Tapasya

The boy then recounted a story of Ravana. “Ravana was born with ten heads, or so the story is told. When Ravana was young, he was a devotee of Shiva and undertook thousands of years of terrible penance. He purified himself and performed this tapasya, hoping to please God and earn merit in His sight. After many long years, however, Ravana received no blessing or acknowledgement. Therefore Ravana struck off one of his heads and, staunching the flow of blood, continued to fast and meditate for another thousand years. Again he received neither blessing nor acknowledgement. Striking off his second head, Ravana continued his tapasya undaunted. Again and again, over thousands of years, Ravana repeated this act until, his single head remaining, he prepared to strike it off. But before he struck that final blow, Shiva appeared to him.

Ravana, overjoyed, stayed his hand and knelt before the object of his devotions. Shiva said, “You may complete your tapasya by cutting off your head. But if this is not pleasing, I will grant you a boon for the nine heads you have already lost.” Ravana thought a great while and, placing his sword in the dust, said, “Grant me invincibility against devas and rakshasas and all other celestial beings.”

At once granting this wish, Shiva disappeared from sight as suddenly as he appeared. Ravana abandoned his austerities and, with his terrible power, became ruler of the rakshasas and waged war on the devas.”

Aurangzeb said, “This story is absurd, as are all your stories.”

The boy said, “You say this because you do not know the meaning of the story. You hold a bottle full of wine and demand how you can drink the bottle itself. You hold a handful of cooked rice and wonder how you can eat your hand.”

Aurangzeb laughed at this. He said, “Then tell me the hidden meaning of the story.”

The boy answered, “Rather than putting down his sword, Ravana would have served himself better by leaving his last severed head in the dust at God’s feet. His austerities were not complete. He had not achieved the goal, which was to please Shiva, but substituted his own desire for God’s desire for him. In his worship, he attained his own ends, not God’s. Ravana’s heads, which were the emblems of his ego, stood between him and the atman. With ease and tranquility Ravana had surpassed all devas and rakshasas. He had walked through nine doorways of sacrifice, performing what no other could perform so easily. But he could not open that final door and was blind even to its existence. Had he completed his tapasya and struck off his final head, he would have achieved union with God. But he squandered this in order to possess a moment’s mastery over the transient world. Ravana, demon king of Lanka, seemed the most powerful creature. But he was himself merely a creature and when he was defeated, neither his invincibility nor the sacrifices he had performed to achieve it, were of any value. He could not strike off his head to find the atman because he loved himself too much. He could not abandon the illusion of rank and power in the world because he bowed down to the world. He could not break the wheel of samsara because he worshipped the wheel. He possessed wisdom, but was unwise; he was knowledgeable, but knew nothing of himself; he was a worshipper of God who neither heeded God’s law nor acknowledged God’s manifestation in Rama. His invincibility did not avail him, nor did his wisdom advise him nor his knowledge inform him.