Hanuman - The light side!
Hello all,
Namaste! Hope all of you had a great week where you were able to concentrate your mind and thereby your focus onto things that you exactly want for your life. Last week we discussed how the mind is the true power that helps us to bring things we need for our life. Before that, we discussed the shadow side using Ravana as an example. We have discussed before that every one of us has our light and the shadow side. If the shadow side is not taken into account and acknowledged it can take over us as well as our light side. So today why don't we discuss our light side, that is the side that we have to embrace to capture the whole of ourselves?
So, what is the light side? That is the side that is complementary to the shadow side but should be the dominant one compared to the shadow side. All of us live in societies. Think about the shadow side coming out in each one of us. Shadow side is the Asura (demonic) side that has all the lower emotions like anger, jealousy, envy, lust, ego and all other vices. Such a society would be in tatters and cannot function properly as each one is for themselves and their benefit. There would be no basic decency or morality. Anything goes. Anarchy, chaos, and disputes would be the talk of the town.
In the 'Book of Genesis' in Christianity there is the mention of cities called Sodom and Gomorrah where vices where rampant and later the divine judgment was passed by God to destroy the cities along with other two neighboring cities using fire and brimstone. This story provides a glimpse into a society that can fall into chaos and Adharma (wrong principles) and how nature (God in other words) can take the society to task due to the unbalanced nature of the doing of the people in the society.
As previously discussed in other posts, the Universe or the divine intelligence like things to be balanced and equal in the scales of justice. If there is unbalance somehow nature tries to bring it to balance. What is the balanced nature? The balanced nature for a human is to acknowledge that each of us does have a shadow side, and taking it into account and standing in the light side, doing things for ourselves and later for the greater society. This is how an authentic human being is supposed to function.
Light side: Now, let us elaborate more on the light side. What is the light side? As we already know, every one of us has a divine spark within us the soul. This is the most God-like part each one of us have. We may never be able to reach that highest vibrational level of a soul where there is not even an iota of negativity. But we can always strive and try to improve as close to that soul level of existence.
How do we get as close to that soul level? By making the soul or in other words our inner voice as our mentor, who guides us through the thick and thin of life. But many times we ignore this inner voice and lead a life from the point of our mind. Our mind has only so much knowledge from whatever knowledge, experiences, and analysis we have done in this life. That is a great amount of knowledge.
But from a soul level of living, suddenly the subconscious knowledge of our past lives (most of us would have gone through numerous lifetimes) is swung open and all the knowledge we have ever acquired becomes available to us at our disposal. Also, I believe in 'Spiritual Masters' who have walked this Earth before us. Their guidance also flows towards us when we embrace a soul or inner voice level of living. These knowledge are never available to us when we live from a conscious/ mind level of living.
So, when we truly embrace our light-side and live from a soul level perspective our life becomes guided step by step under the guidance of true 'Masters' who have lived before and captured their own mind and they help us to capture our own essence of life under their tutelage. But here one thing is very much needed and many times we humans totally struggle with this concept- 'Faith or Inner trust'. This is what all the sacred books have written about.
All of us humans think of the 'faith' we should have in an outside divinity. In my viewpoint that is not the true divinity. But to trust, the divinity within each of us.'The Divine within'. And for this concept 'Hanuman-The monkey God' in Hinduism is a fantastic example. He truly shows to us how to believe in this inner trust and have true faith in our inner divinity and by virtue of that in ourselves. He is confidence personified. But he also first had a tough time to believe in himself, but later overcame to capture his excellence.
Hanuman: Hanuman is a character who comes in the epic 'Ramayana'. He comes as the devotee of the major character 'Sri Rama'. Hanuman was born son to 'Kesari' (father) and 'Anjana' (mother). But he was born due to the blessing of the wind god 'Vayu' as well. Hence he is also called 'Vayu Putra', son of Vayu. When Hanuman was very young, one day he was feeling very hungry. So he saw the rising Sun and thought it as a fruit and jumped to capture the fruit. Seeing that the kid can take away the Sun, the king of Devas (celestial beings), Indra, jumped in between and hit him with his thunderbolt. In that Hanuman lost consciousness and lost all his memory of the awesome magical powers he had. Due to the strike of the thunderbolt on Hanuman's face, his face became monkey like and has he is monkey-like, indeed he has a tail.
