Tulsi Sahib: The Ramayana Inside the Body

Ghat means the vessel, the pot, the body.

And the Ghat Ramayana is a Ramayana in which nothing happens anywhere except inside one person.

What that means

Not that the story is being retold with a moral attached.

The entire narrative is reassigned.

Rama is not a prince of Ayodhya in this text. Ayodhya is not a city. Lanka is not an island. The war is not fought and the bridge is not built, in the sense that a listener to Tulsidas understands those events.

Every element is a component of a person, and the plot is the sequence of an interior process.

The general shape

And the assignments vary between Sant Mat readings, so this entry gives the shape rather than a fixed table.

• Rama is the self, or the ultimate within
• Sita is the surat, the attention or the soul current, which is what gets separated and has to be recovered
• Ravana is the mind, or kal, the power that holds the attention in the lower regions
• Lanka is the place the attention is held
• Hanuman is variously the guru, the breath, or the messenger faculty that can cross
• The bridge is the passage that is built to get across
• The exile, the search, the crossing and the return are the stages of the practice

Which means the book is a manual disguised as a story, and it is meant to be read by somebody doing the practice, with the narrative giving the order of operations.

Why it is a serious piece of work

Because the reassignment is consistent and it is complete.

Anybody can allegorise a story loosely. Tulsi Sahib carries it all the way through, keeps the correspondences stable across a long text, and makes the narrative sequence do real work as a description of a sequence in practice.

And because the move is not arbitrary. The Ramayana is already about separation and recovery, and a tradition whose central claim is that the soul has been separated from its source and can be reunited with it has a genuine structural reason to find its own subject in that particular story.

And it is not new with him

Worth saying because it is sometimes presented as his invention.

Kabir reads inward constantly. The northern sants routinely take temple, pilgrimage, Kashi, Mecca, the Ganga and the Veda and relocate them into the body. Ghat as a word is already doing this work in the sant vocabulary long before Hathras.

What Tulsi Sahib did was apply it systematically to an entire epic, which nobody had done at that length.

The method is powerful and it has a failure mode, and a devotional site should describe both.

What it is good for

One. It makes a familiar text usable again.

A person who has heard the Ramayana since childhood has stopped hearing it. Reassigning the elements forces the attention back on, and a reader who has to work out what Lanka is doing in their own week is reading rather than remembering.

Two. It relocates the demand.

The plain narrative can be admired from a distance. Rama is somebody else, the demon is somebody else, and the war happened elsewhere.

The inner reading closes that distance. The demon is in this room.

Three. It is portable across sects.

A reader who does not accept the Ramayana as history, or does not worship Rama, or belongs to a nirguna tradition that rejects images entirely, can still use the book, and that is exactly the audience Tulsi Sahib was writing for.

Now the failure mode

Allegory is unfalsifiable.

Any text can be made to mean anything by allegory, and that is not a hypothetical: it is what happens, constantly, in every tradition, and it is the single most common way scripture is bent to whatever the reader already wanted.

Three disciplines that keep it honest

One. Consistency.

If Sita is the surat in chapter one, Sita is the surat in chapter forty. A reading in which the correspondences shift whenever the plot becomes inconvenient is not a reading; it is a series of separate claims wearing one costume.

Tulsi Sahib passes this test. A great many popularisers do not.

Two. It must not delete the plain sense.

The allegorical reading is an addition, not a replacement.

A tradition that says the war is internal and therefore no war matters, or that Sita's abduction is internal and therefore abduction is not a subject, has used the inner reading to walk away from the text's actual content.

And this is not abstract. The Ramayana contains an abduction, a war, a trial by fire and a banishment of a pregnant woman on the basis of gossip. Those are in the text, they have been argued about inside the tradition for a thousand years, and an inner reading that makes them disappear is doing something other than reading.

Three. It must not be used to erase an ethical demand.

Which is the version that does damage.

If your hunger is symbolic, my obligation to feed you is symbolic.

And that is the exact move the previous entry describes with Malukdas's couplet, and the one the Bhima Bhoi entry describes, and the one the Gita section in the Chinmayananda entry describes.

Kabir, who does more inner reading than anybody, does not do this. He relocates Kashi into the body and attacks people who will not feed a hungry man. The inner reading and the material obligation sit side by side in the same poet, and that is the correct arrangement.

The test in one sentence

If the inner reading is making the demand on you larger, it is working. If it is making it smaller, check who benefits.

On the practice itself

Surat shabd yoga is not dangerous at ordinary intensity, does not require paying anybody, and is described in the tradition as available to a householder.

And the market around it is large. Initiation into inner sound practice is sold, at prices, by many organisations, and the tests for that are in the Bhaskararaya and Sahjo Bai entries: a price list is a business, escalating levels are a business, a real teacher can be questioned, and leaving should be free.

And the standard caution about intensity, which the Ramana entry sets out: sustained intensive contemplative practice can be destabilising for a minority of people, particularly on long retreats, and anybody with a history of psychosis, severe dissociation or bipolar disorder should talk to a doctor before an intensive. Fifteen minutes a day is not the risk.

