One Dream-Taste of Ayodhya's Joy Makes Brahman-Bliss Seem Small
Uttara Kanda, Doha 89
Doha 89 · Movement 2 of 2
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The joy for which Shiva, destroyer of Tripura, accepted the austere appearance of a wandering mendicant fills the men and women of Ayodhya continually. What great renunciation seeks elsewhere has become the atmosphere of their city.
A wise and noble person who receives even the smallest trace of this happiness, only once and even in a dream, no longer counts the bliss of impersonal Brahman as significant beside it.
The comparison does not deny Brahman. It reveals the added sweetness of relation. Undifferentiated bliss is fulfilled as the joy of seeing, serving, hearing, and loving Rama within his lila. Ayodhya's citizens are immersed not merely in peace, but in the inexhaustible rasa of the Lord living among them. A fragment of that intimacy outweighs attainment conceived only as release from distinction.
One drop of Ayodhya's love carries a sweetness for which even the still ocean of Brahman-bliss seems without flavor.
Read the passage from the Manas
जेहि सुख लागि पुरारि असुभ बेष कृत सिव सुखद। अवधपुरी नर नारि तेहि सुख महुँ संतत मगन।।88(क)।। सोइ सुख लवलेस जिन्ह बारक सपनेहुँ लहेउ। ते नहिं गनहिं खगेस ब्रह्मसुखहि सज्जन सुमति।।88(ख)।।
That very bliss for which Shiva, destroyer of Tripura, took on the form of a wandering beggar; in that same joy the men and women of Ayodhya remained constantly absorbed. Those wise and noble souls who received even a tiny fraction of that bliss, even in dreams, do not count even Brahma-sukha as anything, O Khagesh.