RE: Shri Mani's Request
From the Bhakti List Archives
• July 29, 1997
This morning as I was reading through the old postings about Shri Mani's Request and all the mail in conjunction with that, I just had to give my penny's worth. Mr. Prasad : I am 23 years of age. Three years ago, I was not at all involved in any kind of learning. What I knew was what my parents had taught me. Not about our Sampradayam, but about how one should live. I used to pray, and be devoted, but never did I think of life in terms of devoting one self to Sriman Narayana. When I first joined this group, I was a confused person(with no interest in learning about the Sampradayam) as I used to feel that all these things are just to discriminate. After I joined this group, at first I did not understand anything at all, but after I read it again and again, I was able to understand the true meaning of life. During the days when Shri Joyshula, Shri V. Sadagopan, Shri Jagannath Bharadwaj were main contributers and the rest of the people were listeners( in terms of email). If we notice, even though we have the learned company of Shri V. Sadagopan, and Shri Jagannath Bharadwaj, we have a lot more participants. Many of the participants in this group are in the age group you had mentioned a lot of them are students. When we talk of Objectivity : We should think of what we want from it. For example: I knew the acharams : things like what I am supposed to be doing being a Vaishnava, but I was never introduced to its history, or for that matter the main essence. This is what I wanted from the group and that is what I got out of it. In this group the people are so learned, that if we want we can learn quite a lot from them.. not just about Vaishnavism but also life in general. We need to realize that no matter what the objective of the group is, we will only learn what we want to learn out of it. There is a saying "Playing drums in front of a rock". The statement is different but for this purpose I had to change it. Many a times as kids our parents told us so many things .. I for one heard what I wanted to hear. IF they said something other than that, I would get up and walk away. This statement may not be of relevance here but I bring this up because we need decide on our own objectives. Another such example is when we send our resume we state our objectives and try to stick with them where ever we go!!! About turning youth away, I agree to this to a certain point, but may I add something? If interested, it does not matter. We have friends, whose 9 year old kid reads these postings, though he does not understand what is being said, he reads and asks questions. On the other hand, I know of a couple who is in their mid thirties.. who find ways to not learn about our Sampradayam. I feel that no matter what we say to this couple they will not change their idea and attitude, likewise no matter we say to this little 9 year old he will not change his attitude either. Ofcourse for people not interested this group, the discussions will feel outdated. (I can't anymore to this.) We have to decide on how we want to live. History and information will never be fast pace. It will be slow, but what will make it lively is way one adapts to it. Sorry for the long post, but had to give my penny's worth. Manjula