The Power of a Promise: Keeping Your Word

The episode

On the morning he was to be crowned, Ram was told that his father had promised two boons to Queen Kaikeyi, and that she had now claimed them: the throne for Bharata and fourteen years of exile for Ram. Dasharatha could not speak. Ram answered for him, and left for the forest the same day. The full story is in the Ayodhya Kanda.

Raghukul reeti sada chali aayi, pran jaye par vachan na jaayi.

In the house of Raghu, says the Ramcharitmanas, this has always been the way: life may go, but the given word does not.

The reasoning

Ram had every argument on his side. The promise was old, the demand unfair, and the people wanted him. Why did he go?

Because a kingdom runs on trust. If the king's word can be set aside when it becomes costly, then no treaty, no judgment and no contract in that kingdom means anything. Ram understood that his father's honour and Ayodhya's stability were the same thing. He lost a throne for fourteen years; he saved the meaning of a promise for all time. The same rule runs through his family, from Harishchandra who sold himself to keep his word, to Bharata who would not sit on a throne obtained by a wrong.

How to practise it

• Promise less. Ram is said never to have spoken twice; he did not need to, because he did not speak lightly.
• Keep small promises: the time you said you would arrive, the call you said you would make. Trust is built from these.
• When a promise becomes costly, that is exactly when it is being tested. Pay the cost, or go to the person and ask openly to be released. Do not simply let it lapse.
• Do not hold others to promises extracted by pressure, and do not extract them.

Continue with Respect for parents and teachers, or read about the dynasty that lived by this rule: Raghukul.