Talk Excerpt 241. Swamiji quotes Swami Vivekananda: Do not praise the beauty of another man’s wife.

From Mother Radha’s notes, written at Swamiji’s feet.

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 Sri Rama in her heart and then spoke to Ravana: ‘You think that a lotus will blossom in front of a glow worm? 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 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 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, Sri Rama would not have taken her 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 in Lanka, Sita prayed: ‘Let me get rid of this body, full of pain from separation from Sri 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 Sri 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.’

Hanumanji could not bear it. When no one was there he dropped Sri Rama’s ring near Sita as though it had dropped from the tree. This was the ring which Sri Rama had given him to give to Sita.

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These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.