The Fig, the Olive and the Peaceful Land: Hanuman Obhong : The Primary Characters

"As you read a story or watch a movie, there are four primary characters: the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide. The victim is the character who feels they have no way out. The villain is the character who makes others small. The hero is the character who faces their challenges and transforms. The guide is the character who helps the hero. You feel sympathy for the victim, you cheer for the hero, you hate the villain, and you respect the guide. These four characters exist in stories not only because they exist in the real world, but because they exist inside you and me," the Moon moved on. "Sometimes, in our life, we play all four characters every day. If we are faced with an unfair challenge, we usually play the victim for a minute, feeling sorry for ourselves. If we are wronged, we dream about vengeance, like a villain. If we come up with a good idea and want to make it happen, we switch into hero mode to take action, and if somebody calls and needs our advice, we play the guide. The problem is, these characters are not equal. Two help us experience a deep sense of meaning and two lead to our demise.
Whether we like it or not, the lives we live are stories. Our lives have a beginning, middle, and end, and inside those three acts we play many roles. We are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, teammates, lovers, friends, and so much more. For many of us, the stories we live feel meaningful, interesting, and perhaps even inspired. For others, life feels as though the writer has lost the plot. Regardless of who is writing our stories, it is a useful belief that we are the authors of own stories. If we are tired of life, what we’re really tired of is the story we are living inside of. And the great thing about being tired of our story is that stories can be edited. Stories can be fixed. Stories can go from dull to exciting, from rambling to focused, and from drudgery to read to exhilarating to live.
All we need to know to fix our stories are the principles that make a story meaningful. Then, if we apply those principles to our lives and stop handing our pen, just like that, without trying at all, to fate, we can change our personal experience and in turn feel gratitude for its beauty, rather than resentment for its meaninglessness.

One thing that will ruin a story fast is if the hero—the character that the story is about—acts like a victim. Heroes are anything but strong and capable; they are simply victims going through a process of transformation. You cannot have a lead character in a story that acts like a victim. This is true in stories and it’s true in life. In fact, this is true in stories because it’s true in life. The reason a hero that acts like a victim ruins the story is because a story must move forward to be interesting. The hero must want something that is difficult and perhaps even frightening to achieve. This is the plot of nearly every inspirational story you’ve ever read.

A victim, on the other hand, does not move forward or accept challenges. Instead, a victim gives up because they have come to believe they are doomed. If you think about it, then, a person who surrenders their life to fate—in this context, between giving up without any effort, to destiny, is different from surrendering one's life to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala—is the essence of a victim. By surrendering their story to fate, they allow fate to decide whether they succeed in a career, experience intimacy, cultivate a sense of gratitude, or set an example for their children. Fate, then, does a terrific job managing the scenery but little to push the plot of the hero forward. That job was the hero’s to do and they didn’t do it. Likely we all know a person or two who seems to live this way. Or worse, we may actually live this way ourselves!
Victims believe they are helpless and so flail until they are rescued. Actual victims do exist and do in fact need to be rescued. Victimhood, however, is a temporary state. Once rescued, the better story is that we return to the heroic energy that moves our story forward.
Many of us have been through periods of hopelessness. Some make it out and others stay in the hopeless state. Most of us, though, choose a hybrid life. We move forward a little, maybe get a career and a spouse and some kids, but we continue to be halted by intrusions of victim energy. We only surface hero energy when we need to climb a rung in our career or clean ourselves up so we can find a mate and reproduce. But to the degree victim energy surfaces in our lives, our stories suffer a haunting restlessness.
Again, if a story is going to work, the hero must not surface victim energy. Victim energy is a belief that we are helpless, that we are doomed. The point is this: even before we ask ourselves what our story is about, we have to ask ourselves what character we are playing within that story. If we are playing the victim or the villain, no amount of editing can help us. In the story of life, we will have played a bit part and our story will fail to gain narrative traction.

