Prayer - dyAnam - powerful medicine to unrest

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Sri:Srimathe Ramanujaya Nama:Dear bhAgavatas,Attached is a beautiful and powerful message from Sri U. Ve. Velukkudi Krishnan Swami for our minds in this time of unrest.adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan--Dear Bhaktas,SrI nidhim nidhim apAram arthinAm arthithArtha paridAna dIkshitamsarva bhUta suhrdam dayAnidhim dEvarAjam adhirAjam AsrayE(Let my salutations be to Lord Devaraja whose unparalleled wealthis Perundevi thayar, who Himself is the wealth of all the begging jivatmas, who has resolved to grant all the needs of His bhaktas, who is the well wisher of one and all and who is a treasure of mercy.)Swamy Koorathazhwan's invocatory verse of Sri Varadaraja stavam has a lot to convey to us. It is all the more important in these days of unrest. We need to pray together and individually for the safety and well being of all our fellow citizens on Mother Earth. Srivaishnavismand all the vedas accept that the whole universe is the divine body of Sriman Narayana. All the residents of this earth, cutting across countries, language, sex, community, caste , religion and above all whether they are humans or flora or fauna, belong to one group - Servants to the Lord. One attribute that is common to all of us is SEshatva - absolute unconditional servitude to our Lord. Thisjivatma's first and foremost identification is this SEshatva. Swamy Ramanuja in his work, defines SEshatvam as (paragata atisaya AdAna iccha...) i.e., a servant who is always wanting to add glory to his Master. So let us try to add glory to the Lord.Alas ! Adding glory to Him is impossible. If He is short of glory I could add. But He is proclaimed as "avikArAya suddhAya nityAya paramAtmanE, sadaika rUpa rUpaya vishnavE sarva jishnavE" .. (one whose inherent nature,attributes and divine body is unchanged). I would fail in my attempt to add any glory to Him as He is already full with it. This failure pushes me to another problem. If I do not serve him by glorifying him, I lose my status to be a SEsha. This leads to the destruction of jivatmas' inherent nature.Our preceptors have showed us the way to wriggle out of this problem and retain our SEshatvam. He - is the embodiment of all the sentient and non-sentient beings in this Universe. So SERVICETO FELLOW CITIZENS WOULD BE ADDING GLORY TO HIM. Service to humanity would ultimately retain our SEshatvam. Now let us try to serve humanity. But how?WE can monetarily or physically help them in days of need. It ismisconceived that Srivaishnavas should help Srivaishnavas alone. Are we accepting that Sriman Narayana is the Master of only Srivaishnavas? Are the others not the divine body of the Lord? Let us pack up these ideas and focus on serving everyone who is in dire need. I will find some road blocks while implementing this. You have access to known people to help them. Go ahead and do your might. But how do we serve humanity at large? Seek thehelp of someone who is close to all of them. That unique personality is none other than Sriman Narayana. Whether others agree to His Lordship or not, we agree to their servanthood. So let us look upon Sriman Narayana to help everyone. He is the one who can and who should give a helping hand.This is why Swamy Koorathalwan calls upon us to collectively prayto Him as He is the "sarva bhUta suhrt" (common well wisher). Prayer is nothing but a call, a representation, a plea - not onlyfor me but for Him, for His well being. His well being would meanthe well being of this universe. So bhaktas, let us resolve fromtoday to pray together for the well being of our Lord and humanity. This fetches many fruits in one throw. I retain mySEshatvam, I have prayed for Him, I have prayed for everyone. Lastly this prayer is nothing but a form of "dyAnam."Swamy Ramanuja says that the first step to salvation is gnAnam - knowledge about self and the Lord. (jivatma paramatma gnAnam). But mere knowledge would make you grope in the darkness of samsara. We need to focus this gnAnam on Paramatma which transforms to dyAnam - meditation. Meditation can be in the form of mantra japa, vigraha pUja etc. Mere meditation would make us rigid and egoistic. One needs to refine it with love and affection (snEham). Ramanuja says "dyAna arcana pranAmadibhi: atyartha priya: tat prApti phala:" (the Lord is pleased with meditation, pUja and surrender - His pleasure isthe means to salvation). He also defines bhakti as "snEhapUrvam anu dyAnam bhakti:" - (meditation with love is known as bhakti).Swamy Nammazhwar says "eNNilum varum .. "(first centum tenth decade of tiruvoimozhi). The Lord is waiting in the aisle to come to our rescue - expecting us to think about Him. A humblethought has the power to invoke Him.I am sure you would all now appreciate the importance of dyAnam.Is it just closing our eyes and thinking about our Lord. We need to do more. We must enjoy his attributes, recollect his divine actions during incarnations for our well being, plead for His well being (mangalasanam / pallandu pallandu un sevadisevvi tirukkappu) and in turn ensure the well being of everyone.Perialwar pleaded for the safety of His lotus feet which is the embodiment of all bhaktas.So make it a daily practise to establish an undisturbed stream of focused thoughts on Sriman Narayana. Pray to Him. Do not plead for any mean fruits. Request for the well being of everyone. All the other wealth would automatically be granted.Once in a while, make this jointly in a satsang, then the energy gets multiplied and you start feeling the synergy.We can pray. We should pray. Will we pray?SarvE janA: sukhinO bhavantu. Samasta san mangalAni santu.