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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00028 Nov 2006

 
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Respected Sir:

The word is not the thing.

Please, you need to read between the lines.  What is really happening is
not all five fingers are alike. Each of us have different tendencies,
propensities, different attitudes, different capabilities, capacities,
different physical,mental,psychological,physiological make-up.  To have a
standard guideline for liberation is therefore, not logically feasible.

The Vedas, the seers, the sages and our Acharyas are all very wise. Being
fully siezed of the foregoing differentiaing factors, here and there, at
various places - be it the puranas, the ithihasas or the prayers,
chantings, verbal testimony, discources, satsangas at every point various
simple instructions have been infused both in subtle form as well as a
direct injunction.  Some of these  have been listed by you. Each is
independent, yet interdependent if you look deeply.

The common thread which runs through each of these is echoed in the the
famous refrains in the BG where the Good Lord declares :

      "Whosoever offers me whether a fruit, flower or etc.etc with faith
and affection....I accept"

You yourself are in no doubt about the omniscience,omnipotenacy and
omnipresence of The Good Lord. By the same token of reasoning, we also have
no doubt that all creations are His and His alone, be it your effort
(energy expending, work, Karma) or thoughts, or speech or possessions,
creations (like painting, artwork, a computer program).  Extrapolate these
and you will see that all the points raised by you  are interlinked.
Whether you go to take dip in the holy river, or offer a flower to the
image affixed to the wall of your small kitchen, you need to be COMPLETELY
AND ABS0LUTELY INVOVED with the Bhakti Bhava.  Even cutting your nails can
be an act of devotion with everything dedicated to the Good Lord with the
attitude that "Look this body is given by You, This Belongs to You and I am
just doing a servant's job of clearing out the weeds and keeping the body
healthy because it belongs to You...".

Lets look at what are likely outcomes of complying with the various typical
requirements listed by you. Assume you do each and every of these. What is
the most likely, highly probable result ? "as you sow so you reap".
Firstly your maturity, understanding, thought processes and senses will be
impacted and will receive divine inputs by way of blessings and
'approvals'. None of these acts will be detrimental in the long run.  What
will this translate into ? If you are a chain smoker, the seed of a thought
that "this is not healthy and not conducive with the relationship I am
seeking with the Lord" will begin to germinate in your brain.  As to where
the seed of the thought comes from is not the point but nevertheless you
will most probably abandon smoking without any rhyme or reason yet with a
perfect understanding inside you. You will feel the benefit coursing your
being and this in turn will push you towards other "good" works dedicating
more of your energies to  the Good Lord.  You are also a meat eater.
Suddently another thought process could germinate. You will see in your
inner mind the fact that the beast which is butchered is the creation of
the Good Lord. You will suddently get the enlightened idea like a flash
bulb that this is utter nonsense. Maybe you will be ashamed to the core
deep within your heart of hearts and abruptly one fine morning you are
free, no longer a meat eater. You have comprehended the entire business of
killing, harming, eating for satsifying the senses etc. and you are
thorough with it. You see your Acharya eating a handful of puffed rice and
in the very "darshana" which is also one of the items mentioned in the
scriptures to attain Mukti, your senses will revolt and lo and behold,
without any prompting, without anyone knowing you will be a different
person.  You take care of a Tulsi plant diligently and fall in love with it
and devoute each leaf to the Good Lord and man you are already a liberated
being on this earth !!!!!!!!!!!!!  In Mysore there is an old Sanskrit
insitute.Its principal is a highly respected person.  He has a big garden
and he does not pluck the flowers. His logic is simple. By plucking, I am
harming the plant. Look at this man's idea of ahimsa. He picks up flowers
which have fallen on the ground and offers only these to the Lord.

So go ahead, ask your travel agent to book for a trip to the Ganges, take a
dip in the Yamuna, also the Godavari etc. and visit each Ksethram. There
are 108 divya desams....try to travel to at least  100 by taking two  Divya
desam each year...which will cover 50 years... Plus 100 rivers are there
each holy. ...every three months a river and you are occupied for nearly 25
years....Do the Sandhyavandanam diligently thrice a day without let; do the
rites for the forefathers if applicable without let...each samskara has its
own time frame. Even a marriage in the strict sense is a minimum of 3
days...so by the time you are involved in all these what happens to you ?
You are a living-liberated person who is perhaps not aware of his own
liberation nor will you be concerned with your age.

