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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00119 May 2003

 
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Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha
Dear Shri Bhagavadhottamas,

>God will shower His grace without any act of surrender. We are 
>already His. That is what Sri Alawandar conveys in stotra ratna 
>("mama nAtha yadasti yOsmyaham...). 

>If we have to do soemthing, how can His grace be nirhEtukam?

>Prapatti as an act is not there in all thenkalai paramparAs. What I 
>mean is, some AchAryas do not include this as a ritual in their 
>samASrayaNam. So whoever is belonging to these paramparAs does not 
>do something that is considered by others as prapatti.

In the above,
>God will shower His grace without any act of surrender.
I strongly disagree with the above statement due to the absence of 
the word "too" at the end. God will shower His grace, without any act 
of surrender too. This does not mean that one should take for granted 
God will anyway shower His grace, and hence can do whatever he/she 
wants. This is not as per our Sampradayam.

>Prapatti as an act is not there in all thenkalai paramparAs.
Prapatti as a "physical" act is not there in all Thenkalai 
paramparAs. For any act, the cause is the intent. Whether followed by 
act or not, the intent is pretty much the actual karma and not the 
physial act. As elders say, for Brahmanas, even a thought of killing 
a cow or anything else becomes a papam. Why would they say so? Hence, 
if the intent is what is the actual karma(immaterial of whether an 
act follows it or not), then realizing prapatti or understanding it 
or following it whatever, whether for moksham(means) or as His 
kainkaryam, all these things become "our" acts.

Iranyan, Sisupalan, Ravanan, pretty much all those asuras who died 
out of lord's hands(or weapon) got the moksham. This is what is 
Nirhetuka krupai of the lord. He uses His free will. He may choose 
anyone at random and give him/her moksham. At the same time, if one 
does bhakthi, karma, raja, sankhya yogas etc, then ALSO He would give 
moksham(He has promised Himself in Gita). If one "does" prapatti, 
then also He would give moksham. If this weren't true, out of 18 
chapters, whatever the lord had promised saying one would attain 
moksha if he/she does those yogas, would be breached.

Moreover, there are various types of mokshams(Salokyam, Sarupyam, 
Sameepyam, Sayujyam, Kaivalyam etc). The moksham attained by Sahetukam
(we doing something for attaining moksham) is not valued as that of 
the one attained by Prapatti, is what is my understanding of the 
Thennacharya Sampradayam. Note: Sahetukam does not lead to Kaivalyam. 
Kaivalyam is a moksham where the atma enjoys itself. Sahetukam "may" 
lead to this i.e this Kaivalyam is a trap and hence our Acharyas have 
warned us about this. This by no means stops one from following the 
Karma, Raja, Bhakthi yogas.

In other yoga margams, one is instructed to do certain things i.e one 
must follow certain disciplines in order to attain the results. One 
could do prapatti and still live the way one wants to live.
Prapatti is an advanced stage of other yogas. In Prapatti, one 
realizes that he/she belongs to Him and hence He is the upayam and 
upeyam. The moment we say "He" is the means, then, this too becomes 
an effort by us to use Him as a means to attain Him. Whether we go by 
markata or marjara nyaya, the point is one puts effort. If a baby 
doesn't cry, a mother feeds the baby automatically is what we say. If 
the baby is bit by a snake and still doesn't cry, the mother will not 
know about this, only to see her baby die. So, we can use these 
examples to support individuals views. If we are going to sit like a 
baby not doing "anything" assuming he would shower his Nirhetuka 
grace, what happens to the world? Is this what our Acharyas told us? 
Ok. Assume, you do kainkaryam, instead of sitting idle. Why would you 
do kainkaryam? Why not something else? Even then the lord will shower 
His grace right? So, why was the concept of Kainkaryam even 
introduced/insisted by our Acharyas? Why they introduced the concept 
of "change in mindset" which they call as Prapatti? Why did our 
Acharyas bring in the tradition of so many things in the name of 
kainkaryam, while we could do anything and everything(including what 
we call the sinful actions) having realized Prapatti? The only answer 
is, when one realizes Prapatti, he/she will automatically tend to 
think whatever he/she does as a kainkaryam. So, any act done by a 
Prapannan becomes a kainkaryam(and by default, the Prapannan would 
not get into sinful actions). But, for this, one needs to know, how 
it is, to realize Prapatti and atma swaroopam. No one can make other, 
realize Prapatti, by making them read his/her writings because, one 
could realize Prapatti only by the lord's grace(or Acharya's grace 
i.e the lord's grace through a person). 

What Smt Sumithra said was correct from a different point of view. We 
could always bring in statements in support of / against, other's 
understandings/views. But we need to understand that these mails or 
articles can, in no way enlighten people. These articles can add 
value. We could discuss so many other things that add value instead 
of discussing these rahasyams which lead to combative articles due to 
lack of expressiveness, understanding, interpretations etc. I 
apologize to everyone to have written many posts on this subject and 
has caused a chaos not realizing that this subject is not for these 
kind of internet discussions. This is my last post on this subject 
and hence request others not to expect any further reply from me on 
this, while they could continue to comment/criticize this post at 
their will.

My humble apologies in case of any offense perceived.

Adiyen,
Ramanuja Dasan.





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