Imagine this scenario. A man and his friend are having a friendly conversation, while the first man's son is playing with his friends.
Suppose there is a book the man wants to pass on to his friend. Not wishing to break up the conversation, he asks his son to go inside and fetch the book. The child, not wanting to break up the game it is playing, refuses to go and get the book.
The father's ego is now hurt. He feels he has been let down by his son, and that his friend will think he has spoilt his son and made him disobedient. So he gives the boy a good thrashing. But when the boy cries, the father feels sorry for having beaten the child.
A little patience would have saved him from unhappiness. He could have excused the child's refusal as being typical of a child, and fetched the book himself. Instead he chose to beat the child, and now the child and the father are both unhappy.
This is how most of us behave, losing our temper over the silliest of reasons. But Rama was famous for his equanimity of temper, said M.V. Anantapadmanabhachariar.
Dasaratha, Kausalya and Kaikeyi are all agitated for various reasons, when it is decided that Rama will have to leave for the forest.
For Dasaratha and Kousalya, it is pain at Rama's departure. For Kaikeyi it is anticipation of her son's coronation. The whole of Ayodhya is sorrowful.
But Rama shows no emotion on his face. He is not agitated at all. He remains detached, and ready to carry out his father's order. Sita relishes this quality of Rama.
Rama is patience embodied. It is the Lord's patience that makes Him forgive our sins. Suppose we take a sheet of white paper, and put a dot on it with a pencil, and show it to people, and ask them what they see, they will reply that they see a black dot. That is typical of us. We see only blemishes.
But God will not notice the dot, but will remark that He sees a white paper. So great is His compassion for us, that He magnifies our goodness, so that He may save us, and He overlooks our sins.
The Vedas were born as the Ramayana and showed Rama's greatness.
