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Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00311 Dec 1998

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SrI:
SrImate SrI Lakshminrusimha ParabrahmanE namaha
SrI Lakshminrusimha divya pAdukA sEvaka SrIvaNN ShatakOpa -
SrI nArAyaNa yateendra mahAdESikAya namaha

Dear devotees,
namO nArAyaNA. pranAmams.

Lets discuss about the philosophical implications of the mAyA sItA
episode.

The kidnapping of sItA pirAtti by rAvanA will not be tolerated by
any devotee. For that matter, the same feelings arise when one hears
about how virAdhA also kidnapped pirAtti earlier. The most important
thing is that PerumAL and PirAtti performs all these avatAra leelAs
for
the sake of the devotees who deeply relish all their leelAs ,kalyAna
guNAs exhibited etc. The divya dampati induces the "ruchi" (taste) of
bhagavad anubhavam for the baddha jIvAtmAs through their avatAra
leelAs. If one feels heavily and cries for the kidnapping of pirAtti
by
rAvanan, then that leelA of pirAtti is a success !! All these acts of
the divya dampati makes a jIvAtmA easily pour out their love towards
them and all such loving reciprocation is what bhagavad prEmai is all
about. This is the unique speciality of vibhava avatArams of PerumAL.
Ofcourse, the archA avatAram scores over vibhava avatAram in many
a ways and our AzhwArs and poorvAchAryAs have elaborated on this.

The question now is whether sItA pirAtti is really affected very badly
by
the touch of rAvanan , who is a materialist with lusty desires. Well,
what
about PerumAL? Is He affected too by the touch of materialists ?

The answers to these questions become much simpler if the answer to
the
following question is got :

Qtn: Sriman nArAyaNA, the Para Brahman pervades everywhere
ie. nArAyaNA (divya Atma svaroopam) is everywhere. Will
prakruti (matter) then affect Him ? How can PerumAL be
inside
materialistic objects and simultaneously be not affected by
them ?

A slight Elaboration of the Qtn :
The three principal names used in the vEdAs for denoting the

Para brahman is nArAyaNA, vAsudEvA and vishnu. All these
refer
to sarva vyApakatvam ie. all pervasive nature of PerumAL.
Hundreds of pramAnams like "Sarvam kalvidham brAhma" ,
"vAsudEva sarvam iti ..." , "antar bahischa tat sarvam vyApya

nArAyaNastitaha" etc speak about this esoteric aspect . So,
PerumAL
is in and out of prakruti.

Apart from this SrIman nArAyaNA also has "prakruti" as an
attribute
as per the sarIra sarIri bhAvam ie. PerumAL is the sarIrI and

prakruti is the sarIrA ( prakruti is supported and controlled
by Him,
prakruti exists solely for His pleasure). This is declared by
sruti as
"yasya pruthvi sarIram" etc .

We all know how much this prakruti is affecting a jIvAtmA.
Since there is such an intimate connection between SrIman
nArAyaNA
and prakruti, won't prakruti be affecting Him?

One may have a doubt as to how come then nArAyaNA is
not affected by the changes in the prakruti , if He is
physically inside it (as a jIvAtmA, its dharmabhoota
jn~Anam is affected by prakruti viz.animal body,plant
body,human body,old aged body, youthful body etc ,
eventhough its swaroopa jn~Anam is unchanged.similarly
,won't the dharmabhoota jn~Anam of nArAyaNA be
affected?)

ans: Ofcourse one knows that prakruti can't affect nArAyaNA
because He is the Supreme God."prakruti" acts as
"prakruti" only because of His sankalpam. "Fire" acts as
"fire" as we know , because of nArAyaNA's sankalpam .
When PrahalAdA was pushed into "fire", nArAyaNA changed
His sankalpam to make the "fire" behave oppossite to its
nature, which was set by His sankalpam previously and thus

His bhakta was not at all affected. So, prakruti can't
affect
nArAyaNA .

The following analogy is usually told to drive the point
in. After a person eats some halwA which had excessive
ghee in it , he uses some powder/solution to remove the
ghee sticking to his hands. But , the ghee also had
contact with his tongue which he never botherd to clean
with the powder/solution since ghee didn't stick to it.
Similarly , though nArAyaNA is present everywhere , the
changes in prakruti doesn't affect Him.