In fact, the two characters that will ruin our story the fastest are the victim and the villain. The second item on our checklist for fixing a bad story is to make sure the hero isn’t surfacing too much villain energy. Just like a hero that surfaces victim energy, a hero that surfaces villain energy will ruin the story too. Don’t hate on the villain too badly though. The truth is they’ve had a rough go of it. In stories, heroes and villains have a similar backstory. They start out as victims. Pay attention the next time you watch a movie or read a book. Surprisingly often, the hero begins as an orphan. The story begins with them losing a parent or having to live with their hairy uncle. Then they are rejected and bullied at school. The other kids shove trash into their backpacks and put their books in the toilet.
The villain is no different. There is pain for them too. The story doesn’t usually tell the backstory of the villain, but the writers almost always allude to some kind of torment in the character’s past. That’s why the villain has a scar across their face, or a limp, or a speech impediment. The storyteller wants you to know the villain is carrying a pain they’ve not dealt with.
What separates a villain from a hero is the hero learns from their pain and tries to help others avoid the same pain. The villain, on the other hand, seeks vengeance against the world that hurt them. The difference between the villain and the hero is the way they react to the pain they’ve experienced. In stories, villain energy brings about negative consequences. The more we surface that energy, the worse our stories get.
Another reason not to play the villain is that, like victims, villains do not experience a transformation. Villains are the same bitter menace at the end of the story as they are at the beginning. Not only this, but villains, like victims, play a bit part in the story. For all their power and might and bluster, villains are only in a story to make the hero look good and elicit sympathy for the victim. For as much attention as the villain gets, the story isn’t about them.

Playing the hero improves our stories dramatically. If we want to take control of our lives and bend our story toward meaning, we can surface more hero energy and less victim and villain energy. What is the essence of heroic energy? A hero wants something in life and is willing to accept challenges in order to transform into the person capable of getting what they want.
When we’re reading a story or watching a movie, we subconsciously want the hero to rise to the occasion. How is the hero responding to their challenge? When they are insulted, how do they react? When they are rejected, how do they treat the person who has rejected them? When they feel that all is lost, are they able to find a light in the darkness? Do they try? Do they move forward against all odds, and do they get up again when they are knocked down? If the hero responds with purposeful action and a sense of hope, our story will move forward and become interesting. But if they respond with a sense of hopelessness like a victim, or if they lash out at others like a villain, the story will break down.

What we’re really talking about when we talk about what character we play in the story of our lives is identity. Who do we believe we are? If we believe we are helpless and our stories are in the hands of fate, we are operating from a victim identity. If we believe other people are small and should do as we say, we are operating from a villain identity.
The first shift we experience as we surface heroic energy, though, is that our lives are not in the hands of fate. At least not completely. Heroes rise up with courage to change their circumstances.
Fate may send us challenges, but it does not dictate how we respond to those challenges. We are not preprogrammed. We have the power to shape our own stories. Fate may throw us sunshine or rain, but it does not determine who we are. We determine who we are, and who we are directs our story more than anything or anybody else.

If we were trying to fix a broken story, after we made sure the hero wasn’t manifesting too much victim or villain energy, the next thing we’d look for is the guide. Who is helping the hero win? Where is the hero getting their knowledge from? Who is the hero going to for encouragement?
In stories, heroes can’t make it on their own because they don’t know how. If they knew how, they would have worked out all those flaws on their own. Remember, heroes are flawed and in need of transformation. In fact, they are often the second weakest character in a story. Only the victim is in worse shape. To help the hero out, the storyteller sends a guide. Lakshmana accompanied and remind Rama in all circumstances. Jatayu provided information on who kidnapped Sita. Sampati gave information to the Vanara troops. Jambavan helped Hanuman to remember what he really was. Guides are the characters in the story who have empathy and confidence, and as such are equipped to help the hero win. The confidence guides have comes from their years of experience honing in their own hero’s journey. Guides know what they are doing and can pass valuable knowledge on to the hero.
The empathy guides have comes from their pain. As you’ve likely guessed, guides have backstories of pain too. Like victims, villains, and heroes, guides have had to overcome challenges, injustices, and even tragedies. Think of Helen Keller learning to write and speak though she could not see or hear words. Pain, then, is often the teacher that transforms the hero into the guide. That is, if their attitude toward pain is accepting and redemptive.
The main characteristic of a guide is that they help the hero win. That help must come from experience, and the most important experience they have to have had is in turning difficult situations into opportunities to transform.
When you read a story, the story itself is not about the guide; it’s about the hero, and yet the guide is the strongest, most capable character in the story. They are also the most caring and compassionate. We may root for the hero and hate the villain, but our utmost respect is reserved for the guide. Think of Mary Poppins, guiding the family into a new and better understanding of life itself. Becoming a guide is the most meaningful transformation that can happen in a human life.
We do not live this life to build a monument to ourselves, but to pass our understanding of life on to those who come behind us so that their stories can be even more meaningful than ours. What if the story of our lives is less about what we build and more about who we build up? How much more meaningful would our stories be if, at our funeral, people talked less about our accomplishments and more about our encouragement? If life is teaching us anything, it seems to be this: it is a meaningful thing to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of another. This is the essence of a guide, and if we take the hero’s journey, this is where each of our stories will go.

