Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Sri Vaishnava

From the Bhakti List Archives

Vijay_Srinivasan • February 11, 1998 


Dear Prapatti Group Members:

Thanks to Chandrasekhar for his comments.  I think my question needs a
little elaboration. What I had in mind was the following:

(1) Virtues or Atma-Gunas:  One can list 1000s.  Be truthful, Be helpful,
Be sincere etc. What should be most prominent in a Sri Vaishnava.  For eg:
Ben Franklin developed a list of 12 virtues that he tried to practice.

(2) Anushtanam:  What is the minimum standard that can be expected (doing
Sandhya Vandanam etc.).  What about women (like drawing a kolam, chanting
the names of the Lord while cooking, lighting the lamp daily).  Learning
scriptures?

(3)Ahara Niyamanam (Minimize Eating out? How far this is practical)

(4)Duties towards Temple and Acharyas (muslims have a rule that they must
set aside certain % of their earnings for religion)

(5)His position regarding Anya Devata worship (This question, however, has
been discussed many times and therefore I would request you to downplay
this one).

In short the way of life that is expected to be lead by a SriVaishnava who
is striving to strike a balance between the secular and spiritual life
(unlike the good old days).

Once we generate these ideas they can perhaps form the basis for developing
a curriculum of some sort for a summer school for training our children
living in the US.  The goal may sound unrealistic but as the old chinese
adage goes "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Vijayaraghavan