Saint Tulsidas

Perth May 13th 2005

Tulsidas, when he was young, was very attached to his wife. He was mad after his wife. One day his wife went away to stay with her parents. Tulsidas was very distressed and restless and simply couldn’t settle. This went on and on, until finally at midnight he decided to leave and go off to find his wife. He arrived at the house, and found that his wife was sleeping in an upstairs room. Tulsidas decided to climb up and in his excitement and distress, grabbed what he thought was a rope to climb up. But it was actually a snake. So he climbed up and jumped in through the window, into his wife’s room, still holding the snake.

Shocked at this, his wife declared, “If only you were this mad after Rama!” This comment pricks Tulsidas’ heart and he leaves and goes off in search of God. The legend says that a ghost helped him by telling him to find Hanuman, who would then guide him to Rama. So he goes to the place which the ghost has told him about, which is a gathering where Shri Rama’s name is sung. He tries to find Hanuman, but he can’t, and he returns back to the ghost. The ghost then advises him that Hanuman will not be appearing at such a place in his normal form, and that he was likely to come in the appearance of a leper. So Tulsidas returns to the place where Rama’s name is being sung, and sees an old leper there. When the leper gets up to leave Tulsidas follows him, grabs the leper’s feet and begs for him to intercede in having Rama’s Darshan, which then occurs. The Hanuman Chaleesa we just sang is very popular in northern India, and we usually sing it at the ashram on a Tuesday, and then follow with Shri Rama’s aarathi song.