And so, on the glassy wall around Lanka, for a moment, Hanuman perched there, admiring the city that lay below him. Then, hardly able to find a firm foothold, he leapt down on the other side, into Ravana’s capital. But wait, I want to tell you about very short origins of the Ramayana, the mother of this story.
Some three thousand years ago, a sage named Valmiki lived in a remote forest ashram, practising austerities with his disciples. One day, the wandering sage Narada, visited the ashram [a hermitage, monastic community, or other place of religious
re-treat] and was asked by Valmiki if he knew of a perfect man. Narada said, indeed, he did know of such a person, and then told Valmiki and his disciples a story of an ideal man.
Some days later, Valmiki happened to witness a hunter killing a kraunchya bird. The crane’s partner was left desolate, and cried inconsolably. Valmiki was overwhelmed by anger at the hunter’s action, and sorrow at the bird’s loss. He felt driven to do something rash, but controlled himself with difficulty. After his anger and sorrow subsided, he questioned his outburst. After so many years of practising meditation and austerities, he had still not been able to master his own emotions. Was it even possible to do so? Could any person truly become a master of his passions? For a while he despaired, but then he recalled the story Narada had told him. He thought about the implications of the story, about the choices made by the protagonist and how he had indeed shown great mastery of his own thoughts, words, deeds and feelings. Valmiki felt inspired by the recollection and was filled with a calm serenity such as he had never felt before.
As he recollected the tale of that perfect man of whom Narada had spoken, he found himself reciting it in a particular cadence and rhythm. He realized that this rhythm or metre corresponded to the warbling cries of the kraunchya bird, as if in tribute to theloss that had inspired his recollection. At once, he resolved to compose his own version of the story, using the new form of metre, that others might hear it and be as inspired as he was.
But Narada’s story was only a bare narration of the events, a mere plot outline as we would call it today. In order to make the story attractive and memorable to ordinary listeners, Valmiki would have to add and embellish considerably, filling in details and inventing incidents from his own imagination. He would have to dramatize the whole story in order to bring out the powerful dilemmas faced by the protagonist.
But what right did he have to do so? After all, this was not his story. It was a tale told to him. A tale of a real man and real events. How could he make up his own version of the story? It is said that he was inspired, to recite the deeds of Rama that are already known as well as those that are not, his adventures . . . his battles . . . the acts of Sita, known and unknown. Whatever he do not know will become known to him. Never will his words be inappropriate. Telling Rama’s story that it may prevail on earth for as long as the mountains and the rivers exist. So, he began composing his poem. He titled it, Rama-yana, meaning literally, The Movements (or Travels) of Rama.
The first thing Valmiki realized on completing his composition was that it was incomplete. What good was a story without anyone to tell it to? In the tradition of his age, a bard would normally recite his compositions himself, perhaps earning some favour or payment in coin or kind, more often rewarded only with the appreciation of his listeners. But Valmiki knew that while the form of the story was his creation, the story itself belonged to all his countrymen. He recalled the inspiration's exhortation that Rama’s story must prevail on earth for as long as the mountains and the rivers exist.
So he taught it to his disciples, among whose number were two young boys whose mother had sought sanctuary with him years ago. Those two boys, Lava and Kusha, then travelled from place to place, reciting the Ramayana as composed by their guru.
Few of us today have even read Valmiki’s immortal composition in its original. Most have not even read an abridgement. Indeed, an unabridged Ramayana itself, reproducing Valmiki’s verse without alteration or revisions, is almost impossible to find. In the eleventh century, a Tamil poet named Kamban undertook his own retelling of the Ramayana legend. Sant Tulsidas undertook his interpretation of the epic. Tulsidas went so far as to title his work Ramcharitramanas, rather than calling it the Ramayana. The kings of Thailand are always named Rama along with other dynastic titles, and consider themselves to be direct descendants of Rama Chandra. The largest Rama temple, an inspiring ruin even today, is situated not in Jambudvipa, or even in Nepal, the only nation that takes Hinduism as its official religion, but in Cambodia. It is called Angkor Vat.
Valmiki’s ‘original’ Ramayana was written in Sanskrit, the language of his time and in an idiom that was highly modern for its age. The Ramayana was now regarded not as a Sanskrit epic of real events that occurred in ancient Jambudvipa, but as a moral fable.

