Thiru Arangan Ula- the sojourn of the Lord. ? 1. The Lord?s Grace
Sriman Narayana who is the supreme Lord, radiates as the embodiment of grace. Everything in the universe functions because of His grace. It is because of His grace that we live, breathe, eat, sleep, make money and multiply. His grace torrents on us, but we shut the doors thereby preventing ourselves from receiving His grace. His grace is waiting outside, knocking on our doors, but we keep the door shut. Lord Sriman Narayana, out of his compassion and mercy descends from Vaikuntha just to be with us.
Looking at our miserable conditions, are we are even worthy of having Him amidst us?? We are in such a fallen state that we are totally unwilling to receive Him. If He comes in his original Four-Handed form, we still doubt if it is the Lord Himself. If He comes in a normal form like a human being, we still don?t have the intelligence to perceive Him to be the Lord. Either way, He is willing to come to us, but we are not willing to receive Him.
There is an interesting episode involving the great saint Kabir Das. Kabir, being a great Rama Bhakta, used to have regular communication with Lord Rama. One of Kabir?s followers who was a nice VaishnavA, wanted to celebrate Sri Rama Navami in a pompous manner. He desired to have Lord Rama come in person and attend the celebrations and hence he expressed his strong desire to Kabir Das. During his subsequent communication with the Lord, Kabir requested Lord Rama to attend the celebrations at his follower?s house, and Lord Rama said he would oblige (the Lord never fails to honor His devotee?s prayers).
It was the day of Rama Navami, celebrations were going on in a grand scale at the VaishnavA?s house. There were Abhishekam, prayers, Bhajans, discourses and the turn out was massive. The Vaishnava was eagerly expecting Lord Rama to attend , but the Lord was not to be seen. Once all the celebrations were over, the gathered devotees started getting hungry and they desired to have their prasadam. The Vaishnava went to the streets in the area searching for Lord Rama, but all in vain. So, he gave up looking for the Lord and asked his guests to partake the prasadam. He felt let down and was very upset with Kabir Das. As the guests finished honoring the prasadam, there was a poor cowherd walking down the street with his buffaloes. One of the buffaloes cut lose and entered the house of the Vaishnava, and started running amok It started eating the leaf-plates of the Vaishnavas, and made the place rather dirty. The guests got angry and caned not only the buffalo but also the cowherd for losing control of the animal. The Vaishnava got infuriated even more because of the whole situation and the same evening, expressed his outrage and displeasure to Sri Kabir Das.
The same evening, Kabir asked the Lord why He didn?t attend the celebration as He promised. Lord Rama replied, ?Kabir I did attend the celebration. But, I wanted to enjoy the prasadam of the VaishnavAs. Had I gone in my real form they would have served me first and I won?t be able to enjoy the remnants of the food honored by the Vaishnavas?!!! He showed the back of his divine body with the marks of the canings that He received from the Vaishnavas!! Such is the glory of the Lord, He is more than willing to come to us in any form possible, but still we all avoid Him. We don?t want to completely surrender unto Him. We are still holding on to materialistic things with one hand even if we try holding His lotus feet with the other, instead of totally surrendering to the Lord Sriman NarAyaNA, just as Draupadi did. The key is to not prevent His grace from showering on us.
When Sriman NArAyaNA descended from Vaikuntha, he wanted to settle in a nice location, where he could provide His devotees with the easiest access to Him. He decided Sri Rangam to be that place. Sri Rangam has the river Kaveri, which is considered to be even holier than
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