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Re: Sri vaishnava

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Badrinarayanan Seshadri • October 3, 1995 


Dileepan wrote:

* One pupil heard his acharya compare the lord's face to a monkey's
* bottom.  This is much more serious than some yelling.  Yet the pupil
* did not condemn his teacher, did not say he is not fit to be my
* acharya.  We cherish this pupil. We say we want to follow his
* example.  We want to share his vision with other vaishnavaas of the
* world community.  Then, let us not show contempt to one of his
* teachings, namely do not disrespect a sri vaishnava.  Let us not be
* so sure of our wisdom that we dare to trash our acharyaas.  Rotting
* in hell has nothing to do with it.

I think I will still stick to my position. If I had the
option to choose my acharya (which is how it should be)
I wouldn't have selected this azhagiya singar.

I see this 'vaishnava aparaadha' bandied about in the
newsgroup alt.religion.vaishnava too. To me, it is a
meaningless restriction. I am not trying to slander a
good god fearing vaishnava here. I do not think I
denigrated this azhagiya singar. I narrated an event I
witnessed and simply said that I wouldn't consider him
my acharya.

Frankly, I am annoyed by so many things that I consider
are wrong with the two mutts I am familiar with: Sri
Rangam aandavan ashram and Ahobila Mutt ashram. I am
afraid they are going away from the central tenets of
vaishnavism. If I raise these issues then I wonder what
I would be labelled as!

* I hope among us there is no difference of opinion about the central
* faith, right?  In trying to achieve critical understanding, let us
* not go over board with unnecessary criticisms.

I don't think my criticisms (if any) were out of place.
When I narrated this incident (which happened 4 years
back) my parents' reaction was very similar to the
above. They cautioned me not to offend a Sri Vaishnava.
I somehow feel that that is a wrong advice. If someone
feels that I have made a mistake, show me where I made
the mistake and I will retract my statements.

--badri

* 
* -- Dileepan
* 

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S.Badrinarayanan 
Graduate Student
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Cornell University
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