RAMACANDRA’S CHILDHOOD
Now Lord Ramacandra took His advent on the earth planet, and he was
growing up. He was learning archery in the ashrama of Vasistha. When
the first lesson started, Vasistha told Dasaratha, “I don’t want you
to be here when your son is learning archery.” Dasaratha said, “It is
the tradition that the king sits there and watches the son, how he
holds the bow.” Vasistha said, “Yes, but it is not the tradition that
you produce children from sweet rice.” So Dasaratha went back, and the
education started in confidence. When Ramacandra, Laksmana, Satrughna,
and Bharata were sitting, Vasistha got up from his seat and
circumambulated them. That is why he got Dasaratha out, otherwise
there would be confusion. And then Vasistha said, “You always do
this. Whenever you take an incarnation, You select a rishi to become
Your guru. And he has to teach You this knowledge of which You are the
source. So please excuse me if I commit some offence.”
One day Rama and Laksmana saw a girl walking one day with a huge nose ring. In India the women wear big nose rings, sometimes so big that when they go on the bus the woman’s son can hold it. So she had this huge nose ring, and she was walking with a water-pot. Laksmana looked at it and he laughed. He said, “Look at that nose ring! It’s so big.”
Ramacandra said to him, “Vasistha is looking away, so let us do some
pastime.” So they looked around and they saw an arrow. They took that
arrow, but they had not been taught yet how to do archery. “I will
make this small,” Laksmana said, and he shot the arrow. While the girl
was walking, the arrow came next to her nose and started pouring some
sort of mystical substance on the nose ring, which became so small
that it got stuck on her nose and she couldn’t breathe. Then she
dropped the water-pot, and she was trying to breathe but she can only
breath in one nostril and she was very confused, so she began to call,
“Help! Help!” Laksmana said, “Oh no, now Vasistha will hear and we
will have a problem.” Ramacandra said, “Don’t worry,” and he shot
another arrow. That arrow made it big enough that she could
breathe. So she turned around and said, “What is this you are doing to
me?” Laksmana replied, “Oh, we made your nose ring small, but it was
too small so then we made it big.” “You made it big and then small?”
she asked. “I don’t believe it.” “Oh, you don’t believe it?” Laksmana
asked, “So then we will take it off.” Laksmana then shot another arrow
which took the nose ring out of her nose, and all this was happening without touching her face. And then the nose ring was flying in the sky, and she began to cry out, “My nose ring! My nose ring!” Very quickly Rama fired another arrow and put the nose ring back in the nose.
These were some of the childhood pastimes of Ramacandra. All these
childhood pastimes are all archery and bows and arrows. Anyway, Rama
was growing up and one day a rishi came, Visvamitra Muni. He came in
the entrance of the palace, and he said to the messenger, “Where is
that Dasaratha? You tell him that Kaushika is here.” He is known as
Kaushika because he is coming in the dynasty of Kusha. Kusha and
Kushanabha were great kings. In the Bhagavatam you read about them. So
Kaushika was known for his anger. If he gets angry, he would curse and
he will use all his tapovalam, all the strength of his austerity
simply to place some obstacle. On one occasion he was sitting doing
his meditation, and a bird passed stool on him. It’s natural for a
bird to pass stool, and it’s natural for a rishi to sit under a
tree. But stool on the head was not natural, and Visvamitra was very
upset. He looked at the bird and burnt it. In burning that bird he
used 50 years worth of tapovalam, because that bird had a long
lifetime and he reduced it and suppressed it by his tapovalam, so now
he lost the strength of that austerity. Then he got up and said, “This
situation will make me remember that incident always, so now I will go
to another tree.” Then he would perform more austerity for another thousand y ears, and he was spending his whole life like this.
So Dasaratha looked at Vasistha and said, “Kaushika is here. What am I
supposed to do? I don’t know what wrong I did, why he came to my palace, because he only goes to curse people or kill a demon or something.”
Vasistha said, “First of all, you must go from here to the messenger,
and tell him to say that `The whole kingdom is yours. I am just taking
two minutes to walk to the entrance. Please don’t lose your temper’.”
So the messenger went back to Visvamitra and said, “King Dasaratha
said that the whole kingdom is yours. He will take only two minutes to
walk here. He wants you to be peaceful and take this nice asana.”
Visvamitra said, “I don’t want any asana! Where is the king! Bring him
here!”
By the time Dasaratha got there, he fell at his feet and said, “What do you want? If you want the whole Kosala then please take it.”
“What?” the rishi asked. “I am not into kingdoms. I had a kingdom too.” He was a great prince, a ksatriya, and by some arrangement of the Lord he had become a Brahmin. “I do not want your kingdom,” he said. “I have come here to ask something, and you must tell me that you will give it.”
Dasaratha was thinking, “I wonder what it could be that he wants? Maybe my head. I don’t mind giving him that, but please don’t let him ask for Rama.”