Hearing what happened to his son, 'Vayu' got very angry and hid in a cave. Due to this without air (Vayu is wind God) to breathe animals and humans of the Earth started to die. To pacify Vayu, many of the Devas gave Hanuman magical powers and he became very strong. But Hanuman had no idea that he has magical powers and can do things impossible by others.
Hanuman became an adult and later met with Rama and his brother Lakshmana, who were searching for Rama's wife Seetha. The king of a country called Kishkinda was Sugreeva and Hanuman was one of the ministers of Sugreeva. So, Sugreeva promised Rama to help find his wife Seetha. With the help of monkeys, many of the warriors of Sugreeva went in all directions in search of Seetha. Seetha was kidnapped by Ravana, the demon, which we have discussed previously.
The monkey army with Angada (son of Bali, the brother of Sugreeva) as the leader and Hanuman as the general, went to the South of the Indian subcontinent. In the way, they meet a great vulture called 'Sambathi' who tell them how he saw Ravana taking Seetha in his flying chariot to the island of Lanka (today's Sri Lanka) in the middle of the Indian ocean. Now all where thinking heavily how to go the Lanka crossing the great expanse of the Indian ocean. Among the army there also was an old bear, (A bear in a monkey army? No questions in Mythology. ;-))) Jambavan.
He called Hanuman and told him about the story of Hanuman jumping to catch the Sun and told him that he has the capacity to jump the ocean. First Hanuman was doubtful. But with Jambavan's encouragement and with the thought of Rama, (Rama is considered an avatar of Vishnu, a God in Hinduism) he jumped over the ocean, went to Lanka, saw Seetha, gave her the jewel Rama had given him and got a hair jewel from her to give to Rama, burnt down most of Lanka and jumped back to India and informed Rama that Seetha was in Lanka.
Now, with the help of monkeys, Rama and Lakshmana crossed to Lanka and started the fight with Ravana and his army. The fight was going on ferociously and one day Lakshmana, brother of Rama was fatally wounded by Ravana's son, Indrajith. Then Hanuman was asked by the monkey physician to bring a herb (Sanjeevani) from one of the mountains, 'Dronagiri' in the Himalayas. Remember Hanuman had to fly from Lanka to the Himalayas, some 2300 km. Hanuman jumped and reached the Himalayas. But he could not find which herb it was. As he had to bring the herb as soon as possible to revive Lakshmana, he had no time to waste.
Remember the magical powers Hanuman was given. Using that he made himself huge in size, plucked the whole Dronagiri and flew to SriLanka and brought the whole mountain to SriLanka. The monkey physician found the herb and later Hanuman went and kept the mountain back in the Himalayas itself. Like this Hanuman was very powerful, strong, and was a commander throughout the war between Rama and Ravana. Later after the war when Seetha and Rama went back to their kingdom of Ayodhya, Hanuman accompanied them to Ayodhya. So, this is the mythological story of Hanuman. Now let us analyze how Hanuman is the best example for the light side.
Analysis:
Normal meaning: Hanuman was born with unusual and magical powers. He could almost capture the Sun, was able to kill Asuras as if like mosquitoes and was considered very wise. As he was imparted with many powers by the Devas, along with magical powers he had a lot of knowledge as well as wisdom. But he was never egotistic or arrogant about his knowledge. He helped all the young monkeys in education and war strategy. He was considered a general of the monkey army but with a lot of the underlying wisdom as well.
Even with all these powers and knowledge he was a great devotee of Rama (the divine avatar) and was humble to the core in his dealings with Rama, Seetha, and Lakshmana. In any picture Hanuman is with Rama, he is depicted with folded hands as if surrendering to his lord. All the power and knowledge could have brought out his shadow side of ego and the spiritual arrogance of knowledge. He could have swelled with pride knowing that he has knowledge and powers other monkeys and his peers don't have.
