care of the "sariram": sAtvika?

[Guest guest]

Notes to Sri.Chandrasekharan,Vijayaraghvan and Kalale,

 

adiyen thanks you all very much for your comments.

Since my comments are for all of you adiyen is taking

the liberty of posting on list instead of responding

privately to you. Hope you don't mind.

 

I cannot see anything "vibareetam" or "avidya" in

one's desire to maintain "sareera" not only in a state

of good health but also "attractive" (not vain)

grooming.

 

The soul or 'jeeva' is sublime. The body or "sareeram"

is gross. We are blessed with both "jeeva" and

'sareeram" by Him alone, Narayanan, the Supreme One.

In the journey of life we strive to make our

individual souls more "attractive" to Him by adopting

one of the "margA-s" like bhakti , karma yoga or

prappati-marga. By the same token why may we not

strive to make our "sareeram" too "attractive" to Him?

 

The bedrock of Ramanuja's philosophy is the

"sareera-sareeri" nexus. All the world and all

creation is "sareera" and the "sareeri" is the

Immanent One, "paramAtma". That "sareeram" is

"transitory" or "gross" is therefore not just reason

to reject it (as it is done in the tradition of the

Judaeo-Christian religions).

 

This world is His 'sareeram', says Ramanuja. Which

makes the hills, the valleys, the forests, the oceans,

the streams and the animals all His "body". If

Narayana were the "sareeri" of all the world then

surely He would wish us to keep this world an

"attractive" one? If you were a landlord and had

rented out your house would you not expect your tenant

to maintain the property in "excellent condition"

besides paying the rent promptly?

 

Look at the degradation of the world around us today.

Every year we destroy forestlands in the world roughly

the area of the Karnataka state. Every year Man

destroys about 80000 forms of animal-life. Some parts

of oceans have been made completely bankrupt of

marine-life. In a few years from now there may be

nothing left of what we now know as the Narmada river

valley.

 

We are not only making God's 'sareeram'

"unattractive". We are destroying it. We are defiling

His "sareeram" in unspeakable ways.

 

When we go to a temple we stand before the

"archAmurthy" and sings paeans in praise of the Lord's

form and "sareeram" --- His eyes, His feet, His arms

and limbs, His thighs, His lips, His navel and so on.

Why do we do so?

 

Man conceived God in his own image. And have we not

made that conception the most "attractive" one ever

possible?

 

The beauty of Ramanuja's philosophy is that he rejects

nothing in the world. He does not reject the body as

anti-soul. The great "bhAshyakAra-r" was a

quintessential holist. To him the "sareera-sareeri"

bond was not merely an ontological proposition. It was

an all-encompassing world-view... and a supremely

aesthetic one too at that.

 

All of you perhaps misunderstood my post to have been

a slanted celebration of the "body" in its sensual

aspects. Is it adiyen's fault that you are prisoners

of your own pre-conceptions of the 'sareera" as a

"transitory" bag of woe?

 

Who has understood "vibareetham" here? Who suffers

from "avidya" here?

 

dAsan,

Sampathkumaran

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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