TirupAvai as 'vAzhkai vazhikAtti'-guide to life

[Guest guest]

Dear bhAghavadhOthamAls,

My humble obeisance to the devotees of Sriman NArAyanA. 'GOpikA

geetham' can be a brief summary, preface,commentary,prelude and an aid

to the understanding of the'SaranAghathi SAstram' called

the'tiruipAvai'(it is not because of what I wrote, but because of the

GOpis who showed 'how a jivAtmA should go the ParamAtmA unabashedly-more

on this will be dealt with, later).

TirupAvai-'thiruvin pAvai,pAvai pAdiyA pAvai,pAvaiyin thiru,thiru

thandha pAvai' is the epitome of all that has been said from time

immemorial.'How can we attain the 'highest' and yet continue to work in

the world' to this TirupAvai has the answers.Esoteric works teach us to

free ourselves from this human bondage, some do it scaringly,describing

the human body as a waste of human skin, paling away day after day

towards the inevitable pit called the death.'piNi, pasi,moopu,

thunbam-AdhalAl piravi vEndEn'.(BhakthAls, kindly bear in your mind-

sometimes references to AzhvArs is done, not to undermine them,but just

to highlight SriAndAl)This notion is in itself a fright viewing life as

a journey towards death.

To touch reality most deeply,where people struggle,fail, triumph, to

lead them gently into awareness,to guide them through their faltering

steps, as a mother would do to Her faltering children-this is a whole

diiffferent ballgame.SriAndAl could have elected to stay in Her

'nithyavAsam' but out of Her 'apAra karunai' had descended to the world

and given us all the 'universal doctrine'.

The GeethAcharyan says,'come to to me,me only and SriAndAl also would

say,'go to Him'.Isn't She

'akalakillEn endru uraiyum'-always present with the PerumAl,She still

wouldn't say 'Come to Us,We will save you'.SwAmi DEsikan would ascertain

this saying 'sAkshAt kshamAm karunayA'(the 'mahAlakshmi in whom is

manifest,mercy,dayai,patience) Her 'karunai' eagerness to rescue us all

with all our shortcomigs.

I can take recourse to a hundred flamboyant words and still cannot

capture what SriAndAl had said in simple, lucid thamizh.The surface

meaning of the first pAsuram,the SwApadEsam, it's nature of being

the'charama slOkam' in itself have already been done to perfection.We

will just see how SriAndAl out of Her 'bhavathee kadAkshAth' culls the

human mind,sows the seeds,ploughs the fields,nurtures the saplings, so

that the 'jivAtmAs' can reap the rich harvest of 'parai' or the union

with 'paramAtmA'.So'andha NArAyananE indha aaychiyarkE eppadithAn

tharuvAn parai'.

SriAndAl thiruvadigalE charanam,

With highest regards,

Subadra