RE: the ultimate sharanagathi and personal beliefs

[Guest guest]

I have been learning much from the discussion of this past week on

Visistadvaita Vedanta and SriVaishnava views on the worship of other

deities. My compliments to all of you on the enlightening discussion.

 

I am too much the novice to participate in this, but I would like to share a

few thoughts just for the purpose of clarifying some issues in my own mind:

 

Mr. Raja Krishnasamy writes:

>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.

>

>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.

 

It is my understanding that one should not make the distinction that the

various forms of the Lord are only "parts" or "reflections" of certain

characteristics of the Lord. His appearance in His vibhava or archavathara

forms is through His supreme autonomy, motivated by His Saulabhyam such that

He can reveal His wondrous form to us and Bestow His Grace. Based on this,

I would contend that we really should not attribute different

characteristics or see specific gunas within Rama, Krishna, Narasimha,

Srinivasa, and Ranganatha, but recognize all of these as Sriman Narayana in

all His Fullness, possessing and revealing all His Kalyana Gunas.

>Is not some amount of karma attached to these

>>dieties as well ?

 

While the puranas about the avatharas and archas do have their place, I

would like to suggest that the incidents presented in these were merely used

as pretexts by Perumal to descend to earth out of His Compassion.

Consequently, I feel that we should not attribute any karma based reasons to

these.

 

 

------

 

I have a related question on this topic, as well. I cannot recall the

source for this, but I read somewhere that one who has taken baraNyAsam

should really only solely worship and prostrate before Sriman Narayana and

Thayar, and should only pay simple respects to the adiyArs; i.e., in temples

and homes aradhanai (or archana) should be performed only to Perumal with

Thayar. The devotee should not perform aradhanai directly to Hanuman,

Garudan, etc., but should respect them in the spirit of Bhagavatha Kainkarya.

 

Consequently, when visiting a temple, the devotee should only prostrate

before the Lord and perform archana and other kainkaryas to Perumal and

Thayar only, taking only darshanam of the adiyArs.

 

Is this correct, or am I mistaken on this?

 

Daasanu Daasan,

 

Mohan

[Guest guest]

First I think, Sri Raja Krishnamurthy may want to summarise all his

questions and corresponding replies he received so far. Srivaishnavas

were first demanded for little more tolerance, then openness in their

mind and now are required to be consistant. Is that all or anything

more that pooor sirvaishnavALs have to respond to ?

 

Sri Mohan sAgar answered Ser Raja's latest question on consistancy and

why worship Rama Krishna and why not "other forms of Sriman nArAyanA"

for example some of the other sillari dEvathas who are supposed to have

some "kalyAna gunAS" simliar to Lords avathArams. First of all, as

explained by Sri Mohan, Lord's direct avathArams donot incur any karmAs

and they are made as per Lord's own wish to fulfill some cause or the

other. The second or third derivative creations in the form of a

sillarai dEvathA are not replicas of GOD with all the infinite kalyAna

gunAs.

 

Sri Mohan explains this in a simliar way.

 

" His appearance in His vibhava or archavathara forms is through His

supreme autonomy, motivated by His Saulabhyam such that He can reveal

His wondrous form to us and Bestow His Grace".

 

Ie..If HE chooses to do it HE is capable of and can uproot rAvanA from

Srivaikundam itself. HE chose to take this avathAram to deliver a

message for us. Can HE not deliver the message from SriVaikundam itself

one may ask trivially ? HE can. However we are clouded with mAyA and

it is *conceivable* by us only when these avahArams are taking place

where we live and the messages are provided to suit our acceptable

limit of perception.

