Bengali,Oriya,other languages .
In addition Dialects of India have this spread through word of mouth.
Though the versions vary in embellishments, the basic fact that there was a King called Rama , he had been sent to forest with his wife called Sita by his father who wanted to appease his wife(not Rama’s mother),she was abducted by a Chieftain called Ravana of Sri Lanka and he was killed by Rama , never varies.(History of The Tamils by P.T.Srinivasa Iyengar)
True, those who climb mountains climb despite hazards and payments start all over again for the sheer pleasure of it.
Edmund Hillary put it better, when he asked why he kept on climbing Mountains,
‘Because it is there”
Appears to be true.
But they too need Money to climb mountains and they go in for some other jobs or for sponsors for expenses.
So Money is needed.
The point is we do get pleasure in doing what we want to and we perform better,yet if the basic needs are not met you can not do do or work what gives you pleasure.
The crux is the result of the Work.
If the work is appreciated by others and if the work is creative and not destroyed we work better.
So work or performance Pleasure and efficiency is determined by the results it produces.
Yet the results of work is not determined by our efforts or work alone.
It has other factors to influence the results, like the other factors , environment and people.
Even a simple task like brushing one’s teeth assumes and needs other factors like Gravity,paste being available at a given time and most imp importantly one should be alive.
These factors, agents are not in one’s control and as such the outcome of any work depends heavily on these external factors.
The best one can do is to efficiently manage the one factor in one’s control, that is Himself.
If one were to worry about the other factors like others’ opinion and other factors,the very thought will impair on’e efficiency, thus lowering the chances of the work being completed successfully and as a result the pleasure one can derive.
Therefore to improve efficiency and derive pleasure out of work is to change the mind-set into one of detached attachment.
An action that is performed is non action when there is no involvement or motivation.
An action that is performed with the results in mind are Actions, which may cause disappointments when one is not appreciated or the work is destroyed.
Non action is an action is one where one performs an action or work because it has to be done without bothering about the consequences .
Here there is action and yet there is no anticipation of results and consequently no disappointment; if it is appreciated or remains for some time you are Happy, it is a Bonus.
This is the way one has to approach to work to be Happy and be more efficient.
One should be careful in understanding this thought as this does not mean non involvement or irresponsibility.
When we think about how people work,the naive intuition we have is that people are like rats in a maze – that all people care about is money, and the moment we give people money, we can direct them to work one way, we can direct them to work another way. This is why we give bonuses to bankers and pay in all kinds of ways. And we really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work and what the labor market looks like.
At the same time, if you think about it, there’s all kinds of strange behaviors in the world around us. Think about something like mountaineering and mountain climbing. If you read books of people who climb mountains, difficult mountains, do you think that those books are full of moments of joy and happiness? No, they are full of misery. In fact, it’s all about frostbite and difficulty to walk and difficulty of breathing – cold, challenging circumstances.And if people were just trying to be happy, the moment they would get to the top, they would say, “This was a terrible mistake. I’ll never do it again.” (Laughter) ”Instead, let me sit on a beach somewhere drinking mojitos.” But instead, people go down, and after they recover, they go up again. And if you think about mountain climbing as an example, it suggests all kinds of things. It suggests that we care about reaching the end, a peak. It suggests that we care about the fight, about the challenge. It suggests that there’s all kinds of other things that motivate us to work or behave in all kinds of ways.
And for me personally, I started thinking about this after a student came to visit me. This was a student that was one of my students a few years earlier. And he came one day back to campus. And he told me the following story: He said that for more than two weeks, he was working on a PowerPoint presentation. He was working in a big bank. This was in preparation for a merger and acquisition. And he was working very hard on this presentation – graphs, tables, information. He stayed late at night every day. And the day before it was due, he sent his PowerPoint presentation to his boss, and his boss wrote him back and said, ”Nice presentation, but the merger is canceled.” And the guy was deeply depressed.Now at the moment when he was working, he was actually quite happy. Every night he was enjoying his work, he was staying late, he was perfecting this PowerPoint presentation. But knowing that nobody would ever watch that made him quite depressed.
So I started thinking about how do we experiment with this idea of the fruits of our labor.And to start with, we created a little experiment in which we gave people Legos, and we asked them to build with Legos. And for some people, we gave them Legos and we said,”Hey, would you like to build this Bionicle for three dollars? We’ll pay you three dollars for it.” And people said yes, and they built with these Legos. And when they finished, we took it, we put it under the table, and we said, “Would you like to build another one, this time for $2.70?” If they said yes, we gave them another one. And when they finished, we asked them, ”Do you want to build another one?” for $2.40, $2.10, and so on, until at some point people said, “No more. It’s not worth it for me.” This was what we called the meaningful condition. People built one Bionicle after another. After they finished every one of them, we put them under the table. And we told them that at the end of the experiment, we will take all these Bionicles, we will disassemble them, we will put them back in the boxes, and we will use it for the next participant.
