The Love of Rama & Sita

"There are many different kinds of love, as many as there are different people, and the love of Rama and Sita is a drive as close to duty as to romance. It is not a love that arises from the satisfaction of physical or emotional desires - most of us, with our chains of blithe couplings and uncouplings, have experienced that type of love often enough. That sentiment, perhaps better labeled "romantic" or "passion," is what we in the West generally mean when we say "love." But Cupid's sting wounds the heart, not the soul. It is, fundamentally, a selfish longing: we yearn to be with a loved one for the simple reason that it makes us happy. A fine, fine thing, yes - but not the sort of love that makes the world go' round.

The love celebrated in the Ramayana is a completely different breed. It comes not from the fulfillment of individual wants, but from their sublimation. It can exist side by side with romance (and for contented couples in both East and West it generally does), but it does not rely on mere cupidity. It is a love that requires surrender of the self. It is a love that leads to the procreation of children and preservation of the species. It is a love that makes us whole.

...There is a love which binds a man and woman together, which lets each be the fulfillment of the other. There is a love which takes two individuals and fuses them into a singe unit. There is a love which makes every man or woman the embodiment of all men and women. There is a love which, by joining human with human, also joins the human with the divine.

This is the love that Rama and Sita shared, this is the love that keeps India alive.

The arrow of Cupid strikes deep, but not so deep as the Arrow of God."

-Excerpt from "Arrow if the Blue Skinned God" by Jonah Blank