Penultimte-post-paramapada-sOpAnam

[Guest guest]

srimathE lakshmi-nrsumha parabrahmaNE namaha

sri vedanta desika guravE namaha

 

Dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s',

 

If you ever find yourself discussing, with a friend or relative, Swami

Desikan's 'PPS' and describing to him/her about the 5 steps viz. 'vivEkam',

"nirvEdam", 'virakthi', 'bheethi' and 'prasAda-hetu', you can be absolutely

certain that you will be queried as follows:

 

"All of Swami Desikan's thesis in "PPS' is very fine in theory. But the five

"steps" described do not appear to be exemplified anywhere in our

'itihAsa-s' (history) or 'pUrANa-s'(epics). Is Swami Desikan simply weaving

a concept which really has no 'pramANam' (basis of validity)?"

 

If you face a query like the above, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', please regard

it as similar to the one put to you when you tell someone you have visited

the Niagara Falls and are, in turn, asked to produce evidence for the same !!

 

When someone like that does insist you show them 'evidence' or 'proof' of

your having been at site of the Niagara Falls, what do you do ? You let out

a tired sigh and reach into your photo-album and produce a set of

"souvenir-snapshots" (the 'pramANam') which you took with your

Yashica-Pentax while at the site of the Niagara. Your querist will then look

at your snaps, nod his head and finally acknowledge, "Oh, yes, you are

indeed lucky to have been at the Niagara !! I can see that!".

 

Now, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', can you possibly determine what such

acknowledgment by your querist adds to, or diminishes from, your original

experience of the Niagara Falls ?

 

Can you definitively say the 'pramANam', in itself, is the equivalent of the

'real experience' ? Or, those 'snapshots' are accurate records of the

feelings of marvel and awe that gripped you while you stood watching the

Niagara ?

 

Can you say 'pramANam' is the peer of 'bhagavath-guNAnUbhavam' (experience) ?

 

NO WAY, isn't it ?

 

No way, dear 'bhagavatOttamA-s', because only you, who have really been

witness to the grand spectacle of the Niagara, can re-live the glory of that

private experience of yours. You may be able to report to someone, perhaps,

the ecstasy you felt, in that moment of the experience, by providing

'pramANam' (snap-shots, in this case) for it. But there is no way the 'inner

joy' such personal experience produced in you in the first place, can be

truly communicated to another person, is there ?

 

Thus there are certain "experiences" in life whose truth and validity are

self-evident, with or without 'pramANam'. In that category fall :

 

-- the majesty of a Niagara Falls, perhaps, as we saw above.

 

-- or that of Swami Desikan's 'paramapada-sOpAnam' !!

 

-- and most certainly, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', the entire body of

"experiences" which we know our ancient 'vEdA's', the "srUthI-s" and the

"smrithI-s" speak about !!!

 

Anyway, anticipating all the likely hullaboo about 'pramANam', proof or

evidence etc. that ordinary people like us are prone to raise, Swami Desikan

himself provides, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', for his 'Stairway to

Transcendence', a wonderful basis of validity drawn straight out of that

premier 'pUraNa' -- the Ramayana !

 

And that 'pUrAni-c' 'pramANa' from the Ramayana is precisely what I was

referring to in my last post, dear 'bhAgavatOttamA-s', as "Desika-souvenir" !!

 

It is the 'snapshot', or all the 'pramANam' anyone would want, as 'evidence'

of that exhilirating experience we all felt as we "travelled", in the last

half-a-dozen posts, with the "kavi-tArkika-simham" up the five steps from

'vivEkam' to the 'prasAdana-parva', on that "holy stairway" he calls

'paramapada-sOpAnam' !!

 

It is that "pramANam" from the Srimad Ramayanam -- the "Desikan

tour-souvenir" -- which will now be the subject of my last post to follow.

 

srimathE srivan satagopa sri narayana yathindra mahadesikAya namaha

 

sudarshan