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What is it about Shree Rama that still endears his revered personality & actions, making him so beloved that his image has been stamped firmly on the Bharatiya mind as the ultimate ideal of human existence beyond thousands of millennia ?
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So universal is his appeal that it cuts beyond time & space spanning across all the countries that were touched by Hindu civilization. Perhaps no other greater human Ideal has inspired so much as a warrior, husband, brother, son & king.
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Shree Rama motivates by example - as the one who leads by showing how to achieve realization, not only in material manifestation, but also by establishing the essential & radical premise for the mental evolution of the human spirit through successive stages towards the Divine.
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And perhaps what endears him most to us is that he leads by showing this divine evolution is possible while living as a householder who has to face all the challenges & difficulties of life, relationships, society & desires, yet overcome them all by being established in truth.
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As Shree Aurobindo says - To destroy Ravana & establish Ramarajya was his mission to enable the future possibility of an order that represents the sattvik civilized human being who governs his life by reason, higher emotions, & moral ideals, such as truth, obedience, & harmony
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He came to establish this Sattvik ideal of a superior human mind in a world still occupied by anarchic forces, the Animal Mind & the powers of the vital Ego making its own satisfaction the rule of life, in other words, the Vanara & the Rakshasa. And his triumph paved the way.
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This is the meaning of Rama and his life-work & it is according to that ideal that he fulfilled it. It was not his business to play the chivalrous Kshatriya with the formidable brute beast that was Bali, it was his business to kill him and get the Animal Mind under his control.
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It was not his ideal to be perfect, but to represent sattvik man as a faithful husband & lover, a loving & obedient son, a tender & perfect brother, father, a friend to all - of outcaste Guhaka, of animal heros Sugriva, Hanuman, of vulture Jatayu, & even of Rakshasa Vibhishan.
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In all this he proved to be brilliant & striking, not out of forced duty but with a harmonious completeness. Above all he chose to exemplify & establish ideals on which highest society & its stability depend, truth & honour, sense of Dharma, public spirit & the sense of order
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He was dedicated to truth & honour, much more even than to his filial love and obedience to his father. Yet even for love of family, he sacrificed his personal rights as the King elect & fourteen of the best years of his life going into exile in the forests.
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This spirit & sense of public order for greater good of society was the supreme civic virtue for an evolving humanity. Because at that time maintenance of an ordered community, not separate development & satisfaction of the individual was the pressing need for human evolution.
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By sacrificing his own happiness & domestic life to ensure social order & justice, he represented the first moral sense of higher civilization, which is undervalued by today’s individualistic sentimental morality of the modern human who can afford to have lesser morality.
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Today we can afford to have lesser morality because the ancients sacrificed the individual in order to make the world safe for the spirit of social order. No other figure could represent this harmony of civic responsibility & personal integrity as brilliantly as Shree Rama
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It was Rama’s aim to make the world safe for the ideal of the Sattvik human by destroying the sovereignty of Ravana, the Rakshasa menace. Humans today seek much more than the Sattvik ideal but Rama shall forever be the hero who established the basis of Dharmic Civilization.
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This thread was inspired & guided primarily by Shree Aurobindo’s description of the significance of Shree Rama as a great Avatar guiding human evolution. It was modified significantly by me for the sake of clarity & simplification.
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FDR didn't even help Indians during the Bengal Famine out of fear of antagonizing Churchill. In 1943, when the UNRRA was formed to provide relief to UN nations it was FDR’s US rep. who REFUSED to allow India to apply for food aid at Britain’s behest while millions starved .
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In 1943, a patriotic Indian activist, Jagjit J. Singh had sent a report on the Bengal Famine to Eleanor Roosevelt who showed it to her husband. FDR had commented that the newly formed UNRRA would be able to take up the matter to provide aid to starving Indians.