Instead, even knowing that he has all the power and knowledge at his disposal he chose to be humble towards his lord, Sri Rama. If it had been any other ordinary being they would have fallen prey to the ego, pride, and arrogance knowing they had special powers. Not Hanuman. He maintained his humility all through his life and later was blessed by Rama to be a 'Chiranjeevi' (eternally living). So, here was a perfect being who had acknowledged and captured his shadow side and lived totally from his light side for his very purpose of serving his lord and master, Sri Rama. Now to the esoteric meaning.
Esoteric meaning: Many times the mythological stories also encapsulate esoteric meaning. This meaning only comes when we think and contemplate deeply. So, now let us analyze to know the secondary meaning. In the last meaning, we considered Hanuman as another being. Now, let us put ourselves as the being in Hanuman's shoes.
Think now we are the Hanuman, each one of us. According to the mythological story, Hanuman forgot that he jumped to catch the Sun. So in our story, we have forgotten our true nature. What is our true nature? That each one of us is a divine spark having a physical experience. Later Hanuman became aware of his true powers. Like this we are supposed to become aware of our true nature, how each one of us is a very powerful being and instead of a small, mediocre life, we are being asked to live the great life we have a right to as a powerful spiritual being.
Once, Hanuman became aware of his true nature as a powerful being he didn't take the path of pride, ego, and arrogance. Instead, he chose the path of humility and humbleness and lead a life devoted to his lord, which gave him the status of 'eternally living'. So here, why don't we take Sri Rama, not as an outside God, but our very own inner divine or the higher Self or Soul? Hanuman helped Sri Rama to find his dear wife Seetha and helped in his mission. So when Sri Rama becomes our very own soul, then we as Hanuman are supposed to help our Soul carry out its mission that it came to undertake in this physical realm.
So to undertake our soul level mission we are supposed to have an attitude as that of Hanuman, always with folded hands, listening to our higherSelf, allowing the soul to drive our life to fulfill the mission (sacred contract) that we came into this Earth to fulfill. Here the soul is indeed the lord and we the being is the Hanuman. And with our concerted effort we 'co-create' the very mission we came into this world for. In such a scenario there is no place for arrogance or egotism. Instead, it is co-creation with our soul.
We should have to be well aware that we are undertaking a soul level mission and the attitude to embrace is that of Hanuman- a loyal devotee ready to do the Lord's mission to the total effect without an iota of arrogance, pride, or ego. Then the whole chest of knowledge, path, and wisdom would be opened for us to live a life from the realm of the 'Higher self'. This is the actual esoteric meaning provided in my mind by Hanuman's story. Now, whether to undertake our mission or not, very much our free will and choice!!
I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday! 😉
Next week: My Kerala -'God's own country'!
Note: Images from Wikimedia Commons, and Pixabay.com.
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried".
All rights reserved to the author (SwaroopaStargazer) and SwaroopaBlog.
To my Blog readers: As all of you know, the European Union has passed laws regarding the collection of the user data. This is just to inform all my EU blog readers, I just use Google Analytics, which Google provides, to look at from where readers are reading my blogs. I also use Specific feeds to use their service for subscription list. I don't collect or intend to collect user data to sell or provide to third-party applications. Regards,
SwaroopaBlog.
Namaste! Hope all of you had a great week where you were able to concentrate your mind and thereby your focus onto things that you exactly want for your life. Last week we discussed how the mind is the true power that helps us to bring things we need for our life. Before that, we discussed the shadow side using Ravana as an example. We have discussed before that every one of us has our light and the shadow side. If the shadow side is not taken into account and acknowledged it can take over us as well as our light side. So today why don't we discuss our light side, that is the side that we have to embrace to capture the whole of ourselves?
