Sri: Srimathe Ramanujaya nama: Dear Sriman Kasturirangan, My point was that all physicists propound their "profound" theories without thinking if a layman would understand. Analogy(refer to brittanica for the defn) is only to elucidate certain points. You shouldn't take it "literally". It is a common sense that physics deals with matter and what we are talking about is beyond matter. Obviously there is no transformation from a material plane to a non-material one to explain this. Modern physics is not only relativity. Einstein,till his death,was in complete disagreement with Quantum Mechanics. Only when physicists find one "single" equation to represent this Universe,you can say that they are in conformity with one another. Until then,we do and will see "differring" mentalities among the physicists. Let us take only Shankara,Ramanuja and Madhwa. I have personlly seen current "Jayendra swamigal of kanchi mutt". He always ends his talk with "narayana,narayana,narayana". When he signs,he writes narayana smrti. I don't know if he does this all the time but when I heard him in person and also on TV,this was the case. I have a good no. of madhwa friends whose names are one of the thousand names of Vishnu. I would say that they are more orthodox than even some of the iyengars as the formers don't even step into shaivite temples. Interesting point to note is that it is only Adi shankara who composed Acytua shtakam,govinda ashtakam, kanakadhara sthothram,krishna ashtakam,bhaja govindam etc. I don't know about Madhwacarya. Ramanuja didn't compose slokams like shankara except for the Gadya trayam. In BG commentary also,Shankara only quotes vishnu puranam and hence Ramanuja sticks to the same rule to refute the former(basically Ramanuja beats the opponent in the same arena using the same weapons). Why not some tamasic puranams which invoke shiva? Assume that there are two persons(one with good vision and the other with color blindness) observing the sunset. Do you think both are going to agree to each other's views? Similarly AzhvArs had perfect vision/divine eye and divine knowledge,granted by Lord Himself and we don't need any "external",blind sources to tell us who the Supreme is and who(which vedic scholar) agrees to it and who does not are totally irrelevant to us. All matters is "who passes the judgement". Period. There ends the discussion. Certain Universal laws are easily verifiable and certain others are not. Instead of learning little of each and every field,which throws the mind into a state of turmoil and also leads to permanent head damage with the conclusion taht we know everything,we should learn everything of little and go slowly from there. If anyone reads/studies vedas here and there,he will only arrive at self- contadicting theories. Who knows,one may come up with new and weird theories everyday! Back to square one: Do you have a problem in believing the Supremacy of SrimanNarayana or you just want to share with all of us what you think is right/wrong? Did the question arise due to the doubt in your mind or someone else's mind? Remember that all realizations happen through "direct" experience only. Best Regards AzhvAr emperumAnAr jIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam NC Nappinnai Quote for the day: The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been in turmoil - Edison > 2. Scientists/Azhwar analogy: > This is a weak analogy. Einstein's theory of relativity or > photoelectricity may be 'complex' for 'lay persons', not intutively > making sense or even worse contrary to common sense. However, the > physicists are unanimous on what the theory is about, what it > explains, and what are its limitations (if any). We cannot make an > analogy of theory of relativity & Vedic texts and scientists & > azhwars. Vedic scholars haven't come to a unanimous conclusion > that 'Narayana is supreme'.
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