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"The Mercenaries"

From the Bhakti List Archives

sadagopaniyengar • February 10, 2003 


                                
                                   Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya Nama:

 

                       The Mercenaries
 

        The queue stretched away in a serpentine formation, as far as the eye could see. People had come from various nooks and corners of the country, taking precious time off from their multifarious engagements. If one could take a head count, one would probably come up with a mind-boggling figure of attendance. The crowd was a mixed one. There were men, women and children of all hues, belonging to all strata of society. Attired in their customary clothes, they presented a kaleidoscope of colours, all dressed up in their finery and bedecked in glittering ornaments. There were men of all ages, from the doddering old to the virile young. Women there were ranging from the old and infirm to the coquettish young ladies preening themselves with the full glow of youth enhanced by all sorts of artificial aids to beauty. There were babes in arms and boisterous boys. It was however not entirely a show of affluence-there were others too, some with their poverty showing in their modest attire and some with penury bare

 

          The occupants of the queue were anxiously awaiting the ceremonial opening of the gates to the sanctum sanctorum. They waited in eager anticipation of having their momentary glimpse of the glorious Lord, resplendent with His unfading beauty.

 

 The benign smile on His beautiful countenance, His dazzling crown hiding the curly, jet-black locks, some of which escaped from their confinement to fall bewitchingly on the broad forehead adorned by an Urdhva Pundram, His inviting lotus-like eyes full of compassion, the broad chest housing the Divine Consort, a personification of all auspiciousness, the magnificent upper arms holding the discus and the conch, ever ready to rush to the rescue of souls in need of succour, the hand held in a gesture of munificence, promising everybody fulfilment of their varied needs, the small waist adorned by a glittering golden waistband, the beautiful thighs resembling the trunks of an elephant and hidden from public view by gold-brocaded silk, the holy feet which are the source of the Ganga and the refuge of all seeking spiritual solace, the innumerable ornaments which added to their own beauty by adorning each  part of the Lord's tirumEni, the fresh flowers of various hues vying with each other for the pleasure of assoc

 

The Lord too awaited the audience impatiently, listening with half an ear to the paeans of praise being heaped on Him by His archakAs. The huge, all-day-long crowd of people longing for a glimpse of Him prevented the Lord from having even forty winks. As a result, His famed redlined eyes were even more reddish. Due to this never-thinning crowd of audience-seekers, all His routines were severely abridged and He often encountered the disapproving glances of the Veda Purusha for short-circuiting manuals of worship, all in the interest of accommodating more visitors.

 

The truth of the matter was that the Lord was as eager to have a glimpse of His devotees, as they were. He was in fact on an endless search for a particular devotee, or rather, a particular class of devotees. He had been standing there patiently for aeons, scanning the face and heart of each devotee eagerly, looking for telltale signs of  the qualities He was after. So far, however, He had been doomed to disappointment. True to His extremely sanguine disposition, the Lord continued to await the arrival of this votary with undying hope.

 

When practically the entire world was at His doorstep awaiting His audience, who was the distinguished devotee for whom the Lord Himself was searching so long and had been unable to find in the vast sea of humanity that must have passed His portal during all this time?

 

                       The golden gates opened at last with the mellifluous chiming of the pretty bells adorning them, heralding the resumption of dharshan. The devotees surged in, intent on having their eye-full of the Lord and His brilliance. On the lips of each and every one of them was a prayer.

 

 The first person in the queue, a modestly attired youth in search of employment, took in the Lord's glorious form: but before it could reach his heart and purify it, his lips started uttering a prayer for a lucrative job. He promised the Lord that should He favour him with one, He would return immediately and tonsure his head as a token of gratitude. Pushed by the impatient crowd behind, he made his way out, reiterating his entreaty. He had been egged on by his worried mother and promised that fate would surely smile upon him, once he made the pilgrimage and had a glimpse of this Lord, and he had faithfully fulfilled his part of the bargain.

 

The middle-aged lady who followed had her own grievance to air and boon to seek. Her daughter, though having attained marriageable age five years back, was still in search of a suitable groom. The matter was complicated by her insistence for an overseas alliance, as she was bent on marrying somebody who was a permanent resident of the Country of Milk and Honey. The anxious mother promised to gift the Lord with a beautiful silk cloth, if only He arranged an alliance as desired by her daughter.

