Navaratri is also associated with Rama. According to the myth, on Vijaya Dashami, the last day of Ashwin Navaratri (September/October), Rama is victorious over Ravana, and he is able to reclaim and become one with the individual self. This event is an indication of what we can aspire for.

Rama personified the highest ideals that an individual can attain. The story of Rama is contained in the Ramayana, written by Valmiki, and the Ramacharitamanas, by Tulsidas. Rama was a historical figure, a reality which later became a myth.

His personality type was “maryada purushottam”. Purush means man and uttam means highest quality, transcendental. Rama was a perfect personality who lived within the limits and precepts of the Vedic tradition and discipline. Born under auspicious circumstances he was the boon of Agni, Lord of Fire, to King Dasharath. Fire represents energy, vitality, life, and it has the ability to burn everything, whether good material or rubbish. It can digest everything. The boon of fire, of life, is a perfect gift.

In the course of time Rama married Sita. Rama represents the pure Self and Sita represents the individual self. Their marriage represents the union of the individual with the cosmic, with pure consciousness.

After Rama is being sent to exile, Sita decided she would not stay behind because she couldn’t live without Rama. While Rama and Sita were enjoying each other’s company in the forest, Rama went after a golden deer which he agrees to get for Sita. Then the ten-headed monster, Ravana, came and captured Sita and took her to his city of Lanka.

Ravana himself was a realised although deviated soul. He had deviated from the path of dharma, but he had the knowledge and wisdom. He was the possessor of so many vidyas, siddhis. In the battlefield he was considered to be immortal because he had awakened his manipura chakra. As long as the fire of energy, the vital force, was burning within him he could not be killed. He is depicted as having ten heads as this is symbolic of his having mastery over the five gyanindriyas and karmendriyas.

In order to rescue Sita, Rama went to Lanka. A fight then took place between the ten-headed monster Ravana, the ego of the senses, and Rama, the pure consciousness. Although Rama chopped off the heads and the arms of this monster many times, they all grew back.

Then another personality, Vibhishana, the brother of Ravana, entered the scene. Where Ravana represents the rashness of the ego, Vibhishan represents viveka, the discriminative ability of the intellect. It is this viveka, right wisdom, who tells Rama, the pure consciousness, that if he wants to kill that monster, it is no good just playing with the ten heads and arms as they will grow again.

Instead he has to go to the source of their life.What is the source of life? Manipura chakra. So Vibhishana tells Rama to dry up the source so that nothing will grow again. In the war, Rama shot an arrow into the navel of the monster Ravana and thru shot ten arrows into Ravana’s ten heads. The life force that is responsible for giving birth to each ego was destroyed, and the existing ego was destroyed. So Rama was able to reclaim Sita.

So Navaratri is connected with Rama as well as with Devi, the Cosmic Mother. Navaratri is an attempt to reconnect with the underlying reality within, to tune the individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness, to redirect life towards the goal of positive evolution.

From “Yoga Magazine, Issue October 2004 ‘Navaratri’ and Issue November 1993 ‘Lord Rama’”, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati