SITA, The Emerging feminine — A Heroine’s Journey from Victim to Witness
As Hindu mythology goes, in the fights between Gods and Demons, Lord Vishnu often supported the gods for the well-being and sustenance of the three worlds. In that context, lord Vishnu had to once use the Sudarshan Chakra against Sage Bhrigu’s wife, Khyati, to let the gods defeat the demons. Seeing his beloved slain, Bhrigu cursed lord Vishnu to have to suffer the pangs of separation from his wife repeatedly. lord Vishnu acknowledges the Rishi’s anger and accepts the curse. This becomes the deeper reason for the way the story unfolded between Ram and Sita in Ramayana.
Lord Vishnu is the personification of Paramatman, the supreme consciousness which is but oneness consciousness. It is only for the purpose of creation that duality comes into existence and the one consciousness deludes itself and becomes many to create maya, the illusion of the body and the mind, I and you, object and subject, seer and the seen. Vishnu, who personifies Paramatman, in his enlightened form knows that he and goddess Lakshmi are the same; he knows the truth about the universe and knows he is beyond any diversity or adversity, so to fulfill Rishi Bhrigu’s curse, they take the avatars of Rama and Sita and decidedly do so with no memory of their god selves, just as normal human beings to unfold destiny.
Having provided some prequel, it’s time for us to move deeper into the archetypal journey of Sita — the Divine Feminine. As it is her energies which are needed by the world today to balance the masculine and feminine, the yin and yang for the next step towards human evolution into a greater consciousness.
Upon her being rescued by Rama from Lanka and being rejected once again after her return to Ayodhya, Sita does not allow him or his praja to project upon her the stain of being unclean or less than in any way. A less understood truth about Ramayana is Rama was cursed to suffer heavily and incur the blemish of banishing a pregnant wife, not something to be glorified but to be sympathized with as a great misfortune. There is another story in Ramayana where Ram frees Ahalya, who was cursed to become a stone after she sleeps with Indra, whom she had mistaken for her husband. For many centuries, highly enlightened sages who visited her couldn’t free her from the curse because she was to be freed by someone who wouldn’t judge her in the slightest. It took Ram to do so because he held no judgment whatsoever. What, then, causes him to make such an error of judgment with his own beloved? He lives a lonesome life away from his wife and children he loved very much because he is cursed to make the mistake of letting politics drive a spiritual decision, public concerns make him banish the wife he loves.
But Sita, on the other hand, does not let Rama’s response to the accusations of society about her behavior contaminate her personality or affect her well-being. Her valor lies in the fact that she does not give them the power to do so. In that situation, all she could do is retreat in silence, walk her truth, find compassion for his predicament and unconsciousness as she realizes the society was heavily driven by old unconscious paradigms.
It’s time we spoke about her story, the divine feminine’s story in all its glory — Exiled to Valmiki’s ashram, she brings up her sons as a single mother. She has a message that is central to the heroine’s journey. She seeks relief in the safe haven of the ashram and works towards manifesting deep healing for herself in order to unite her soul and spirit. This place of solace in exile helps her stay away from the environment that is still deeply embedded in lower consciousness. Valmiki’s ashram offers her a secure place that becomes her home, a place where she can ascend spiritually to regain her powers. She has time to reflect on her truth, to unite the duality of opposing forces of negative: grief, disappointment, anger, feelings of victimization, and positives: joy, fulfillment, higher understanding, and the feelings of being a victor. Conquered to conquerer.
Without such a safe haven, she would constantly be endangered by the feelings of rejection and victimization by the collective unconsciousness and belief patterns. This, on the other hand, provides her with a conscious stream of energy, whereby she is no longer overwhelmed by someone else’s choices and actions for her. She gradually transcends beyond her attachment to how the world “should ideally be” to learn discernment and consciousness and unconsciousness about her own behavior, taking all the responsibility and hence her power back in doing so.
Having time away on her own and the solitude of the ashram, Sita is able to introspect and discern the cause of the constant distress and disruptions in her life. She takes responsibility for her suffering and moves on to make positive choices for herself until she arrives at the crossroads of her life where she can no longer remain a victim to her circumstances. She in the past, when questioned and tested to prove her innocence, complies to it and succeeds at doing so and yet was publicly humiliated and exiled. But when she is asked to prove her sanctity a second time, she knows that her continued silence would imply consent to patriarchal unconsciousness.
She is now conscious to no longer play the role of a silent suffering victim to circumstances or the choices others made for her. Instead, she chooses to hold unwavering presence and employs witness consciousness to the events that unfold. In a detached state achieved through journey inwards and discipline, she becomes a spiritual warrior able to discern what has worked for her and what hasn’t. It is acquired wisdom for her that helps her move beyond the limitations of ego. She outgrows the roles that no longer fill her soul with life-affirming energy. She chooses to be true to her inner ideal and is no longer affected by or afraid of public opinion, unlike Rama who is still dependent on it. She, in her solitude, recognizes where her boundaries were violated time and again and by embodying deep stillness, she could hear the voice of the ‘sacred feminine’, which becomes the only voice she chooses to obey henceforth. She reaches a point where she makes her own choice of liberation over reuniting with Rama in this lifetime, pulling into great mother earth who is the womb for all life, but her life force can never be destroyed, it is unmanifest and manifest both with the power of creation and destruction.
Sita is the symbolic representation of feminine archetype in today’s world that is yet to be witnessed and seen in her full glory. The life-affirming energy that has been dormant for far too long. Having achieved a voice of her own, and the need for equal opportunities does not translate into full equality and respectful relationships. In other words, the archetypal ‘feminine’ is still culturally very much repressed in all of us, whether man or woman. Patriarchy does not honor the feminine principles of relatedness, tenderness, the values that foster care and protection of each other’s emotional well-being that should be equally available to all members in a healthy society, that knows vulnerability and honesty as spiritual strength and not weakness.
As they say, without Shakti, Shiva is but Shava( meaning a corpse) Many stories depict the masculine power drive crushes the feminine — in both men and women. Balancing the masculine and feminine drives within each of us is the way to be one with universal laws and energies and paves way to the emergence of feminine, no longer repressed or a mere victim to circumstances.
Research Credits: Rashna-Imhasly Gandhy, Yatra Books, Scroll.in
