Rama

Rama, the desire for selfless service, and Ravana, the desire for selfish satisfaction, both exist within us. When Rama faces Ravana on the battlefield, he must sever all ten heads of his enemy at once, which is how we must slay the selfish ‘I.’

Easwaran reads the Ramayana allegorically as an interior psychic drama in which Rama and Ravana represent opposing desires—selfless versus selfish—staged within every individual.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis

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Rama’s wife Slta is abducted by Ravana, the demon king. Much of the Ramdyana concerns Rama’s recovery of Slta—that’s the bride quest… once the treasure has been grabbed, there is no reconciliation with the powers of the underworld… and the hero must escape. This is a psychotic condition.

Campbell places Rama within the universal monomythic bride-quest pattern and interprets the Ravana episode as a ‘psychotic condition’ wherein wrenched unconscious knowledge unleashes demonic counter-forces.

Campbell, Joseph, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, 2004thesis

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Hanuman is completely devoted to Rama, an incarnation of the Lord. He has to undergo all sorts of trials which test and reveal his love for Rama.

Easwaran presents Hanuman’s trials as a paradigm of tested devotion to Rama as divine incarnation, illustrating how love for the Lord is proven through ordeal.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis

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Among purifying forces I am the wind, and among warriors I am Rama. Among water creatures I am the crocodile, and among rivers I am the Ganges.

In Easwaran’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna’s self-identification as Rama among warriors establishes Rama as the supreme divine manifestation within the kshatriya principle.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975thesis

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see what just one hour of walking repeating Rama, Rama, Rama can do. When you come back, you may even have forgotten what you were depressed about.

Easwaran advocates the repetition of ‘Rama’ as mantram—a therapeutic practice capable of dispelling depression and demonstrating the superior power of sacred sound over discursive intellect.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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This spring is considered to have been sanctified by Rama. Legends say that when he and Sita were wandering through South India during their period of exile, Sita became thirsty.

Easwaran invokes a sacred geography sanctified by Rama and Sita’s exile journey, grounding the mythic narrative in living devotional landscape and personal ancestral memory.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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Some said that Shiva was the perfect embodiment of the Lord; others said Krishna; others said it was Rama or the Divine Mother.

Easwaran places Rama within a pluralist pantheon of divine ideals, illustrating how sectarian debates over the supreme form of God arise from and disrupt communal spiritual life.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975supporting

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Rāma (hero of Rāmāyana). See under Vishnu, avatārs of

Zimmer classifies Rama iconographically as a Vishnu avatara, situating him within the systematic mythology of divine incarnation in the Indian art-and-civilization tradition.

Zimmer, Heinrich, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, 1946supporting

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I had a student whose name was Shivaramakrishna—his father hadn’t wanted to take any chances when he named him, so he just covered all the bases with one name.

Easwaran makes an anecdotal allusion to ‘Rama’ as one divine name among several compounded in Hindu personal nomenclature, illustrating the cultural pervasiveness of theophoric naming.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside

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