Unfolding of Ramayana inside a spiritual seeker

Ramayana is a beautiful story. The story seems to be unfolding within us moving along the spiritual path. The story of Ramayana starts with Dashratha making a sacrifice to get offspring and he is blessed with four sons: Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughana. Dashratha is the proud father of these virtuous sons and Rama is the incarnation of God. Dashratha is very pleased to get Rama as his son and wants to make him the king of Ayodhya. A spiritual seeker also tries to understand the consciousness (Rama) through his intelligence (Dashratha) initially. As he connects some missing dots of reality, he becomes quite happy and feels as if he has reached the epitome of the spiritual realization. 

However, this euphoria of a spiritual seeker is quite short-lived just like the euphoria of Dashratha. As the story goes, Manthara, who is a maid of Queen Kaikeyi induces her to ask the two old boons that King Dashratha gave to queen Kaikeyi. Queen Kaikeyi feels insecure about the future of her son Bharata and asks for two boons from Dashratha to send Rama to the forest for 14 years and make Bharata the king of Ayodhya. King Dashratha, has no option but to grant the boons to Kaikeyi and sends Rama to the forest and declares Bharata to the king. That's what exactly happens with our intellect. It has also granted two boons to the Mana (Kaikeyi). Whenever the Chitta (Manthara) induces this Mana with fear, insecurity, and greed, it asks those two boons from the intellect and the intellect has no option but to grant the boons. Taken over by the Chitta and Mana, the intellect becomes powerless again.

As the story goes further, Bharata becomes very sad after listening to this. He refuses to become the king and goes after Rama to the forest to bring him back. Rama is firm on obeying the directions of his father and refuses to come back. Bharata brings his sandals to symbolically put them on the thorn and serve the kingdom of Ayodhya as a servant. That is what happens in this state with a spiritual seeker. He understands that he is nowhere near to the spiritual awakening. In this situation, he too takes part in all the activities in the domain of the conscious mind as if he is doing everything as an agent of the divine. He stops taking debit and credit for the activities carried out in the physical world.

Lakshmana and Sita proceeded with Rama to the forest. That is what happens to us when we enter the field of Parana (Forest) by sitting with closed eyes and concentrating on our breath. In this state, wisdom (Lakshmana) and creative energy (Sita) always remain with us. In that state, we come across many experiences. Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana also met many Rishis during this period. 

However, the inner world is far more complex, and probably the wise ones referred to that inner world as "Patal". The desires lying deep in the unconscious world within ourselves come to the surface in the moments when we concentrate on our breath. Sita watched a golden deer and the desire hidden deep in to unconscious came out and she asked Rama to get the deer. Rama ran after the deer and the deer was in fact a demon who took Rama far away running very fast, Finally, Rama killed the demon but in the process, that demon cried imitating the voice of Rama and Sita became fearful. Sita sent Lakshmana to help Rama. Lakshmana doubted some conspiracy and therefore asked Sita not to cross the Lakshmana Rekha. However, Ravan came disguised as a Sadhu and as soon as Sita crossed the Lakshmana Rekha, he kidnapped Sita and took her to Lanks.

When we sit in meditating on the Prana, the past Samskaras lying deep in to unconscious come in the form of pleasant sensations (golden deer) before us. We experience their pleasantness and want to get more and more of those. We start running after them and soon we start becoming insecure and fearful of losing those pleasant sensations. Our wisdom (Lakshmana) also somehow gets into the trap of craving for pleasant sensations and aversion to unpleasant sensations. Thus the creative energy (Sita), rather than meditating, is kidnapped by the unconscious (Ravana).

Gathered intelligence (Jatayu) is not strong enough to prevent the unconscious (Ravana) from taking Sita along with him. Rama and Lakshmana move from forest to forest to get the whereabouts of Sita. Finally, they reach Kiskindha and meet Hanumana and Sugriva. Sugriva has been expelled from the kingdom by Vali, his brother. Vali has the boon to suck half of the power of the enemy and therefore Sugriva is never able to defeat him. Rama promises to get his kingdom back and supported by Rama, Sugriva challenges Vali and Rama kills Vali hiding behind a tree. 

At this stage, when our creative energy (Sita) has been taken away by the unconscious, we become aware of another great power we have and that is our Mana (Hanumana). However, Mana is quite weak and purposeless. The rulership of the kingdom of Mana lies with desires (Vali). It is not possible to fight the desires because as we fight against the desires, they such all our energy. We need a noble cause (Sugriva) to be the ruler of the kingdom of Mana. That can not happen unless the noble cause (Sugriva) has the support of the consciousness (Rama) and that support will always be hiding behind. The reason is that if one tries to make others understand the spiritual cause behind the noble cause, he will lose strength due to criticism, fault finding, and obstacles created by others. That is the reason why Rama needs to kill Vali hiding behind the tree. 

Once Sugriva became the king, he sent his army of monkeys to help Rama find Sita. However, they meet a dead end and do not know how to cross the sea. Then Jamvanta reminds Hanumana of his powers and then Hanumana flies across the ocean and finds Sita in Ashok Vana of Lanka. Our Mana (Hanumana) has great power of concentration. Once it recalls that power, it can enter the unconscious and observe different past samskaras and how our creative energy (Sita) lies helpless in the Lanka of past Samskaras. 

Hanumana is caught by Ravana and he tries to burn his tail. However, Hanumana burns the entire Lanka instead. That is the power of the concentration of Mana. Once our Mana, which is united with the consciousness observes the past Samskaras, howsoever these past Samskaras try to get hold of the Mana, and Mana ends up burning these past Samskaras.

Finally, Rama has to reach Lanka and fight the final battle with Ravana. Meghnatha and Kumbhkarana. For this, a bridge has to be formed. This bridge is formed by little deeds that we carry out in this world without thinking of the debit and credit. These noble deeds are carried out by the noble cause (Sugriva) and his army. These little stones float on the sea (material world) and form a bridge. Similarly, the noble deeds carried out in this material world without expectations form that bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.

Maghnatha is all-powerful and when a fight takes place between Meghnatha and Lakshmana, he hypnotizes Lakshmana. That is what happens when a battle takes place between wisdom (Lakshmana) and past samskaras of cravings. Wisdom gets hypnotized. Then Mana (Hanumana) has to bring true awareness (Sanjivani Booti) so that wisdom gets its strength back. 

Finally, Rama is finding it difficult to kill Ravana. Ravana has 10 heads and as Rama cuts the heads, they re-appear. At this stage, Vibhishana helps him and tells him the secret of the death of Ravana. Rama hits an arrow at the naval and Ravan is killed. It's not easy for us to eradicate the old samskaras (Ravana). The more we eradicate them the more they come back and in fact, they come back with greater force. Finally, our discrimination (Vibhishana) guides us not to react and observe. Mindfulness is like an arrow at the naval of these past Samskaras and with this we kill the inner Ravana and free the creative energy (Sita) to operate in this world with consciousness (Rama).