Who was Kakbhushundi?

Kakbhushundi due to continuous chanting of the Name of Ram lives even at the time of dissolution and so has seen multiple universes and multiple times Lord Rama incarnating and Ramayana being written. He even once got into Lord Rama’s stomach and saw infinite number of Universes there and many incarnations of Lord Rama, where Lord Rama was the same but all others were different.

According to Yoga Vasistha Maha Ramayana there are infinite number of Universes. There was once a Universe where everyone lived in space and civilization flourished in space. Once a queen entered a Universe inside an atom of her own table to find her king who had taken birth in that universe. Hundreds of years passed in that universe where as only a few seconds had passed in this universe. When you read Yoga Vasistha you will be amazed. Modern Science can learn a lot from Yoga Vasistha.

Not even one word written in Vedas, scriptures is unreal although it does teaches the philosophy what other person tried and explained. In reality(backed by science) multiple universe/galaxies exist and so what Kakbhushundi saw was not imagination of his mind but reality of a certain zone. Ram only did this chamatkara as he doubted his Godliness and God goes to any extent for his bhakta. Uttara Kanda is highly interpolated and is rejected widely. First came Vedas then Ramayan then Mahabharat followed by Puranas. Sage Valmiki wrote Ramayan during the reign of Lord Rama and even sent his disciples Lava and Kusha to the palace of Rama as singers for his Ramayan. There was no mention of Uttara Kanda by Lava and Kusha. Kakbhushundi is a later added character in Puranas which Tulsidas adopted in Ramcharitmanas.

In Uttara Kanda of Ramcharitmanas, a sage named Kakbhushundi recites Ramayan to Garuda and tells about his previous life as follows: In a former Kalpa (round of creation), my lord, the world was passing through a Kaliyuga, the hotbed of sin, in which men and women were all steeped in unrighteousness and acted contrary to the Vedas. In that Kaliyuga I was born in the city of Ayodhya and got the body of a shudras (a member of the labouring and artisan classes). Does Kakbhushundi in Ramcharitmanas claims that he has seen different Ramayan with different outcomes of various universes?

Shri Ramcharitmanas doesn't have any such statement. The original source of Kakbhushundi story is Padma Purana. Tulsidas wrote Ramcharitmanas by taking references from Valmiki Ramayan and several puranas. In Ramcharitmanas, Kakbhushundi narrates Ramayan to Garuda and also tells the story of his previous births. His claim of seeing various Ramayan is available in Padma Purana and Yoga Vashishta text. Yoga Vashishta, a philosophical text attributed to Valmiki, recounts the cyclical nature of time, where Kakbhushundi has seen Ramayan 11 times with different outcomes and seen Mahabharat 16 times with different results, but after seeing Daksha Yagya twice, he did not either care to see it again or saw no point to seeing any more as it ended the same way each time.

The story is more of a metaphor if you think about it. Based on what we know, the Universe came from Nothing. So stretching it further, any decision you take today can result into a new universe (for you) from nothing. We consider different possibilities when making a decision, right? Essentially what we are saying is, with every possibility I can create a new version of the universe. Finally, how we decide on which Possibility actually turns into a Decision will then create a new version of the Universe around us. And what allows us to weigh different possibilities? Experience and the Wisdom gained from it. So, someone who is reckless may overreact in a situation (the arrogant and proud , younger version of Kakbhushundi), whereas someone who is mature will be able to step back and see all view points and then weigh all those view points to make the best decision.

These view point and empathizing with others only comes from seeing broader patterns of human behavior in your own life. For every hurt caused to you or one you caused others, you will create a new Ramayana (another word for creating your own personal hell or heaven). Maturity then, is being able to forgive others and yourself so you can remember the lesson but release the emotion (serpent is a metaphor for this) and make better decisions. If you pay attention without getting caught up in the emotion due to these past hurts and guilt, then you will notice that the same stories/patterns play out again and again all around you. And then you can rise above it when you make better decisions. If not, you will repeat the same mistakes over and over again…which is the metaphor of birth and death cycles in the scriptures.

To be released , aka Moksha, is not some esoteric event, out of this world, but being free of your personal demons and be able to live as a man or woman free from guilt and fears and find true contentment in everything you do. Instead of renouncing everything (as in withdrawing yourself from the world) you must fully engage in it and be the Crow forever, (Kaak…who sounds like Ka Ka …as in Why?) and ask Why forever. Which means you must always question the reality or your own assumptions of reality by objectively observing life, like a crow from a high tension cable watching life happen. Jay Shri Ram