Jatayu’s Death and Ram’s Rituals — The Inner Power That Fights for Our Purity

Question:

Sister, how should we understand Jatayu’s cremation or funeral rites — and the fact that he is described as King Dasharath’s friend? How do we coordinate these ideas?

Answer:

See, there is actually no “outer” Jatayu. Because this whole story is an inner story — it happens inside us.

The Self-abiding person — the one established in the awareness of the Self — has to destroy the Ravana of body-identification, which lies deep in the subconscious as a samskara accumulated over many lifetimes.

So when the story says that Ram performed Jatayu’s cremation, offered pinda and tarpan, it’s symbolic. Through this part of the story, we are being shown that within our own mind lives a special inner power. Without such teachings, we might never realize that our own personality holds this power — a power that exists to protect our purity. Whenever our purity is threatened, this inner vulture-power (Jatayu-shakti) rises, fights the defect, and tries to save that purity — our pure thinking.

Now, in the story, Ram performs the rites because that inner power could not finally protect Sita. The purity (Sita) was taken away; the inner defect was too strong; the protecting power became weak before it. So the story says that the power “died.” This is symbolic language — it “died” because it failed to save our purity.

Question:

So Jatayu is like a “power” that was destroyed by Ravana?

Answer:

Exactly — but not an outer power. It’s our own inner power.

When we begin the journey of Self-knowledge, we start discovering that our personality holds many potential powers. They lie dormant until we walk the inward path. Once we begin this journey, those powers begin to manifest one by one.

So this part of the story carries a very hopeful message — that the human body is not ordinary. It contains countless hidden powers. We usually can’t even recognize them — let alone experience them — until we begin this inner journey.