There was another condition. This other condition was inspired by David, my student. And this other condition we called the Sisyphic condition. And if you remember the story about Sisyphus, Sisyphus was punished by the gods to push the same rock up a hill, and when he almost got to the end, the rock would roll over, and he would have to start again. And you can think about this as the essence of doing futile work. You can imagine that if he pushed the rock on different hills, at least he would have some sense of progress. Also, if you look at prison movies, sometimes the way that the guards torture the prisoners is to get them to dig a hole and when the prisoner is finished, they ask him to fill the hole back up and then dig again. There’s something about this cyclical version of doing something over and over and over that seems to be particularly demotivating. So in the second condition of this experiment, that’s exactly what we did. We asked people, “Would you like to build one Bionicle for three dollars?” And if they said yes, they built it. Then we asked them, “Do you want to build another one for $2.70?” And if they said yes, we gave them a new one, and as they were building it, we took apart the one that they just finished. And when they finished that, we said, “Would you like to build another one, this time for 30 cents less?” And if they said yes, we gave them the one that they built and we broke. So this was an endless cycleof them building and us destroying in front of their eyes.
Now what happens when you compare these two conditions? The first thing that happenedwas that people built many more Bionicles — they built 11 versus seven – in the meaningful condition versus the Sisyphus condition. And by the way, we should point out that this was not a big meaning. People were not curing cancer or building bridges. People were building Bionicles for a few cents. And not only that, everybody knew that the Bionicles would be destroyed quite soon. So there was not a real opportunity for big meaning. But even the small meaning made a difference.
Now we had another version of this experiment. In this other version of the experiment, we didn’t put people in this situation, we just described to them the situation, much as I am describing to you now, and we asked them to predict what the result would be. What happened? People predicted the right direction but not the right magnitude. People who were just given the description of the experiment said that in the meaningful condition people would probably build one more Bionicle. So people understand that meaning is important, they just don’t understand the magnitude of the importance, the extent to which it’s important.
Hinduism identifies Gods with Human Life so much that Gods have Parents,Brothers, Sisters,Children and Family Life.
The Vedas declare that the Reality is Nameless Formless.
However Hinduism encourages worship Gods in Idol for, and attribution of Human properties are allowed as they are a tool to Realize God or Self.
For details please read my post ‘Gods have name and Form, Yes and No’
Birthdays of God , like Janmastami for Lord Krishna, Arudra Darisanam of Lord Siva, Pooram Nakshatra For Andal, Marriages Uthiram Nakshatra for Lord Siva and Parvati are all celebrated with grandeur.
On such special occasions the Deity is bedecked with jewellery, Flowers, and taken around in a Chariot around the city on a fixed Route.
They are fixed with lighting arrangements, Music troupe leads with veda Mantras recital.
“Temple cars are chariots used to carry representations of Hindu gods. The car is usually used on festival days called Ther Thiruvizha (தேர் திருவிழா) usually happens once in a year, where many people gathered around the temple and pull the cart.
One of the very old and ancient festivals that often mentioned in the devotional hymns of saints like ( Tirugnanasambandar and Sundarar) and many Tamil literature, usually held during the summer between March and April months of every year, lasts more than 25 days. The main attraction of the festival is the procession of the great temple car of Thiruvarur (in Tamil: ஆழித் தேர்). This great chariot is said to the biggest one of its type in size and height. It is 96 feet (29 m) tall and weights more than 300 tons.[1] The size of the largest temple cars inspired the Anglo-Indian term Juggernaut (fromJagganath), signifying a tremendous, virtually unstoppable force or phenomenon.
As of 2004, Tamil Nadu had 515 wooden carts of which 79 need repairs. Annamalaiyar Temple, Tiruvannamalai, Chidambaram Natarajar Temple are some of the temples that possess huge wooden chariots for procession each. In particular, Natarajar temple celebrates the chariot festival twice in a year one at summer (Aani Thirumanjanam (June- July)) and another at winter (Marghazhi Thiruvaadhirai (in December – January )). Lord Krishna of Udupi has five temple cars, namely Brahma ratha (biggest), Madya ratha (medium), kinyo (small), and silver and gold rathas.(wiki)
‘Among the various types floats may be set as the god bearing or the area where it is built. Usually all consist of a very strong base, arranged on four huge wheels, between 1 and 2 m in diameter, solid wood with axes large section through them. This base has a height ranging from the smallest 2m (counting the wheel height) to the highest 5m, consists of several bands in which various figures are carved religious. Based on a large structure standing whose height will vary according to the type of the float, the largest reach 29m. The structure, also of wood to save weight, a network is usually heavily braced to prevent lateral bumps or break the piece swings. On it is placed around the casing, which is incredibly varied in color and shape, the decor is very dense: the structure is painted in many colors, it will hang cloth banners, pompoms straw, ties, etc. Also depending on the procession can be seen figures or decorations of gold and silver. The image of the god who is carried in procession included within the carriage and is adorned with flowers, and more items. In total the weight of a float often reach 300 tons.”
