Why Building The Ram Temple Matters - Sadhguru

00:04 - “Namaskaram Sadhguru, it has taken nearly three decades to resolve the Ram janma dispute.

00:11 - With Ram Mandir Bhoomi Pooja just days away, there’s a lot of excitement in Ayodhya.

00:21 - Even though Ram was a king, why is he worshipped even today? I want to understand how Ram is relevant in today’s times. ” Sadhguru: (Laughs) Well, because he’s from Agra, he’s calling him Ram.

00:40 - Where we are from, we call him Rama. Tch, so we will not give up that aa (Laughter).

00:52 - In case somebody just forgets that I’m South Indian, because looking at my name, some people think I’m a Punjabi (Laughter).

00:59 - My name and my (Laughs)… name and my mane both, they think I must be a Punjabi.

01:09 - No, no we call him Rama tch. I want to go further down to Tamil Nadu and call him Raman then people will be confused.

01:18 - They may be… think that I’m talking about somebody else.

01:21 - Rama, see this is the beauty of this culture, that there is no the God.

01:33 - There are qualities that we recognize as divine.

01:38 - In some human being displays that we bow down to him, because we are bowing down to the quality, not to the person.

01:48 - This is something that most of the world will not understand, because they have been psyched with very dogmatic religions.

01:58 - What is God, what is devil, what is man, what is woman – everything is clearly defined.

02:03 - In India, nothing is defined. Because, you know, I told you masala, everything is like that always evolving, always things happening.

02:15 - This costs a lot of life and energy to keep yourself disorganized and still move in one direction.

02:22 - But this is like a swarm of starlets or like a swarm of bees.

02:30 - They… it looks like they’re going nowhere but they’re always going somewhere, they know where they’re going.

02:38 - But for an outside observer, it looks like they’re going nowhere.

02:43 - So you must understand this, Ram or Rama, is from Ayodhya, which is where the temple construction is happening because it’s his birthplace.

02:56 - The temple is few thousand years old. Nobody knows exactly first temple what age it came up.

03:04 - Then developments happened, developments happened over millennia.

03:07 - But about five-hundred years ago it was demolished.

03:11 - Systematically lot of temples were demolished upon which other religious places were built with the same, using the same construction material, pull down this and build something else out of it.

03:24 - So, Rama being an icon, you must understand he’s an icon, not a God because we did not call him a god.

03:39 - We called him Maryadapurush, Purushottam. That means an elevated man.

03:44 - The very word Purushottam means an elevated man.

03:49 - Rama is always referred to as Purushottama.

03:53 - That means among the men, he’s above them, because he’s so elevated.

04:00 - What is so elevated about him? Well, he went through trials and tribulations – I will not go through the whole works, but series of disasters.

04:10 - Serial disaster his life. He loses his kingdom, loses his wife, has to fight a war, then comes back again loses his wife, loses his children, almost killed his children, endless number of disasters.

04:23 - Through all this, he goes through peacefully, blissfully.

04:31 - Pain, but still blissful. On one level, on a personal level, he has much pain which he expresses, but he never allows the pain to make any decisions about anything that he is doing.

04:47 - Well, when a man acts like this, we say he is purushottama because he is… uttama means an elevated one among the men.

04:58 - It’s very important that he is a man, he was born in Ayodhya and died at a certain age and went through all this life.

05:09 - Travelled through Indian geography, coming down to South and again going back to North.

05:15 - After having killed his adversary, a man who kidnapped his wife, and was living and ruling wantonly after killing him, he comes back and goes into a year of repentance.

05:32 - So his brother asked, “Are you crazy? This is the worst kind of guy.

05:37 - You had to kill him. And now you want to repent.

05:41 - What does it mean? Did we all do wrong?” So Rama said, “See, there are many negative things about this Ravana but he was a great devotee and he was a great administrator of his kingdom.

06:02 - He exploited everybody else for which I had to kill him.

06:07 - But he was a great devotee. For that I’m repenting that I killed a devotee. “ Well, this man needs to be emulated and its very important that he is a man.

06:18 - If he becomes a God, you’ll hang him on the wall and forget about him.

06:22 - Nobody tries to ever emulate a God; you must understand this.

06:25 - God means he is beyond emulation, that is the idea of human mind.

06:31 - A man means if he is doing really wonderful naturally there is an aspiration in everybody, “Why can’t I be like this?” So it’s extremely important that he is a man.

06:44 - He was a king, he lost his kingdom and again came back and walked away from all the wealth and pomp of his kingdom just because somebody else was upset.

07:00 - His stepmother was little upset and she was doing a little kuchu kuchu behind his back.

07:05 - He said, “If this is what you want, I will leave. ” Well, this man needs to be emulated – when people are hanging on to power like crazy today no matter what, even if they lose election they don’t want to go.

07:20 - At a time like this emulating Rama is very, very, very important.

07:28 - So why is this temple important? The temple is important because in many ways at least in the Northern part of the country, in South not so much, it is very much there but not so much.

07:42 - But in the north, Rama is their spirit. And five-hundred years ago when foreign invaders from Turkey and some from Mongolia later on they came and they systematically went about destroying all the temples, which were ancient temples built long time ago which was the fundamental force for that society and put up whatever they wanted to put up hurriedly on top of it.

