Every Severed Head Returns Like Desire Fed by Enjoyment
Lanka Kanda, Doha 92
Doha 92 · Movement 3 of 3
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Each time Rama removes one of Ravana's heads, more appear. The weapon reaches its mark without fail, yet the apparent result grows instead of diminishing.
Tulsidas turns the battlefield inward through a single comparison. Sense desires behave in the same way when they are continually served. What is indulged in hope of completion does not necessarily end. It can return strengthened, renewed, and multiplied by the very act meant to satisfy it.
Ravana's body becomes a visible diagram of that law. The sky fills because cutting the expression has not yet reached the hidden source of renewal. Head after head arises like a fresh demand after enjoyment, each carrying the promise that one more answer will finish the movement. Rama continues the lila until the field itself reveals the futility of trying to exhaust desire by repeatedly feeding or merely pruning it.
The head of desire grows again wherever enjoyment is asked to perform the work of freedom.
Read the passage from the Manas
जिमि जिमि प्रभु हर तासु सिर तिमि तिमि होहिं अपार। सेवत बिषय बिबर्ध जिमि नित नित नूतन मार।।92।।
As fast as the Lord severs his heads, just so swiftly do they multiply without end; like desires that grow ever stronger when one constantly indulges the senses.