In the previous episode we witnessed the sequence of events wherein Guha meets Bharata and initially mistakes him to be an enemy of Rama, but at last realizes the true love and devotion Bharata had for Rama! Eventually Guha goes on to give the “Certificate of appreciation” to Bharata for his immense love for Rama! Thus, everybody around Bharata doubts him initially, scolds him and then realizes his greatness! This was the terrible situation meted out to poor Bharata!
After seeing all these sufferings undergone by Bharata, one might wonder that Lakshmana never underwent such terrible circumstances in his life and he was very happy and contented all throughout! One might also wonder why I’ve been advocating that “Paarathanthriyam” form of Bhakthi is one step higher than “Seshathvam”. We might be immediately tempted to ask a question that people who follow the highest form of Bhakthi would suffer like how Bharata does here! Similarly in the Mahabharata, Dharmaputhra (Udishtra) was extremely focused towards the righteous part, however he suffered at every stage in his life, whereas, Duriyodhana was wicked throughout his life, yet he never experienced any difficulty until his last days! Sometimes if we think this way, we might start wondering what is this “Punya” and “Paapa” and why are we confusing ourselves so much with all this!
But we’ve to remember that Bharata had a very small drawback in him – I’ve already discussed this in one of the previous episodes, however it’s worth recalling again here. We’ve seen at the beginning of the “Ayodhya Kaanda” that Bharata leaves for his uncle’s place at Kekeya Desha for a few days – Which means, he is leaving Bhagawan Rama behind and going away! However, Lakshamana was in service to Rama 24 hours a day and all 7 days a week! He never left Rama even for a single moment and hence, he was protected by Bhagawan directly! However, since Bharata left Bhagawan for a few days, he lost the vicinity of the Lord and thus had to suffer this much!
Hence the important message that we should learn for our modern day life from this episode is that we should always remember that we should always invoke the presence of Bhagawan everyday and in whatever action we perform! This again boils down to the fact that we should never skip or compromise our daily spiritual practices. We should follow them meticulously and try to invoke the grace of Bhagawan, with which all our pains and sufferings are taken care by him!
Thus moving on further, the conversation between Bharata and Guha went on for a long time and thus all of them sleep at Guha’s place for that night. During the night time Guha shows to Bharata that this is the place where Rama and Sita were resting and explains how Lakshmana was protecting them while sleeping.
“Aacha chakshecha sathbhaavam lakshmanasya mahaathmanaha!
Bharathaaya apprameyaaya guha gahana bhocharaha!!”
Here, Valmiki Maharishi explains emotionally that Guha, who is after all a hunter, shows to Bharata with all his love and devotion and says, “Oh Bharata! You know what? This is the very place where Rama, Lakshmana and Sita were staying for one night, before they crossed the river Ganges! Your brother Lakshmana was in service to Rama every minute!” Thus, Guha was speaking so high of Lakshmana to Bharata!
Upon witnessing such a situation, Valmiki Maharishi himself was moved to tears while authoring this portion of the Ramayana! Who is narrating whose significance to whom? Upon hearing this from Guha, how would have Bharata felt? Won’t he feel miserable within himself that he’s hearing the significance of his brother Lakshmana, through some third person by name Guha, whom he doesn’t even know! But Bharata was rather happy to hear these words from Guha! He appreciated Guha for his immense devotion towards Rama, Lakshmana and Sita!
Bharata replies to Guha, “Oh Guha! You are so fortunate to be at the vicinity of my dear brothers Rama and Lakshmana! How many people in this world would get this golden opportunity? I’m so proud of you! Rama is lucky and fortunate to have a brother like Lakshmana, who is always in service to him! Out of the four brothers, if there should be one of them who is born to make our father, King Dasharata happy and contented, it would be Lakshmana only! It is not me! I’m totally guilty in my father’s eyes and I’m one person who was responsible for all this mess at Ayodhya!”
Upon seeing Bharata in tears, Guha consoles him and thus arranges for the boat for all of them to cross the banks of the river Ganges. All of them are ready to get on to the boat and waiting for Guha’s instructions. We shall also wait along with them till the next episode to find out what happened further! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 