Sri Rama was an interesting character and his life rotated around the number ten. His father is known as Dasharath. Dasha means ten, rath means chariot. The literal meaning is ‘one who can ride ten chariots together and control all the horses’. This is an indication of a person who is in command or has mastery over the senses and mind. How many senses are there? Ten. You also ride the ten horses every day, yet you are not able to control them. Dasharath, the king and father of Rama, was the master in controlling the senses and the mind. Naturally, the divine energy will descend in the hearth and home of one who can control the senses and the mind. So Rama became son to Dasharath.
Then Rama fought Ravana, whose other name was Dashanan, dash-anan, ten-headed. This ten-headed thing is also peculiar. There are the six old heads and four new ones. The four new ones did not exist at the time of Ravana. So what were they? The first six are kama, passion, krodha, anger, lobha, greed, moha, infatuation, mada, arrogance, matsarya, envy. The other four were krurata, uncontrolled violent nature; dam, vanity, he was a vain person; he was mayamayi, completely lost in an illusory world that he lived and created in his own life, as being the all-powerful. He was also in the grip of avidya, although he is considered to be the most knowledgeable person in the world. According to the statement of the Ishavasya Upanishad, even knowledge can lead you to deeper darkness (mantra 9):
Andham tamah pravishanti ye avidyaamupaasate; Tato bhooya iva te tamo ya u vidyaayaam rataah.
Those who worship avidya (ignorance) enter into darkness and those who worship vidya (knowledge) enter into still greater darkness.
Ravana had knowledge, yet the pride of his knowledge took him onto the path of darkness, rather than on the path of wisdom.
We also have these ten things in our head. Ten things in one head is 10 percent each. Ravana had ten heads, which was 100 percent. You only have 10 percent of each trait in one head, but he had ten heads, which was 100 percent of each trait in each head. Can you imagine his state of mind, his state of consciousness, his state of seeing the world? Not like us. We only see it through 10 percent of the intensity of the ten conditions. Each of his heads represented 100 percent, and to manage that is a challenge. We cannot manage our 10 percent, he had to manage 100 percent, and he did it. He succeeded, yet his success made him also fail. He had offered his ten heads to Shiva which means that he cleaned himself completely. Shiva gave him back the boon saying that he would continue to have ten heads. Shiva knew what was going to happen, so he could not allow him to be totally clean and cleansed. He had to create a block. So he gave him the boon, ‘You lost your ten heads, I will give you back the ten heads.’ Ravana thought, ‘Oh, what a wonderful boon.’ He did not realize that it was a death knell, bells were ringing his death.
This was the person Rama fought for ten days. The war between Rama and Ravana lasted ten days. This is where things become interesting for the individual. Can you claim victory over one quality, condition of your mind, one every day? In ten days, all these ten different conditions were destroyed and Ravana died. What destroyed him? Ambrosia. Not the fight with Rama, not the arrows of Rama. We also have ambrosia in us. Yogis say that through khechari mudra you can experience that ambrosia, amrit, nectar, which is produced by the body itself. If you can taste it, if you can consume it, you do not age. From that perspective Ravana was a yogi. He had tasted that nectar. He had stored that nectar in his navel and did not allow it to be digested. He was a long-lived, immortal person.
The top part of the spinal cord, where it enters the brain, is known as the pons. It is in the brain. At the front side of the pons in the centre is the pituitary gland. Behind the pons, at a slightly upper level, behind the eyes, is the pineal gland. When people practise khechari mudra, they activate the pituitary gland which produces ADH and oxytocin. Oxytocin and ADH are chemicals, and together they work to rejuvenate the body. They are anti-ageing. When you take the anti-ageing directly from your body and activate it, you do not age. ADH and oxytocin is the ambrosia in our body that yogis talk about. Ravana knew the skill of how to maintain himself, and it was difficult for Sri Rama to destroy him. Every time he tried to destroy him, the body would rejuvenate itself. Ultimately, the source of his ambrosia had to be dried up, and that happened when Rama fired the fiery arrow at his navel, manipura. Through the manipura fire he was able to burn what Ravana was holding there. After it burnt, Ravana died.
This was the nature of Ravana. Ravana exists within us too. Right now it is ten conditions contained in one head, ten conditions, ten percent each. That is of the old conditioning. Now we are becoming double Ravana. We are becoming twenty-headed monsters. We already have ten and we are growing ten more which also take 100 percent attention, awareness, participation and involvement. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, SnapChat, Thread, Tinder, TikTok and X-Twitter are the ten heads that you are all having now. You like to indulge with those ten heads. There are times when you admire your one head by looking at your Facebook. There are times when you admire your other head by looking at something different, maybe WhatsApp. Then you relax when you are watching the third head, YouTube. You are completely engrossed, hundred percent attention and total awareness is there.
We are actually the Ravana of today’s age. We think we are Rama but we are not. We are all Ravanas. The challenge before us is, ‘Can we destroy one head per year?’ If you can abstain from Facebook for one year, you have destroyed one head. Can you abstain from Twitter for one month, YouTube for one month, Netflix for one month? It is a challenge for you, yet it will make you see the strength of your new emerging head. You will see, how it is more powerful than your pure intentions and how it will destroy your will of not looking, into an intense desire to look. Therefore, if you can abstain for one month of these things, you will understand the nature of the mind, what Ravana faced, and how Rama helped him.
This is a story of our life, a story that happened in the past but is still relevant to us in our life today. The ten-headed monster, which Rama killed, died outside, yet the ten-headed monster which lives inside is killing us. The choice is ours. Should it kill us or should we make the effort to get away from its clutches? If it bothers us too much, we should kill it. First, make the effort to get out of the clutches. In that way, you bring into your life the kingdom of the divine, known as Ram Rajya.
24 October 2023, Progressive Yoga Vidya Training, Ganga Darshan, Munger