So, what is the light side? That is the side that is complementary to the shadow side but should be the dominant one compared to the shadow side. All of us live in societies. Think about the shadow side coming out in each one of us. Shadow side is the Asura (demonic) side that has all the lower emotions like anger, jealousy, envy, lust, ego and all other vices. Such a society would be in tatters and cannot function properly as each one is for themselves and their benefit. There would be no basic decency or morality. Anything goes. Anarchy, chaos, and disputes would be the talk of the town.
In the 'Book of Genesis' in Christianity there is the mention of cities called Sodom and Gomorrah where vices where rampant and later the divine judgment was passed by God to destroy the cities along with other two neighboring cities using fire and brimstone. This story provides a glimpse into a society that can fall into chaos and Adharma (wrong principles) and how nature (God in other words) can take the society to task due to the unbalanced nature of the doing of the people in the society.
As previously discussed in other posts, the Universe or the divine intelligence like things to be balanced and equal in the scales of justice. If there is unbalance somehow nature tries to bring it to balance. What is the balanced nature? The balanced nature for a human is to acknowledge that each of us does have a shadow side, and taking it into account and standing in the light side, doing things for ourselves and later for the greater society. This is how an authentic human being is supposed to function.
 |
| Light and shadow side-parts of the same being! Image courtesy-Pixabay.com |
Light side: Now, let us elaborate more on the light side. What is the light side? As we already know, every one of us has a divine spark within us the soul. This is the most God-like part each one of us have. We may never be able to reach that highest vibrational level of a soul where there is not even an iota of negativity. But we can always strive and try to improve as close to that soul level of existence.
How do we get as close to that soul level? By making the soul or in other words our inner voice as our mentor, who guides us through the thick and thin of life. But many times we ignore this inner voice and lead a life from the point of our mind. Our mind has only so much knowledge from whatever knowledge, experiences, and analysis we have done in this life. That is a great amount of knowledge.
But from a soul level of living, suddenly the subconscious knowledge of our past lives (most of us would have gone through numerous lifetimes) is swung open and all the knowledge we have ever acquired becomes available to us at our disposal. Also, I believe in 'Spiritual Masters' who have walked this Earth before us. Their guidance also flows towards us when we embrace a soul or inner voice level of living. These knowledge are never available to us when we live from a conscious/ mind level of living.
So, when we truly embrace our light-side and live from a soul level perspective our life becomes guided step by step under the guidance of true 'Masters' who have lived before and captured their own mind and they help us to capture our own essence of life under their tutelage. But here one thing is very much needed and many times we humans totally struggle with this concept- 'Faith or Inner trust'. This is what all the sacred books have written about.
All of us humans think of the 'faith' we should have in an outside divinity. In my viewpoint that is not the true divinity. But to trust, the divinity within each of us.'The Divine within'. And for this concept 'Hanuman-The monkey God' in Hinduism is a fantastic example. He truly shows to us how to believe in this inner trust and have true faith in our inner divinity and by virtue of that in ourselves. He is confidence personified. But he also first had a tough time to believe in himself, but later overcame to capture his excellence.
Hanuman: Hanuman is a character who comes in the epic 'Ramayana'. He comes as the devotee of the major character 'Sri Rama'. Hanuman was born son to 'Kesari' (father) and 'Anjana' (mother). But he was born due to the blessing of the wind god 'Vayu' as well. Hence he is also called 'Vayu Putra', son of Vayu. When Hanuman was very young, one day he was feeling very hungry. So he saw the rising Sun and thought it as a fruit and jumped to capture the fruit. Seeing that the kid can take away the Sun, the king of Devas (celestial beings), Indra, jumped in between and hit him with his thunderbolt. In that Hanuman lost consciousness and lost all his memory of the awesome magical powers he had. Due to the strike of the thunderbolt on Hanuman's face, his face became monkey like and has he is monkey-like, indeed he has a tail.
Hearing what happened to his son, 'Vayu' got very angry and hid in a cave. Due to this without air (Vayu is wind God) to breathe animals and humans of the Earth started to die. To pacify Vayu, many of the Devas gave Hanuman magical powers and he became very strong. But Hanuman had no idea that he has magical powers and can do things impossible by others.
