The Story of Sarama (Sarga 33-34)

We have just read the account of the rakshasi Sarama in detail in Chapters 33 and 34.

Many things are said in a detailed account, but some are particularly important. We need to reflect on those points. So let us first look at the story briefly.

Ravana showed Sita an illusory severed head of Rama and tried to deceive her. Believing that Rama had been killed, Sita began lamenting deeply.

At that moment, the rakshasi Sarama, who stayed with Sita as her friend, comforted her by revealing Ravana’s deception.

She also told Sita that Rama had arrived at Lanka and assured her that he would be victorious.

At Sita’s request, Sarama went to Ravana’s assembly and immediately returned to tell her his settled intention.

Sarama said that Ravana was determined to fight and kill Rama. But Rama would kill Ravana with his sharp arrows and take Sita to Ayodhya.

This is what Chapters 33 and 34 describe at length. We have taken it briefly here.

Now let us try to understand it.

This short episode of Sarama is very meaningful.

Why?

Because it points towards a very important fact, just as the earlier episode of the rakshasi Trijata did.

In Trijata’s episode, the rakshasis sent by Ravana were frightening and threatening Sita in the Ashoka grove. Distressed by fear, Sita was eager to give up her life.

Then Trijata comforted Sita by describing her dream. She told all the rakshasis that when Rama came to Lanka and killed the rakshasas, Sita would protect them.

We read Trijata’s episode earlier, and today we read Sarama’s.

The two episodes are almost alike.

Both rakshasis come to comfort Sita when she is frightened, distressed, and eager to give up her life.

The accounts are similar, but one character is named Trijata and the other Sarama.

First, let us consider what these two names signify.

To understand these episodes, we must look at the symbolism of Trijata and Sarama.

Trijata means the power of intuition.

Sarama means the power of insight.

These are their symbolic meanings.

We have already understood Sita many times. Sita indicates our pure thinking: purity of thinking, pure thoughts, or the power of pure thoughts.

We have repeatedly discussed this while reading the Ramayana.

Here, an important point is being indicated: if our thinking is pure, two important powers are always present behind it, or alongside it.

Pure thinking is Sita.

Which two powers accompany this pure thinking?

One is Trijata, the power of intuition.

The other is Sarama, the power of insight.

Hold these meanings in your mind for a while, because only then will the next point become clear.

Trijata is our power of intuition, and Sarama is our power of insight.

With whom do these two rakshasis, these two powers, remain?

With Sita, our pure thinking.

When a crisis arises, these powers never allow pure thinking to die. They save it.

We have been reading that both these powers remain with Sita. Once, Trijata saved Sita from dying. Another time, Sarama saved her from distress and, in a sense, from death.

These two powers are always present with Sita.

But although they are always present, when do they become manifest?

When Sita, our pure thinking, is in danger.

Only when our pure thinking is in danger do these accompanying powers, Trijata and Sarama, protect it. They do not allow it to die.

Now we are saying that they appear when a crisis arises.

What is this crisis?

What constitutes danger for pure thinking, for Sita?

A state of intense body-identification is the crisis for pure thinking.

When we are deeply identified with the body, our pure thinking falls into danger.

This intense body-identification, called Ravana in the story, wants to keep Sita, pure thinking, with itself.

We have read that Ravana wants to keep Sita with him.

What does this mean?

Our body-identification wants to keep pure thinking with itself, which is never possible.

Throughout the story, we repeatedly see that Ravana wants to keep Sita, but Sita cannot live with him. She does not remain with him in that sense.

Pure thinking cannot coexist with body-identification.

In a state of intense body-identification, pure thinking is not possible. Or we can say that pure thinking and body-identification can never remain together.

We all know from experience that while we remain identified with the body, our thinking cannot remain pure.

Today, we live in body-identification. We make great efforts to keep our thinking pure, but body-identification and the many disturbances arising with it—“I,” “mine,” selfishness, and so on—do not allow it to remain pure.

This is everyone’s experience.

What arises with body-identification?

“I” and “mine.”

With “I” and “mine,” selfishness arises. As soon as selfishness appears, many other disturbances arise.

Because of these disturbances, our thinking cannot remain pure. Our pure thinking takes on impurity.

How is this expressed through the story?

Dirt accumulates upon Sita. Her clothes become soiled. Her hair becomes soiled. Sita becomes covered in dirt.

When the story describes Sita living in a soiled condition in the Ashoka grove, it indicates that our pure thinking takes on impurity because of the disturbances arising from body-identification.

Sita, pure thinking, can have a deep relationship only with Rama, who represents being established in the Self.

Sita is Rama’s wife.

Why is she called his wife? Why does she remain with Rama?

This indicates that pure thinking is present when we are established in Self-knowledge.

When we remain in our true nature, when we are established in Self-knowledge, when we become Rama, Sita, pure thinking, remains with us.

But if we forget our true nature and enter body-identification, becoming caught in its many disturbances, pure thinking cannot remain with that body-identification.

Ravana, body-identification, may make a futile attempt to forcibly keep Sita, pure thinking, under his control.

We see Ravana making great efforts to keep Sita with him, but he cannot succeed.

During this futile effort, Sita remains like a prisoner. She suffers greatly and sometimes reaches a condition close to death.

We have been reading this in such detail.

What is Sita’s condition in the Ashoka grove?

