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TirupAvai as 'vAzhkai vazhikAtti'-guide to life

From the Bhakti List Archives

Subadra Vasudevan • February 25, 1999 


Dear bhAghavadhOthamAls,
My humble obeisance to the devotees of  Sriman NArAyanA. 'GOpikA
geetham' can be a brief summary, preface,commentary,prelude and  an aid
to the understanding of the'SaranAghathi SAstram' called
the'tiruipAvai'(it is  not because of what I wrote, but because of the
GOpis who showed 'how a jivAtmA should go the ParamAtmA unabashedly-more
on this will be dealt with, later).
TirupAvai-'thiruvin pAvai,pAvai pAdiyA pAvai,pAvaiyin thiru,thiru
thandha pAvai' is the epitome of all that has been said from time
immemorial.'How can we attain the 'highest' and yet continue to work in
the world' to this TirupAvai has the answers.Esoteric works teach us to
free ourselves from this human bondage, some do it scaringly,describing
the human body as a waste of human skin, paling away day after day
towards the inevitable pit called the death.'piNi, pasi,moopu,
thunbam-AdhalAl piravi vEndEn'.(BhakthAls, kindly bear in your mind-
sometimes references to AzhvArs is done, not to undermine them,but just
to highlight SriAndAl)This notion is in itself a fright viewing life as
a journey towards death.
To touch reality most deeply,where people struggle,fail, triumph, to
lead them gently into awareness,to guide them through their faltering
steps, as a mother would do to Her faltering children-this is a whole
diiffferent ballgame.SriAndAl could have elected to stay in Her
'nithyavAsam' but out of Her 'apAra karunai' had descended to the world
and given us all the 'universal doctrine'.
The GeethAcharyan says,'come to to me,me only and SriAndAl also would
say,'go to Him'.Isn't She
'akalakillEn endru uraiyum'-always present with the PerumAl,She still
wouldn't say 'Come to Us,We will save you'.SwAmi DEsikan would ascertain
this saying 'sAkshAt kshamAm karunayA'(the 'mahAlakshmi in whom is
manifest,mercy,dayai,patience) Her 'karunai' eagerness to rescue us all
with all our shortcomigs.
I can take recourse to a hundred flamboyant words and still cannot
capture what SriAndAl had said in simple, lucid thamizh.The surface
meaning of the first pAsuram,the SwApadEsam, it's nature of being
the'charama slOkam' in itself have already been done to perfection.We
will just see how SriAndAl out of Her 'bhavathee kadAkshAth' culls the
human mind,sows the seeds,ploughs the fields,nurtures the saplings,  so
that the 'jivAtmAs' can reap the rich harvest of 'parai' or the union
with 'paramAtmA'.So'andha NArAyananE indha aaychiyarkE eppadithAn
tharuvAn parai'.
SriAndAl thiruvadigalE charanam,
With highest regards,
Subadra