Understanding the Lord's Actions - Part 6

Date: 2016-04-09 Author: Narahari das

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.

This is in continuation of the previous topic titled, "Understanding the Lord's Actions". So far we saw reasons for some of Lord Krishna's apparently contradicting actions. Now we will see some incidents from the battle between and and the reasons behind the Lord's actions.

Being the Supreme Lord, He should have destroyed Ravana and his huge army just by His will. The great devotees compare Lord Rama's killing of Ravana to the following example. A powerful king goes to his garden for walking. There he finds a leaf in one of the plants infected and spoiled because of some insects. Since the infection may spread and affect the entire plant, the king just plucks the leaf and throws it away. If someone starts glorifying the King for this action and calls it great valor, it is actually an insult for the King. In the same way, the material world is just a fragment of the Lord's power and our universe is a small speck in the creation. Ravana who was king of the , which is a speck in the universe, is no match for the Lord. So killing Ravana is not at all a great act for the Lord. The Lord who simply creates and destroys universes just by His will, can finish off Ravana and other evil forces alone. This was confirmed by the Lord Himself and others in the .

When flew to Lanka (for finding Mother ), after meeting Sita, he defeated many rakshashas and finally he was taken to Ravana by . While advising Ravana to return Mother Sita, Hanuman spoke the valour of Lord Rama as follows and advised Ravana not to earn Lord Rama's displeasure. ( Ramayana - 6.51.44)

sarvān lokān susaṁhṛtya sabhūtam sacarācaram punareva tathā sraṣṭum śakto rāmo mahāyaśaḥ

Lord Rama, the most famous one, can completely destroy all the worlds consisting of moving and non- moving entities and create them again by His arrows.

Also when Lord Rama and realized that Mother Sita was kidnapped by Ravana, Lord Rama spoke the following words. [Valmiki Ramayana-3-64-70]

pureva me cārudatīm aninditāṃ diśanti sītāṃ yadi nādya maithilīm sadevagandharvamanuṣya pannagaṃ jagat saśailaṃ parivartayāmy aham

If my dear Sita is not returned indeed in the same state as She was, before My running after golden deer, I will be annihilating the triad of world in its entirety, together with its moving and non moving beings, and I will be sweltering the entire universe with My arrows, as long as I am not going to get a glimpse of her.

Not only the Lord and His devotees, even the so called enemies of Lord Rama confirmed this truth. Ravana's spies namely Sukha and Sharana shared their opinion about Lord Rama to Ravana as follows. (Valmiki Ramayana-6.16.27)

yādṛśaṃ tasya rāmasya rūpaṃ praharaṇāni ca vadhiṣyati purīṃ laṅkām ekas tiṣṭhantu te trayaḥ Such is Rama's form and such are his weapons, that He can alone annihilate the city of Lanka, His three other companions (Lakshmana, Sugreeva and Vibheeshana) just standing by.

These were not mere statements but Lord Rama proved these statements in the Ramayana. During the war with Ravana, Ravana had a special army called "moola bala sainya" (the core army). Lord Rama fought alone with this army. The sage Valmiki described that during this war, the demons could not see Lord Rama at all, because of His swift movement. They could see only the destruction of their army just like when a forest is devastated by strong wind, one cannot see the wind but one can only see the destruction of the trees caused by the wind. In the same way sometimes, they saw innumerable forms of Lord Rama and sometimes they saw one only one Rama, because of His lightning movement. Also He employed the Gandharva astra by which the demons saw each one of them as Lord Rama and started killing each other. Thus He annihilated the entire moola bala sainya of 3 lakh powerful demons with horses and elephants within 3 hours. After the war, Lord Rama told Hanuman, Jambavan and others, "This kind of missile power (using gandharva astra) and extraordinary destruction is possible for Me and the only other person who can do this is Lord Siva who employs it to destroy universe."

When such is the case, why Lord Rama took the help of monkeys headed by Sugreeva and Hanuman and Jambavan to fight with Ravana and army, while He could have easily defeated Ravana and His army alone (even without Lakshmana's help)? The and acharyas explain the reason for this and Krishna willing, we will see it in the next offering.

Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Narahari Krishna das Chennai.