Thursday, August 4, 2011

Sita's incomplete Individuation Journey?


In Ramayana, Sita does not seem to have completed her individuation journey.

The most striking point for me is when Janaka tells Rama while giving away Sita that she will be a shadow to you, following through thick and thin, Sita herself also says this before they set out to the exile. From this ideal position of wanting to give everything, she comes to a point where she has no other go, read - her Ego is so assaulted that she wants to disappear into her origin, her mother, read - unconscious, again.

As I have been thinking about this myth for a couple of years now, one perspective that is emerging freshly to me is that, Rama has taken her as a partner to his Ego, the conscious Persona that has been groomed to be the Righteous King. This Persona is the one that marries Sita. His own journey with his Anima is still incomplete. In the life led by this Persona, he accepts difficulties, he accepts the 'weird' 'irrational' behaviours of the ununderstood Anima either in the form of Kaikeyi asking for his exile or Sita asking for the Magical Deer. His conscious and righteous response to this ununderstood, irrational demand of the Unconscious is how he stands and builds a Rama rajya. All his agonies, his love, his passion, his foolishness are all either undealt, kept personal or dealt with the help of Lakshmana. There are many a places where Lakshmana counsels him in his search for Sita.

Sita seems to have set out to give her full to Rama but unreceived in her entirety, she finally has to go into the greatest container of all, the Mother Earth herself. She hardly spends any time as the Queen.

To this day, mothers treat their daughters with a bit of extra pampering. They say, after all, she has to undergo difficulty at her in law's house.