Valmiki was a dacoit. He was happy with himself that via his chosen profession, he was providing for his wife and children well and he was a perfect grihasta, dispensing with his duties with hard work and determination. One day he met Sage Narad who asked Valmiki that as he was earning the bad merit by looting innocent people, would his wife and children partake of this demerit with him? Will they also agree to carry the karmic burden with him as all of them were benefitting from his actions. Valmiki was confident that they would but on Sage Narad’s insistence he went to question his family- who to his utter shock refused. Their take was that it was his duty to care for them but it was HIS choice of how he wanted to do it- so the karmic burden was going to be his alone.
If we ever find ourselves justifying to ourselves that we are tolerating injustice or doing something wrong in the interest of our loved ones, or because the society we keep demands it – we should stop ourselves and invoke the Ram in us to understand that the merit or demerit of our actions are ours alone- no one partakes from it. We choose your karma bhoomi, we choose our maryada, we choose the society we keep, we choose our destiny and we live alone, albeit in a social construct, and we alone will carry the burden of our actions. May the Sita Ram in us give us the intellect, the wisdom, the courage, the compassion and the love to define our own maryada and live by it with our head held high- unwavering and steady!
| SHIVANI GIRI
Shivani Giri is a teaching professional, who likes to write, is a prolific reader of different genres of mythological texts. She is based out of Hyderabad.
