Why Did the Wise Ravana Fall? The Symbolic Origin of Ego

Question:

In the Ramayana, Ravana was said to be a son of a sage and even a mind-born son of Brahma himself. He was extremely learned, a great scholar of the Vedas. Then why did such a knowledgeable and wise being commit such a vile act—abducting Sita? How do we explain that?

Answer:

That’s an excellent question.
Let’s first remember that the Ramayana is not merely a story—it represents every human being’s inner journey, the process of knowing oneself and removing one’s inner faults.

Now, if we look at Ravana just as a character in the story, yes—he was born to a sage named Vishrava and was a descendant of Brahma. But if we read this symbolically, Ravana represents our ego—our identification with the body, the feeling “I am this body.”

However, the ego (Ravana) didn’t just appear on its own. We need to understand his lineage—who were his father and grandfather—because even these are symbolic.

Ravana’s grandfather was Pulastya, and the word Pulastya means “the expansion of bodily consciousness.”
In Sanskrit, pur means “body” or “city.” Our body is called a pur, a city.
When pur expands, it means we start seeing everything only through the body—we live entirely in body-consciousness, caring only for physical pleasures, appearances, and comforts. That spreading of “body-identity” is what Pulastya stands for.

Then Pulastya’s son—Ravana’s father—was Vishrava.
Vishrava means one who turns away from shruti—from divine knowledge, the wisdom of the Vedas.
When a person begins to live only for sensory satisfaction, giving full importance to the senses instead of the higher truth, that state is Vishrava.

From Pulastya (the expansion of body-consciousness) and Vishrava (living opposite to divine law) arises Ravana—the ego, the sense of “I am the body,” “I am this role,” “I am this identity.”

So the genealogy in the Purāṇas—the family trees of Rama or Ravana—is not physical at all.
They represent different spiritual states of human consciousness.
If Rama is not a physical person but a symbol of divine awareness, then how could his father or grandfather be physical? The same applies to Ravana.

In many Purāṇic texts, words like ṛṣi (sage) don’t always mean a saintly human being; sometimes they describe inner tendencies or levels of mind. For example, in today’s reading we saw Sthulashira Mahārṣi—literally “thick-headed sage”—meaning a person with coarse thinking.
So, Pulastya ṛṣi or Vishrava ṛṣi refer to inner states, not external people.

Now, when the expansion of body-consciousness happens and one lives opposite to the voice of the soul, ego—Ravana—is born.
What is ego? It is attachment to roles and identities.
We start to believe: “I am a mother,” “I am a father,” “I am a teacher,” “I am this or that.”
These are only roles, but we begin to see them as our self.

So, if as a mother I feel hurt because my child said something wrong, that hurt comes from identifying with the role.
The real “I” is one and changeless, but I’ve multiplied myself into so many identities—mother, sister, aunt, friend—and got attached to them.
That attachment is ego.
That is what “Ravana” symbolizes—when we mistake our roles for our true Self.

So, ego didn’t just appear from nowhere.
First came the spread of body-consciousness (Pulastya).
Then came turning away from divine truth (Vishrava).
And from these arose ego (Ravana).

Now, you also asked: if Brahma was the creator, and Ravana descended from Brahma, then how did such demonic nature come from such a divine lineage?
Here’s the answer: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are not separate persons—they are three aspects of the Supreme Consciousness.
Brahma is the creative power, Vishnu is the sustaining power, and Shiva is the transforming or dissolving power.
So when it is said that “Pulastya was born from Brahma,” it means: the creative energy of the universe, the Supreme Power itself, created both positive and negative forces.

If the universe contained only good, there would be no growth, no learning.
Creation contains both light and shadow—divine and demonic tendencies.
That’s why Ravana could be both supremely learned and yet full of arrogance—his learning was turned away from truth because of ego.

As for Ravana’s mother—yes, she was said to be the daughter of a demon king. That too is symbolic.
It means that the demonic tendencies—the lower desires and attachments—were also created by the same divine creative power, Brahma.
Both devas (divine forces) and asuras (demonic forces) arise from the same source.

This is what the Devasura Sangram—the war between gods and demons—represents.
It’s not an external war; it’s the constant battle inside us.
Within every person there are divine tendencies and demonic tendencies, both created by the same source.
The inner struggle is between these two.

Our task is to awaken the divine powers within and put the demonic tendencies to sleep.
When the divine awakens, the demonic becomes dormant.
When the demonic is active, the divine goes to sleep.

That’s why, during Navratri, we worship the Goddess Durga.
Durga represents the divine power that destroys countless inner demons.
In the Durga Saptashati, one single divine power destroys fifty different demons—Madhu, Kaitabha, Mahishasura, Shumbha, Nishumbha, and many more.

The message is the same:
When we awaken our inner divine power—our Durga or our Rama—the demonic tendencies, our Ravana, go dormant.
They don’t vanish from creation, but they lose power over us.

That is how Ravana—though born from a divine lineage—came to represent ego, pride, and the fall from wisdom.