Divine Courage
Hanuman is you and you are in your own way a divine being of great devotion and courage. His story is my story as well. I am sure in your own way you have shown a lot of love and incredible power in the face of darkness and connecting to Hanuman and his energy will help you grow even stronger on this path of truth that you are walking daily.
He’s an extraordinary being but so are you. The Gods are mirrors and their super human deeds are a reflection of our own latent energy that waits to be awaken.
His legend is as much yours. This is a metaphor for a great awakening and you are part of it.
Let’s talk about his bravery and complete surrender to his beloved Rama. I am melting every time I read his absolute trust and selflessness. He just didn’t care one bit about what would happen to him, his life didn’t matter, just Rama and serving his beloved God. His devotion gave him strength to rescue Sita. And the lesson here is that complete surrender to a force greater than you is the only way to achieve true greatness.
The only way to become strong in your light and transform the negative into love is by serving a cause higher than yourself. Forgetting about oneself is paradoxically the only way to gain the power we all want to change our lives to good.
Lord Hanuman is your helper if you need to overcome some great obstacle in your life. His strength and courage is unmatched. Whatever you are trying to let go of, he’s here to help.
I want you to see yourself in him. As I tell you his story of bravery, I want you to think of all the ways in which you have been brave. How have you been fighting the darkness in your life.
These aren’t just legends written to entertain … these are stories about our inner worlds and archetypes. This story is our story too.
The story of Lord Hanuman
He was born as the son of Anjana, a celestial being and Vayu, the wind God. Having been born from divine beings, he was surely destined for greatness.
Legend has it that as a child he was hungry, and confusing the Sun with a ripe mango , he flew towards it wanting to take a bite. Indra, the warrior monarch of the sky saw this far too daring child and he threw a thunderbolt at him. Hanuman fell to the ground hurtling and he broke his chin.
Vayu, his father, took Hanuman to a cave to shelter him as he was healing. But as Vayu, the wind God was gone , the air was gone as well and now humans were becoming asphyxiated and couldn’t breathe. In order to appease the wind God and draw him out of hiding, the devas asked Brahma, the ultimate creator to heal Hanuman’s wounds, which he did.
In addition he was also blessed by the Gods with many gifts , new super powers and blessings. But his jaw remained swollen, as a reminder of his flight towards the sun. Hanuman’s name comes from the Sanskrit words Hanu “jaw” and man which means prominent or disfigured. So his name is a reminder of his daring leap towards the Sun .
If this isn’t a metaphor for the dark night of the soul : reaching for the light and being thrown back down to the earth. The cave metaphor and the lack of air and life that came as a consequence, as the hero was healing his wounds.
The awakening process includes these stages. The first step is seeing the sun and wanting to take a bite, and then the Gods will throw you right back into your old life and the shedding stage, the ego death process begins. You go into your inner cave and do your transformation and healing while on the outside, your old life dies.
Of course the hero is healed and blessed with many gifts once he comes out of the cave. And life comes back to earth and life starts again. Hanuman swollen chin is a reminder of his journey and what he as endured. He is not the same but he wears his wounds with grace and wisdom.
You are a monkey God, on a hero journey, check your chin? Is it swollen a little? Has the God Indra thrown a thunder at you as you were reaching for the Sun?
If so, don’t be sad, you’ll just heal your wounds deep into a safe dark cave for a while, the Wind God will be your helper and then you’ll come back and fight all the demons and be a brave solider of truth and love. Remember your power, remember your courage and stand tall, cause you too were born for greatness.
After he emerged from the cave and having new super powers given to him by the Gods, he does something that is also relevant for the awakening journey. He uses his powers recklessly, without any wisdom. He is a playful monkey after all and lacks the maturity to use his gifts for good. So instead, he messes with the wrong guy and gets himself in trouble.
A sage in a forest, immersed in prayers and rituals for the Gods, Hanuman messes with his altars and he keeps doing all sorts of shenanigans and in return the sage puts a mild curse on him: that the Monkey God forgets his gifts until he is wise enough to use them. He will have to be reminded of his God like powers at the right time and not a moment before that.
This is an unavoidable moment on the journey of the soul. Once you have seen the light and discovered some of your own strength, your monkey ego will make a mess. That is why it is important that you go trough a humbling stage of learning, where you don’t become some great spiritual leader right of the bat. We have too many examples of that going wrong.
True power requires a lot of wisdom that is gained in small confining spaces where no one knows your name or your true gifts, maybe not even yourself. And when you’re truly able to contain your greatness without doing harm to yourself or to others, then you can remember your power and use it in the world to help bring peace and beauty in the highest way you can.
Hanuman will remember his power at the right time. He becomes a disciple of Rama, and he sets on a quest to help rescue Sita who is Rama’s beloved. She has been kidnaped by an evil king and held captive on a island. Hanuman feels helpless at the beginning of the journey.
He has to cross the sea to get to the island but he forgot he can fly. In his great love for Rama and his true desire to help him , he sits by the sea and wishes he would be able to overcome the obstacles in his way, in the name of love. And now he remembers, and he gets all his powers back and helps Rama defeat the bad king and the him and Sita are reunited once again.
Hanuman was a great helper of the two lovers. Rama and Sita embody the twin flame energy and the monkey God is like the energy that helps bring them together. He’s the active force needed for harmony to be restored.
If you look at the whole story from the beginning and the archetypes. We have the two lovers thorn apart by an evil king and the only one that can help bring them together is the ultimate hero. The one who went trough the journey of awakening , dying, being reborn, forgetting, remembering and then acting with full force against evil forces and being victorious.
This is what we all need to do. In the quest for true harmony and uniting our polarities. We need to awaken the hero within. The brave inner monkey that thinks the sun is just a delicious fruit to be eaten. Imagine the audacity of such a being. And then going from immature reckless child to a true soldier of love and light.
A complete journey of the soul that inspired so many truth seekers trough the years. And now , I am also in awe of the Monkey God and everything I feel as I write this. You feel it too don’t you? The Monkey in you coming alive and who knows where it may take you. Where ever you go, I hope you will always stay brave and crazy.
May Hanuman bless your path with his presence.
I wish you joy!
Much love
G