Hanuman became an adult and later met with Rama and his brother Lakshmana, who were searching for Rama's wife Seetha. The king of a country called Kishkinda was Sugreeva and Hanuman was one of the ministers of Sugreeva. So, Sugreeva promised Rama to help find his wife Seetha. With the help of monkeys, many of the warriors of Sugreeva went in all directions in search of Seetha. Seetha was kidnapped by Ravana, the demon, which we have discussed previously.
The monkey army with Angada (son of Bali, the brother of Sugreeva) as the leader and Hanuman as the general, went to the South of the Indian subcontinent. In the way, they meet a great vulture called 'Sambathi' who tell them how he saw Ravana taking Seetha in his flying chariot to the island of Lanka (today's Sri Lanka) in the middle of the Indian ocean. Now all where thinking heavily how to go the Lanka crossing the great expanse of the Indian ocean. Among the army there also was an old bear, (A bear in a monkey army? No questions in Mythology. ;-))) Jambavan.
He called Hanuman and told him about the story of Hanuman jumping to catch the Sun and told him that he has the capacity to jump the ocean. First Hanuman was doubtful. But with Jambavan's encouragement and with the thought of Rama, (Rama is considered an avatar of Vishnu, a God in Hinduism) he jumped over the ocean, went to Lanka, saw Seetha, gave her the jewel Rama had given him and got a hair jewel from her to give to Rama, burnt down most of Lanka and jumped back to India and informed Rama that Seetha was in Lanka.
Now, with the help of monkeys, Rama and Lakshmana crossed to Lanka and started the fight with Ravana and his army. The fight was going on ferociously and one day Lakshmana, brother of Rama was fatally wounded by Ravana's son, Indrajith. Then Hanuman was asked by the monkey physician to bring a herb (Sanjeevani) from one of the mountains, 'Dronagiri' in the Himalayas. Remember Hanuman had to fly from Lanka to the Himalayas, some 2300 km. Hanuman jumped and reached the Himalayas. But he could not find which herb it was. As he had to bring the herb as soon as possible to revive Lakshmana, he had no time to waste.
 |
| Hanuman carrying Dronagiri to get the herbs By Ravi Varma Press [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
Remember the magical powers Hanuman was given. Using that he made himself huge in size, plucked the whole Dronagiri and flew to SriLanka and brought the whole mountain to SriLanka. The monkey physician found the herb and later Hanuman went and kept the mountain back in the Himalayas itself. Like this Hanuman was very powerful, strong, and was a commander throughout the war between Rama and Ravana. Later after the war when Seetha and Rama went back to their kingdom of Ayodhya, Hanuman accompanied them to Ayodhya. So, this is the mythological story of Hanuman. Now let us analyze how Hanuman is the best example for the light side.
Analysis:
Normal meaning: Hanuman was born with unusual and magical powers. He could almost capture the Sun, was able to kill Asuras as if like mosquitoes and was considered very wise. As he was imparted with many powers by the Devas, along with magical powers he had a lot of knowledge as well as wisdom. But he was never egotistic or arrogant about his knowledge. He helped all the young monkeys in education and war strategy. He was considered a general of the monkey army but with a lot of the underlying wisdom as well.
Even with all these powers and knowledge he was a great devotee of Rama (the divine avatar) and was humble to the core in his dealings with Rama, Seetha, and Lakshmana. In any picture Hanuman is with Rama, he is depicted with folded hands as if surrendering to his lord. All the power and knowledge could have brought out his shadow side of ego and the spiritual arrogance of knowledge. He could have swelled with pride knowing that he has knowledge and powers other monkeys and his peers don't have.
Instead, even knowing that he has all the power and knowledge at his disposal he chose to be humble towards his lord, Sri Rama. If it had been any other ordinary being they would have fallen prey to the ego, pride, and arrogance knowing they had special powers. Not Hanuman. He maintained his humility all through his life and later was blessed by Rama to be a 'Chiranjeevi' (eternally living). So, here was a perfect being who had acknowledged and captured his shadow side and lived totally from his light side for his very purpose of serving his lord and master, Sri Rama. Now to the esoteric meaning.
