When Ram had defeated Ravan, the Demon king; Ram walked over and bowed to him as a person of immense knowledge. Albeit gone awry.
If we are looking for Good vs Evil characterization of a fight, then it makes no sense for the “Good” to bow down to the “Evil”. But in popular parlance, that is how Vijay Dashami or Dusshera is characterized. We are told it’s a fight between “Good” and “Evil” and the moral of the story is that “Good always wins”.
Ram’s behavior at the end of the war says something totally different.
For, one who has gone beyond the dichotomies of Good / Evil, the Right/Wrong and Likes/Dislikes; a war is not a statement of morality. A war is a necessity of maintaining social balance in human life, as life is lived in every moment sans ideas and morals. Beyond that war and violence have no significance nor relevance.
The problem with the world is that when one fights a war for greed of power or money or lust; he loves to posit moral dualities. Usurping the high road to himself. From Alexander to Muhammad to Babar to Aurangzeb to Hitler to Bush. Everyone was fighting a “Just” battle. And at the end of the battle, everyone of these generals demonstrated a hatred for the vanquished.
Whether it was in taking slaves, killing the opponents, or vilifying them. Or all of these actions together. Making a war opponent as an Enemy is a moral necessity for the one who fights a war of greed.
Ram’s war was not a war of greed. He had not come to usurp anything from Ravan. He did not covet anything that Ravan had.
He fought the war to take care of his love and responsibility – Sita, who had been abducted by a lusting man. It was not a war to even get “my woman back”.
Where a woman becomes a property. For, if a woman is a property, then one evaluates the return of one’s very action.
Is taking all this trouble even worth it? Ram had no such thought. If Ravan could have returned Sita, Ram’s love and responsibility, without a fight – none would have occurred. It wasn’t an action of calculation.
War was not ideological either. Again, if one looks carefully then one can see that a “Good vs Evil War” is fundamentally a war of ideologies. Because the concepts of Good and Evil are merely Ideological.
Not Existential. Existentially, only two things are important. Truth and Untruth. Truth, not as an idea or as a statement of fact or one’s experience. Truth is objective. Truth is in every moment. Not in a moment as you experience or state it or me for that matter. But as it occurs Eternally and Perennially.
That which was there before the beginning of time, that which is during the reign of time, and that, which will still be existing after the end of time. That is the irrevocable, indestructible and inviolable.
Only one that is Sanatan or Eternal is the Truth. Rest, because it is temporary – whether for a fleeting second or millions of millennia – is Untruth.
Excerpted from website Drishkitone. The festival of Dussehra is being celebrated on Oct 22
Desh Kapoor
