Burn the Ravana within….
Dashanan — The ten headed half Brahim and half Demon, scholar of Vedas and Upnishads, a Warrior, King of golden city, a great Ayurvedic physician, and author of books like Nadi Pariksha, Arka Shastra, Arka Pariksha, Kumara Tantraya, Ravana Samhita and many more.
He was a Veena maestro and composer of Shiva Tandav Strotram. He was the biggest devout of Lord Rudra and was named Ravana by him. The greatest astrologer of his time and the master of many sciences. His strength was unmatchable; he is the only person in history to move Mount Kailash. He was one of the distinguished fighters in traditional martial arts.
Ravana knew 64 different arts with a deep understanding of all the Vedas. But with all these achievements he was a victim of the five vices — the lust, anger, greed, attachment and ego. This made him do heinous and evil things. He considered himself superior to all other demons, humans, animals and creatures. He was certain that no one can defeat him.
It is well known that Ravana was killed because to his ego and ignorance. Ignorant that the planet earth is a place for all creatures, that the most intelligent kinds of creature in-fact are responsible to maintain the balance here.
But even a great scholar like him was vanquished from this Earth along with his clan. Even after hundreds of year later, at some places the effigies of Ravana with this brother and son are burnt as a symbol of victory over evil.
Basically, the effigy is burnt of a living person whose actions we dislike. There is no need and logic to burn the effigy of someone who is dead centuries ago. The fact that every year we burn even bigger effigies is a symbol that the Ravana is still alive (in us) and evil continues to grow.
Of all the creatures on the earth, humankind has proved to be the most progressive, intelligent, smart with empathy and sympathy. We have been to Moon and back; we are planning to start life on Mars. We can fly thousands of miles in hours; we have built the gigantic buildings and monuments as a symbol of our achievements.
Humans have practically cut every creature, plant and even soil to find out what lies inside it. We have tried every possible way to find out the biggest secret of how we were born, how this universe came into existence.
While we have achieved a lot in the field of science and technology, have found cures to innumerable diseases but somewhere in this quest and celebration of success, we have become like Ravana. We are considering ourselves the superior being and ignoring the other creatures on the earth leading to imbalance and global warming.
All over the world, there are hundreds of small and big festivals celebrated around the year. But every part of world this year has celebrated only one festival i.e. Fear of Corona.
All the science and technology till date has failed to find a cure for this disease. All our success in various fields stood still. The entire world came to a stop under the fear of corona.
Like Ravana, we have become ignorant to our part of responsibility to maintain the harmony and evenness between us and other living beings on this planet. Ravana’s ego led him to his destruction with his brothers and sons. Our ignorance has led us to losing our loved ones, our jobs, businesses and our peace of mind to this pandemic.
This year, instead of burning the effigy of Ravana or forwarding the messages of how evil was ended, let us burn our ignorance and channel our superiority to continue to keep this planet habitable and in a living condition for our future generations.
May goddess Durga give all of us the strength she gave to Lord Ram to fight the evil and prevail the good. May she bless us all with her 9 forms and defeat the demon within us.
Happy Dussera!
