Guiding Light: Rāma Navamī & Dharma In Its Fullness
· Free Press Journal
Today, most of the country is celebrating Rāma Navamī. Rāma is often described as dharma vigraha — the embodiment of dharma. Many take this in a narrow sense: dharma as universal ethics, and Rāma therefore as the embodiment of ethical conduct. That understanding is fine at one level, but it is quite limited.
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Dharma is far more than that. Rāma is presented as an avatāra — nothing but Īśvara himself. And in the Upaniṣadic framework, the whole creation is nothing but a manifestation of Īśvara. Therefore, dharma is understood as dhārayati iti dharmaḥ — that which sustains, is dharma.
The universal principles that sustain this creation are dharma, and Rāma is the embodiment of that dharma — a manifestation of cosmic principles or cosmic order, as my teacher used to say.
So what exactly sustains creation? Many of those principles we already understand; many more are yet to be discovered. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology, economics, psychology, finance — all are nothing but expressions of Īśvara's order. For instance just the principle of gravity ensures that we can be on firm ground and not fly away into space. The inherent intelligence in the way these laws work makes our world work! That is why, as Hindus, we hold everything as sacred. No branch of knowledge falls outside the sacred.
Nothing in creation is profane, because everything is a manifestation of Īśvara.
This Īśvara, this Bhagavān, is worshipped in many forms — one of the most beloved being Rāma himself. As an avatāra, he takes birth, lives among us, and departs. This is an attempt at humanizing Īśvara, so that we may establish a personal relationship with the divine. But one must go further and understand dharma in its full cosmic scope — and Rāma as the very same Īśvara who has manifested as this entire creation.
That deeper understanding requires study — of texts like the Gītā and the Upaniṣads — and not merely approaching the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata as itihāsa, as recorded history alone. The study must go deeper than that.
(The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at [email protected])