As we prepare to celebrate Diwali, marking the end of Ravana’s tyranny and the re-establishment of Dharma and Sri Rama’s return to Ayodhya, it's as good a time as any to introspect on the deeper meaning of Diwali, the festival of light. Despite being a scholar of the six Shastras and four vedas, and being an extremely accomplished yogi, Ravana was not immune to the vagaries of human nature.
Ravana was an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva and he performed the most severe penances to please him, so that he could ask for boons to be conferred upon him. It is the intent behind the penance that separates the devas or rishis from the asuras. Whilst the latter perform penance to please their chosen deity, assuras do it as a means of achieving their selfish objectives.
Such was Ravana’s lust that, taken by Mata Parvati’s beauty, he asked for her to become his wife. This put the divine couple in a quandary, and it was then that the Devi turned a frog into the most beautiful maiden, who became known as Mandodari, whom Ravana took as his wife. The asura mind is completely self centred, and doesn’t recognise the boundary or respect that needs to be accorded to the deity.
If that wasn’t all, when at Mata Parvati’s behest, Lord Shiva commissioned the construction of the golden Lanka, Ravana who was believed to have presided over the house warming ceremony as one of the most learned scholars of his time, asked for Lanka itself as his dakshina. True to his name, Bholenath gifted it to his devotee without batting an eyelid. Despite his immense knowledge, his ego, greed, envy, pride and lust amongst others, symbolically became his ten heads, and he began wreaking havoc in all 3 worlds.
It is at such a difficult time that Lord Vishnu incarnated as Sri Rama, exemplifying the ideal human being, or Maryada Purshottam. His calm demeanour pervaded the most challenging of circumstances, and through living a destiny of duty and sacrifice, he helped restore the balance of dharma, bringing relief to persecuted devotees. Sri Rama resides in our hearts, minds and our collective psyche, and it’s vitally important that we keep the demons of ignorance and ego in check, lest they grow into the spectre that was Ravana.
