According to the scriptures, there are 8,400,000 different species of living beings on earth, living on land, water, and air. The truth however is that there is nothing other than Sita and Rama. I stand before them with hands joined in prayer. They are reservoirs of compassion, and I am forever a servant. With my dull witted intellect I have no right to do this work, I would recite to you the story of Shri Rama, but I am uselessly unintelligent and the acts of Shri Rama are unfathomable. I do not know where to begin, I have no resources to suggest I even try, although my intellectual ability is low, my aspiration is exceptionally high. I stand before you craving for the liberating nectar, but I have not the ability to even make butter milk. Virtuous souls will excuse my ignorance in this attempt like they would listen keenly to a babbling child. When a child stutters his way through his speech, supportive parents will smile and see only the good.
Those with heard hearts however, cherishing the faults of others, carrying words like daggers will find amusement in my work. They seek the mistakes of others like a pirate looking for treasure. Of course, everybody likes their own compositions, but the high minded souls seek delight and inspiration from the poetry of others.
My dear friend, this world is full of men and women like rivers and lakes which swell and overflow as water is added to them, but you should endeavor to be like the ocean which swells at the sight of the beautiful full moon.
There is an incredible diversity of life on our planet, the animals of the land, sea and air, even within our own human race there is so much diversity. We should stand before them all as divinity. As Sita and Rama personified, and ready to serve them with love. This is the path the Ramayana preaches. To see all of existence as one in essence.
Vinoba Bhava, who was successor to Mahatma Gandhi as the leader of the Satyagraha movement in India exemplified this path. Serving the whole of humanity without any inclination for personal benefit. He did it all out of love for God in the form of all life.
He said of the Ramacharitmanas that it is like the Bible and Shakespeare combined. Such is the poetic beauty of Tulasidas’s beautiful work. Tulasidas has through the grace of God, articulated the Ramayana in a way that melts hearts, his contribution to the world is unfathomable, considering all of this, I still feel it is Tulasidas’s humility and unconditional love that awakens our souls. Tulasi is humble beyond comparison, he speaks of himself as lowly, and dull witted, but his work is that of a masterful great, to him, all of the talent is nothing but Shri Rama flowing through him.
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