Bhakti List Archives

some thoughts

From the Bhakti List Archives

Venkat V. Rao • Fri Sep 16 1994 - 14:19:00 PDT 


       I am an admirer of Samkaracharya for his unique & timely
       contribution to the arrest of nihilism and the rejuvenation of
       the decadent Vedic roots in guiding the spiritually inclined.
       I am a devotee of Ramanujacharya as one who infused humanism in
       the rapidly rigidyfying materialistic environment dominated by
       unscrupulous theocrats. I am a believer in Madhwacharya in the
       spirit with which he injected the damping needed to regulate
       the overshoot of the effects of unreservedly implanting humanism
       into an unrestrained society.

       In saying these, I am expressing my deep belief that the
       overtones of hindu thoughts have been evolving dynamically with
       changing social needs. This process has to continue if Hinduism is
       to survive. The health of the social framework is as important as the
       exaltation of its 'logical' framework. And the forces that hold these
       together are the essentials that Ethiraja expounded for the evolution.
       Power and its manifestation, arrogance, in all their garbs must get
       subdued with the spirit of Saranagathi extended by the essences of
       Prapatti.

       I am a victim of an oversupply of 'logic' in the environment I am
       situated. An obsessive concern with the logical form and a deliberate
       neglect of the life's essential concerns of values and priorities
       seem to be the passtime of influential hindu 'philosophers'. The former
       concern may produce an unique person, may be a Nobel laureate but the
       latter attitude definitively produces a worldly-unwise person with
       negative social attitudes and impacts. The human concerns are relegated
       to the
       background as often as possible with the resulting evils taken for
       granted. Spiritual technicians know all about the marvelous spiritual
       tools except the 'how' to accomplish the basic end_uses of the tools.

       What keeps us together is not just a bunch of abstractions, such as
       those of mathematics or spiritual theories backing the ultimate unity,
       but the actual hardware and software of life, living and loving with
       their respective orientations and values, interpreted by the valid
       abstractions. Logic and life's essential concerns are not mutually
       incompatible and true wisdom lies in the consciousness of this
       compatibility. This, I believe, is what Ethiraja's central theme
       was in reforming society accordingly.

       I hope and seek Ethiraja's blessings for this group to bring out
       the essentials of SriVaishnavism with this background, obviously
       in addition to what is being analysed on the syntax and semantics
       of various declarations, Vakhyas, Sutras and so on.

       Venkat Rao