Sri KarunAkaran swAmy in one of his upanyAsams
narrated a wonderful pastime of Bhattar :

While Bhattar was delivering heart melting
kAlakshebam on bhagavad vishayam esp. the
kannapirAn's (KrishNA's) Govardana giri lifting episode ,
a
disciple asked as to how come perumAL would have saved
the AyarpAdi vAsIs from the torrential rain caused by
Indran (deva) if that malai (hill) was not present there
.
Bhattar gave a brilliant answer as usual : "PerumAL
would have saved the gopAs and gopIs from the rain
using the rain itself " . This has very deep meaning .
The rain acts according to its nature because
of perumAL's sankalpam . If perumAL changes His
sankalpam then the same rain can act as the umbrella for
the devotees !!!! ( difficult to visualize . But the great
fact put forth through this statement can be understood ).

Thus, perumAL ( divyAtma svaroopam) though pervades
everywhere and has "prakruti" as His inseparable attribute
, it doesn't affect His essential nature of being
transcendental
to "prakruti" . Sriman NArAyana being transcendental to
prakruti
doesn't mean that He should not have any contact with prakruti
.
This is obvious since if not so , then it will result into the
absurdity
that prakruti is more powerful than even perumAL and can
even affect His dharma bhoota jn~Anam . Infact, even nitya
sooris and muktAs won't be affected by prakruti and their
contact with prakruti won't make them bounded by karmA.
Only the baddha jIvAtmAs are affected by prakruti.
According to the karmA, particular jIvAtmA is forced to
have some achEtana as being favourable to it and some
being totally unfavourable to it.

A pig eats stool and such stuff ; germs and worms live in
sAkkadai; fish lives in water etc. But this is not the way
we are. Do's and dont's of sAstrAs are strictly for those
baddha jIvAtmAs which has taken the human body.
In accordane with sAstrAs, one should have his/her likes
and dislikes.

The bottomline is that , for the Divya Dampati , muktAs
and nitya soorIs, prakruti is also auspicious and not
something abominable , while baddha jIvAtmAs are
bound by it and has some form of matter(prakruti) as
favourable and some other form of matter as unfavourable.
--------------------------------------------------

PerumAL takes avatAram solely for the pleasure of His devotees.
The body perumAL has is made up of suddha sattvam and not
prakruti. Thats why it is referred to as Divya mangaLa
vigraham.
( only in archAvatAram, the thirumEni is composed of the
mixture
of prakruti and suddha sattvam).

Similarly, pirAtti also has suddha sattva sarIram (divine
body).
"Suddha Sattvam" as a material is made up of "jn~Anam"
similar to how a jIvAtmA is. But , "Suddha sattvam"
doesn't possess the "dharmabhoota jn~Anam" & thus can't
percieve anything outside of itself . Thus , it doesn't
belong to
the category of "chEtanA" because a "chEtanA" is an
entity which can "know"/"percieve" ie. a chEtanA must
necessarily have "dharma bhoota jn~Anam" .

Any materialist cannot contaminate suddha sattva sarIram of
sItA PirAtti. SwAmi Desikan explains that pirAtti is vibhu
ie.
all pervading , similar to how PerumAL is. Similar to
PerumAL,
pirAtti is also transcendental to prakruti .

So, rAvanan / virAdhan cannot contaminate pirAtti by their
touches.
Rather, they played their role in the leelA performed by the
Divya
Dampati. Thus, though a mAyA sItA might have been employed by
PerumAL ( ofcourse, according to vAlmIki rAmAyanam, it is not)
,
the reasoning that touch of a materialist is contaminating and
thats
why mAyA sitA was present is not appropriate. It is the
sankalpam
of the Divya Dampati alone, if at all, mAyA sItA was there in
one of
rAma avatArams.

In conclusion, there is nothing contradictory in PerumAL
having
prakruti as His eternal attribute and simultaneously prevade
inside
it.

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan
ananthapadmanAbha dAsan
krishNArpaNam



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