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 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com
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