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prapatti, bhakti

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Krishna Kalale • October 24, 1995 


I thank M srinivasan for the tenkalai view of prapatti.  I have the following
questions. I would like srinivasan or any other people with access to 
tenkalai texts or gurus or information to answer these:

the explanation given by srinivasan in short is this:

prapatti is abandonment of all self effort, and even abandonment of the 
feeling that one has resorted to lord by self effort.  

this is nothing but "know that he/she is helpless and cannot find a cure for
the ailments of this samsara and hence stop even efforts to save one's self
by any means"

this issue seems incomplete since this state ment could be tantamount to 
saying " don't bother about anything - dont bother to find a cure for
the ailments of samsara" - ie. is God is all merciful and he knows what to
do with his children - ie. God's nirhetuka kripa will take over. ie his
causeless mercy will take care of our moksha.

My question is:  at least, prapatti should involve a knowledge. at the minimum
one should be theist or as per the scriptures one should have  
sesatva jnana - i.e . that we exist only for the pleasure of lord and 
do not have any other purpose for our lives or existence - this knowledge 
should be there otherwise - prapatti does not mean anything specific - 
it will amount to "one can even just ignore everything and keep quiet" - this
will become effectively prapatti.


I personally feel tenkalai view : has to include the knowledge that the
srimannarayana - is our sesin.  

but I do realize that there are several strands of tenkalai thought on this.
I will try to post some thing more next time.

Incidentally - the word vraja of charama sloka - 18,66 of Gita - means according
to tenkalai view :  "know" rather than "perform".  the word vraja has 
two verb roots :  vraja gathau - vraja bodhane,  ie. in going or action,

or in knowing : bodhane.  Tenkalai view prefers only bodhane ie. knowing/

so. the knowing has to be a qualification.


I COULD BE WRONG BUT I WOULD LIKE SOMEONE TO DELVE IN TO THIS TO 
ENLIGHTEN ME ON THIS ISSUE..


krishna