She lives like a prisoner. She is deeply distressed and sorrowful. On many occasions, she seems almost about to die.

Why has the story described this condition?

Because this is the condition of pure thinking in the presence of body-identification.

This is the crisis.

When our body-identification wants to keep Sita with itself, pure thinking is in danger.

At that moment, her two accompanying powers, her friends, called Trijata and Sarama in the story, immediately appear to protect her. They save her from the crisis and do not allow her to die.

The first time, Trijata appeared immediately: the power of intuition.

In the story we read today, when Sita saw Rama’s severed head and became deeply distressed, beginning to lament, Sarama appeared: the power of insight.

The power of insight that accompanies purity immediately appeared and saved Sita from dying.

Through these two rakshasis, Trijata and Sarama, we need to understand a very important point: the significance of pure thinking.

Why do we repeatedly speak about remaining in pure thinking?

We are continually discussing two things.

First, we must know our true nature and become established in it.

Second, Sita is always present with Rama.

Sita is pure thinking.

What, then, is the importance of pure thinking?

Its great importance is that when pure thinking exists within us, two powers are always present with it: intuition and insight.

Here, a very important indication is being given.

Within the cycle of the four ages, when we live in body-identification, as we do now, pure thinking cannot blossom and flourish because it is not expressed in our conduct and behaviour.

Today, because we remain identified with the body, pure thinking cannot be fully put into practice. It cannot remain happy.

It remains alive within us, but it is not happy.

When will it become happy?

As soon as body-identification departs.

How is the departure of body-identification described?

As Ravana being killed.

When Ravana is killed, when body-identification departs, and we recognise and remain in our true nature, Sita, pure thinking, will return to us.

Pure thinking will enter our behaviour and conduct. It will blossom and flourish in our actions.

The same pure thinking that cannot flourish during body-identification, that remains sorrowful and almost lifeless, will blossom again in our conduct and behaviour when we return to our true nature.

This is the important point indicated through Sarama’s short story.

Now we need to consider why both these characters are called rakshasis.

This question may have arisen in your mind: you have described such good powers—intuition and insight. These are excellent powers. Why are they called rakshasis?

Trijata and Sarama are called rakshasis because these powers immediately manifest and assist Sita, pure thinking, specifically in the rakshasa condition—that is, in the state of body-identification.

Let me explain once more.

When we live in body-identification and are surrounded by disturbances, pure thinking is in danger. It cannot remain happy within us.

These powers protect pure thinking in that state. That is why they are called rakshasis.

They do not manifest when pure thinking remains with Rama.

They are present with pure thinking even then, but they do not become manifest.

When do they manifest?

When Sita, our pure thinking, is in danger—in a state of body-identification.

Since these powers appear in that state, the story calls them rakshasis.

Now let us see how the word Sarama is formed.

Earlier, we examined the word Trijata.

In the written text, its first part appears as the “त्र” found in words such as “trishula.” But we understood it through “तृ,” with the vowel sign beneath “त.” In writing, it had been changed to the “त्र” found in “kshatriya.”

There, the root means to float or flow.

Similarly, Sarama is a Sanskrit word formed from two parts: “सृ,” with the vowel sign beneath “स,” and “ma.”

The Sanskrit root “सृ” means “sarati”—to flow.

“Ma” means not.

So this indicates a power that does not flow away somewhere else. It remains close to pure thinking.

In other words, pure thinking is always endowed with the power of insight.

That is why Sarama is understood through the root “सृ.”

Trijata was understood through “तृ,” and Sarama through “सृ.” Both roots mean to flow.

The point is that these powers do not flow far away. They remain with Sita and help her when needed.

In this way, the word Sarama is understood through its components, just as Trijata was.

Now another question may arise in your mind.

Why have we taken Sarama to mean insight? Why the power of insight?

When we interpret a symbol, we do not choose its meaning arbitrarily. There is a deeper basis for understanding Sarama as insight.

In the story we just read, Sarama immediately reached Ravana’s assembly.

When Sita asked her to discover Ravana’s intention, Sarama went straight to his assembly.

Reaching Ravana’s assembly would not be easy for anyone. He was consulting his ministers there.

Where such consultations take place, there are spies and strict guards.

Yet the story says that Sarama entered Ravana’s assembly, saw and understood the entire situation and all the plans being made, then immediately returned and told Sita everything.

How is it possible to go there immediately, perceive everything, and understand it?

Through the power of insight.

Because the story describes Sarama performing this task, we can understand her as the power of insight.

We have now understood why Sarama is called a rakshasi.

We have also understood what she symbolises: the capacity for insight.

Through Sarama’s story in these two chapters, an important point is being conveyed.

When we remain in pure thinking, two powers accompany it: Trijata and Sarama.

While reading the Ramayana, we also encountered Jatayu and Sampati earlier.

They too were two powers that tried to protect purity and helped us preserve it.

So, altogether, the Ramayana has now described four powers.

We first read about Jatayu and Sampati, who help protect Sita, pure thinking.

Now we have read about Trijata and Sarama, who also assist and protect her. They do not allow pure thinking to die.

What must we remember?

Even though we live in body-identification today, and even though we cannot fully put pure thinking into practice, pure thinking does not die even in that condition.

It remains alive.

When we return to our true nature as the Self, it once again blossoms and flourishes in our conduct and behaviour.

This is today’s account of Sarama, which I have tried to understand and present before you.