 

If some demigod is equated on par with Lord Sriman NarAyana simply due

to their possessing some kalyAna gunAs and karma bhAvam then each and

every baddha jivAtma that possess some kalyAna gunAs due to their karma

bhAvam and are they worshippable on par with Sriman nArAryanA ? If Rama

and Krishna exihibit only a part of the kalyAna gunAs it does not mean

that they themselves are only "part" of the Sriman nAryana as similar

to other sillarai dEvathAS who may form part of HIS Body. Rama and

Krishna do possess all the infinite kalyAna gunAs of the parabrahmam in

them in FULL. They choose to exhibit only a few of them that could be

possibly be conceived by us with our limited faculties. It is said by

nArAdha in his sambhAshana that Sri adisEsha couldnot tell or even list

all the infinite kalyAna gunAs of the Lord with all his 1000 heads

(1000 mouths) even after a lapse of 1000 of years of non stop

delivery. Are we now trying to make up a list of these kalyAna gunAs

so that somehow we can account for these part by part from X and Y

sillarai dEvathAs and badhdha jivAtmas and so on ? Can Sri Raja or any

one do it ? Can we simply learn about HIM by learning about these parts

of kalyAna gunAs that our human mind can perceive in this boolOgam

which is constantly under sway of mAyA ? Is it a measure of GOD so that

in someway one can understand HIM completely ? If so can someone do

quantify these kalyAna gunAs ? Are we trying to beam a torch light at

SUN and show the world that this is SUN, by attempting to understand

the Lord through gaining nyAnam (through a "limitted mind which is

ofcourse open and tolerant") ( while being in this boolOgam under

the sway of mAya all the time) on HIS infinite kalyAna gunAs ?

 

To answer some questions of Sri Mohan:

> Consequently, when visiting a temple, the devotee should only prostrate

> before the Lord

 

Inside the presmises of the garpa graham of a divya dEsam or in the

perumAl sannithi of ashram with pAdhukais and archA moorthis, One has

to prostrate only to the presiding deity of that temple or Ashramam.

Even if we are in the presence of our achAryALs in the garpa graham of

a divya dEsam, we maynot prostrate to them. In fact they would advise

one to stop doing so if one attempts to prostrate to them and will in

turn ask him or her to prostrate to the Lord who is presiding in that

divya dEsam or in the perumAl sannithi of the ashramam or mutt. When

Swamis visit to a visitor's place inside the ahsramam or mutt or a

graham or someone's house (where there may be a visitor's place) we can

prostrate to the swamis. When Swamis perform samAsrayEnam and

baranyAsam we do prsotarte to Swamis at the end as they act as the

mediators between us and the Lord during these instants and initiate us

with the moola manthrams and assures us of mOksham on behalf of the

Lord.

 

 

 

 

and perform archana and other kainkaryas to Perumal and

> Thayar only, taking only darshanam of the adiyArs.

>

> Is this correct, or am I mistaken on this?

>

> Daasanu Daasan,

>

> Mohan

>-- End of excerpt from Mohan Sagar

 

 

Thanks to Sri PD who wrote from achAryALs vaakku on the 2nd aspect of prapatti

yoga. There was a discussion on this pAsuram in this group itself 2 years ago

when we discussed the 5 angAs of prapatti. To be more specific Sri Vijay

Ragavan Srinivasan may be able to present the 5 angAs of prapatti yoga in a

nice way so that many of the newcomers in this group can

catchup.

 

An year ago I woke up from my sleep and was chanting a particular

pAsuram from thirumangai on Lord Oppiliappan.

 

It is

 

maRROr theyvameNNE Nnunnaiyen manaththuvaiththup

peRREn, peRRathuvum piRavaamai yemperumaan,

vaRRaa neeLkadalchoo zhilangaiyi raavaNanaich

cheRRaay, koRRavanE! thiruviN NagaraanE

 

I and Sri Jagan had a very intuitive discussion on this pAsuram and

shared the inner meanings to each other and learned from each other at

that time. If it is ok with him I can share those discussions with

everyone and it may be useful to some who are interested in ahzWar

pAsurams.

 

Sri BoomiDevi samEtha Sri Oppiliappan thiruvadikaLE charaNam

Sampath Rengarajan