08:12 - This dispute has been raging. This dispute has been in the court for I think, if I’m correct about hundred-and-thirty-five years, since the British era it has been in the court and going on and on and on because we have developed a certain kind of wanting to be politically correct at any cost, unfortunately in the country, no judge has been wanting to take a call on it.

08:41 - Everybody is pushing it so that his term is over, let the next one handle the trouble.

08:47 - Because two communities are fiercely contesting as to whose property is it.

08:54 - But now the Supreme Court after a long… a long process of nearly three to four decades in the Supreme Court, it’s been going on.

09:04 - Now it came to a conclusion looking at all the proof clearly, archeological proof clearly, clearly more that hundred percent it suggests that there was a temple and it was pulled down and hurriedly they put up a building on top of it.

09:20 - So they said, this must be built as temple.

09:23 - For the other community, they gav… allotted another piece of land close by within twenty miles… or I mean twenty kilometers or something like that.

09:30 - They said you build your place there, let them build their place here.

09:36 - So it is not just another temple, it’s resurrection of India’s spirit because it is not just one particular denomination or religion who looks up to Ram.

09:48 - There is a whole lot of people, whole lot of people who belong to other religions who also want to emulate him, who also eulogize him in many, many ways.

10:00 - So in many ways Ram, Ramayan, the story of Ram has been so much a part of Indian ethos, so it is almost like a resurrection of a damaged national spirit.

10:16 - So, i think it’s a good thing its happening because otherwise unnecessary hatred against other communities will continue.

10:26 - With this resolution, a whole lot of minds and hearts are cooler which is a good thing for the future of the nation.

10:35 - And unnecessarily frictions going on endlessly between two communities.

10:39 - So, I think one major problem has been settled.

10:44 - So on 5th of August they are laying the foundation stone and they are planning to build a grand temple.

10:51 - Probably in record time, because in the last twenty-five, thirty years I think they have carved all the pillars, you know the columns, this, that, everything.

11:00 - Whatever the stone part of the work, stone-work part has been all kept ready, stored somewhere else and they will just have to assemble that.

11:08 - The rest of the structure should come up pretty fast.

11:11 - Hopefully in twenty-four months or thirty months this grand temple will be up and because of the virus situation they’ve sent out only hundred-and-fifty invites.

11:27 - Otherwise probably ten-million people would be there; ten to twelve million people would be there for this opening of the temple or even foundation laying.

11:36 - But only hundred-and-fifty invites are (Laughs) sent out.

11:41 - So rest is being live telecast, people can see it on the television or maybe it’s webcast I don’t know, so I think it’s…

11:50 - I think it’s a landmark in terms of resolving disputes which continue for a long time, unnecessarily festering in a society like a wound.

12:02 - I think it should cool down many people. Now that you asked Ram question tch.

12:47 - Hmm… Sadhguru sings Ye Theeruga Nanu Dayachusedevo… Sadhguru: These qualities of Rama if we have to encapsulate it; his passion for the well-being of his people, was limitless to a point of self-sacrifice, which is eulogized in so many ways, through Ramayan.

17:16 - So essentially, absolute passion for everything, total dispassion for myself – this is what he encapsulates.

17:25 - I think this is a quality all human beings need to emulate no matter where they are.

17:33 - Virus is testing you to see how dispassionate are you about… are you about yourself and how passionate are you about every other life.

17:44 - Virus is checking. No way to escape, you know, you can’t bull yourself out of it.

17:52 - This happened in Texas, an officer from the FBI, because they were suspecting people may be growing illegal…

18:10 - Some time ago illegal when it was still illegal to grow marijuana, illegal drugs they’re growing and making money out of it.

18:20 - So an officer came to a ranch where an old man over seventy years of age but very fit and hardworking man.

18:30 - And he said, “I want to come and check your ranch.

18:36 - If you’re growing any illegal plants, which are hallucinogenic. “ The old timer said, “No, we’re not growing anything like that, we just have cattle and this and that, but no illegal something. ” “No, no, I need to check. ” He said, “Okay you’re free to check wherever you want.

19:02 - Except that one place,” he showed a patch of land and he said, “Just don’t go there. ” So the officer got livid, “You telling me where I should go and where I should not go.

19:17 - Do you know who I am, and he pulled out his badge, the FBI.

19:20 - I am FBI, I’m a senior investigator. You telling me where I should go on where I should not go.

19:29 - With this badge I can go wherever I want to go. “ The old timer said, “Okay, I’m sorry.

19:38 - You can go wherever you want to go. “ Then after some time, he heard, the rancher heard wild desperate cries.

19:51 - Then… From the direction where the patch of land was.

19:56 - Then he looked, then he saw the officer running crazies for his life.

20:05 - With this super-stud bull chasing him (Few Laughs).

20:10 - Then the old man ran to the fence, stood on the fence pole and he said, “Show him the badge! Show him the badge” (Laughter)! Please don’t flash your entitlements in the face of the virus; it’s nondiscriminatory (Laughs). .