Visvamitra said, “What are you thinking? You are trying to save something.”
Dasaratha said, “No no, you just ask and I will give it.”
So then Visvamitra said, “I want Rama and Laksmana.” Dasaratha
immediately fainted. When he woke up, Visvamitra said, “See! You
fainted, this means that you don’t want to give. And you lied to me! I
am rishi and you lied to me that you will give everything, and now you
won’t give. I’m not going to take them away forever, I only need them for a small purpose. I am doing a yajna, and someone is passing stool and urine on it. I want these children to come and play there, and then these demons will go away.”
“What? Demons?” And then Dasaratha fainted a gain. He couldn’t bear his being taken to demons, so he said, “I will come. I will defeat them!”
Visvamitra said, “Don’t you think I can defeat them? I could easily
defeat them, but I want Ramacandra and nothing else. What do you say?”
“All right,” Dasaratha said. “But please take good care of my son, and
also teach Him something since you know so many things.”
Visvamitra said, “I know what I will do with Rama, and he is coming with me. Now.”
Dasaratha said, “But you have come a long way, you should rest a while
in my palace.”
“I don’t stay in palaces,” Visvamitra said. “Where is Rama and
Laksmana? Give them to me.” So he took Rama and Laksmana and he
left. They were walking, and as they were crossing so many rivers and
going through so many different forests, Visvamitra was telling them
stories, and Rama and Laksmana became so happy because there was no
class and no study, this was like a complete vacation for them. They
were swimming here and swimming there, and Visvamitra was such a nice
teacher that he would swim with them and play with them, tell them
far-out stories of demons and goblins and ghosts. They were so
happy. In the evening time at sunset, Visvamitra told them, “Now you
do your sandhya, and then you sit here and listen to these
mantras. I’m going to teach you some great, powerful mantras. One is
known as Bala, strength. Another is known as Adibala, great
strength. You may need them for these demons. So Rama and Laksmana sat
down and listened to Bala and Adibala, and then they massaged the teacher, Visvamitra. Visvamitra took rest.
The next day Visvamitra woke them up and they reached the ashrama of
Visvamitra and they began a yajna. Then came this demon, a very famous
demon called Marica. Marica was a great magician. Whenever he would
come, then you would see that trees would be falling, the rivers would
be flying up in the sky, and stars would be falling. The animals would
also go crazy, the birds would scream, and the rishis would die as
Marica’ s breakfast was saintly persons only. For lunch he ate
something else like ksatriyas or kings, but breakfast was sages. He
was a cannibal, human eater. So Marica was coming there, and with him
was Dusana. His very name is the same as his character. Dusana means
“all bad things.” His father named him like that, so it must have
been a good family. Dusana and Marica were flying in space and were
coming. So Rama and Laksmana were sitting there and Visvamitra was the
head priest, he was offering ghee into the fire. He looked at Rama to signal that the demons were coming.
Rama looked at Laksmana and said, “So Laksmana, what are you going to do?”
Laksmana said, “Yes, we will do something.” So he took several arrows and shot them into the sky. They went up into the sky about three or four miles, and then from each arrow came a million arrows, and all together they formed a huge wheel of arrows, and this wheel started circling on top of the fire.
So Marica and Dusana came and all that they saw was a wheel and some
spokes. “Where is the fire?” Dusana said, “I told you I wanted to pass
water three hours ago and you said I should wait till we got here. I have been holding it in, and I can’t see the fire. What are you doing to me? Let me go pass somewhere.”
“No no,” Marica said, “Visvamitra’s fire, that is where we should
pass.” “But I can’t see the fire, I only see this wheel.” Then Marica
said, “This must be the trick of these Brahmins. Let me come closer
and see.” So he came closer, and as he came close he got stuck with
one of the spokes of the wheel, and he was thrown miles away. While he
was already thrown, Ramacandra took one blade of grass, and he threw
it at Marica. It got stuck on his back and carried him to the
ocean. He fell in the ocean, and after that he never touched the
Indian land again. He opened an ashrama and became a babaji somewhere
in Sri Lanka, and didn’t even go back to see his family. That was what
happened to Marica, and Dusana was k illed. All this killing was done by grass. Then the yajna was over and Visvamitra came to Ramacandra and he said, “What a great, wonderful thing you did! I saw Marica flying away and falling into the ocean.” Then Visvamitra said, “There’s only one small question I want to ask You.”
“What?” Ramacandra replied.
“What about Bala and Adibala and all those mantras I gave You?”
Ramacandra said, “That is for an emergency, then we will use these ones. Grass is sufficient for these demons.” Then Visvamitra said a famous verse, that for a mighty person even grass becomes an astra.
Ramacandra is so mighty, He’s the source of all Bala. So why should He
take Bala and Adibala? In this way He finished the demons.
CHAPTER TWO **************** CHAPTER FOUR
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