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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00027 Aug 2002

 
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srImathE rAmAnujAya namah

dear bhAgavathAs,

I was reading through the first part of AchArya 
hrdayam and a specific sUtram caught my eye. I want to

share the sUtra with you all.

Before I do that, a few words about AchArya hrdayam 
from a layman's perspective. svAmi Azhagiya maNavALap 
perumAL nAyanAr, who is the younger brother of svAmi 
piLLai lOkAchAriAr, is incredible in his exposition of

the philosophy. With svAmi maNavALa mAmuni's 
commentary, and the various tamizh translations of 
that, it is an incredible source of clarity for us. 
The first part of AchArya hrdayam, perhaps, is the 
clearest and most non-confusing exponentiation of the 
sampradAya that I have come across. svAmi minces no 
words when discussing things like karma, varNA, 
kainkaryam, sAstra and his clarity of thought is just 
divine.

The specific sUtra that I want to share with you is
the
32nd sUtra. This sUtra helped me clear in my head
some of the typical confusions regarding karma etc.

the sUtra is as follows:

sAdhana sAdhyangaLil mudhalum mudivum, varNa
dharmigaL dAsa vrththigaL enRu thuRai
vERiduviththadhu.

A paraphrasing of svAmi MM's vyAkhyAnam is as follows:

for those who are involved in depth with kainkaryam,
they have no togetherness (sErththi is the tamizh
word)
with those who are involved in depth with karma.

i.e. sAdhanaththil mudhalum -the first step for
the sAdhana ==> karma

sAdhyaththil mudivum - the end of what is gotten ==>
the most superior of things that one can obtain - i.e.
kainkarya

varNadharmi ==>one who is deeply involved with
following
only the specified rules of his/her varNa/Ashrama

dAsavrththi ==>one who is the devotee of the Lord

i.e. karma and kainkarya cause us to be unrelated
{us ==> those who are focussed on following the
rules laid down for their jAti, and those who
are focussed on doing service to the Lord)

There is an anecdote mentioned in the vyAkhyAnam for
this sUTra.

In thiruvahIndrapuram, there was a person by name of
villipuththUrbhagavar. All the town people used to
go to the same area in the riverbank (thurai) for
doing the morning anushtAnams. However, he used to 
go to a differnt place along the riverbank for the
daily morning rituals and come to town. One day,
the brahmins in the town asked him "Oh jIyaa,
why are u not coming to the place where we 
perform morning rituals?". For that he replied
"Oh brAhmaNAs - we are vaishNavAs, devotees of
Lord vishNu. You are all brahmins who perform the
duties as laid out for the caste. There is no
oneness between us who do kainkaryam to the Lord
and you who focus on doing the duties as laid down
for the brahmin caste"!

What a clear thought process! Obviously he does
not mean that a brahmin cannot be a vaishNava.
What he means is that the mental mindset of a
vaishNava is different! - i.e. a vaishNava is less
bothered about the varnAshrama dharmAs, but more
bothered about performing service to the Lord!.

Though the above distinction can sometimes be
obvious, it really is a key feature. In previous
sUtrAs, svAmi clearly talks about karma being
associated with the body and kainkaryam being
associated with the soul. He further distinguishes
between "sAstris" and "marma sparsis" - i.e. between
those who follow the sAstra and those who
focus on the inner meaning of the thirumantram.

This attitude difference is apparent when we look
at many things - even to this day, we have people
who insist on the "superiority" of a brahmin 
birth (while svAmi piLLai lOkAchAriAr has clearly
taught us otherwise), or who ascribe some
sort of a superiority to being born in a 
srIvaishNava family. svAmi azhagiya maNavALap
perumAL nAyanAr teaches us one thing - all these
are related to your body and they are impermanent.
Focus on things related to your soul!

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,
varadhan



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