A Reflection on Mother Sita Along the Banks of the Sacred Ganga

It is essential now for us to recall the quality of life before materialism overtook the human mind, when there was still communion with the animal and plant worlds, with the rivers and forests and sacred mountains.

‌ ‌ ‌ It is essential now for us to recall the quality of life before materialism overtook the human mind, when there was still communion with the animal and plant worlds, with the rivers and forests and sacred mountains.   Mother Sita and Her Relevance Today On March 7-9, GPIW organized a gathering on Mother Sita with Jnana-Pravaha at their beautiful cultural center in Varanasi, India in honor of International Women’s Day. One of our goals was to highlight the role Sita played at a critical point in human history when humanity was beginning to separate itself from the rest of the natural world and how she strove to embed in the human heart a sense of love and unity with all living beings. The story of Shri Ram and Mother Sita unfolded during a time when the consciousness of humanity was at a more spiritually developed level, during what the eastern world views as the treta yuga; it was a time when humanity was just separating itself from the natural world, before the concept of dominating nature overtook the human mind and when women rishis were still actively imparting spiritual knowledge, on par with their male counterparts. But it was also a time of declining spiritual knowledge, as the treta yuga was coming to a close and a new more material era was soon to begin, when material development, rather than the cultivation of the inner life, would become the preoccupation of humanity. The main work of Shri Ram and Mother Sita was to help set the course for a civilization based on spiritual laws – respect for nature, recognition of the unity of life, gender balance, etc.  It is helpful to look back to that time, still recorded in the collective memory, to see how we can recapture some of that spiritual knowledge and way of living.   In the traditional reading of the Ramayana, which recounts the story of Shri Ram and Sita, one might say that Sita assumes a secondary role. But that is the reading that came to be during the time of spiritual decline. A new reading is required that sees the true role Sita played in helping to establish a civilization based on dharma, universal law. Sita’s message is that the essence of this law, of dharma, is love, not the emotional love based on feelings but a higher universal love that sustains all life and maintains the balance among the various universal forces at play in the seen and unseen worlds. It is essential now for us to recall the quality of life before materialism overtook the human mind, when there was still communion with the animal and plant worlds, with the rivers and forests and sacred mountains. That is the world Sita sought to preserve for us and we can glimpse it as we peer through her eyes to see the world as it was and will be again once we extricate ourselves from the obsession with materialism. The conference, or rather reflection on Sita, brought together scholars, spiritual teachers, and devoted followers of Sita to explore her life and teaching. It took place on the expansive lawn of the beautiful Jnana Pravaha cultural center by the side of the sacred Ganga. The gathering coincided with the launch of Dena Merriam’s new book The Untold Story of Sita: An Empowering Tale for our Time.  While the story of Shri Ram and Mother Sita is well known and much beloved in Asia, it holds great significance for the west as well, as it is a universal story filled with messages for the individual and society on how to reclaim dharma, the universal law of love and balance, as the foundation of our individual and collective life.    The sacred Ganga river Photos courtesy of Parvati Markus ‌ ‌