So, Sunan Kalijaga saw this opportunity to preach. In prehistoric times, before the arrival of Hindus to the Land of Emerald Equator, the thinking realm of that time was very simple. They were controlled by the desire to know the intricacies of all the problems surrounding them. At that time, they believed, that the spirits of the dead, were considered to still live in the surrounding area. For example, on trees, on mountains which then called ''Hyang' or 'Di-Hyang' [Dieng] mountains, or Da Hyang or 'Dah Yang' and so on. The spirits of the dead were also regarded as a powerful protectors. It means being a protector who could provide help and assistance to the people. The spirit could be awakened and brought by a shaman or sorcerer. How to bring the spirit, was done with the accompaniment of singing, praise and offerings. The presence of the spirits of those who had died was expected to provide help and assistance or blessings to those who were still alive.
It was these expectations, which encouraged people to make imagery, where people can imagine the spirits of people who had died. The image or painting of the imagined forms of the spirits was not in the form of realistic images of the ancestors, but in the form of pseudo-images.
The game to show the shadows, became a principle, and then became general. Whenever people want to get in touch with ancestral spirits, they put on shadow or wayang theatre.
So, Sunan Kalijaga saw this opportunity to preach. In prehistoric times, before the arrival of Hindus to the Land of Emerald Equator, the thinking realm of that time was very simple. They were controlled by the desire to know the intricacies of all the problems surrounding them. At that time, they believed, that the spirits of the dead, were considered to still live in the surrounding area. For example, on trees, on mountains which then called ''Hyang' or 'Di-Hyang' [Dieng] mountains, or Da Hyang or 'Dah Yang' and so on. The spirits of the dead were also regarded as a powerful protectors. It means being a protector who could provide help and assistance to the people. The spirit could be awakened and brought by a shaman or sorcerer. How to bring the spirit, was done with the accompaniment of singing, praise and offerings. The presence of the spirits of those who had died was expected to provide help and assistance or blessings to those who were still alive.
It was these expectations, which encouraged people to make imagery, where people can imagine the spirits of people who had died. The image or painting of the imagined forms of the spirits was not in the form of realistic images of the ancestors, but in the form of pseudo-images.
The game to show the shadows, became a principle, and then became general. Whenever people want to get in touch with ancestral spirits, they put on shadow or wayang theatre. Wayang is a Javanese language which means shadow or shadows. The word 'wayang,' 'hamayang' in ancient times meant, the performance of the 'shadow.' Gradually it became a shadow theatre. Then it became the art of performing shadows or wayang by the Dalang.
Sunan Kalijaga, or Raden Syahid, is known as one of Walisongo ulema who was very tolerant of previous religions; various ways were taken to convert Javanese people to Islam, such as through wayang theatre, changing the procedures and prayers at previous traditional ceremonies by incorporating Islamic elements, through macapat songs, and so on. Of course, Raden Syahid's intention was to convey Islam gradually, because if it was too frontal about the previous religion, everyone would most likely run away from it. Another reason, so that the problem of aqeedah, let the later scholars, would teach it. In his opinion, it would be easier to teach the Islamic creed to people who already profess Islam by saying the Shahada. However, what Raden Syahid hoped for, had been not achieved, as a result, aqeedah of most people, especially in the Java, is mixed with the previous beliefs, so that it is known as Syncretism in aqeedah, and this is very difficult to purify.

Suddenly, Hanuman heard the tramp of giant policemen feet in the street below and drew back into the shadows. It was Ravana’s vigilant night patrol. This was no merely formal force, but a powerful contingent of war. Hanuman saw the glinting weapons those rakshasas carried: macabre ayudhas in which dark fires slumbered. He did not like to think of what these demons would do to an intruder who fell into their hands. He shivered on his perch. When they chatted quietly or smiled, sabre-like fangs gleamed on the rakshasas’ bold, sensual faces, and wiry moustaches bristled. Then, the commander gave an order, 'Remove the prisoner!' A giant policeman herded a son of man. Afterwards, with confidence, he announced, 'O people of Alengka, our searching has been paid off. We've caught the intruder, disguising as an ice seller."