A follow up question to -> The Ultimate sharaNagathi and personal beliefs ...

[Guest guest]

I am glad I brought up this question in the first

place, and more than that I have been blessed, for

the past few days, I have been indulging myself in

pouring over all the material that has since been

circulated among the members of this group.

 

I now have a related question. If we indeed as srI

VaishNavAs are to pray to Lord srIman nArAyaNA only,

and according to some people not even worship other

dieties (so far the discussion in this group has

limited itself to Lord Shiva as the "anya dEvathA"),

why is it that after baraNyAsam, some people pay

their respects to other Sri Vaishnava forms of Sriman

nArAyaNA, such as srI rAmA, or sudarshana AzhvAr,

etc. Is not some amount of karma attached to these

dieties as well ?

 

In fact even the various madams have different

presiding dieties. All the 106 divya dEsams have

different purANams associated with them, but then so

too are the dieties of anya religions.

 

Are we not contradicting all the discussions we went

through the past few days. While it is definitely

true that these are indeed various forms of Lord

nArAyaNA, with several kalyANa guNAs, that we admire

in the various dieties, and that we are told that all

these forms lead us to perumAL, then why can not this

argument be applied to the dieties of other religions

?

 

adiyEn

 

Raja Krishnasamy

raja

[Guest guest]

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Raja Krishnasamy wrote:

>

> I now have a related question. If we indeed as srI

> VaishNavAs are to pray to Lord srIman nArAyaNA only,

> and according to some people not even worship other

> dieties (so far the discussion in this group has

> limited itself to Lord Shiva as the "anya dEvathA"),

> why is it that after baraNyAsam, some people pay

> their respects to other Sri Vaishnava forms of Sriman

> nArAyaNA, such as srI rAmA, or sudarshana AzhvAr,

> etc. Is not some amount of karma attached to these

> dieties as well ?

>

 

I think an answer may be found in Sri Sudarshan's

bhishma-stuthi (10 - 13) dealing with "yat Bhava

pravAha ha" - in particular, the 12th and 13th articles.

If my understanding is incorrect, I hope Sri Sudarshan will

correct me.

 

adiyEn,

govind rengrajan

[Guest guest]

At 10:07 PM 7/27/97 -0500, you wrote:

>

> I think an answer may be found in Sri Sudarshan's

> bhishma-stuthi (10 - 13) dealing with "yat Bhava

> pravAha ha" - in particular, the 12th and 13th articles.

> If my understanding is incorrect, I hope Sri Sudarshan will

> correct me.

>

> adiyEn,

> govind rengrajan

>

Dear Sri.Govind Rengarajan,

 

Indeed, you are right !

The relationship between "form" and "reality" is a very difficult one to

define. The purusha-suktam calls it "tasya-yOnim" and in fact which only

rare "gnyAni-s" or "dhIra-s" truly realise.

 

One of the greatest features of Vedanta, Sri.Rengarajan, is that it teaches :

 

"It is not enough to simply know the Truth;

One must learn to live It".

 

While "philosophizing" may help us "know" Truth we still need a "theology"

by which we can actually learn to "live" it !

 

The uniqueness of our "siddhAntham" is that it offers us both means !

 

THis is what I meant by saying in my last post on this thread that all of

us need "two crutches" by whatever name you call them or whatever "form"

you give them.

 

adiyEn/dAsan,

sudarshan