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But when India's case was presented to UNRRA, it was FDR's US rep. Dean Acheson who refused saying India was not eligible for aid. British representative Col. John J. Llewellin announced that India was NOT a victim of war so it’s case for food relief could NOT be discussed.
British made up the lies of Thuggees & “human sacrifice” to demonize Kali worship. Thuggees originated from 7 Muslim tribes. Later Hindu converts also joined. There’s no evidence of any specific rituals for Kali worship & the Muslim thugs swore on Allah before committing crimes.
Kali was worshipped by thugs out of superstition to protect them from the repercussions of their crimes. The myth of ritual human sacrifice to Kali as the barbarous, bloodthirsty patron deity of Thuggees is just another Colonial lie invented to demonize Hinduism by the British.
References:
Thuggee
Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India
By K. Wagner · 2007
The Deconstructed Stranglers: A Reassessment of Thuggee
Kim A. Wagner
Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Oct., 2004), pp. 931-963
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The Nilamata Purana (नीलमत पुराण) is an ancient text (6th c. CE) from Kashmir which contains detailed information on history, customs & festivals. It clearly mentions Mahashivaratri & how the festival should specifically be observed.
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The Nilamata specifies that devotees should bathe, observe fast all day & then perform worship to Maheshwara. It describes how the ShivaLingam should be cleaned & bathed with specified holy materials on Mahashivaratri.
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The Shiva Linga was worshipped with scents, flower garlands, red clothes, ointments, food offerings of several types & by honoring the Fire & Brahmanas. This itself indicates it was non-Brahmanas who observed the festival. Devotees stayed up all night telling stories of Shiva.
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Centuries before St. Valentine or even Christ, the people of Bharat celebrated the festival of love for not just 1 but 9 days full of joy, devotion & romance in the springtime, dedicated to Kamadeva, the god of Love. It was called Madanmahotsava or Vasantotsava.
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Mentioned in Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra (400 BCE) it is called Suvasantaka - dedicated to Madana, the god of love & his companion Vasanta, the deity of spring. It was a festival filled with fun & frolic, music & dance, song & play, picnics & a reverent worship of the joy of love.
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Starting with Vasanta Panchami, the festival went on for 9 bright nights of spring 9 days called Vasantanavratras. Men & women, young & old all celebrated with singing & dancing to music. It was a time to dress up, enjoy amusements & pray to divine couples for their blessings.
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Any Hindu visiting Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti’s Dargah at Ajmer is actually celebrating the desecration & destruction of an ancient Mahadeva temple. Not just the tomb, but in fact the entire complex is built atop remains of Hindu & Jain temples demolished by Muslim invaders.
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One of the oldest structures, the Sandal Khana where sandal is prepared daily for the Khwaja's tomb has a doorway which leads by an underground passage to a cellar where the bodily remains of the Khwaja are interred. This is where the original Mahadeva deity was enshrined.
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Sandalwood was offered at this very site daily to Mahadeva by a dedicated caretaker Brahmin family. The descendants of that family are still maintained by the Dargah & called "Gharhyali" (Bell-striker) indicating that there was a large temple bell also at the site.
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Babar, a savage barbarian can't be blamed for being ignorant, but it's shocking that many Indians know nothing about their own history. Centuries before the Mughals, Hindus had organized gardens, fountains, parks, flower groves, orchards, terraced gardens & even garden-cities.
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Ancient Hindu texts use several terms for gardens. Ārāma - pleasure garden is a common term used in Rāmāyana, Māhābhārata, etc. Brihat Samhitā says lakes should have gardens on their banks. Pre-Mughal inscriptions at Amaravati (13th c)., Cambay (10th c.), etc. refer to Ārāma.
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Inscriptions & texts refer to gardens like Vātikā (orchard), PushpaVātikā (flower bower), Upavana (planted forest), Udyāna (Park/public garden). An entire treatise on arboriculture Vrikshayurveda (10th c.) describes crossing & grafting of species to evolve new flowers & fruits.