The Inner Rāmāyaṇa

The symbols

Each kāṇḍa, inwardly

Each person, inwardly

• Rāma — The Self (Ātman) — born of a mind that has mastered the ten senses (Daśaratha), wedded to the world (Sītā), separated from it by desire, and reunited by knowledge.
• Sītā — The jīva or prakṛti — the world of matter and the individual soul. Without Sītā there is no Rām-āyaṇa: the unmanifest is known only through the manifest. Her journey from Laṅkā to Ayodhyā is the path from sensuality to spirituality.
• Lakṣmaṇa — The one-pointed mind (or the jīva in perfect discipleship) that never leaves the Self; tradition says he is Ādiśeṣa, the serpent on which Viṣṇu rests.
• Bharata — The sincere devotee who holds the world as the Lord’s trust — the pādukā on the throne: ego dethroned, the Self enthroned.
• Daśaratha — The mind that rules the ten senses gives birth to the Self; the same mind, overcome by attachment (Kaikeyī), loses it.
• Kaikeyī — The good intellect that listens to the crooked thought (Mantharā) and is overcome by selfish desire.
• Mantharā — The crooked thought — fear and envy in a servant’s voice.
• Vasiṣṭha — Brahma-tejas — the power of spirit that is greater than all force.
• Viśvāmitra — The guru who takes the student out of comfort into discipline.
• Paraśurāma — Righteous anger that must finally surrender to the calm Self.
• Ahalyā — The mind turned to stone by a fall, awakened by the touch of the Self.
• Jaṭāyu — The conscience that resists evil even when it cannot win.
• Śabarī — The devotee for whom the Lord Himself comes.
• Hanumān — The disciplined mind (son of Prāṇa, the Wind) that, remembering its true nature, crosses the ocean of saṃsāra and unites the jīva with the Self.
• Sugrīva — The chastened mind that, having suffered under desire, can be harnessed in the service of the Self.
• Vāli — Lust and power that usurp the kingdom of the mind; it cannot be fought head-on, only avoided and struck from a distance.
• Jāmbavān — The guru who reminds the seeker of his true nature.
• Vibhīṣaṇa — The sāttvika conscience in the city of the ego, which, rejected, takes refuge in the Self.
• Rāvaṇa — The ego with ten heads: the ten senses turned outward. Daśa-mukha is the opposite of Daśa-ratha.
• Kumbhakarṇa — Tamas — sleep, gluttony and inertia.
• Indrajit — Subtle desire that defeats even the lord of the senses (Indra) and hides in illusion; only the disciplined mind can slay it.
• Śūrpaṇakhā — Lust that grasps; the first spark of the inner war.
• Mārīca — Māyā — the mirage that draws the mind away from the Self.

