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dhavkar for a month, and why they kept smiling at my questions as if I had asked,
“Why is sugar sweet?”
BHAVNA
One line in the Ramcharitmanaswas frequently quoted to me as I asked people to
speak of how they saw the five boys who put on the guises of the gods. The line oc-
curs in the arena of the Bow Sacrifice at Janakpur. Many princes have assembled to
try to break Shiva’s bow and thereby win the hand of Sita. An immense audience
watches the spectacle within the story, just as an immense audience is watching the
Ramlila at that moment. When Ram and Lakshman enter, everyone is transfixed by
their beauty. But not everyone sees them in the same way.
Jinha ke rahi bhavna aisi / prabhu murati tinha dekhi taisi //^17
According to the feeling within him (or her), each saw the form of the Lord.To warriors he looks like the embodiment of heroism. To wicked kings he seems
terrifying, and to demons he appears as Death itself. Women see him as the erotic
sentiment personified; Janak and his queens regard him as their child. The learned
see his cosmic form with countless faces, hands, and feet. Yogis see the radiant Ab-
solute, and Ram’s devotees see their own beloved personal deity. Thus, the poet re-
iterates, each one sees the king of Kosala according to his or her feeling.
Similarly, what one sees in the Ramlila depends on one ’s attitude. A sadhutalked
about this in a tea-stall discussion:
Look, this is milk. Do you see anything in the milk? But if you heat it, the cream
comes up. It ’s the same with God. Until we heat it up here [points to chest], we
can’t know. Just as there is butter mixed in milk, so God is hidden in the world. We
must heat this body, we must churn it, to find out. Otherwise we just look and see
milk. As you see the world now, you go on seeing it.The devotee who wishes to have a deep experience in the Ramlila must come with
a great emotional openness—particularly with the perfect openness known as love.
The Ramcharitmanasand the Ramlila based on it teach love, tenderness, selflessness,
adoration, all focused on Lord Ram, but tending to become qualities of the devo-
tee ’s entire character. They teach this love in an endless fugue of examples, varia-