Fwd: How to See the Lord by Sri Sdagopan Iyengar Swami

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>sadagopaniyengar <sadagopaniyengar

>Ram Anbil <ramanbil, radha jagannathan

><radha, "j.srinivasan" <j.srinivasan,

>"cs.srinivasan" <chetlurvas

>CC: sadagopaniyengar <sadagopaniyengar,

>sadagopaniyengar

>How to See the Lord

>Fri, 05 Sep 2003 08:33:43 +0530

>

>Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

>

> How to "See" the Lord

>

> Shastras tell us that the Lord is present in five forms. The first

>and foremost is the Paramapurusha whose abode is Sri Vaikuntam, where He

>reigns supreme along with His Consort and the emancipated souls. Though

>this Cosmic form of His is in the constant sight of the nitya sUrIs ("sadA

>pasyanti sooraya:"), it is way beyond the ken of mere mortals like us, says

>the Veda Purusha-"na sandrusE tishttathi roopam asya, na chakshushA pasyati

>kascha nainam". Similarly, the VyUha roopams, those of Sri VasudEva,

>reclining on the snaky bed in the Milky Ocean, Sri Pradyumna, Sri Aniruddha

>and Sri SankarshaNa, are too exalted to form the subject matter of our

>faulty sight. Maharshis like Sri Narada and the inhabitants of the SvEta

>dveepa might be endowed with the good fortune of seeing these moorties, but

>not poor mortals. In the Vibhava avatArAs, constituting His descent to this

>earth assuming various forms like those of a fish, a boar, a man-lion, a

>giant turtle, the Princes of Ayodhya and Mathura and so on, He was indeed

>visible to mortal eyes, making Sri Koorattazhwan wonder at His

>accessibility-the Supreme Parabrahmam making itself visible to errant

>humanity ("nanu lOchana gOcharO bhoo:"). However, all those avatArAs were

>in the distant past, with absolutely no access to the present-day

>inhabitants of this planet. In His dimunitive form as the antaryAmi, the

>Inner Dweller of all beings, our accumulated baggage of Karma makes us

>unable to see Him within us, though He is present at extremely close

>quarters and in as splendorous a form as the one at Paramapadam.

>

> All that is left is the arcchAvatAra, the beautiful forms in stone, wood

>and mud, that the Lord assumes at various temples and it is only these

>fantastic figures of the Lord that we are able to see and admire. Thus, the

>Lord who is normally totally beyond the impaired vision of errant humanity,

>makes Himself perceptible to mortals, out of His infinite Mercy, and out of

>a desire to entice, enthral, enchant and finally ensnare recalcitrant

>humans, weaning them away from the debilitating path of sin. Whatever be

>the glory of His other forms, which we have only heard of and have no means

>of confirming, we are able to see for ourselves, with our very own eyes,

>the immeasurable beauty of the Lord in His arcchAvatAra-so much so that Sri

>Tirumangai Mannan holds the readily-available, blissful experience afforded

>by the arcchAvatara to be superior to that attainable at distant

>Paramapadam, admittance to which is restricted to the elite who perform

>Bhakti or Prapatti, and which is achievable only after herculean effort.

>Would anyone hanker after the flesh of a yet-to-be caught crow in the sky,

>which is anyway of dubious taste, when one has already captured a rabbit,

>which offers a delicious fare, enquires Sri Kalian, likening arcchavatara

>anubhavam to tasty hare flesh and the bliss of Sri Vaikuntam to that of the

>crow-"ErAr muyal vittu kAkkai pin pOvadE?". True to his fame of having Sri

>Kalian's sweet words etched in his heart ("Kalian urai kudi koNda

>karrutthudayOn"), Swami Desikan too spurns Celestial Bliss for that

>afforded by the ecstatical sight of Sri DevAdi RAjA of Kanchi, prepared to

>swear on the point-"Satyam sapE VAraNa saila nAtha! Vaikunta vAsEpi na mE

>abhilAsha:"

>

> Be it the Azhwars or Acharyas like Sri Koorattazhwan, Sri Bhattar or

>Swami Desikan and countless others-- they appear to consider the very

>sight of Emperuman in various temples to be blissful and each visit to the

>shrine an extremely rewarding experience, so much so that they feel capable

>of rejecting any offer of alternative bliss in the exalted Paramapadam, of

>which the Shruti, Smritis and itihAsAs speak volumes. The arcchavatara must

>therefore have afforded them such unalloyed pleasure, such deep delight and

>such immeasurable ecstasy, that they feel it to be superior to any other

>form of the Lord.

