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From the Bhakti List Archives

Vijay Triplicane • January 29, 1998 


	
	Sometime back in one of his excellent posts sri Madhava Kannan
wrote about this thiruvAymozhi pAsuram - TVM 2.2.2. I nostalgically
recall sri vELukkudi svAmi's beautiful reference to this pAsuram in 
one of his thiruppAvai upanyasams. Let me first quote from sri Madhava
kannan's posting. This would help establish the context and the mood
of the AzhvAr.

****************Start Quote - Madhava Kannan**********************
	"He is the One who can remove all our sins with His grace and 
mercy. He is the One who removed the sin of Siva when Siva comitted 
the sin of plucking one of Brahmaa's heads; He is such a Graceful, 
Merciful Emperumaaan! That Male Lion Gopalan- withou Him, who else 
can shower mercy on ALL BEINGS? It is a PITY THAT We are wasting OUR 
TIME having this burden of talking and reasoning out His parathvam 
without enjoying and contemplating on His kalyANa guNAs.
(What an anubhavam of our Sweet NammAzhwAr!)"
**************End Quote*********************************************

	The last part of this is indeed interesting. He (AzhvAr) calls 
it a waste of time to talk about parathvam without enjoying His kalyANa
guNAs. 

	Sri vELukkudi svAmi in his characteristic style tells a story
for this. The story is narrated by sri nammAzhvAr when some of his
sishyAs asked him to deliver a discourse and establish the parathvam
of sriman narayana. AzhvAr couldn't start the discourse. He felt
pretty bad about something. Noticing this, his sishyAs asked him what
his problem was. And nammAzhvAr tells this story. 

	"There were a lot of people sitting in a huge well lit hall. One
guy was busy searching something. He said, "I was having a small, thin
needle and i have dropped it somewhere. could you guys please help me
search it?" Everybody groped the ground in search of the needle and
found it.

	Then there was this second guy who was also searching for
something. He said, "I was having one small seasame seed in my hand
and i have dropped it somewhere. Could you please help me out?" Once
again everybody searched for it and found it.

	Then there was this third guy who looked very puzzled. The
people in the huge hall, by now, got the pattern and asked him what
his problem was. He said, "I am the elephant trainer at srirangam
temple. I take care of a big, huge elephant. I brought the elephant to
this big hall. And i don't see it now. I am really puzzled..."
People laughed at him as the elephant was right there and nobody even 
paid attention to him. His case was so illogical and makes no sense 
whatsoever. It would just be a waste of time 'searching' for this 
huge elephant in this big well lit hall."

	"Likewise", nammAzhvAr continued, "Trying to establish/reason
out His parathvam seems to be a waste of time for me. Only if the
thing that we are searching for is very small and insignificant, the
search makes sense. Otherwise, if what we are searching for is so
obvious, like this huge elephant in a hall, does the 'search' make any
sense?. Just open your eyes and you can see it. sriman nArAyaNa being
the param poruL (The supreme entity) is well known and obvious. We do
not have to 'prove' it! "

	Look at how authoritatively sri nammAzhvAr talks about His
parathvam, so subtly. Look at his expression of the anubhavam of the
Lord. 

	My sincere thanks to Sri Madhava Kannan for leading me down 
this nostalgic memory lane...

adiyEn
-Viji
(Vijay Triplicane)