Passage 8

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In plain words

He is the very form of the divine. He is a holy being. Having incarnated… for the uplift of the world, He is … with form. So give up these mad antics, he told him. But these words did not please the Buddhi of Rāvaṇa…, full of desires that had passed all bounds. ‘Will you bear my command on your head, or shall I cut off your head?’ he threatened. … Mārīca thought it over. ‘One way or another my life must go. If I do not go, Rāvaṇa will kill me. If I go …, Rāma will kill me. Rather than die at the hand of this wicked one, it is better to di… at that holy hand, he thought, and he agreed. He took part in this task so as to die at Rāma's hand. It was a rākṣasa who first proclaimed Rāma's … tattva to the world. Only after that did Viśvāmitra proclaim it to the world.

This Rāma-tattva is the very form of the Gāyatrī mantra. He is the form of the three times. He is the form of the three worlds. He is the form of three …. Because He is the form of the three guṇas, bhūḥ bhuvaḥ suvaḥ: this is the Gāyatrī tattva. Tatsavitur va…ṇyaṃ bhargodevasya dhīmahi, dhiyo yonaḥ pracodayāt. Within this Gāyatrī mantra there are twenty-four syllables. Because Śrī Rāmacan…dra is the form of the Gāyatrī with these twenty-four syllables, Vālmīki composed the Rāmāyaṇa in 24,000 ślokas. So the Rāma-tattva is the very form of every human being's …. Take a small example of this. Without eyes we cannot see anything. Though he be … a great scientist, while he is asleep he cannot see the world itself. Though he be no scholar…, he can see anything at all. Though he be no scientist, while he is awake he can recognise… everything; … for humanness it is the Jñāna-tattva that is the chief thing; this śāstra, this science, is not what matters. However great a scholar he may be, he is a scholar in what he teaches to others, not a scholar in his own affairs. The one who gives teaching to … is the scholar. But he does not come to his own case. Scholarship means this: purity of heart itself is the … scholarship. Every person who has made this heart pure can … recognise divinity. Those who gained such fulfilment were not all great men of learning. Of whose lineage was Vālmīki…? He was one who merely beat the passers-by on the road, gathered wealth and fed his belly. He himself became the great poet able to write the Rāmāyaṇa. If you think lineage is great, his was a hunters' lineage. In what village was … born? How much wealth had Kucela? What learning had the King of Elephants? How old was … Dhruva? How much power had Śabarī? How much … had Vidura …? How much cleverness had Tinnaḍu? What greatness had all these to reach God? Cittaśuddhi alone gave them … greatness.

Śabarī learnt no branches of learning. In her eleventh year she left home and went away. In those days there was no custom of taking women into the hermitages of the ….