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 Just two words are sufficient to infuriate Ravana and to make him lose his head. 'Return Sita'. We see this happen whenever these words are uttered, whether by Malyavan, the grandfather of Ravana, Vibishana, Kumbakarna or Indrajit himself. It may be surprising. Even Kumbakarna advised him against the retention of Sita. Indrajit realised this much later, just a day before his death. Nothing changed Ravana's heart, excepting the death of Indrajit. That desire for Sita died with the death of Indrajit.
You may recall the embarrassed state in which Ravana was when he heard the name of Vali and how he mellowed. The information that Vali was dead rejuvenated his spirits. His ego was thick enough to obscure him from the other information that it was Rama who killed Vali. He ordered the killing of Hanuman. 'He should be left alive,' reasoned Vibishana, 'at least to go back to those humans and inform them of what happened here. If you put him to death, you are losing the opportunity of letting them informed of our might.'
Hanuman's humility
Hanuman’s tail
was ordered to be set on fire and when it was done, he set fire to entire Lanka
and after ensuring Sita was safe in the island, jumped back to join Angada and
his team. The moment they saw him, they understood that he comes back with the
good news. They jumped in glee, were jubilant and the air was filled with their
joyous shouts. The poet says that they were as noisy as the fledglings in the
nest, on the arrival of the mother bird.
They were
overjoyed at the news of Sita’s safety and her message to all of them. The
point is, while he gave an elaborate account of what Sita asked him to convey,
he did not speak a word about his encounters, his victory over thousands of rakshasas,
his meeting with Ravana, and his setting fire to Lanka. thaan than vendriyai uraippa velgi
says Kamban. ‘He could not speak of his glory himself.’
 In killing
thousands of rakshasas, meeting Ravana and setting fire to Lanka, Hanuman gave
a clear message. The humans are not puny. They have a very powerful ally. They
can sieve the entire globe and find out Sita within a very short time. Just one
monkey killed so many thousands of valiant rakshasas and set fire to Lanka, an
incursion into which even Yama was afraid of. Therefore, when an army of
monkeys comes to Lanka, it would not be easy to wage a war against them.
What Hanuman did is
an important beginning in goal setting and achieving. Jose Silva and Burt
Goldman have this to say on Setting and Achieving Goals, in the Silva Mind
Control Method of Mental Dynamics.
"The
seeding of cause for desired effect is quite simple and can be summed up with
five rules:
-
Decide what you want to plant and acquire the
seeds. (If you purchase carrot seeds you will be disappointed if you expect
turnips to sprout.)
-
Prepare the ground. (Professionals take more time
in preparation than they do in actual work. The amateur looks to cut corners
and skip preparation. You must break up the soil, plough the ground, hoe it,
scatter nutrition and water it if you expect a bountiful crop.)
-
Plant the seed. (Begin. The seeds will not sprout
in their envelope or in your pocket. There is no need to concern yourself with
whether or not they will germinate and grow, for if you do not plant them, they
will surely not grow.)"
The fourth and fifth
rules, Tending and Harvesting are too premature to speak of now. The entire
episode is before you to go into it once again, and see how these rules have
already been enacted in the epic.
Hari Krishnan
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