RE: Plight of our Divya Desams!

From the Bhakti List Archives

• April 10, 2001


Dear Devotees -

I fully agree with the opinion of Sri Varadan. If the local people take
interest in the divya desam then things will definitely not go out of
control. Also regular worship will go on making sure that nonsense does not
happen. For this to happen the people in the divya desams whould be educated
about the teachings of vaishnavism. For this regular festivals should be
organized in the temple so that people can come together in the temple and
associate with other devotees. By this process the community will feel
strongly about the temple and also unite with each other. One senior sri
vaishnava told that Sri Ramanuja had given prescription for conducting
festivals on every day of the year. Atleast there should be festivals every
year.

In ISKCON, Chennai devotees have been conducting festivals on Vaikuntha
Ekadasi, New Year, Rama, Navami, Panguni Uttaram, Gaura Purnima and it is
only increasing. All of it is happening by small donations given by the
people who attend the festivals. And many youngsters attend these functions!
Most of the festivals are actually self propelling irrespective of the
investment - Rs. 2000/- or Rs. 20000/-. When there are not many festivals
people find spiritual life boring and take to material enjoyments like
restaurants, theatres etc. When they are constantly fed on cine stuff, there
is indifference to spirutal side.

Rajaram

-----Original Message-----
From: tavaradhan@yahoo.com [mailto:tavaradhan@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 8:21 AM
To: Aravind Gopalan; bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Plight of our Divya Desams!


srImathE rAmAnujAya namah

srI aravind gOpAlan wrote

> There
> it seems recently they have allowed for a cine gang
> to
> barge in for shooting!!!!  The cine gang had left
> the
> tea, coffee cups and paper plates( Non-Veg
> items.....)
> scattered at the place when they called it a day!

A similar incident occured in kAnchipuram a few
weeks back. dEvAthirAjan goes to a place called
thennEri, where He enjoys theppOtsavam. He returns
in the night back to the temple. While He was away,
there was a cinema shooting (thanks to policies
that allow anyone who pays 5000 rs. to obtain
permission for shooting etc..) at the maNdapam
just outside the thAyAr sannadhi.

Needless to say, the place was left a mess, with
coffee cups, cigarette butts etc.. all over the place.
and some eyewitnesses saying that the crew did
not even observe the minimum code of conduct in a
temple.

When perumAl came back, the sthalaththArs did not
take perumAL back inside the temple, till the
place was cleaned and some sort of puNyAhavacanam
done.
Also, there was a publicity campaign in the
newspapers the next day re: this incident.

The result was that the Assistant Commissioner
(the Executive officer in charge of the temple) was
placed on suspension pending enquiry.

This proves that if there is local interest, and
if the local people take interest in the affairs of
the temple, then even if unreasonable things happen,
it is quickly brought under control.

My request to all of you on this list is this -
If you know of anyone who lives near or in a
divyadEsam, please ask them to get involved; ask
them to take interest in the affairs of the temple,
and if something goes wrong, ask them to stand
up against it; Without local involvement,
there is no way the divya dEsams will be run
properly.

AzhvAr emperumAnAr jIyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam,

adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,
thirumalai anandAnpiLLai varadhan



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--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/