“Of what use are wealth, comforts and pleasures, home, wives, and sons if one is not able to see Shri Rama?” (Valmiki Ramayana, Ayodhya Kand, 48.7)

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किं नु तेषां गृहैः कार्यं किं दारै: किं धनेन वा
पुत्रैर्वा किं सुखैर्वापि ये न पश्यन्ति राघवम्

kiṃ nu teṣāṃ gṛhaiḥ kāryaṃ kiṃ dārai: kiṃ dhanena vā
putrairvā kiṃ sukhairvāpi ye na paśyanti rāghavam

“I had a random thought the other day. It will appear irrelevant at first, but have some patience. I will tie it into spiritual life at the end, because that is how we do things. The issue at hand was a wedding invitation. This isn’t like the old days, back in the villages, where people would invite anyone and everyone they know. I think the wedding for my parents had over one thousand attendees. It was not exactly communal living, but in a rural area, nonetheless. No electricity. Plenty of cows. Multiple generations living under the same roof. Everyone was treated like family, even if they weren’t directly related to you. There was no wedding hall to book or seat count to keep track of. There was plenty of space, and the father of the bride was not keeping an eye on the budget.

“I realize that today things are different. The prices are extraordinary. You have to book the place months in advance. You have to send out invitations, request responses, and then calculate a rough count of attendees. My real complaint is with the event itself. I find these weddings to be incredibly boring. As in, an experience to dread. I never have fun at them. I never post pictures of the event and proclaim to have ‘had a blast.’ They seat you next to total strangers. They play this loud music and try to coerce people to dance, even when they don’t want to. You are wearing these uncomfortable clothes. No wonder people head straight for the bar, which hopefully is ‘open’ instead of ‘cash’, if you know what I mean.

“I was thinking that wouldn’t it be cool to have some sort of payoff system, to get out of attending. For example, if you invite me to your wedding, let’s agree on an amount of money I can give you as a gift. This amount will not only satisfy the cost of my potential seat, but it will also get me out of future guilt. You can never criticize me for having skipped your wedding. I gave enough as a gift to absolve the sin, so to speak. Isn’t this the best idea ever? I will gladly pay twice what I would normally give as a gift in order to make this happen.

“Someone following bhakti-yoga might use their immersion in the discipline as an excuse to get out of similar obligations. The criticism in return is that they are bypassing the material world. I believe they even call it that, ‘spiritual bypassing.’ You use devotional service as a kind of excuse to avoid obligations. Rather than deal with the difficult and sometimes uncomfortable issues of family, friendship, job, and life itself, you cling to your books and your chanting beads. What is the response to such criticism?”

In the list of ten offenses involved with chanting the holy names, one touches upon this subject. We should not chant the names of Krishna and Rama as a way to gain safety from mistakes, crimes, or missed obligations. It is not that I will do this bad thing or that, feeling safe because I will later chant the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. I can try to go down this route, but things don’t work out as planned. The mantras in bhakti, in connecting with Hari in a mood of love, are not intended to serve as a shield. There are other ways to atone, as passed down in the Vedic tradition. It is not that atonement has been completely ignored.

At the same time, if a person’s interests lie elsewhere, what are they to do? What if they really have no interest in attending such events? What if they have found a higher taste? Should they pretend to have an interest, just to go along? Should they show solidarity, put on a brave face, and offer sentiments as a formality?

विषया विनिवर्तन्ते
निराहारस्य देहिनः
रस-वर्जं रसो ऽप्य् अस्य
परं दृष्ट्वा निवर्तते

viṣayā vinivartante
nirāhārasya dehinaḥ
rasa-varjaṁ raso ‘py asya
paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate

“The embodied soul may be restricted from sense enjoyment, though the taste for sense objects remains. But, ceasing such engagements by experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 2.59)

We have the example of the wives in the kingdom of Ayodhya, from a long time ago. They were so attached to the eldest son of the king, the prince, that they spontaneously dropped everything to follow Him. They travelled behind Rama, as if that great man were leaving a trail with His steps. It would have been a trail of tears, except the people following were not so quick to accept defeat. If Rama had to leave their kingdom and not return for fourteen years, those people were going to follow Him.

It so happened that Rama could not tolerate seeing their suffering. When they spent one night sleeping on the ground, outside, underneath trees, Rama decided to create a diversion. He would speed away in the chariot, accompanied by His wife and His younger brother. The driver of the chariot would create a second set of tracks, pointing back to the kingdom. In this way, the sleeping followers would be fooled upon waking up. They would not be able to decipher where Rama had gone.

In the aftermath, the women in particular made their sadness known. They offered a harsh and stinging rebuke to their husbands. The women rhetorically asked what everything at home was for. What was the purpose? What was the use? Now that Rama had gone, what was there to live for? Since they could not see Him, they felt like life itself was meaningless.

Were they spiritually bypassing? Were they trying to escape responsibility? Were they using the sadness of separation from Rama as an excuse to avoid difficult issues? On the contrary, the separation was the most difficult issue. Indeed, no one should ever experience such separation. We chant the holy names to be together, to join, to have a union, to experience God, in a steady association. Bhakti-yoga is for solving the greatest problem there is.

In Closing:

Just because not displaying,
Where not interested saying.

Not that obligations without,
Path studiously searching out.

Leading to that beloved son,
Our savior only and one.

Who leaving Ayodhya stirring grief.
Wives of sadness beyond belief.

Categories: questions

Tags: bhakti, dailyprompt, hare krishna, poem, poems, poetry, yoga