Swami Shivapadananda with a moral from the Ramayana

SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA

DAILY READINGS

Taken from Mother Radha’s
notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

Day 241

Swami Vivekananda said, “Do not praise another man’s wife’s beauty.”
Today women fall for this. Ravana also tried this and failed. Sita became angry
because Ravana was trying to make her break her vow. She fixed Rama in her
heart and then spoke to Ravana, “You think that a lotus will blossom in front
of a glow-worm [i.e. something so insignificant]? But a false heart will not melt the heart of a pure wife.”

Ravana had ten heads and had pride in them because he had miraculous
powers. But really this indicates one head with ten senses. Ravana wanted to
chop [kill] her because she had insulted him, but his wife, Mandodari stopped
him. If the husband is unfaithful, the wife must not be unfaithful, she must
try to be faithful.

Ravana gave Sita an ultimatum. I give you one month to decide, otherwise
I shall kill you. But she never gave in.After returning to Ayodhya, Sita took a
vow to go through the trial by fire. If she had made a mistake, knowingly or
unknowingly, Rama would not take his wife back.

Sita dreamt of a monkey – Hanuman was there but she did not know it.
Then she saw Ravana without hair, on a donkey, like a dead thing, going towards
Sita. This means going towards hell.

Still on Lanka, Sita prayed: “Let me get rid of this body, full of pain
from separation from Rama. Ravana only wanted my body, so let me get rid of
it.” She wanted to prove her love, to burn her body, which she had given with
thought and word to Rama. She said, “Let me enter the fire.” But one of the
women said, “There is no fire at night.” So Sita replied, “If there is no fire
at night, then there is no end to my torture.” Hanuman could not bear it. When
no one was there he dropped Rama’s ring near Sita as though it had dropped from
the tree. This was the ring which Rama had given him to give to Sita.