 

The next in the queue, a doddering old man who had obviously seen and enjoyed all that life had to offer, still had one area of dissatisfaction. He had come for the express purpose of seeking the Lord's intervention in a property dispute that had dragged on for decades, preventing him from raising a lucrative skyscraper that would mint money. He showed the Lord the wad of mint-fresh currency notes he had come to offer and prayed for an early end to the legal tangle. He was a walking example of acquisition of wealth being an exemption to the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, and would probably continue to crave for the intoxicating ingots right up to his last breath.

 

The small child who followed also had a prayer, having been brought up in the tradition of looking upon the Supreme Being as a Provider and nothing else. Shanta next door had a beautiful bicycle, which she herself had been denied by Mummy. If He was all that powerful as He was reputed to be, the child wanted the Lord to change Mummy's mind and ensure that she was also the proud owner of a vehicle, so that she could get even with Shanta.

 

And then there was the boy who had done badly in the exams but wanted a pass desperately, the chronically sick man who was in need of a miraculous cure, and innumerable others with varied wish-lists. Every single person in the queue had something or the other he or she wanted from the Lord. To the child by her side, who was yet to learn the ways of the world, the mother was whispering, "Pray to the Lord to bless you with a long life and a brilliant academic career", thus initiating the child into the business of endless bargaining with the Lord. There was none, absolutely none, without a prayer on his lips or heart. The demands might have varied, but they were there always. If one person wished to be showered with wealth without working for it, another prayed for restoration of riches lost. If one prayed for marriage with an ideal wife, another sought relief from a tyrannical spouse.

 

The Lord was disappointed. His normally benign countenance drooped with chagrin at the mercenary attitude of people. Was there no one who had come to visit Him just for the sake of it? Were none of the so-called devotees prompted solely by love and affection in coming this far? What happened to the altruistic instincts of mankind? Was everybody driven only by materialistic motives? Did everyone look upon Him only as their Provider and not as their dear father, mother, friend, guide and philosopher? Was He not to see the likes of a Sabhari, a Guha or an Akroora, motivated solely by overwhelming affection for the Lord and concern for His welfare? Were His words of wisdom, as enunciated in the Gita and other Shastras, failing to penetrate these hardened hearts and tone-deaf ears? Had these people become immune to the uplifting teachings of the various mahAtmAs He had sent down to the earth from time to time? 

 

Glancing up from Her exalted perch on the Lord's chest, the Divine Consort was dismayed to find Her Eternal Mate's beautiful face clouded by sorrow at the attitude of visitors, each of whom had a selfish purpose in coming to Him. She told Him, " This is wholly unbecoming of You. You seem to forget that You are the Universal Provider and that every single soul on earth has to look up to You for all its needs. If they don't ask You, whom else can they? If they don't come to You with their grievances, whom else can they take them to? Are You not the Cosmic Father whose responsibility it is to cater to everyone's needs? The very fact that they rush to You when they are in trouble and in need of solace, indicates how close You are to them. Would a father call his children mercenaries just because they seek him out every time they are in need of things? If they lack the maturity to love You for Yourself, that is also Your own mistake, for not having endowed them with the requisite wisdom. Are these not Your own wo

"Chatur vidhA bhajantE mAm janA: sukritina: Arjuna!

  ArtthO jigyAsu: artthArtthee GnAnee cha Bharatarshabha!" ( OH Arjuna! Four types of people worship me- the distressed, the seeker after wealth, the inquisitive and the wise man in search of the Absolute).

And did You Yourself not arrive at the conclusion, that the GnAnI, who loves You dearly for Your own sake, sees You in everything and everything in You, and seeks refuge in You-such a GnAnI is indeed hard to find? ("Sa mahAtmA sudurlabha:")   These are after all Our children, and children will be children, committing mistakes often and learning from them. Can You show me one single person in this wide world who has not erred?( "na kaschit na aparAdhyati")"

 

    This lengthy harangue from the normally sweet-tongued PirAtti, in defence of Her errant progeny, restored the Lord's equanimity and He resumed lending His sympathetic ears once more to the outpourings of distressed humanity, ready as ever to provide succour and solace to all those who desired the same.

 

Srimate SriLakshmINrsimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya Nama:

Dasan, sadagopan

 

 

 



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