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Re: Swadharma

From the Bhakti List Archives

madhav.vasudevan • February 8, 2001 


SrI:
SrImathE Ramanujaya namah:

Dear Sri Arvind,

Your query is very interesting and a valid one too for all of us. I am glad that
you have started feeling at this young age. We are all sailing in the same boat.
No doubt, we should be learning Vedas and saathras, and follow our swadharmam.
BUT.. due to various reasons, over a period of time, we all have been drifting
away from that.

See. Lord KrishNA, when he was a Sarathy, he used to wash the horses and remove
the insects from their necks- such was His perfection to His duties. Lord Rama,
though appeared as Kshathriya, never said "I was born a king, and am the eldest.
How can I be deprived of the kingdom and am asked to go to forest?" Never did He
utter a word. All that He did was to obey the father's words.

Why am I saying this?- Because, ask your father. He wants you to study English
education.. complete BITS Pilani, engg degree. Perhaps go abroad and earn for a
better living. etc.. etc.. Follow that first. Simultaneously, what you have been
doing is fantastic. Reciting few slOkas that you have learnt, during the course
of the day, reading the posts appear in bhakti list and getting your doubts
clarified on sampradayam- You are doing just fine, dear.

At any cost, never stop doing sandhyAvandhanam. If you do not do that, you are a
karma brashtan- karma chaNdALan. You have nithya theettu. Not qualified to even
enter the temple, - why to talk of other things? Keep doing..

On the other hand, we have Sriman Anand Karalapakkam, also an ex BITSIAN.. did
his MS from Connecticut, completed in flying colours naturally (like any other
Indian). Now he is doing full time VedAnthic studies and saasthrAs at Chennai,
with 12 ThirumaN, and sikhA. We also have Sri Narendran Thaiyar at Chennai,
after completeing his degree in USA,; we do have Sri TA Varadan returning back
to Chennai after his tenure of about 6-7? years at USA. We have number of
Srivaishnavas, coming back to do grantha kaalakshEpams.

We also have a 35 year old great Srivaishnavaite Sriman U Ve Velukkudi KrishNan
Swami, a Management consultant who delivers in his inimitable style great
upanyasams so simple to understand in both Tamil and in English. We do have a Ph
D sanskrit scholar Dr MV Anantha Padmanabhan, a 27 year old,  at Chennai, who
has now taken over a co-editor for Sri Nrusimhapriya. We have at Singapore, one
Sri MS Hari, a 25 year old, an MCA and a computer software consultant, who has
studied all nine works of Ramanuja's and many works of Swamy Desikan's too. He
has been taking tremendous efforts to drill into our heads the depth and content
of Visishtadvaita Srivaishnava Sri sampradayam. We also find our Sri Mani
Varadarajan, brought up from childhood in the States, is one of the founders of
this list and maintains Srivaishnava Home page. He is a very learned member of
our list, who is in his mid twenties.

We are also blessed with Sri Satakopan mama, Sri Anbil Ramaswamy mama, the
elderly members and erudite scholars to guide us on the right track.

Thus, There is a silver lining in the cloud. There is light at the end of the
tunnel. And you need not feel bad or guilty. The very fact that we are
discussing all this is due to the limitless grace of Divya Dampathi Sri
Ranganyaki Sametha Sri Ranganathan. Nothing else.

"adhuvum avanadhu innaruLE". Don't worry. the most benevolent AchAryAs, the
walking Gods are all there..they all know our limitations and problems just like
the Lord Himself. Approach your AchArya, and undergo samsrayaNam, and perform
prappati at His Feet. Get to know of our rich samprayadayam by mere browsing
thru these articles written by these Bhagawathas. Ask if there is any question,
however stupid or silly it is. (Don't ask me. I don't know. Ask others please)

anEka AseervAdhams to you and wish you all success both on- sampradyam and off
-sampradayam.
Narayana Narayana
adiyEn Narayana dAsan madhavakkannan (also from BITS, Pilani, 1983)


Sri Arvind Gopalan wrote:


Namaskars,

In Srimad Bhagavath Gita, Krishna ParamAthmA says one
should be involved in one's own Swadharma and should
not get involved in the activities not prescribed to
him. Here I would like to have some clarifications. I
am a Brahmin (Sri Vaishnava) and I have my own
Swadharma. But I am not doing my duty of approaching
my AchArya for Enlightenment. As a Brahmin my
Swadharma is to engage myself full time for spiritual
progress and learn about Him through AchArya's grace.
But I am not doing this. I am a final year student of
BITS,Pilani and next year will proceed for Atomic
Research. So I am moving miles away from my Swadharma!
I don't do anything other than daily reciting
ThirupallAndu, Vishnu Sahasranam, Hayagriva slokam and
Sundarakandam(kanto 36). Nothing more! I feel very
guilty of not following His advice in Gita. I don't
think I will get chance to learn directly  from
AchAryas. I would like to have advise from you all.



AdiyEn,
Aravind Gopalan.





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