>

>However, when we go to temples and stand before the Lord with hands

>dutifully folded and eyes ready to drink in His magnificence, while we do

>feel a certain amount of inner peace, we are unable to experience the sort

>of bliss described by Sri Kalian or Swami Desikan. We stand on an equal

>footing with these venerated worthies in that we and they used only these

>mortal eyes to see the Lord. While the Lord's decorated idol does generate

>in us a lot of aesthetic pleasure, why does it not afford us as much bliss

>as it did to them? After all, the Emperuman at divya desams is the same

>today as was worshipped by our Poorvacharyas, the temples are the same but

>for some periodical cosmetic uplifts and the eyes too are the same,

>characterised by the same degree of frailty as present in all mortals.

>

>Given this, we find only two possible reasons for our not being able to

>derive as much delight from the sight of the Lord, as did our Acharyas. One

>might be that the Lord has made up His mind to be less pleasurable to us

>than to our worthy Acharyas, due to their infinite superiority in matters

>of wisdom, bhakti or adherence to Shastras. However, given Emperuman's

>predilection for favouring the underdog rather than the perfect person, we

>find this reason untenable. The other possible reason for our deriving less

>pleasure out of Bhagavat anubhavam is that something is wrong with our

>eyes, our vision, in the way we look at the Lord. This appears to be a much

>more plausible explanation and one which requires us to look deep into

>ourselves to diagnose the possible impairment our visual equipment could

>have suffered.

>

>When we go the temple and stand before the Lord, what do we see? At best,

>what people like me see is a beautiful, highly decorated idol that is

>pleasing to the sight, with impressive height and girth, with any number of

>adornments to enhance its looks. We are unable to see in the idol the

>all-powerful Lord, who is the epitome of all auspicious virtues and the

>antithesis of all that is bad, the sole repository of all imaginable good,

>the Universal Protector, one who is ready to take ten giant steps towards

>us and come running to embrace us, if only we would lift our foot to take

>one tiny step towards Him. We are unable to see beyond the stone and mortar

>and wood that the Lord, out of His inifinite mercy, resides in, out of a

>desire to be the subject matter of our mortal eyes. We do not take in the

>beautiful form in full and are satisfied with a superficial and overall

>look at Him, as shallow in our devotion as we are in our other secular

>endeavours (perhaps more so, since our human bosses are more demanding than

>the Lord, who is the personification of tolerance).

>

> How should we "see" the Lord, when we are before Him at the sannidhi? Sri

>Nammazhwar shows us the way, in his pasurams on Tirukkurungudi. According

>to him, the only way to enjoy the matchless magnificence of the Lord is to

>take Him in inch by blissful inch, part by splendorous part, with undivided

>attention paid to one particular aspect of Emperuman's tirumEni or

>adornments or AyudhAs, at a time. This is because the Lord's brilliance is

>too much for us to absorb, all at once. Like a child with its favourite

>sugar candy, we too should stretch the experience to the maximum possible,

>savouring the boundless beauty of the Lord little by little. Kamban says

>that this too is impossible, for those who set sight on a particular aspect

>of Emperuman is unable to pry his eyes away from that part of the tirumEni,

>("tOL kaNdAr tOLE kaNdAr") with the result that the onlooker is unable to

>proceed to enjoy the next part of the divine body.

>

> Coming back to Sri Satakopa Muni's experience, the Azhwar's eyes first

>lock on the snow-white conch adorning the Lord's left hand, capable of

>striking terror in the heart of His foes with a single booming emission.

>After having enjoyed the sight to his heart's fill, he moves on to the

>dazzling Discus inhabiting the Lord's right hand, which at once serves as

>the ultimate weapon and an adornment par excellence. It is significant that

>Sri Poygaiyazhwar too mentions the Conch and Discus among the principal

>items of visual attraction on the Lord's perfect physique-"serukkiLarum pon

>Azhi kaNdEn, puri shankham kai kaNdEn, en Azhi vaNnan pAl indru". Moving on

>with reluctance, Azhwar's eyes are ensnared by the Lord's own, the eyes

>famed for their length, breadth, blackness, brilliance and size, resembling

>a beautiful lotus in full bloom. The divine eyes lock with Azhwar's own,

>full of love and affection. The eyes speak indeed volumes ("toodu sei

>kaNgaL koNdu ondru pEsi"), obviating the necessity for words. The long

>eye-brows, forming a perfect bow on the Lord's forehead, clamour for

>attention too. Difficult though it is to pry his gaze away, Azhwar does so

>with difficulty and manages to travel down the Lord's face, till he is

>captivated by the coral mouth, with its rows of orderly pearl-white teeth,

>which demands its share of Azhwar's attention, impeding further progress.

