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Humility and the Vaishnava

From the Bhakti List Archives

simhan74 • September 1, 2000 


I offer my sincere Obeisances and Namaskarams to all the members
of this divine forum. First of all, my name is not Narasimhan, I
am his saha-udhara. Since my brother is in the merchant navy, I
keep checking emails for him, and in the process, get myself
enlightened.

I was rather appalled or dismayed by the attitude exhibited by
some of the "So-called" Srivaishnavas towards a sincere person
like Shubha ( I know her as a friend). I can tell that she is a
simple person, and for sure, she is not the type of person to
display Pizzaz or raise disharmony with words.

I am a SriVaishnavite myself, and I follow the basic decorum that
are required. Although I am happy that I am a Srivaishnava, at
times I fell embarrassed thanks to people like I see here. I have
some questions for some of the members here, and since I am an
Iyengar myself, I hope I may be excused for my ignorance.

Whenever one says 'Adiyen', does he really mean it??  It doesn't
seem like it! All through my life so far, I have found that
HUMILITY is one quality that is sorely lacking in many Iyengars,
even though it is such a fundamental part of our philosophy. In
actuality, many of us Iyengar simply think that because we are
born in an Iyengar family, we are. We get a "Holier Than Thou"
attitude. If any sane person has such thoughts, isn't it high
time for him to feel ashamed of himself and his behaviour??  We
are supposed to be followers of "Thondaradi-podi" Alwar, and
instead we often display utter arrogance.

Whenever there is some kind of a discussion or arguments, many of
us Iyengars on this list think that they are the sole
representatives of SriVaishnavism!!  I have seen countless such
arguments in my life, and I could just pity them for they are
trapped in a "Cocoon" of self-hypocrisy.  They are cheating
themselves, no matter if they know the Naalayiram or
Paduka-Sahasram. They all become miniature "Sarva-Tantra
Swathanthra"s!! In the process, they don't succeed in convincing
the opposite person, and end up with just huffing and puffing,
and not to forget the acrimony!!

Pray, please let us leave this pugnacious attitude!!  Just
because of circumstances of birth, one doesn't have to get his
egos boosted (in fact, the contrary should happen)!!  The story
of Narada vs the Cobbler befits the mood, methinks!!

I don't want to pinpoint names here, but I must say the
following. One of our erstwhile most vociferous and regular
posters (as well as a few others) confronted (or shall I say
ill-treated) many of the new visitors, so much so that I
personally know many of them either signed off or are not
monitoring this forum. And we all had seen a rather sorry display
of attitudes just recently.

Some of these regulars, no matter how learned they are, appear
to be filled with pure egotism and absolute religious illiteracy,
for they are found lacking in a character that is coined by the
term called "Humility", which is one of the basic pillars of any
religion, be it Sanatana Dharma, Shintoism or Animism.

Why must we call names when answering questions??  If you people
want to discuss advanced works of Yamunacharya, but can't answer
some simple, sincere questions in a nice way, I think you've not
got your fundamentals right!!

This kind of attitude is not unique to Iyengars alone. A lot of
people belonging to different schools of Vaishnavism exhibit a
behaviour of incredulous arrogance.  If the goal is to spread the
doctrines of Srivaishnavism, working on one's patience and
humility will help both his self and his cause.

Adiyen
Vimal (Soundararaja Sharman)


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