Episode by episode

• The Birth of the Poem — The hunter who kills a creature “in the midst of love” is desire (kāma) that destroys the very joy it seeks; the same pattern returns at the centre of the epic, when Rāvaṇa tears Sītā from Rāma.
• Ayodhyā, the Sacrifice and the Birth of Rāma — Daśa-ratha: one who drives the chariot of the ten senses. Only when the ten are mastered is Rāma born within. His three queens are often read as the three guṇas, and the four sons as the four goals of life — dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa — with Rāma as dharma.
• Viśvāmitra Comes for Rāma — Viśvāmitra — “friend of the universe” — is the teacher who takes the student out of the palace of comfort into the forest of discipline.
• Tāṭakā and the Guarded Sacrifice — Tāṭakā is tamas — the gross, devouring inertia that lays waste to the forest of the mind; it is the first enemy any seeker must face.
• Stories on the Road — Knowledge descending from the infinite is too powerful for the unprepared intellect; it must first be held in contemplation (Śiva’s hair) before it can flow into life.
• Ahalyā Set Free — The mind that has fallen into desire becomes “stone” — insensitive, cut off. Long discipline prepares it, but it is the touch of the Self that awakens it.
• Viśvāmitra’s Own Story — Kṣatra (power) and brahma (spirit): every one of us is born a Kauśika and may become a Viśvāmitra.
• Śiva’s Bow and the Wedding of Sītā — Sītā, born of the earth, is the world — prakṛti — and Rāma the Spirit. Spirit wedded to the world: this is creation, and its whole story is the Rāmāyaṇa.
• Paraśurāma Humbled — Anger, even righteous anger that once had a purpose, must surrender to the calm strength of the Self.
• Mantharā’s Poison and Kaikeyī’s Two Boons — Mantharā, “the crooked one”, is the crooked thought; Kaikeyī is the good intellect that listens to it. The two boons — something for me (Bharata’s crown) and something against another (Rāma’s exile) — are the two faces of selfish desire.
• Rāma Receives the Sentence — The crown and the forest are the pairs of opposites (dvandvas). The Self wears both as costumes.
• Three Who Would Not Let Him Go — Sītā’s refusal to stay behind is the devotee who will not accept the world without the Lord. Lakṣmaṇa is the one-pointed mind that follows the Self into every forest.
• Leaving Ayodhyā — Guha and the Crossing — Crossing the Gaṅgā is crossing over from the world of royal identity to the life of the ascetic — a death and a rebirth.
• Bharata Refuses the Throne — Bharata is the sincere devotee who will not enjoy the Lord’s property; he will only hold it in trust.
• The Sandals on the Throne — The sandals on the throne: the ego steps down and the Self is enthroned, while the body-mind goes on working as its servant.
• Śūrpaṇakhā and the Fourteen Thousand — Śūrpaṇakhā, “she of winnowing-fan nails”, is lust that grasps; cutting her nose and ears is the cutting of the senses’ hold.
• The Golden Deer and the Abduction — Ayodhyā to Laṅkā is the path of desire: the jīva, distracted by the golden deer, loses the Self and is carried off by the ego. Laṅkā to Ayodhyā will be the path back.
• Rāma’s Grief and the Leashed Fury — The Spirit, separated from the jīva, seems to suffer — as the Self seems to suffer through the mind it identifies with.
• Kabandha and Śabarī — Kabandha — all appetite, no head — is the life of mere hunger; when it is cut down and burnt, guidance rises from it.
• Sugrīva’s Story and the Seven Sāla Trees — The seven sāla trees are read as the seven sheaths or the seven planes of ignorance pierced by one arrow of knowledge.
• The Killing of Vāli — Vāli is lust that has usurped the kingdom of the mind and taken what belongs to another; Sugrīva is the mind that, chastened, can become an ally of the Self. The Lord sides with the one who has turned to Him.
• The Monsoon and Lakṣmaṇa’s Anger — After the stormy season of the mind (monsoon), clarity (autumn) returns — and with it, sādhana must resume.
• The Search Begins — the Ring Given to Hanumān — The Name of the Lord, carried by the devoted mind, reaches the jīva in bondage before the Lord Himself arrives.
• Despair by the Sea — Sampāti and the Waking of Hanumān — Hanumān’s forgetting is avidyā; Jāmbavān’s reminder is the guru’s teaching; the leap is the Self-realised jīva crossing the ocean of saṃsāra.
• The Leap Across the Ocean — Becoming small to pass Surasā: the ego that can shrink when needed is the one that succeeds. Hanumān can be as large or as small as the work requires.
• Sītā in the Aśoka Grove — The jīva held captive by the ego sits under the tree of a-śoka (“no sorrow”) even in śoka (sorrow), holding on to the memory of the Lord. That remembrance is what keeps her untouched.
• Hanumān Meets Sītā — The ring with Rāma’s name reaches the jīva first; the jewel from her head returns to Rāma — the exchange of the Name and the surrendered self.
• From Grove to Court to Burning City — Burning Laṅkā: the point in sādhana when one gains sovereignty over the senses — the fire set by the enemy’s own hand consumes the city of desire.
• Vibhīṣaṇa’s Refuge — the Charter of Śaraṇāgati — Vibhīṣaṇa is the sāttvika voice in the city of the ego — conscience — which, when rejected by the ego, crosses over to the Self and is crowned.
• The Ocean and the Bridge — Setu — the bridge between the limited and the Absolute; Rāma’s name that makes stones float is the power of the Name to carry the heavy mind across saṃsāra.
• Kumbhakarṇa — Kumbhakarṇa is tamas — sleep, gluttony, inertia — vast, slow to wake, enormously destructive when it does.
• Indrajit’s War of Illusion — Indrajit, “conqueror of Indra (the lord of the senses)”, is desire at its most subtle — it hides, deceives and multiplies. Only the steady, self-controlled mind can kill it.
• The Āditya-hṛdaya and the Fall of Rāvaṇa — The ego’s heads grow back as long as we attack its expressions; it dies only when the source — the sense of separateness in the heart — is struck by knowledge.
• The Fire and the Revelation — The jīva that has passed through the city of the ego must be purified in the fire of knowledge before union. Agni gives back what was always pure.
• The Return and Rāma-rājya — Ayodhyā to Laṅkā: the material path; Laṅkā to Ayodhyā: the spiritual path. Rāma-rājya is the resurrection of spiritual culture in a person and a society.
• The Prehistory of Rāvaṇa — Ten heads: ten senses, or the ten “heads” of the ego. Ten-headed and twenty-armed, Rāvaṇa is the extroverted personality — immense capacity, all of it turned outward. Daśa-ratha (master of the ten) and Daśa-mukha (servant of the ten) are opposites.
• Sītā Returns to the Earth — Prakṛti returns to her source; the jīva, purified, merges back. “Without Sītā there is no Rāmāyaṇa” — and with her going, the story moves to its end.
• The Departures — The Self, having played every role perfectly, withdraws from the stage; the Infinite returns to the Infinite.