To extend what you yourself have said :

      a) in this world that good things come with hard work : Yes, all
these listed by you are hard work indeed. Doing with Complete Bhakti
                                                is not a joke. You have to
reach the utter devotion levels benchmarked by
                                                by the Eternal Greats like
Nammalvar, Ramanjua etc. ? Is this not hard work
                                                a worthy striving?

      b) People sacrifice their whole life to get the love of the Lord:
Certainly, you need  to sacrifice all and function with total
                                                      absolute detachment.
Its a different form of hard work.

      c) people in the past (ages and yugas) have gone through enormous
pain to
      enter the Lord's divya Dhaams                   So it again boils
down to the same point. Undertake the task and you will see
                                                there is no pain but simply
unabounding bliss.

There is an ancient Sanskrit Subhashita :

      Paropakariya phalti vrukshah
            Paropakariya vahati nadaha
                  Paropakariya dohanti gavaha
                        Paropakariya tamadim shariram

(meaning : for others the tree bears fruits, for others the rivers flow;
for others the cow yields; and so for others this body should be dedicated)

It is this single-pointed devotion that is exhorted throughout the Vedas,
the sayings of the Acharyas and the scriptures.

You need to therefore, reorient the way in which you look at this.  Coming
specifically to the concluding points posted by you. Yes, your eating
habits, the food etc.or whether you smoke or drink alcohol etc. are
secondary matters. What is of paramount importance is you first understand
that the ultimate purpose is to be in proximity to That Divine Lotus Feet.
You may choose to call it Mukti, someone else Liberation, another Nirvana,
another as Bliss, another as Kaivalya.  Irrespective of the
word-combinations, if the bottomline is firmly fixed in your mind then all
other questions become irrelevant.

P S : by contemplating on this topic of mukti, participating in these
august forum called "SriRangaSri", by talking about these good matters, by
exchanging views, learning, understanding, conveying, communicating you are
in e-satsang and this is yet another form to attain Mukti if you want.

 __/\__
Om Tat Sat
Tat Tvam Asi



                                                                                
                                                       
                      Deepak Vinod                                              
                                                       
                      <deepak.vinod@la         To:                              
                                                       
                      nsa.com.au>              cc:                              
                                                       
                      Sent by:                 Subject: [SriRangaSri] 
Mukti/Liberation! Is it that cheap?                              
                      SriRangaSri@yaho                                          
                                                       
                      ogroups.com                                               
                                                       
                                                                                
                                                       
                                                                                
                                                       
                      11/07/06 03:38                                            
                                                       
                      AM                                                        
                                                       
                                                                                
                                                       
                                                                                
                                                       



Shri Hari

Respected elders!

Please enlighten me on an issue that has been lingering on my mind for a
while..

Is Mukti/Liberation as cheap as it is "portrayed/interpreted" as in our
Shastras???

In my very little reading recently I have come across many
places/references
that I am sure everyone has themselves come across where the Shastra says

If one .................................. he/she will be given liberation.

The gap can be filled with many references from our shastras....for eg

a) does Tirth darshan of xxxxxxxx or yyyyyyyyyyy
b) has a bathe in the river xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (like Ganga, Jamuna, Radha Kund)
c) drinks the charnamrita of Lord in his Deity or Salagram form, as per..
Akaal mrityu harnam, Sarva vyadhi vinashanam, Vishno(Salagram)  padodakam
pitva, punar janma na vidyate
d) Offers one tulasi to the Lord (in the month of Kartika)
e) does  dIpa dAnam to the Lord in kArtika
Similarly in various stotras or prayers written for the Lord...I am sure
the
respected elders have come across stotras etc where in it there lies
mention
of one who reads this nn number of times or on a certain day like pUrnimA
or
ekAdasi etc are given Liberation.....

So as a young person I believe and see that
a) in this world that good things come with hard work
b) People sacrifice their whole life to get the love of the Lord
c) people in the past (ages and yugas) have gone through enormous pain to
enter the Lord's divya Dhaams

So for me...it seems that Mukti or Liberation is percieved as so cheap that
one can go to a local travel agent, book a ticket to a certain Teerth
sthaan
and visit and take darshan and as a result attain a GUARANTEED ticket to
the
LORDS DHAAM when they leave their body....and irrespective of what the
person does in their daily lives....including
a) not taking shelter of Acharyen
b) be involved in consuming Liquor and meat
c) not practising devotion in their daily lives

I am not contesting our shastras...I have great faith in them...  I believe
that I am not interpreting them correctly as per the "desired" meaning.
So please I beg the respected and Wise elders to enlighten me to what
"seems" as a great inconsistency, unfairness, anomaly in our shastras.
Please pardon my offences...I am genuinely seeking enlightenment.

Your servant.
Deepak

Shri Hari
Narayana Narayana Narayana










 
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