Re: The Ultimate sharaNagathi and personal beliefs ...
From the Bhakti List Archives
• July 23, 1997
Before I get anywhere with this posting, I wish to let the learned members of this group that I do not mean to stir a hornet's st by my questions. All I expect to is to gain the knowledge I so much lack, so much that leads to the following confusion. If any of you do feel that I should not be doing this and that my questions are indeed controversial to any extent, please let me know, and I will gladly direct my questions to a different sadas. For I indeed consider this group to be an esteemed sadas, and I do not wish to affect its regular functioning any way. I have received responses to my posting on this topic, and I am fortunate to be blessed with this medium of education. I wish to specifically thank Shri. Murali Rangaswamy, Shri Vijay Triplicane, Shri Krishna Kalale and Shri Sampath Rangarajan for sharing their knowled on this topic with me. There however seems to be some misunderstanding of what I tried to convey. My question assumes that sriman nArAyaNa is indeed the supreme Brahman, and that he is the ultimate destiny. However, having recognized this as fact, some of us specifically seem to be tied down to specific forms of the Lord. By surrendering to the Ultimate Brahman, should I not visualize the nArAyaNathvam in all His various forms, as opposed to isolating them because of any particluar reason. It is quite possible that these forms possess certain qualities that we must learn by example that will help us to understand the supreme goal. We visualize and idolize Shri Rama for all his KalyANa guNams. He has indeed set supreme examples for a naran to attain srIman nArAyaNa. We idolize srI nrisimhan as the supreme protector of his devotee ("tvai rakshathi rakshakaihi kimanyai, tvai sA rakshathi rakshakahi kimanyai" from kAmAsikAshtakam). Similarly will we not miss some of the qualities that may be apparent in some other of His forms, but hidden to the agnAni in his form as sriman nArAyaNa. Should we not maintain an open mind, and seek the best qualities that have been exhibited by the various avathArams of our Lord - irrespective as to what kind of a religious following some of these forms may have. I have been doing some reading of works by srI chandrasEkhara sarasvathi of srIkAnchi kAmakOti pITam who attained mahAsannithAnam a few years back. His discourses at various sadas have been compiled by the pITam in the form of fifteen volumes called "theivaththin kuRal". There are some sections in Volume 1 where he discusses the abhEdam in srIman nArAyaNa and srI paramEshvaran. Again I am not trying to incite anyone's feelings here please. In doing so he tells us that it is true that the concept of one God has been propogated, but that is none else but the great paramAtma. The paramAtma who is without form resides in all forms, and we as mortals are not able to imagine the absence of the lines that have been defined to focus one's efforts on following one path to the paraman, so we are not diverted from our goals. And when the AtmA attains that maturity, then such an AtmA is indeed pure and attains parama pAtham. He quotes srI pEyAzhvAr from moonRAm thiruvanthAthi (Verse 2344): "thaazsadaiyum neeNmudiyum, oNmazuvum sakkaramum, soozaravum ponnaaNum, thOnRumaal, soozum thiraNdaruvi paayum thirumalaimEl enthaikku,iraNduruvu monRaay isainthu" While indeed there can be several literary interpretations to this verse, the great AchAryAl illustrates this as the duality of Lord Shiva and srIman nArAyaNa, where pEyAzhvAr describes the Lord at Thirumalai as none other than the union of the two divine forms. "mazuvu" would mean the "udukkai" that srI natarAja has in his hand. While soozaravu could mean Adiseshan, it could also mean the snake that is around Lord Shiva's shoulders. He says the Lord at Thirumalai composes these two divine forms into one beautiful pristine form, that of Sri VenkatEsA. The AchAryAl elsewhere explains to us the tale of two kings: srI rangarAja of thiruarangam and srI natarAja of thiruchithambaram, both of whom are the Lords of the resptive sabha's (thiruarangam would mean the holy sabhai, and srI nataraja is also referred to sabhApathi). They both have south facing thirumandalams, to signify the victory of fear over death and the concept of salvation from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. He says that while these two are indeed worshipped by people of different walks of life, the learned man would stop drawing the differes there, and understand the spiritual significance of the Lord having taken the two forms so he may educate the two kinds of people. This does not mean that we should disrespect the dEvathAs by refusing to even look at them. The anology is of having several guests in a house, but rendering preferential treatments to a few. As srIvaishNavas, one should indeed worship srIman nArAyaNa, but this srIman is indeed all pervading. I am not familiar with discourses of our AchAryAL's from the srIvaishNava paramparai and hence would hope that someone in this sabhai can help me out. Raja Krishnasamy raja@cyberdude.com
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