Vi­jay Ma­haraj

On Thurs­day, March 19th, Nav Raa­tri be­gins. The Di­vine Moth­er is wor­shipped over a nine-night pe­ri­od. Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, at the cul­mi­na­tion of Nav Raa­tri, the Hin­du fes­ti­val of Ram Nau­mi is cel­e­brat­ed. The name Ra­ma holds great spir­i­tu­al pow­er, com­pris­ing of two syl­la­bles:-

· ‘Ra’: light or ra­di­ance – the di­vine light of con­scious­ness that il­lu­mi­nates the truth.

· ‘Ma’: sym­bol­is­ing that this di­vine light re­sides with­in us all.

Ram Nau­mi is more than just a fes­ti­val; it is a cel­e­bra­tion of faith, de­vo­tion and en­dur­ing val­ues that Lord Ra­ma rep­re­sents.

Lord Ra­ma is revered by Hin­dus the world over as ‘Maryaa­da Pu­rushot­tam’ or the supreme/ide­al man. His life ex­em­pli­fies the ide­al con­duct and man­ner of liv­ing. He was the per­fect son, ide­al hus­band and the most vir­tu­ous king.

Lord Hanu­man (an in­car­na­tion of Lord Shi­va), com­mon­ly re­ferred to as the ‘Mon­key-God,’ be­longed to the ‘Vanaar’ tribe and was the chief ser­vant of Lord Ra­ma.

When East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers ar­rived in Trinidad in 1845, they brought the ‘Ram­char­it­manas/Ra­mayan’ Scrip­ture with them. This has been and con­tin­ues to be ex­pound­ed for the spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment of Hin­dus lo­cal­ly. It de­tails the en­tire life sto­ry of Lord Ra­ma and Lord Hanu­man. Hin­dus are en­cour­aged to fol­low the ex­am­ples set by them.

Lord Ra­ma ex­em­pli­fied the ideals of ‘Raj Ni­ti’ or per­fect laws of gov­er­nance, which are still very rel­e­vant to to­day’s so­ci­ety. There are cer­tain episodes dur­ing his king­ship which clear­ly il­lus­trat­ed that Lord Ra­ma pos­sessed great hu­mil­i­ty and com­pas­sion and al­ways put his sub­jects’ and cit­i­zens’ wel­fare above that of his own and his fam­i­ly.

These episodes are be­yond the scope of this ar­ti­cle but the point I would like to make is that Lord Ra­ma ex­em­pli­fied ideals which are so dire­ly lack­ing in to­day’s so­ci­ety.

There is an un­de­ni­able per­cep­tion that pol­i­tics at­tracts peo­ple who are mo­ti­vat­ed by self-ag­gran­dis­e­ment as op­posed to al­tru­is­tic pur­pose. Many peo­ple seek pub­lic of­fice to see what they can get for them­selves, as op­posed to work­ing tire­less­ly for oth­ers. They en­ter pol­i­tics for stints of time, dur­ing which they seek to ac­quire fi­nan­cial re­mu­ner­a­tion oth­er than their salaries.

Over the many years, we were sub­ject­ed to politi­cians on­ly in­ter­est­ed in ‘self­ies,’ con­tent­ed to on­ly pose for the sake of me­dia cov­er­age. The lev­el of nar­cis­sism knows no bounds. Some ex­pect the pub­lic to live by the law of the land, when they them­selves ab­ro­gate these laws with im­puni­ty.

At a deep­er lev­el, they mean that once ex­posed to the cor­ri­dors of pow­er, some politi­cians are dri­ven and will do vir­tu­al­ly any­thing to re­main at the reigns of such pow­er.

In­creas­ing­ly, pol­i­tics, once re­gard­ed as a “vo­ca­tion,” is now re­ferred to as a pro­fes­sion, with the for­mer of­ten rais­ing con­cerns about it be­ing a busi­ness or prof­it-dri­ven en­deav­our.

Lord Hanu­man was the chief ser­vant of Lord Ra­ma. For him, every­thing was on­ly pos­si­ble through the grace of God and he nev­er shirked his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. He was an am­bas­sador of Lord Ra­ma, a com­man­der of armies, a great war­rior in his own right, al­ways a hum­ble ser­vant and friend to all mankind. No task was too small or too big for him. Firm­ly plant­ed in his de­vo­tion to Lord Ra­ma, he ac­com­plished the most amaz­ing feats.

Hin­dus are en­cour­aged to fol­low the ex­am­ples set by Lord Hanu­man. Some­times, it is easy to think that we have some­how ac­com­plished our life’s tasks by virtue of our own skill. Lord Hanu­man teach­es us that it is by the grace of God. Lord Hanu­man nev­er per­formed a sin­gle task with the in­ten­tion of ac­quir­ing some­thing for him­self. It was al­ways for the ben­e­fit of mankind.

The ideals em­bod­ied in the life sto­ry of Lord Hanu­man would lift us as a peo­ple. How many of us give praise and thanks to the Almighty for what­ev­er we have, be it small or grand? How many of us do any­thing for the wel­fare of oth­ers?

Ram Nau­mi is not just about re­mem­ber­ing the virtues of Lord Ra­ma; it’s about cel­e­brat­ing val­ues that make the world a bet­ter place. Whether you ob­serve by fast­ing, chant­i­ng mantras, per­form­ing pu­jas, re­flec­tion on Ra­ma’s teach­ings is a re­minder that good will al­ways pre­vail over evil.

All re­li­gions preach in some form that ser­vice to mankind is ser­vice to God. We must be our broth­er’s keep­er. At a time when the moral fab­ric of our so­ci­ety is be­ing gnawed away, we should seek refuge at the feet of Lord Ra­ma and Lord Hanu­man and seek to em­body the ideals which they ex­em­pli­fied.