Sita And Rama

Sita, the wife of Rama, is not considered an ordinary being. It is understood that, as Lord Rama Chandra was Vishnu, the Supreme Lord Himself, so Sita was actually Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, who serves eternally at the Feet of Vishnu in the spiritual sky. Being the daughter of the royal saint Janaka, she is also sometimes called Janaki. Actually, Janaka found Sita when she was a baby. He had been plowing a field, and he upturned her in a clod of earth. It is stated in The Ramayana that Sita came to Earth for the destruction of Ravana, who was a vilifier of married women. As Rama Chandra was the greatest Warrior and Expounder of religion and morality, so Sita was the greatest beauty among women, and the most chaste.

How can the Infinite Lord be sufficiently praised? And who can completely describe the loveliness, in every feature, of His chaste wife, the Goddess of Fortune?

We shouldn't think that, as we desire a woman, so Rama Chandra desired a woman, and thus married one with the desires of an ordinary husband. Sita is Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, and Rama is Lord Vishnu, the Personality of Godhead, and we cannot understand His transcendental position by judging Him on the plane of inebriated sex desire. Sex desire, lust, is the characteristic condition of the ordinary mortal who is at the mercy of the laws of Nature. He is put under these stringent laws out of his wish to enjoy as a lord rather than render service to the Supreme Enjoyer.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, however, is transcendental to the material laws. What we have here in the material world as sex desire is indeed a reflection of the Lord's desire to enjoy loving affairs. But His loving affairs have no taint of contamination, no limitations of cheating, of old age, or of death. Here, sex pleasure is false in that it is merely a counteraction to the usual condition of misery, and it is temporary. But when the Lord enjoys loving affairs it is in a state of continual bliss in mutual service, and this expands unendingly into greater and greater bliss, each party exhibiting selfless devotion to the other. It is understood that by the process of purification in devotional service, we too can reciprocate transcendental love with God, and that is the perfection of human life.

The impersonalist philosophers whose propaganda is so rampant in this age cannot appreciate the Divine Couple or the Lord's loving affairs. These are displayed in the Persons of Radha and Krishna, Lakshmi and Narayana, and in Sita and Rama. The position of the impersonalist is necessarily loveless. Love means persons. No one can love the Void or a non-person. Therefore, impersonal philosophy is merely the negative side of reality, the denial of material inebriety. The impersonalists accept neither sex as being absolute, but the Vaishnava or Personalist has two sexes, Radha and Krishna, or Sita and Rama. Without understanding the real situation of the Supreme Person and His Transcendental Nature-His Activities and His devotees-such an impersonalist yogi or philosopher is forced to come down from his temporary suspension in the impersonal Void, and again he may enter into entanglement with the material inebrieties which he only theoretically declares to be false.

Valmiki compares the sight of Rama and Sita together to the moon and the brightest star. The Rama Chandra worshiper, therefore, never makes the mistake of thinking Sita an ordinary wife. Throughout The Ramayana, the poetry again and again turns to images of the various moods of natural beauty in the jungle, in the sky, and in the night with its wonderful galaxies for comparisons to the loveliness of Sita. And always the worshiper addresses first Sita, and then Rama-Sita-Rama.

Growing old, King Dasarath decided to confer the kingdom on his eldest son, Rama. On the release of this news, the kingdom of Ayodha turned to joyous preparation for the coronation of the beloved prince. The Ramayana (Ayodhya Khanda) states:

The night before, Janaki and Rama Chandra were initiated into the observance of a fast, and were given mantras to recite. They worshiped Narayana, and lay down on a bed of grass within Vishnu's shrine.