Hanuman! What Do You Want From Me?

There is always an exchange between you and the environment, hence it is important to be mindful of where you find yourself. We’re supposed to be open beings – open in the sense that we feed off of where we are and deposit inner contents to the outside world. I have been seeing a recurring image lately – the image of Hanuman. For some of us that do not know who he is, he is the Hindu Monkey God. According to the mythologies, he is a reincarnation of Lord Shiva but as Hanuman he chose to tread the path of humility and devoutness to Rama (Vishnu). How does this mythology help us? In the Trimurti of the Hindu pantheon, Brahma is the one who begins all things, Vishnu is the one who sustains all and Shiva is the destroyer. But the role of Hanuman in the myths and stories about him portray him as a sustainer, of course he is a mighty warrior who wages war on behalf of Vishnu but we see his devoutness in surrendering himself to the Sustainer God.

How many of us are totally devoted to a cause or a God or a belief system or a person? Of course I’d like to say that it is a noble thing to be a zombie for whatever it is that we hold supreme; the total surrender is admirable but like I said earlier, we are supposed to be open beings. We should be able to transmute in and out of the things surrounding us. If Hanuman wasn’t open, he would have continued on the destruction path that Shiva walks on. But we see that he rather opened himself up to using his rage to sustain the purpose of Vishnu. The channeling of his energy into devotion not only helped him attain peace but helped the universe as a whole. As we are all minute stars waiting to explode; like the sun waiting to get hotter by the day, the sustaining part of our core isn’t always tapped into. Rather we tread the destructive part of ourselves. The folly in our minds is on the rise because we think that hurting someone else doesn’t affect us instead of seeing ourselves as a collective, as a body. One dies , we all die, one suffers, we all suffer. The pain we inflict on others is a reflection of our state of mind. That man that hurt you actually needed more help than you did. That tyrant that demands blood or money is a sick individual screaming for a cure.

We have all got destructive sides and identifying that we do is the first step in curing our ailments. (In the conventional sense it is not like destruction is a bad thing.) It begs the question: “isn’t destruction an important part of the cycle of existence?”  Yes it is but the problem lies in the misuse of that power. The misuse of that part of our power has robbed the planet of things that should endure. Yes, nothing last forever, but some things that should are already decaying. Truthfully, there are no absolutes in our existence except love. Every other thing fades away. So tread the path of love. Sustain the connection to the source that many are desperately trying to sever. In conclusion, the message I’m trying to pass across to my fellow destroyers is that the solution is in channeling our rage into sustaining the good; on all other things, wage war but sustain the good. That’s what Hanuman wants from me or at least that’s what I learnt from him.