Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: support to divya dEsams

From the Bhakti List Archives

lakshminarayan krishnaswamy • July 14, 2000 


Dear Sriman T.A.Varadhan,

It is nice to note about the ongoing efforts to support some of the Divya 
Desams. Please send me the address and contact no:of the trust you had 
mentioned, so that I can forward my contributions in cash/kind to them.

I am also in total agreement with Sriman.Vishnu's respone to the above 
posting that:
a) DDs need to be supported by the Hindu community in general.&
b) There are other Divya Desams which also need the community's support.

Can I place a few suggestions to the recommendations contained in your 
posting:
1)As regards "conduit" for reaching money to India, instead of creating 
fresh systems or form new trusts, can we not activate and support existing 
setups like "SVSS" who already have a presence.May be SVSS will have to 
"market" itself aggressively.
2)As regards "adopting" temples, while primafacie it is a good idea, the 
problem could be that some of the not so well know DDs could get left out. 
It would be better if funds are collected by one agency and equitably 
distributed.

At this point I am tempted to once again draw the attention of all members 
to my earlier postings on "Funding of Srivaishnava Causes". I feel that the 
present arrangement being pursued may suffer from the following drawbacks:
1) It tends to be adhoc. I sincerely feel that we can achieve better results 
by opting for a cohesive,focussed,well organised & planned programme of 
action.
2) Under the present system of funding there are every chances that causes 
about which we have not heard of may get left out. A broader and across the 
board participation would ensure an equitable and need based distribution of 
funds.
3) By broadbasing, undercurrents of Kalai affiliation,Acharya 
affiliation,Place affiliation etc. can be evened out and a sense of fairness 
for the cause can prevail.
4) By time and again referring to the same base of bhakthas, over a period 
of time we may tend to develop "fatigue".It is high time that we started 
looking at a broader base of bhakthas who may be interested in doing 
kaikaryam.Can we not think of one bhakatha referring another bhaktha for the 
cause?
5) All of us would have heard of the adage "it is better to teach a person 
to fish than to give him a free fish for lunch". I am of the firm opinion 
that we also need to look at options of "making money" for the cause.

The various srivaishnava causes crying out for our attention could fall 
under the following categories,viz:
1) Support to Divya Desams & other abhimana sthalams.
2) Support to Scholars, & to others who support the siddhantam.
3) Support for the study of our Siddhantam, Support for publishing 
Literature on our Siddhantam.
4) Support for charity to the needy and underprivileged who are not as 
fortunate as us.

Some time back when I was in Thoopul, one of the bhattars commented "Swami 
Desikan did Unchavrutthi during his life time. We are carrying on the lines 
shown by him even today".What a sad reflection on us!

I would normally not have re-raised this subject, but for a feature in 
yesterdays T.V regarding a small girl by name "Palak" & aged about 10. This 
girl wanted to save a boy ( about the same age but from a poor family) with 
a congenital heart problem. Since the operation cost was put at around 
Rs.70,000/-, she gave a solo music performance to raise the required fund. 
The surgeon on the seeing the girl's enthusiasm agreed to perform the 
operation free of cost. Today Palak has created a trust with whatever money 
she had collected and is going on giving performances to collect more money. 
This has resulted in 6-7 more poor boys getting medical facility (for 
cardiac problems) which they could otherwise not have imagined.Can we not 
emulate Palak.

Adiyen
K.Lakshminarayan.
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your old buddies are not out of range anymore. Free search with
Military.com's Personnel Locator.
http://click.egroups.com/1/4158/5/_/716111/_/963586963/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@eGroups.com
Visit http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/ for more information