Spiritual health and material comfort
From the Bhakti List Archives
• July 12, 1999
Dear members, Here are some thoughts that crossed my mind while going through "list" discussions on "Material wealth Vs Spiritual health" which elicited the following from Sri. Mani: "…to what extent should we try to build wealth to live comfortably, and how should we define comfortable, without falling into the trap of chasing wealth? My gut feeling is that the example of Sri Desika and other gRhastha-s is not an ideal that is to be left merely for saints, but something to which all true mumukshus should sincerely aspire. Is this still practical? Could Desika have survived today? (What few disciples he had certainly couldn't have given him enough money to pay the rents in San Francisco!) Mani" ********** ********** ********** · I think Swami Desikan would have not only survived the present age (be it San Francisco or Sri Rangam) but conquered it just as he did his own times. Also surely, as a modern-day "AchAryA", he would have clearly shown us all the way out of our terrible quandaries such as "Material wealth Vs Spiritual health". How many would pay heed to him is, however, a matter of conjecture. There is no doubt in my mind that far fewer people today might be willing to follow Desikan's precept and example than they did during his times. · If you read Swami Desikan's biography you will not fail to note the man's utter fearlessness. Personally, I have never ceased to be awed (and envious) of such absolute fearlessness. His fearlessness ("a-bheeti"), I think, was the secret of his extraordinary "vairAgyam". Pelf and easy living, of course, had no lure for him. But far more importantly, I think, penury held no fear for him either. Most of us, if you think about it, would have no great difficulty in suppressing our urge to hanker after wealth. Not many of us can, however, remain undaunted by the prospect of being reduced to dire straits in today's world … a world that has basically no respect for you if you are not a personal tax-return filer, are not covered by a policy of medical insurance and do not have a pension-cum-annuity plan to finance your old age. · Unlike us, I should think, Swami Desikan's sense of self-worth did not need the prop of personal net-worth. It simply did not matter to him (nor to his wife, that most wonderful lady!) that he earned his daily bread by "Unchavrtti", that his home was a ramshackle dwelling in a by-lane of Kanchipuram or that his wife could never strut around the social circuit in Kanchipuram with a diamond necklace dangling on her bosom. (We all know the story about how Desikan, on discovering beads of gold in the rice that his wife was one day sifting, asked her to trash the precious metal filings along with the chaff. She is said to have heeded his suggestion immediately without a second's hesitation!) Desikan's wife seemed to have been as fearless a soul as he himself! I think both shared an uncommon indifference to their social standing. Obviously, they did not seem to really care for what the world thought of them … where they lived, how they lived, what they wore and who their friends were… The quality of a "mUmUkshu's" marital relationship … of how husband and wife mutually nourish and sustain in each other a certain fearlessness in life as they go through its vagaries … that "quality relationship" certainly determines the vigour of the "grhastA's" spiritual resolve and endeavour in life. · From his autobiography, we see that Swami Desikan was also not afraid to tread alone on the "road less travelled" and to strike out on his own in the face of detractors and denigrators. It was again a very rare sort of courage. He was not a happy man while he lived in Kanchipuram, being endlessly teased and oppressed by his peers there who never lost an opportunity to scathingly run him and his work down. In Tiruvaheendrapuram where he retired for 14 long years in a sort of "vanavAsam", he was often the butt of his rivals' unkindness, jealousy, pettiness and vicious mischief. In Sri Rangam where he spent the prime of his life, he was again constantly pilloried by adversarial colleagues. The political turmoil of his times shunned him to SatyakAlam where again he lived the life of a lonely exile for more than two decades. But through all those trying conditions of long and personal adversity, Swami Desikan seems to have stuck steadfastly and fearlessly to the twin core-values of "gnyAnam" and "vairAgyam"… to a life-style marked by "simple living and high-thinking", by freedom from pecuniary or personal anxieties of any sort…. No wonder they called him "gnyAna-vairAgya-bhushaNam"! I think, Swami Desikan symbolised an idealist way of life transcending all considerations as narrow as those that confound us in our times…such as whether "material wealth" promotes or impedes "spiritual progress", for example. Such questions are themselves founded in fear… and where there is fear how can the spirit really advance… with or without "material comfort"? adiyEn dAsAnu-dAsan, Sudarshan ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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