>The long, perfect and extremely shapely nose, from which emanate all the

>Vedas and the beautiful throat commend themselves to the Azhwar's attention

>next, followed by the Lord's jet black locks, which fall bewitchingly on

>His forehead and shoulders. Only part of the beautiful hair is visible, the

>rest of it being contained by the long and majestic kireetam, set with the

>most brilliant of gems, signifying the Lord's supremacy by its very

>magnificence. The broad and beautiful chest, adorned by the matchless

>TirumagaL, swims into view next and completely captivates the onlooker,

>embellished by the microscopic Kousthubham and the Vaijayanti mAlA. The

>four strong shoulders culminating in slender but strong arms, holding the

>Discus Sudarsanam, the Conch PAnchajanyam, the mace KoumOdakI, and the

>invincible bow Sarngam, with the sword NAndakam hanging by His side, refuse

>to release Azhwar's vision, with the shining black torso competing for his

>attentions. The white YagyOpaveetam lies across the black chest like a

>flash of lightning in an overcast sky, with the several strands of

>TitutthuzhAi competing with garlands of pearls and fragrant flowers, to

>embellish the Lord's chest. The entire picture is one of unmatched

>magnificence and blinding brilliance, one which makes Azhwar dizzy with

>bliss and incapable of taking his eyes away to see mundane sights. It is

>this pinnacle of joy that made Sri PANanAthan too exclaim, " en amudinai

>kaNda kaNgaL mattrondrinai kANAvE".

>

>It is thus that we should "see" Emperuman, with each of His perfect aspects

>leaving an indelible impression in our eyes and hearts. We should let

>ourselves be swept away by the wonderful waves of splendour emanating from

>the Lord, letting His beauty seep through each and every pore of our body,

>making us weak with delight, with our eyes filling with tears of joy and

>yet affording an uninterrupted view of the Lord's magnificence, our voices

>aquiver with uncontainable emotion, each individual hair on our head and

>body erect in enthrallment, with the palms automatically folding themselves

>in supplication and the head bowing in an involunatary gesture of

>submission and veneration. There should be thoughts in our mind only for

>the Lord, only about His glorious form and endearing exploits, with all

>other contemplations banished for the nonce, the mind verily an abode of

>pure love reserved solely for the Divine Inhabitant. In sum, the sight of

>the glorious Lord should reduce us to a state of utter incapability to turn

>our eyes, ears and other faculties away from Him even for a second, for

>fear of missing that second's delight. This state of bliss is described

>vividly by Sri Kulasekhara Perumal thus-

>

>"baddhEna anjalinA, natEna sirasA, gAtraischa rOmOdgamai:

> kanttEna svara gadgadEna nayanEna utkeerNa bAshpAmbunA

> nityam tvat charaNAravinda yugaLa dhyAnAmrita AsvAdinAm

> asmAkam SaraseeruhAksha! satatam sampadyatAm jeevitam"

>

>If we are able to achieve this sort of vision and emotion while in the

>Lord's presence, the delectable experiences Sri Azhwan and Swami Desikan

>were able to imbibe from the arcchavatara, prompting them to contemplate

>foregoing eternal bliss in Paramapadam, would definitely be ours too. We

>would be awash with the same sort of ecstasy and endless delight as Azhwars

>and Acharyas, if only we cultivate the habit of truly "seeing" Emperuman,

>instead of merely looking at Him as a showcase doll . This sort of

>experience which dedicated devotees undergo is extremely difficult to

>describe to third-parties. To sceptics who might feel all this to be

>exaggeration and embellishment, Sri Nammazhwar's advice is to look at the

>Lord through his (Azhwar's) eyes and heart, viz., eyes filled with devotion

>and a heart brimming with love and affection-"en nenjinAl nOkki kANeer". "

>Cast away your glances full of avarice, scepticism, half-belief and

>insincerity and look at the glorious Lord through eyes like mine, filled

>with genuine emotions, and you would definitely see Him truly and

>experience the indescribable bliss it affords" says Sri Nammazhwar to us,

>in a homily worth its weight in gold.

>

>Finding his plodding friend seeing everything that he himself does, but not

>deriving the same incisive and didactic insights therefrom, Sherlock Holmes

>tells Watson, "Alas, Watson! You see, but you don't observe". Such is our

>plight too, it would appear. We do see the Lord, but we fail to let the

>spectacle make an indelible impression on us. The next time we stand before

>the Lord in any sannidhi, we would definitely find the difference if we try

>emulating even one-hundredth of the Azhwar's attitude.

>

>Srimate Sri LakshmINrsimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta

>Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

>Dasan, sadagopan

>

>

>

 

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