Esoteric meaning: Many times the mythological stories also encapsulate esoteric meaning. This meaning only comes when we think and contemplate deeply. So, now let us analyze to know the secondary meaning. In the last meaning, we considered Hanuman as another being. Now, let us put ourselves as the being in Hanuman's shoes.
Think now we are the Hanuman, each one of us. According to the mythological story, Hanuman forgot that he jumped to catch the Sun. So in our story, we have forgotten our true nature. What is our true nature? That each one of us is a divine spark having a physical experience. Later Hanuman became aware of his true powers. Like this we are supposed to become aware of our true nature, how each one of us is a very powerful being and instead of a small, mediocre life, we are being asked to live the great life we have a right to as a powerful spiritual being.
Once, Hanuman became aware of his true nature as a powerful being he didn't take the path of pride, ego, and arrogance. Instead, he chose the path of humility and humbleness and lead a life devoted to his lord, which gave him the status of 'eternally living'. So here, why don't we take Sri Rama, not as an outside God, but our very own inner divine or the higher Self or Soul? Hanuman helped Sri Rama to find his dear wife Seetha and helped in his mission. So when Sri Rama becomes our very own soul, then we as Hanuman are supposed to help our Soul carry out its mission that it came to undertake in this physical realm.
 |
| The 'Hanuman' like attitude, a being is supposed to portray! Rama family can be seen as well Raja Ravi Varma [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
So to undertake our soul level mission we are supposed to have an attitude as that of Hanuman, always with folded hands, listening to our higherSelf, allowing the soul to drive our life to fulfill the mission (sacred contract) that we came into this Earth to fulfill. Here the soul is indeed the lord and we the being is the Hanuman. And with our concerted effort we 'co-create' the very mission we came into this world for. In such a scenario there is no place for arrogance or egotism. Instead, it is co-creation with our soul.
We should have to be well aware that we are undertaking a soul level mission and the attitude to embrace is that of Hanuman- a loyal devotee ready to do the Lord's mission to the total effect without an iota of arrogance, pride, or ego. Then the whole chest of knowledge, path, and wisdom would be opened for us to live a life from the realm of the 'Higher self'. This is the actual esoteric meaning provided in my mind by Hanuman's story. Now, whether to undertake our mission or not, very much our free will and choice!!
I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday! 😉
Next week: My Kerala -'God's own country'!
Note: Images from Wikimedia Commons, and Pixabay.com.
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried".
All rights reserved to the author (SwaroopaStargazer) and SwaroopaBlog.
To my Blog readers: As all of you know, the European Union has passed laws regarding the collection of the user data. This is just to inform all my EU blog readers, I just use Google Analytics, which Google provides, to look at from where readers are reading my blogs. I also use Specific feeds to use their service for subscription list. I don't collect or intend to collect user data to sell or provide to third-party applications. Regards,
SwaroopaBlog.
Disclaimer: This is a personal blog. The opinions and viewpoints shared here are that of the author/owner only. Even though the author/owner will try to research well before posting the information, the author/owner of this blog does not make any portrayal of the accuracy or correctness of the content on this blog or the links provided. The author/owner will not be liable for any omissions or inaccuracies occurred. The author/owner will not be liable for any damages or losses due to the use or display of this blog. These terms and conditions can change at any time. This blog is purely for informational purposes only.
©SwaroopaStargazer and Swaroopa, 2017- Eternity.
©SwaroopaStargazer and Swaroopa, 2017- Eternity.
![By Ravi Varma Press [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hanuman_fetches_the_herb-bearing_mountain,_in_a_print_from_the_Ravi_Varma_Press,_1910%27s.jpg){kind=link}
![Raja Ravi Varma [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ramapanchayan,_Raja_Ravi_Varma_(Lithograph).jpg){kind=link}
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