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Re: material pursuits

From the Bhakti List Archives

Kazhiyur Mannar Narayanan • July 5, 1999 


Sri Venkata Gurave Nama:

Dear friends,

I was not reading the bakthi mails last week as i was not in my desk.
I am very happy to see the question of Sri.Mani and the good responses from 
our beloved members on the topic of Accuumulation of wealth.

I fully agree with Sri.Mani that accumulation of wealth even for a prapanna 
is important in the current world.

we can trace back this situation to industrial revolution and the fallout of 
varnasrama Dharma.

as per varnasrama dhrama a brahmin is not suppose to store any thing for the 
next day. he should be interested only in learning,advising and teaching 
others while upholding his dharma.

what is the situation now? even for a small ritual like conducting a Homam 
or upnayanam, you have to save some money(atleast our middle class 
bretheren) and spend. during olden ages, it was society which took care of 
acharya's material needs and acharyas took care of sishyas philospical 
needs.

Sri ManavalaMamuni says this well in Upadesa Ratnamalai that
"Sishyas look after acharyan's Body, while Acharyan looks after Sishya's 
Atma"

after the advent of industrial revolution and mass production, whole things 
changed. and any change is for good.

with this changed envirnoment, what we could adopt is that a prapanna should 
accumulate wealth not out of avarice but to accumulate wealth for nitya 
kaikaryam to emperuman.

this does not mean that you should not care of social obligations like 
children's education needs, marriage, rituals etc. Go for money for all 
this. perform all this obligations. then at some moment of time, you should 
draw a line and start concentrating on the kaimkaryam.

of course, the money what you have so far accumulated will come handy in 
managing some situations like buying a house in a divya desam at premium 
price, or to take care of food and shelter expenses when you are in 
kaikaryam and not in gainful employment.

this is what i perceive as to how a prpanna should react(not act) to the 
challenging moderen times.

I welcome opinions on the above. i am sorry for related response.

regards

K.M.Narayanan
Hyderabad.



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