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mAyA sItA - 2

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Anand Karalapakkam • December 2, 1998 


SrI:
SrImate SrI Lakshminrusimha ParabrahmanE namaha
SrI Lakshminrusimha divya pAdukA sEvaka SrIvaNN ShatakOpa -
SrI nArAyaNa yateendra mahAdESikAya namaha

Dear devotees,
namO nArAyaNA. pranAmams.

  Lets discuss about the philosophical implications of the mAyA sItA
  episode.

  The kidnapping of sItA pirAtti by rAvanA will not  be tolerated by
  any devotee. For that matter, the same feelings arise when one hears
  about how virAdhA also kidnapped pirAtti earlier. The most important
  thing is that PerumAL and PirAtti performs all these avatAra leelAs
for
  the sake of  the devotees who deeply relish all their leelAs ,kalyAna
  guNAs exhibited etc. The divya dampati induces the "ruchi" (taste) of
  bhagavad anubhavam for the baddha jIvAtmAs through their avatAra
  leelAs. If one feels heavily and cries for the kidnapping of pirAtti
by
  rAvanan, then that leelA of pirAtti is a success !! All these acts of
  the divya dampati makes a jIvAtmA easily pour out their love towards
  them and all such loving reciprocation is what bhagavad prEmai is all
  about. This is the unique speciality of vibhava avatArams of PerumAL.
  Ofcourse, the archA avatAram scores over vibhava avatAram in many
  a ways and our AzhwArs and poorvAchAryAs have elaborated on this.

  The question now is whether sItA pirAtti is really affected very badly
by
  the touch of rAvanan , who is a materialist with lusty desires. Well,
what
  about PerumAL? Is He affected too by the touch of materialists ?

  The answers to these questions become much simpler if the answer to
the
  following question is got :

   Qtn : Sriman nArAyaNA, the Para Brahman pervades everywhere
            ie. nArAyaNA (divya Atma svaroopam) is everywhere. Will
            prakruti (matter) then affect Him ? How can PerumAL be
inside
            materialistic objects and simultaneously be not affected by
them ?

   A slight Elaboration of the Qtn :
           The three principal names used in the vEdAs  for denoting the

           Para brahman is nArAyaNA, vAsudEvA and vishnu. All these
refer
           to sarva vyApakatvam ie. all pervasive nature of PerumAL.
           Hundreds of pramAnams like "Sarvam kalvidham brAhma" ,
           "vAsudEva sarvam iti ..." , "antar bahischa tat sarvam vyApya

           nArAyaNastitaha" etc speak about this esoteric aspect . So,
PerumAL
           is in and out of prakruti.

           Apart from this SrIman nArAyaNA also has "prakruti" as an
attribute
           as per the sarIra sarIri bhAvam ie. PerumAL is the sarIrI and

           prakruti is the sarIrA ( prakruti is supported and controlled
by Him,
           prakruti exists solely for His pleasure). This is declared by
sruti as
           "yasya pruthvi sarIram" etc .

           We all know how much this prakruti is affecting a jIvAtmA.
           Since there is such an intimate connection between SrIman
nArAyaNA
           and prakruti, won't prakruti be affecting Him?

            One may have a doubt as to how come then nArAyaNA is
             not affected by the changes in the prakruti , if He is
              physically inside it (as a jIvAtmA, its dharmabhoota
              jn~Anam is affected by prakruti viz.animal body,plant
              body,human body,old aged body, youthful body etc ,
              eventhough its swaroopa jn~Anam is unchanged.similarly
              ,won't the dharmabhoota jn~Anam of nArAyaNA be
             affected?)

ans :       Ofcourse one knows that prakruti can't affect nArAyaNA
              because He is the Supreme God."prakruti" acts as
              "prakruti" only because of His sankalpam. "Fire" acts as
              "fire" as we know , because of nArAyaNA's sankalpam .
              When PrahalAdA was pushed into "fire", nArAyaNA changed
              His sankalpam to make the "fire" behave oppossite to its
              nature, which was set by His sankalpam previously and thus

              His bhakta was not at all affected. So, prakruti can't
affect
              nArAyaNA .

             The following analogy is usually told to drive the point
              in. After a person eats some halwA which had excessive
             ghee in it , he uses some powder/solution to remove the
              ghee sticking to his hands. But , the ghee also had
              contact with his tongue which he never botherd to clean
              with the powder/solution since ghee didn't stick to it.
              Similarly , though nArAyaNA is present everywhere , the
              changes in prakruti doesn't affect Him.

