Hari Aum.
The saint Tulsi Das of the 16th century was a great devotee of Rama and a self-realised being. He was a wonderful poet and composed many valuable spiritual works. Perhaps the best known amongst these is the Ram charit manas which is his re-telling of the story of the avatar of Narayana known as Shri Rama.
(The original Ramayana, or lila of Rama, is said to have been composed in Sanskrit by the great sage Valmiki a very long time ago. Since then, many devotees of Rama have composed poems in their own languages in praise of Him).
One less well-known but interesting work by Tulsi Das is the 'Rama agya Prashna' (this means the order of Rama in Hindi). This is a divination method created by him for spiritual seekers and devotees to seek divine guidance. He lived in the sacred city of Kashi (Varanasi) in North India and it is said that he was inspired to create this technique to help a friend who was in trouble.
In essence, the Rama agya Prashna is a beautiful poem composed in an ancient form of Hindi (quite a bit of which overlaps with modern Hindi). It contains all the key events of the Ramayana in a condensed or mini version (that is much shorter than the original Ramayana). It consists of seven chapters or 'sargas' (in Hindi), each of which contains seven sections. Each of the seven sections in turn has seven verses. Thus, in total, there are 7 x 7 x 7 = 343 verses in this poem.
Aside from the story of the Ramayana, there is mention of some astrological principles at the beginning and the end of the Rama agya Prashna. The last section of the poem explains the mental attitude and method that one should adopt when seeking to obtain divine guidance from this book. In essence one needs to select an auspicious day, meditate upon God in the heart beforehand and then pose the question. Then one finds a verse in the poem that provides the answer and is advised to reflect upon its meaning.
There are two main forms of this divination method that I have come across. One is in Hindi published as the "Ramagya Prashna" (the original). The other is in English published as the 'Rama ajna Prashna-- the oracle of Rama' (an adaptation of the original that is nearly identical to the Hindi one). I obtained both as I find they work quite well together.
At this stage, I would like to mention that I generally avoid divination methods such as tarot cards, I ching and the like (these may well be useful but I know very little about them). I have never felt any need for them and have generally felt the best course of action is to follow the straight and narrow path of spirituality in the form of mantra recitation, meditation, puja, homam and other tried and tested spiritual practices.
However, it was completely by chance, while seeking to purchase a birthday gift, for a friend that I happened to come across the English version of the Rama ajna prashna. This has been put together by the American author and yogi, David Frawley. He has published many books on yoga, ayurveda, astrology and a number of other spiritual subjects. One of his Vedic astrology books is a favourite of mine (that is the only book of his that I have read so far and I find it very helpful).
Anyway, I ended up purchasing a copy of his adaptation of the Rama ajna Prashna. He has laid it out in a very interesting way. There are two decks of cards. One deck has 49 cards and each of these represents one section of the seven chapters in the mini-Ramayana of Tulsi Das. The second deck contains 7 cards, each of which represents one verse out of the seven in each section (of the seven chapters in the book). In addition, he has provided an English translation of the mini-Ramayana of Tulsi Das that was created for the purpose of divination or prashna.
The method of using this divination method is as follows. After posing the question and meditating on God, one needs to shuffle each of the two decks of cards separately. Then one selects a card from the bigger deck. After this, one selects a card from the smaller deck. Now one needs examine both cards together to see which verse in the mini-Ramayana is indicated. This verse is meant to contain the answer.
I had certain questions related to my life, particularly my spiritual life, that I had not yet managed to find an answer for. I therefore felt the need for some divine guidance. Although Vedic astrology prashna can be used, this method provided by a saint felt more direct and worth exploring.
I therefore asked for divine guidance and consulted the Rama agya prashna (using the two decks of cards to indentify the relevant verse). To my surprise, each answer that I received matched the question that I had posed. Some were obvious, some seemed less so but appeared to have a meaning on deeper reflection. I repeated my mantra to invoke the blessing of God before, during and after the process and strongly feel that this was key in receiving relevant answers.
As I mentioned I have also purchased the Rama agya Prashna in Hindi (this contains Tulsi Das' original poem in ancient Hindi with a translation in modern Hindi). I did this because I can understand Hindi and wanted to read the original to grasp as much of the meaning as possible. So my method was to use the decks of cards in English to find the verse, but then read the answer in the Hindi book (and secondarily look at the English translation too).
On one or two occasions, my concentration on the mantra lapsed. On these occasions, the verses I received directly advised me to repeat the entire process again after meditating properly on God (the final verses of the book advise seekers to repeat the process if it was not done well !). Strangest of all, I received the same verse as an answer for three different questions within 48 hours (and I was shuffling the cards very well indeed so it was not due to a lack of this). The chances of that happening are around 0.00000002 i.e. very very small, so clearly not a coincidence. That verse appears to have some major significance in my life currently.
I will not go into detail about my questions and the answers as these are not relevant to readers. However, I will mention one thing about the verse that was repeated three times. The content of that verse felt to me like a spiritual admonishment. It felt like the universe was saying that I need to pull my socks up and try harder. It certainly feels relevant to my life today.
In the past two years, due to the combination of the arrival of my daughter and the pandemic and various other issues, I have found my concentration upon God to be lacking. My devotional attitude has been lacking. There was a time around ten years ago when these were strong and seemed to flow almost effortlessly. But that spiritual ardour has lately felt like it is fading.
I have increasingly felt caught up in worldly concerns and, despite feeling guilty about this most of the time, have not yet managed to change course. In the past couple of years, I have apologised to God on numerous occasions for this but unfortunately have not really improved. I have merely listed my excuses to Him ranging from personal to professional and even astrological (the recent double Rahu period with Sade sati has not been nice!).
I do the mantra japa daily without fail but after that I forget Him periodically while busy with worldly tasks. This is the main problem and it was not this way in the past- I had a much better ability to remember God throughout the day and night with devotion regardless of what work I was doing.
Despite the challenges of the past two years, my circumstances have now improved. I do have more time and energy to put into spiritual practice. And so, I do not have the excuses that I had previously (at least not to the same extent). I therefore feel like the Rama agya prashna's order or the divine will is for me to re-engage more seriously with spiritual life. To pull back from excessive involvement in worldly concerns. Or the consequences will be very unpleasant.
On that note, I have once again taken up the writing of the book on the Vamana avatar. I have been working on this in fits and starts due to the various issues in the past two years. I hope to have this completed to my satisfaction in the coming weeks and will aim to publish it this year. Writing it feels like a spiritual practice.
I am also going to commit to doing more kirtan, puja and homams. In this current phase of spiritual dreariness and fatigue, the only thing that fills me with spiritual happiness and devotional feeling is singing the names of God. After 15-20 minutes of singing, particularly the names of Krishna, I feel so much better and connected with Him. As He says, He is present whereever His names are sung. Based on this, I feel I really need to do some singing on most days, ideally every day.
I am mentioning the Rama agya prashna here in case it may be of use to any readers who seek divine guidance for their issues. I would say that it is a simple and uncannily accurate method of divination and would highly recommend it.
May Lord Narayana rescue those of us who need rescuing from excessive worldliness and draw us back to Him.
Om Shri Ramaya Namah.
Om Namo Narayanaya.
Hari Aum Tat Sat.
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