Ekadashi

[Guest guest]

Bhagavathas,

 

I could not come to the net on friday and saturday and today I notice

that discussions have advanced very much. I enjoyed reading the various

discussions specially the discussions by Mani, Partasarathi Dileepan,

Raghu Seshadri, Jagannath....and Vijay Srinivasan and Krish's views. As I

missed the discussions by two days, it takes me a while to sum it up. The

following tensions seem to exist :

 

(a) To some, Prapatti and bhakti margas are different, though the

destination is same. Others feel that these are essentially similar.

 

(b) There is no need to worry about "pleasing" the lord : yet, as per

some authorities, there is scope for his being pleased or not pleased;

 

© Rituals are important : some seem to suggest that they are mandatory,

and other opinion is that they are important and relevant but not mandatory.

 

(d) when we find two contradicting views expressed in two different

authorities or sources, how to resolve i.e, is there a clear hierarchy?

>From Ramaswamy's posting (regarding "Oh My God" not on Ekadashi) one can

see the interpretations of different sources -- sometimes they can differ

as well.

 

(e) Sin and not sinning raised the question of the

existence of "naraka" : To some, such concept of naraka is unnecessary

while for others, it was relatable.

 

I am not responding to some of the direct questions to me : like to my

saying that "Our Acharyas always point out.." someone has taken

exception.

 

At the end of the day we seem to be a divided house and no clear view has

emerged.

 

I wonder if discussion can focus on each of the five strands and others

which I may have failed to bring up.

 

I would only add a little bit of my feelings. Can we distinguish between

god and

godliness. In our loukika (i.e, iha loka) existence, sometimes I feel

that we come very close to feeling godliness. A beautiful landscape of

pristine nature; or the joy of watching a rainbow; or the continuous

sound of rolling water or the waves in a sea; the gentle swaying of trees

in a rain; the smile of a baby; the blossoming of a flower; a friend's

letter; the voice of mother (on telephone), the joy of knowing that India

has won a match etc.,, what is this joy? Is it what we get because of the

satiation of what economists would like to call utility. If there is

utility in a rainbow why not use prisms and create rainbows indoors? From

what little I have heard and understood, the beauty of god is expressed

in a myriad but that is only a fraction of the true beauty of

Srimannarayana. It is unfathomable, ineffable. To me, the practices, like

sandhya vandanam, vishnu sahasra namam, ekadashi etc., these have been

kept for helping our journey in this continuum like while time is

continuous, its measurement is always discrete. It is either today or

tomorrow, there is no such thing is "partly today and partly tomorrow".

There are different milestones or signposts if you like, for use by those

at different stages in our discovery of this unfathomable beauty of lord.

When I as a pedestrian see that you in your car are focusing on some kind

of signposts, shall I discord my own signposts and start following yours

because apparently you are in a stage which seems to me to be better than

mine? As long as I stick to the path suggested to me by my acharya and

use the signposts he has given me, I should not have such self-doubts.

Eventually I will reach a stage where I may have to use some other

signposts and I am sure my acharya will give me those at that time.

 

Hope this makes some sense.

 

Adiyen, Anand