Nuggets of Truth by Vidwan M R Gopalacharya----(6)

[Guest guest]

Madhwa’s Teachings

 

                                                                                                                 08-12-09

 

Nuggets of Truth by Vidwan M.R.Gopalacharya   (6)

 

Dear Reader,

 

An aged devotee, a regular visitor to the Vidyapeetha was found to have not spoken a single word for a long time, although he spent considerable time in the Vidyapeetha offering obeisance to Lord Venkatesha and even thereafter; and when asked after a long wait, he replied much against his will that he was a man totally disappointed with the world. He had spent his childhood and adolescence, he said, in an atmosphere that was largely characterized by simplicity, ethics, duty-consciousness, respect for others, good-Samaritanism and above all fear of God for wrong-doings. These values over the years turned southward and have now reached their nadir. Quoting Wordsworth, he said, he could not adjust himself to the changed conditions and he could not stand up against them either. Therefore, he took to the escapist route to seclusion, he admitted, to grieving in silence!

                            

True. The prevailing conditions of almost total disregard for honest and moral living are truly alarming, that cast a pall of gloom on every one with a religious bent of mind. At times, they compel the one who has chosen to tread the righteous path to wonder about his choice.

 

The late Vidwan M.R.Gopalacharya, the legendary sage-like personage, handled hundreds of such cases and helped people who were on the brink of despondency. A man of profound knowledge in worldly subjects that also included psychology, he was aware of how the human mind worked; he would probe the very depth of one’s mind to find out the real cause of depression and explain it in detail. He would encourage him with adages and quotations from thinkers, very often westerners, to overcome the problem. He would also ask the “patient” to do japa or parayana of a mantra or a stotra and ask him to do certain sevas like pradakshina and namaskara in a temple for a certain period, to allow him to be near Divinity to derive strength from and to be on the right track thereafter. Thus he helped a number of people to return from the edge of despair and to lead a peaceful and purposeful life.

 

In the last lap of his journey, the Vidwan penned his observations on almost all facets of human life and quotations of great thinkers in Nuggets of Truth, for future generations. Some of the nuggets are given below:

 

1)      In this world of ours, some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.

 

                                                                       William Shakespeare.

 

 This topsyturvification is the result of wrong valuation of privileged classes.

 

2)      To become rich in this world, it needs only to turn one’s back to God.

 

3)      Two things ever fill my mind with increasing wonder and awe; the starry Heavens above me and the moral law within me.

                                                                                                                     Immanuel Kant.

 

4)      God has given me this body to be able to cross the sea of sorrows. So it is quite meet to consider this body as our boat. The hurricane of heresy is wildly blowing. The mind, the helmsman of the boat, is irate and eccentric; the six oarsmen, the passions, are ill-willed. Pitiless is the whirlwind; my boat is sinking. The rudder of devotion is rent. The sail is tattered and torn.

 

5)      Mercy and truth meet many times as intimate mates. Righteousness and peacefulness ever kiss each other.

 

6)      Let us, then, be up and doing,

      with a heart for any fate;

      still achieving, still pursuing,

      learn to labour and wait.

 

                                  Longfellow

 

Here Longfellow suggests that long patience and persistent perseverance are                      necessary for attaining success in a great adventure.

 

7)      I saw Indian Brahmins living upon the earth and yet not on it, and fortified without   fortifications and possessing nothing and yet having the riches of all men.

 

                                                                                                            Apollonius of Tyana.

 

The Vidwan, if he were still there, would have helped the above mentioned devotee to come out of the shell also with H W Longfellow’s following quotations;

 

1) However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

 

2) There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.  

 

With regards,

 

 

Ramachandra Tammannacharya Gutti

 9819550626.

 

                                                                                                                (To be continued)