In plain words
Then Lakṣmaṇa: “Mother! Without Sītā and Rāma, this Ayodhyā itself is the forest. The forest where Sītā and Rāma are is itself Ayodhyā. Sītā and Rāma are my mother and father. I shall be happy serving them,” he said.
Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa, Bharata and Śatrughna; not only Kausalyā, Sumitrā and Kaikeyī but Sītā, Ūrmilā, Māṇḍavī and Śrutakīrti too: they lived in close affection and gave an ideal to every family. In any family today, do the wives of brothers live in unity? Do any brothers stay without fighting? This Kali age has turned into an age of strife. In such a state of things the Rāmāyaṇa offers a great ideal to every family. It is not enough for us merely to read the Rāmāyaṇa. We must reach for the ideals in it. We must live in unity. Only then will our life be fulfilled. Even beasts, birds and animals live together in great unity. They have no selfishness that hoards, no thieving mind that robs. Evil qualities not found even in beasts, birds and animals have found a place in man today.
In Daśaratha's family there was never an occasion when they quarrelled with one another. Here, though, a doubt may arise in you. “What was it that Kaika did? Was it not because she quarrelled that Rāma had to go to the forest?” you may ask. That was no quarrel. In truth Kaika was very fond of Rāma. She brought Rāma up with even more love than Bharata, her own son. But through the fault of the company she kept, a change came over her mind. Tell me your company, I shall tell you what you are. From your friends one can tell what kind of person you are. Kaikeyī made those demands only at Mantharā's urging. But Mantharā too had no evil nature. Her nature too was a good one! There was a reason why she behaved in that way.
Mantharā's former birth
Once, as Kaikeyī's father, the King of Kekaya, was hunting in the forest, in one place he saw two deer, a doe and a buck, at play.