Thirumaalai-2

From the Bhakti List Archives

• May 22, 2002


Sri Parthasarathi thunai,
Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha


" Mattrondrum Venda Maname Madhilarangar
  Kattrinum meitha kazhalinai keezh- uttra
  Thirumaalai paadum seer Thondaradipodi Emperumaanai
  Eppozhudum peesu"

" Srimat Krishna samahvaya Namo yaamuna soonave 
  yetkadakshai kalakshyanam sulabha: Sridara: sadaa"

Pranams,

"Manisarukkai PadAdhana Pattu"  - Emperuman undergoes number of 
hardships for the sake of we Jeevatmas.  Let us now see what all 
hardships the emperuman undergoes.  In the last posting we said that 
PVP starts the avadharikai with a question.  Who a samsari is? Sri 
Periya vaachan pillai asks such a question because he doesn't belong 
to that category and wants to keep himself away from them.  But all 
of us know who a samsari is. "Asaare Samsare Vishaya visha 
sangaakudiyA:" The samsaris are always at the back of some vishayam
(matter).  Whenever we call them to bhagavat vishayam they have some 
way to say no.  They consider many more things important and highly 
urgent to be done when it comes to bhagavat vishayam.  But saddhus 
like PVP considered the samsaaric pleasures to be equal to a poison 
which kills us little by little.  Samsaaric pleasures are like a 
disease and only medicine to this disease is Emperuman and bhagavat 
vishayam.  But leaving this medicine the samsaris prefer to drink the 
poison.  But can the Emperuman who is the father of all simply see 
his children drink poison?  So he by his apaara Kaarunyam tries to 
pull us out of this.

But if he says don't go at the back of samsaaric pleasures instead 
fall under my feet, I will protect you then there is not even a 
single person to listen to him.  When a child eats mud though we 
condemn its act, next time it tends to eat but now without our 
knowledge.  So the mother now lets it to eat and also keeps the 
medicine necessary handy.  When the child suffers she gives the 
medicine and teaches the child a lesson.  Similarly we jeevatmas will 
never listen to advices so the emperuman lets us in our own way and 
then teaches us a lesson.  But unfortunately even after a lot of 
miseries the vaasana of the jeevatmas still pulls him only towards 
the worldly pleasures and never turns his attention towards the 
bhagavan. 
So as Nammazhvar says "Maari Maari pala pirappum pirandhu" and Sri 
Adisankarar says " Punarappi Maranam Punarappi Jananam" the cycle of 
life and death continues.  The jeevatma does papam or punyam in this 
world and undergoes the svarga vaasam or Naraga vaasam and then comes 
back to the world with the vaasanas of the previous birth.  In 
Vedanta such a jeevatma is called Anusayi. Vedantha also says "GathA 
Gatham Kaama kaamA labhanthe" .  Thus the jeevatmas do punyam or 
papam in this world, both of which will ultimately bring them back to 
this world only.  You may all wonder why PVP is telling all these 
things in the avatharikai to this Prabhandam!  It is to increase our 
Vairakhyam.  Only when we get little detached from this world we can 
think about the other world(Bhagavan and Bhagavat vishayam).  Even 
when we have to sit in a upanyasam for 2 hours we have to leave other 
activities in this world, right? That again needs some vairakhyam. 
Only to build this vairakhyam Sri PVP starts his vyakhyanam with such 
an avadharikai. As our acharyas say when we see the world we cannot 
see bhagavan and when we see bhagavan the world never enters our 
vision.

The jeevan which has nullified its punyams in the Svargam and papams 
in the naragam then returns back to the Mega mandalam from where he 
reaches the bhoomi through the rain water and then he combines with 
the annam (grains) which is grown in the soil and then from the Annam 
he reaches the purusha sareeram, from the purusha sareeram (man) he 
reaches the Stree Sareeram(women) and then he undergoes Garbha 
vaasam.  The child develops in the womb of the mother which is 
supposed to be the Jail sentence for the Jeevan.  It has to be inside 
the womb for 10 months and undergo a lot of suffering.  Even after 
undergoing so much suffering inside the womb only a very few are born 
as jnani's rest start enjoying life and get involved in worldly 
pleasures.  The child starts crying for milk, then for food and toys, 
then for so many other things and then the crying continues till his 
end.  When a child is born his mother feeds it with milk and at the 
last people put rice in the mouth of the dead so the improvement in a 
man's life is only from milk to rice.  For this In between he 
undergoes such a lot of sufferings.  Still people do not realize the 
truth they do no get vairakhyam, they don't realize that everything 
in this world is temporary and emperuman is only permanent.  This is 
the sad state of a samsari.  

But does Emperuman enjoy seeing us suffer?  No not at all.  He is so 
much pained by seeing our hardships that he keeps on doing many 
things to release us from this samsaram.  What does Bhagavan do?  He 
first does the creation to wake up the jeevatmas who where sleeping 
in the pralayam.  It is like a mother waking up a child to feed if 
the child sleeps without eating.  The child doesn't know about its 
hunger but the mother knows.  Similarly emperuman wakes us all up 
after pralayam.  After creating, emperuman gives the jeevatmas two 
options to choose.  The jeevans can either enjoy the pleasures of the 
leela vibhuthi as per their wish or they can shed the miseries of the 
leela vibhuthi and fall under the feet of the emperuman to grant them 
the divine moksha where there is only `Anandam Anandam", from where 
the jeevan never returns to the miseries of this world(`Na cha 
Punaraavarthathe').  If we choose the sittrinbum(worldly pleasures) 
he grants us them with stained mind and if we prefer the pErinbam 
(moksha) then he grants us that with lot of joy.  The shrusti, stiti 
and samharam what ever the emperuman does is only for the welfare of 
the jeevatmas.  

After the creation he then gave us the sastras to show us the right 
path. "Tene Brahmahrudhaya Adikavaye" says Bhagavatham and Nammazhvar 
says "peedhagavaadai peraanaar parama guru vaagi vandu" that 
emperuman delivered the sastras to the world as the first guru.  A 
man should have two types of knowledge.  He should be capable of 
differentiating between Dharma and Adharma and Nityam and Anityam
(nature of objects).  If a man is not able to differentiate which 
object will stay permanently and which will not and which is dharma 
and which is adharma then he can be equated to an animal.  Only this 
knowledge differentiates a man and an animal.  So a man has to act 
according to the sastras.  "Tasmat Sastram Pramanam te karya karyau 
Vyavastitow" (only the sastras are the pramanas to tell the do's and 
don't's).  Still the jeevatmas refused to accept the sastras and act 
accordingly.  Then what did bhagavan do did he get angry with them?  
Let's see in the next posting.

Adiyen Ramanuja dasyai
Sumithra Varadarajan.




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