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Regarding Tulasi Maharani

From the Bhakti List Archives

Jai Simman s/o R. Rangasamy • May 11, 2000 


Hare Krishna to all the Vaishnavas.

Tulasi is tulasi whether she is grown with meticulous intent for the service
of the Lord or otherwise.
As such, the Vaishnava principle is to respect Tulasi devi in whichever
condition one may find her in and never to use her for cleansing the human
body in any condition.

Tulasi is a personality in terms of spiritual understanding unlike manjal,
etc.

Therefore we should decide what is to be used and what is to be avoided, and
how they are to be used or avoided as per shastric principles and the
instructions of our Acharyas, not otherwise. To dwell on mundane logic or to
bring as evidence analogies and conjectures produced by the relativistic and
imperfect mind to understand something that is achintyam is not I would feel
vaishnavic at all.

Ayurvedic medicine may recommend the use of Tulasi but our ultimate
authority is not Ayur Veda or the Ayur Vedic kaviraj.
Our ultimate authority is Krishna, the sad-agamas and the Vaishnavas.
Therefore the vaishnava principle overrides the other here.

For example garlic and onion is recommended to be of good medicinal value
but vaishnava principle is to avoid them. Medicine is to be taken where we
are sick, not always as a principle of staple diet. Often, when medicine is
taken when one is well, it only makes him or her more sick. So here, more
than the routine medicinal aspect, the spiritual dimension is taken into
account. Rajasic and tamasic foodstuffs do not facilitate in our remembering
the Lord. Vaishnavas ought to focus on this principle more than anything
else since it is not the eating of onions and garlic or the use of tulasi on
the body that will solve our problems. Only our eternal absorption at the
Lotus feet of the Lord can do that and our guiding light should be to
practise any sadachara that facilitates that principle and reject anything
that does not.

As such Vaishnavic sattvic living is more important than mere rules of
medicine or well-being.


Your servant,

R. Jai Simman
Singapore




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