How have we passed on ancient knowledge for generations before the invention of paper?
How have we as a community passed on our values and lived experiences to the next generation?
How can we preserve culture and ensure its progression despite frequent invasions?
How do we reconnect to our native culture when the influence of foreign cultures is strong?
The answer is through storytelling. Humans have used Stories to communicate and cooperate in large numbers. Stories have helped us pass on knowledge from ancient times until now in a simple and relatable way. Stories help us reconnect with our native worldview, values, and culture. It ultimately leads to the embodying of them in our lives.
It ensured the continuity of ancient wisdom, values from generation to generation, and the preservation of the culture. More importantly, it enabled each generation to journey beyond the intellect to a space of insight and intuition through the support of these grappling stories. The Itihasas and Puranas are living examples of this.
Our Rishis and Masters understood this phenomenon. They employed storytelling to convey complex, cryptic, and esoteric divine revelations in a simple, comprehendible way. Through stories, one understands and appreciates the truths revealed by the Rishis. Once we connect with these stories, we can explore these revelations deep within ourselves and in our lives.
The stories in Itihasa and Purana are not just historic but essentially spiritual, which talks about the inner battles one goes through in their life and how to face them. These battles within are not subject to particular land, religion, race, community, or country. These are universal. Wherever we can find a human, we find these inner battles.
Ramayana, Mahabharata on the outset would look like a narrative of the lives of kings and their struggle to win wars with opposing kings. At the core, they talk about the battles within us. Lust, Anger, Greed, Delusion, Arrogance, and Jealousy are internal enemies which hinder our progress. These are also called the Shadripus (inner enemies).
We have the image of Rama, who was calm and settled at the Warfield. Even when Ravan lost his weapons during the battle, he did not take advantage of that and attack him. He asks him to leave and come back the next day.
Mahabharat personifies these six enemies vividly through the different characters such as Dhritarashtra, Duryodhana, Dushasana, Sakuni, Karna, and Shishupala. The struggles Pandavas go through to ensure justice is the struggles we encounter in ourselves, to ensure harmony and peace in ourselves.
What is the ultimate goal of our culture? It is to grow out of the inner enemies, limitations and discover our true selves for the complete fulfillment of our lives.
What happens when a child constantly listens and reflects on these stories? The essence of the story gradually percolates and becomes a part of the child's consciousness. Children will start using the wisdom from these stories imprinted in their subconscious in daily life and decision-making.
What is needed now is for our children to reconnect to our culture. Reconnecting to our culture would mean to re-route their lives in a way that aligns with the ultimate goal of our culture. There is also a tremendous responsibility to make Indian characters and the Bharatiya values they symbolize well-known amongst our young kids.
We can observe how children are getting influenced by pop culture, western media, and television. The culture promoted there instills the Shadripus and diminishes the power of their intellect, creativity and intuition.
There is no other effective and entertaining alternative to overcome this challenge than through our Itihasas and Puranas. Let's take stories from them and see how we can explore these narratives within ourselves in the following blogs.
