The Nine-Day Ram Katha of Pujya Morari Bapu
Boston, USA · 8–16 July 2023
Across these nine days in Boston, Morari Bapu let the title he had chosen carry the whole burden of the teaching: *Manas Ramcharit* — the *charit*, the very character and life-story of Shri Ram as Goswami Tulsidasji sings it in the Ramcharitmanas. From the first invocation to the final rest, the katha returned again and again to one question: what does the character of Ram do to a human heart? And on the last day Bapu closed the circle by unfolding the title itself — *Manas* is Hriday, the heart; *Ramcharit* is the charit of Ram; and so our very heart is meant to become Ramcharit, a living, walking, breathing story of Ram, as Hanumanji, who bears Ram, Lakshman and Janaki within, is himself a walking, talking Ram Charit.
Bapu began where Tulsidasji begins — with the mahima of the Guru — and from it drew the first day's teaching, that everything turns on *drishti*, the quality of one's seeing. Take the dust of the Guru's lotus feet as anjan for the eyes, and only then dare to begin: when the eye is pure the whole Jagat becomes worthy of praṇām, and when it is impure even what is precious seems empty. This dependence on the Guru ran through every day. Without a Guru, knowledge only puffs a person up; the tap gives water only because a full dam stands behind it, and the Sadguru is the tank brimming with amrit while the pipe alone gives nothing. From the Sadguru, Bapu confessed, he had grasped only three things — truth, *prem*, and *karuna* — and honesty about one's source is itself a form of *pragya*: name the sher you borrow, and never sign another's sutra as your own.
The anchor of the whole katha, the chaupai that gives the series its name, was contemplated most fully on the second day: the charit of Ram is a *Chintamani*, a wish-fulfilling gem whose very swabhav is to devour *chinta*, worry. "I have never seen a chintamani," Bapu said with humility; "I roam village to village, country to country only to place this Chintamani in your hands, because it is my own experience that it freed me from my chinta." Around this he named the many things the charit is — a *sarovar*, the moon, a medicine, *Kamadhenu*, and a *mahamantra* kept close and whispered by Guru into a worthy ear. As an acid it eats away the evils of Kaliyug — *kama, krodh, lobh, mamta*, ego, competition; as the sun's ray it dispels the darkness of *moha* in an instant. From this flowed his boldest and most tender assurance, guarded always as his own experience and not a shastric claim: that through the Naam and the Charit even *sanchita* and *prarabbdha* karma are erased. Therefore, brood no longer over "I am a sinner, I am impure" — sin should not be committed, but if it has occurred, one need not let the head burst. "I am pure, unblemished, conscious; we are the embodiment of *sukha*."
Reading the Hanuman Chalisa, which opened many of the mornings, Bapu drew a simple and recurring map from the three *sankats* it names. The crisis of *pran* is crossed through *vairagya*, a readied willingness to let go and offer oneself; the crisis of *dharma* through *gyan*, for, as Vinoba said, quarrels never rise between two dharmas but between two understandings; and the crisis of the nation and the world through *yoga*, meaning *sahyog*, cooperation. Ramcharit itself, he taught, is the Sadguru of *gyan, virag,* and *yoga*.
A steady undertone across the middle days was the debt we owe to our origin. Never forget Ishwar; never forget the *Buddha Purush*, the Guru at whose feet any Indian *vidya* is learned; never forget the kindness others have shown; and never forget the mother, the *janmasthan*, the mother tongue, and the one from whom inspiration first took flight. He warned by the image of the Ganga, who set out from the very feet of Vishnu to purify the three lokas yet forgot her *mool* and merged into the salt sea. He remembered with affection the Punjabi sadhu of his boyhood Mahua, from whose thumb-mark of chandan he learned the *sheetalta* he still carries. And, like Shiva holding to two syllables of Ram from a hundred crore Ramayans, he counselled holding to one: Rumi held *ishq*, Buddha held *dhyan*, only *prem* is Paramatma.
Threaded throughout was a gentle discipline of living. Quoting the Gita's *anudvegakaram vakyam*, Bapu asked that words be *satya, priya,* and *hita* — never spoken to wound or taunt — sustained by continuous swadhyay and Haribhajan. The human body is a temple of God, so set alcohol aside, addiction being nothing but the knowing drinking of sorrow. On the eighth day the central image was the *yagna*: one approaches the Sadguru bearing *samit*, dry twigs of the self, and into the Agni of the prem-yagna are offered the crooked path, *kutark*, and *dambh* — the hypocrisy of claiming the whole when only a fragment is held. What remains is Vibhuti, worthy of the tilak.
As the narrative of Balkand and beyond unfolded — the birth at Avadh, Ahalya's redemption, the breaking of Shiva's dhanush, the weddings and Janaki's *vidai*, and on the last full day the swift luminous arc through Chitrakoot, Setu, Lanka and the Raj-tilak — Bapu gathered its meaning on the final day into a single sutra: the *Setu Bandh*. Ramkatha is fundamentally a katha of connecting, never of breaking. Through the whole Ramayan Ram builds bridges — to the young men of Ayodhya, to the vanars, to the very stones of the sea, and at last even to Vibhishan and Ravan. Why does a bridge break? He named four causes of our joy and sorrow — Kaal, Karma, Guna, and Swabhav — the last, one's very nature, being the hardest to change. Keep a mirror, not a telescope, he said, in the counsel of the Jain Muni: Bharat is a land of mirrors, where one improves oneself, while Ravan's house of gold held no mirror at all. When a person believes only their own fragrance is right, the setu breaks.
- *Ramcharit chintamani charu, sant sumati tiya subhag sringaru* — the charit of Ram is a wish-fulfilling gem, the fair adornment of a saint's discerning intellect. - *Sadguru gyan virag yog ke* — the Ramcharitmanas itself is the Sadguru who leads to knowledge, renunciation, and union. - *Ishwar ansh jeev avinashi, chetan amal sahaj sukh rashi* — the soul is a portion of God: eternal, pure, and a natural treasure of bliss. - *Mamaivaansho jeevaloke* (Gita 15.7) — we are no ordinary beings but a portion of the Lord himself. - *Sab nar karahi paraspar priti* — let all people hold mutual love for one another, for that is the name of dharma. - *Dhai akshar Prem ka, padhe so Pandit hoi* (Kabir) — whoever reads the two-and-a-half letters of Love, that one alone is truly learned. - *Bade bhag manush tan pava* — great is the fortune by which the human body is attained, the rare instrument for meeting Bhagwan.
"Give me nine days," Bapu told the young, "and I will give you new life" — and so the katha of the heart's own Ramcharit rose to Ramrajya and rested. Jai Siyaram.