             Sri KarunAkaran swAmy in one of his upanyAsams
             narrated a wonderful pastime of Bhattar :

             While Bhattar was delivering heart melting
              kAlakshebam on bhagavad vishayam esp. the
              kannapirAn's (KrishNA's) Govardana giri lifting episode ,
a
             disciple asked as to how come perumAL would have saved
             the AyarpAdi vAsIs from the torrential rain caused by
             Indran (deva) if that malai (hill) was not present there
.
            Bhattar gave a brilliant answer as usual : "PerumAL
            would have saved the gopAs and gopIs from the rain
            using the rain itself " . This has very deep meaning .
             The rain acts according to its nature because
            of perumAL's sankalpam . If perumAL changes His
            sankalpam then the same rain can act as the umbrella for
            the devotees !!!! ( difficult to visualize . But the great
            fact put forth through this statement can be understood ).

         Thus, perumAL ( divyAtma svaroopam) though pervades
         everywhere and has "prakruti" as His inseparable attribute
         , it doesn't affect His essential nature of being
transcendental
         to "prakruti" . Sriman NArAyana being transcendental to
prakruti
        doesn't mean  that He should not have any contact with prakruti
.
        This is  obvious since if not so , then it will result into the
absurdity
        that prakruti is more powerful than even perumAL and can
        even affect His dharma bhoota jn~Anam . Infact, even nitya
        sooris and muktAs won't be affected by prakruti and their
        contact with prakruti won't make them bounded by karmA.
        Only the baddha jIvAtmAs are affected by prakruti.
        According to the karmA, particular jIvAtmA is forced to
        have some achEtana as being favourable to it and some
        being totally unfavourable to it.

        A pig eats stool and such stuff ; germs and worms live in
        sAkkadai; fish lives in water etc. But this is not the way
        we are. Do's and dont's of sAstrAs are strictly for those
        baddha jIvAtmAs which has taken the human body.
        In accordane with sAstrAs, one should have his/her likes
        and dislikes.

        The bottomline is that , for the Divya Dampati , muktAs
        and nitya soorIs, prakruti is also auspicious and not
        something abominable , while baddha jIvAtmAs are
        bound by it and has some form of matter(prakruti)  as
        favourable and  some other form of matter as unfavourable.
--------------------------------------------------

        PerumAL takes avatAram solely for the pleasure of His devotees.
        The body perumAL has is made up of suddha sattvam and not
         prakruti. Thats why it is referred to as Divya mangaLa
vigraham.
         ( only in archAvatAram, the thirumEni is composed of the
mixture
          of prakruti and suddha sattvam).

          Similarly, pirAtti also has suddha sattva sarIram (divine
body).
           "Suddha Sattvam" as a material is made up of "jn~Anam"
            similar to how a jIvAtmA is. But , "Suddha sattvam"
            doesn't possess the "dharmabhoota jn~Anam" & thus can't
             percieve anything outside of itself . Thus , it doesn't
belong to
             the category of "chEtanA" because a "chEtanA" is an
             entity which can "know"/"percieve" ie. a chEtanA must
             necessarily have "dharma bhoota jn~Anam" .

           Any  materialist cannot contaminate suddha sattva sarIram of
           sItA PirAtti. SwAmi Desikan explains that pirAtti is vibhu
ie.
           all pervading , similar to how PerumAL is. Similar to
PerumAL,
           pirAtti is also transcendental to prakruti .

          So, rAvanan / virAdhan cannot contaminate pirAtti by their
touches.
          Rather, they played their role in the leelA performed by the
Divya
          Dampati. Thus, though a mAyA sItA might have been employed by
          PerumAL ( ofcourse, according to vAlmIki rAmAyanam, it is not)
,
          the reasoning that touch of a materialist is contaminating and
thats
          why mAyA sitA was present  is not appropriate. It is the
sankalpam
          of the Divya Dampati alone, if at all, mAyA sItA was there in
one of
           rAma avatArams.

           In conclusion, there is nothing contradictory in PerumAL
having
           prakruti as His eternal attribute and simultaneously prevade
inside
           it.

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan
ananthapadmanAbha dAsan
krishNArpaNam