Chapter Five — Hanuman’s Place in the Divine Mystery

When Raghunatha, the eternal divine Lord endowed with every auspicious quality, began to unfold the majestic play of the unqualified and formless Absolute, he appointed divine powers to preside over his manifested qualities. Mahavishnu, Vasudeva, and Mahashiva came forth as embodiments of those powers.

In that dispensation, Mahashiva assumed the form of Hanuman so that Raghunatha’s hidden majesty might awaken into recognition through their meeting. The fruit of truly knowing Rama is to become conformed to his divine sovereignty.

Hanuman therefore says that four know Raghunatha in this way: Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesha, and Hanuman himself. The first three accepted the fruit of that divine knowledge and thereby became established in majestic powers corresponding to the Divine Couple. Hanuman did not take that fruit for himself, because sovereignty is itself the fruit of such knowledge. Instead, he returned the whole treasure of realization to Raghunatha and remained wholly his servant.

Moved by this stainless self-surrender, Raghunatha became indebted to Hanuman, while Sita drew Hanuman’s very self into her intimate circle in the companion-forms Charushila and Prasada. Thus the root of every majestic manifestation is the supreme sweetness of the eternal Sita and Rama—the bliss of the transcendent, indivisible, being-consciousness-bliss Absolute.

For this reason Hanuman can say that, although he renounced the independent enjoyment of divine majesty, even that majesty remains included within the self he has offered wholly to Sita and Rama. (80, completed)