)ஆறு மனமே ஆறு அந்த ஆண்டவன் கட்டளை ஆறு
ஆறு மனமே ஆறு அந்த ஆண்டவன் கட்டளை ஆறு
தேர்ந்து மனிதன் வாழும் வகைக்கு தெய்வத்தின் கட்டளை ஆறு
தெய்வத்தின் கட்டளை ஆறு
ஆறு மனமே ஆறு அந்த ஆண்டவன் கட்டளை ஆறு
ஒன்றே சொல்வார் ஒன்றே செய்வார் உள்ளத்தில் உள்ளது அமைதி
இன்பத்தில் துன்பம் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் இறைவன் வகுத்த நியதி
ஒன்றே சொல்வார் ஒன்றே செய்வார் உள்ளத்தில் உள்ளது அமைதி
இன்பத்தில் துன்பம் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் இறைவன் வகுத்த நியதி
சொல்லுக்குச் செய்கை பொன்னாகும் வரும் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் பட்டாகும்
சொல்லுக்குச் செய்கை பொன்னாகும் வரும் துன்பத்தில் இன்பம் பட்டாகும் – இந்த
இரண்டு கட்டளை அறிந்த மனதில் எல்லா நன்மையும் உண்டாகும்
எல்லா நன்மையும் உண்டாகும்”) Tamil.
An action is worth thousand words.
When one does there is no necessity for words.
Nor does one to need to communicate and the action earns approbation beyond words.
Bhisma, The Grand Sire of the Bharata Clan, was felled by the arrow of Arjuna in the Epic Battle of Mahabharata.
He was in acute discomfort, the countless arrows being uneven on the ground.
He was awaiting the Northern Path, or The Uttarayan of The Sun to leave the mortal coil.
He looked around his Clan, including Arjuna and Lord Krishna and fixed his eyes on Krishna.
Krishna looked at Arjuna.
Arjuna extracted a string of arrows and arrayed them evenly, had Bhishma lifted,placed on this bed and Bhishma was comfortable, the level being even.
He was thirsty and no amount of water could quench his thirst.
Arjuna sent an arrow down the earth near Bhishma’s head, and out came Ganges,The River Ganga, Mother of Devavrta,now known as Bhishma.
Bhishma was quenched of his thirst and his yearning to see his mother before his death.
When The Heart communicates there is no need for words.
Compare this with
“கண்ணொடு கண் நோக்கொக்கின் வாய்ச்சொற்கள் என்ன பயனும் இல’
(If Eyes were to communicate, words are of no use)
We have many treatises in all Religions,Languages on virtue,On what is Good,Bad,and what makes one Happy and contented.
I am yet to find some thing which is something very simple and appealing to follow or at least understand and the one that makes me interested at least in attempting to follow.
These are theLyrics of one of The Great Lyricists of Tamil Movies,Mr.Kannadasan, a Legend, who could capture the essence of Life in ordinary words in Tamil which we use every day, from a delectable Tamil Film, Sivaji Starrer ‘Aanadavan Kattalai
As translations do not seem to be available I have tried to capture the spirit of the message and I can assure you that it is not in any way near to the original, such is my incompetence.
I am posting this deliberately in English so that people who do not know Tamil may have a chance to read and enjoy noble thoughts.
I would like readers of other Indian Languages to forward me Noble and simple thoughts say like Jana Padagalu in Kannada .
I am interested in posting that in my way.
What is the Ultimate aim of man?
Money,Power,Wealth,Popularity,Fame,Wine, Women?
It all boils down to one thing.
It is happiness.
And I have found that Contentment is the key to happiness.
I would go as far as to say that Contentment is Happiness.
In six simple day-to-day Tamil Kannadasan captures the essence.
In his inimitable style Lord Krishna advises Indra,
You disguise yourself as a Brahmin and ask Karna his Body Armour( Kavacha and Kundala) that is a part of his body, granted by his Father Surya, The Sun God.
He will give them to you immediately”
Indra asks Krishna ‘What if he takes time or consults with others?
Krishna adds ,
‘ Karna will never do that.
He has a taken a vow that he will give anything which he has, immediately; he is of the conviction that human mind is subject to chang e and that if he delays a minute even, he might not give to those who seek!
Hindu Religious texts declare that one has to do Good things the moment he thinks of them and delay the bad ones.
………………….. continues..
Kaviarasu Kannadasan
Playback: T.M.Soundararajan
Cast: Sivaji Ganesan, Devika
Movie: AANDAVAN KATTALAI
Music: Viswanathan-Ramamurthy . Lyrics: Kannadasan
Year of Release: 1964