Where to go

• Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, where his seat is
• Agra, for the Radhasoami establishments, which are substantial and are open
• Kara, for Malukdas, and the other places in this batch, which are all within a few hours of each other in the Ganga plain

What to read

• Ghat Ramayana, in Hindi, and there are translations and selections
• And read it next to a plain Ramayana rather than instead of one, which is the discipline this section is about

A daily practice from this entry

• Ram, in whichever sense your household uses it, and Tulsi Sahib would say both senses are the same name
• And the Ghat question, applied once to a story you already know by heart: if every character in this were a part of me, which one am I currently being

Who: Tulsi Sahib, roughly 1763 to 1843, of Hathras in what is now western Uttar Pradesh. What is securely documented is that he lived there, taught there, had disciples and wrote, and that is close to the whole of it.

The origin claim: the tradition holds that he was born into the Peshwa family of Pune, in fuller versions as an elder brother of Baji Rao II, sometimes named Shyam Rao, who was to succeed to the Peshwa's seat and who walked away on the day of his own coronation and went north. It should be reported carefully, because the Peshwa genealogy does not straightforwardly support it, there is no Maratha court record of a renunciation of this kind, and the claim appears in the devotional literature rather than the historical. And because it is a genre: a very large number of Indian sants acquire a royal birth after their deaths, and this series has recorded several kinds of retrospective addition, including plays manufactured two centuries after Premanand's death, manuscripts that keep being newly found containing whatever is currently wanted, and lineages acquiring an immortal guru when there is no human one to name. Royal renunciation is the same mechanism applied to a birth, and it does specific work: it establishes that the sant gave up something enormous and borrows a dynasty's authority for a teacher who had none, on the template of the Buddha's story. The claim exists, the historical support is weak, and the teaching does not depend on it, since whether he had been a Peshwa makes no difference to whether the book is any good.

What he wrote: the Ghat Ramayana, his major work, along with the Ratan Sagar, the Shabdavali and the Padma Sagar, in Hindi and Braj with inflections scholars have noted carry western and Marathi traces. He taught surat shabd yoga, the joining of the attention to the inner sound, with a living teacher as necessary, the name, strict vegetarianism, no image worship and the levels of an inner ascent, which is the standard Sant Mat set, and he is generally treated as the figure through whom that vocabulary reaches the nineteenth century. Shiv Dayal Singh, called Soamiji Maharaj, began teaching at Agra in 1861 and the Radhasoami traditions descend from him, and the traditional account connects him to Tulsi Sahib most commonly through his parents, though different Radhasoami organisations report this differently and Sant Mat lineage charts are drawn backwards and contested between branches.

The Ghat Ramayana: ghat means the vessel, the pot, the body, and this is a Ramayana in which nothing happens anywhere except inside one person. The entire narrative is reassigned rather than retold with a moral attached. Rama is the self or the ultimate within, Sita is the surat, the attention or soul current that gets separated and has to be recovered, Ravana is the mind or kal that holds the attention in the lower regions, Lanka is the place the attention is held, Hanuman is variously the guru, the breath or the messenger faculty that can cross, the bridge is the passage built to get across, and the exile, search, crossing and return are the stages of the practice, with assignments varying between Sant Mat readings. So the book is a manual disguised as a story, meant for somebody doing the practice, with the narrative giving the order of operations. It is serious work because the reassignment is consistent and complete, carried all the way through a long text with stable correspondences, and because the move is not arbitrary, since the Ramayana is already about separation and recovery and a tradition whose central claim is that the soul has been separated from its source has a structural reason to find its subject there. It is also not new with him, since Kabir reads inward constantly and the northern sants routinely relocate temple, pilgrimage, Kashi, Mecca, the Ganga and the Veda into the body; what Tulsi Sahib did was apply it systematically to an entire epic.

What inner reading is good for: it makes a familiar text usable again, since a person who has heard the Ramayana since childhood has stopped hearing it and reassigning the elements forces the attention back on. It relocates the demand, since the plain narrative can be admired from a distance where Rama is somebody else and the war happened elsewhere, while the inner reading closes that distance and puts the demon in this room. And it is portable across sects, so a reader who does not accept the Ramayana as history or belongs to a nirguna tradition can still use the book, which is exactly the audience he was writing for.

The failure mode: allegory is unfalsifiable, any text can be made to mean anything by it, and that is the single most common way scripture gets bent to whatever the reader already wanted. Three disciplines keep it honest. Consistency, so that if Sita is the surat in chapter one she is the surat in chapter forty, since a reading whose correspondences shift whenever the plot becomes inconvenient is a series of separate claims wearing one costume; Tulsi Sahib passes this test and many popularisers do not. It must not delete the plain sense, since the allegorical reading is an addition rather than a replacement, and the Ramayana contains an abduction, a war, a trial by fire and the banishment of a pregnant woman on the basis of gossip, all of which are in the text and have been argued about inside the tradition for a thousand years, so an inner reading that makes them disappear is doing something other than reading. And it must not be used to erase an ethical demand, which is the version that does damage, because if your hunger is symbolic then my obligation to feed you is symbolic, which is the same move recorded with Malukdas's couplet, with Bhima Bhoi's line and with the Gita. Kabir, who does more inner reading than anybody, relocates Kashi into the body and also attacks people who will not feed a hungry man, and that is the correct arrangement. The test in one sentence: if the inner reading is making the demand on you larger it is working, and if it is making it smaller, check who benefits.