As always, I am in dilemma again, the new movie 'RAAVAN' rejuvenate lots of questions which I had since last 4 5 years.
What is RAMA and what is RAAVAN?
I don't know how to start and don’t know how to proceed but one thing I know that since my or I should say since our childhood raavan means something bad; that is why we never named anyone Raavan in our community and clan.
Going back to the days of RAMAYANA , we always seen Raavan as an ‘Rakshash’ who is mainly depicted negatively, infamously for kidnapping Rama's wife Sita, to claim vengeance on Rama and his brother ‘Lakshmana’ for having cut off the nose of his sister ‘Surpanakha’. He was a demon who ruled lanka, the city established by his step brother ‘Kuber’.
But in addition to all this Ravana is described as a devout follower of Shiva, a great scholar, a capable ruler and a maestro of the Veena. He has 10 heads which describes he has thorough knowledge over the 4 Vedas and 6 Upanishads which is far more then Rama the lord.
The story of his birth is also famous, it is believed he was born to ‘rishi Vishrava’ how was a brahmin and grandson of Brahma and Ravana's mother was Kaikesi, The daughter of Sumali. Ravana was thus partly Brahmin and partly Daitya.
That means Raavan was a scholar who never did anything wrong except the act of kidnapping sita, which was an act of vengeance.
It is also believed that Raavan always knew that he'll be killed by Rama but he still did it to set an example.
Some believe Raavan was against ‘yags’ and ‘hawans’, because according to him, it is polluting environment and killing trees , that is why he always destroyed the places of ‘hawans’ and ‘yags’.
It is also believed that rakshash term was a originally 'rakshak, the savior of enviroment but arayans modified it to rakshsh and portrayed it as a bad character.
They believe that this India actually belongs do the dravids who were dark and short and true followers of Hinduism, at that time called as sanatan dharma, they used to follow the Vedas. But intervention of Aryans from outside made their life terrible, Aryans were tall, fair and they have their own beliefs, Aryans wrote their own granth RAMAYAN and portrayed dravids as a BADASS. War between Raavan and Rama is nothing but war between dravids and Aryans or you can say the war between follower of Shiva and followers of Vishnu.
Another belief is that valmiki never wrote RAMAYAN with Rama as a hero and Raavan as a villain, it was just a description of incidents but goswami tulsi daas the great devotee of Rama re wrote RAMACHARIMANS with RAMA as hero and Raavan as a villain.
followers of valmiki samaj has started following Raavan again and they are naming their kids as Raavan, asura, kekais etc. there are lots of mandirs of Raavan in Rajasthan, alwar, noida, and other regions of UP.
Jains belief that Raavan prayed to paasharvnaath and in alwar there is Raavan pashrvnath mandir.
They also believe that Raavan would be one of their 24 tirthankars.
There is also a place called Raavan dehra near alwar.
South Indians always believed that Raavan was not at all bad but was portrayed as a villain. P. S. karunanidhi always supported raavana.
In north India Raavan is built and burnt every dusshera but we always take him as a great personality and few old ladies always say that we should go and touch the feet of Raavan's statue before it is burnt.
Raavan come back every year, I don’t whether to find his status back or to show us that even a single bad deed can destroy an emperor and scholar like Raavan.
Rama always seen ravan as a Brahmin and Rama had to do Ashwamedha yagna as penance for killing a Brahmin.
Now day’s people started following Raavan again, is it a right thing or may be we are blinded by the kalyuga who want us to be an asura and want ‘rakshash raj’ on earth. We started using solutions written in LAAL kitab(Raavan sahinta) written by Raavan.
Are we going in a direction that is decided by god and which will destroy the world?
I don’t know :-|
I personally believe that these changes are periodic, we always want something new. A big religion like Hinduism always had these changes.
All gods have their time and fashions.
Like now a days Shani bhagwan and shiridi sai baba are very famous and every devotee is looking at them as a real god.
Few years back Mataa jhande wali was in more fashion and prior to that as well we humans have a tendency to shift our focus to different gods.
We followed the religion that Muhammad told us about and we became Muslims, we see Christ as a god and we became Christians, those who see Christ as a prophet only are Jews and blah blah blah...
Moreover if at a given time we did not find any god, we worshipped our gurus, like Sikhs, bahais, radha sawamis, nirankari, dera sacha sauda. The list is countless.
Some of them are more famous then others and some are not and all are flowing like a river. But when these rivers of religions see and meet each other, either they rebel each other or they form a new belief.
Raavan is just a phase. We are done with gods and gurus, so some of us want to give a try to villains in the past.
even I never knew that what is right and what is wrong but I always had hanuman as god, although I knew he followed Rama, and he was shivas avtar but still I praise him more then any god, may be because of the way he portrayed to me.
I also believe that god is one, so whatever the way is you gonna make it to the real one.
I am following hanuman but indeed I’ll get onkar
You say Rama Rama, you'll get onkar
You say ‘om namah shivay’ , you’ll be directed to onkar
You say waheguru; guru will take us to onkar
You look at him as Allah, which is synonym for onkar for me.
This Raavan and Rama are within, if we follow one of them seriously we gonna get our lord.
It doesn’t matter you are following Rama or Ravana, just follow the good deeds done by them.
If you are following guru just follow the ‘naam’ given by him and don’t spoil the harmony between humans.
Every one has a right to chose his guru and these gurus may have different believes but alternatively a good guru will take you to the god with his own way.
I chose god as my guru because I find it hard to trust humans now a days, may be you'll get your guru soon.
That is it.
Jai Shri Rama!
aur Raavan ki bhi jai ho.
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