SrI:
SrImatE rAmAnujAya nama:
SrI lakshmI narasimha parabrahmaNE nama:
Dear SrI vaishNavas,
Before the Islamic invasion sliced off religious
freedom, British culture corroded the integrity and
self esteem of our men, media?s hypnotizing secular
slogan diluted the vigour of religious beliefs and
finally modern education baselessly irrationalized the
fault-less scriptures of ours; Vedic religion used to
rule the lifestyle and destination of bhArat-varshis
(the inhabitants of the land of bhArata). In the karma
bhUmi, dharma used to be followed by majority of men,
who were guided by the sAmpradAyic Acharyas in
disciplic succession. Under the supervision of
fatherly kings, people flourished without experiencing
any hardships. Even when the unworthy kings ruled,
people retained their strong culture and sustained in
hard-times. Irrespective of economic growth, people
were always full of purpose in life.
Times have changed so also social, political, economic
and religious situations during the last millennium.
Economics dominates lifestyles than ethics.
Importantly, states have become secular, to be more
precise, anti-religious. Religion is completely
isolated from academics intentionally or
unintentionally and people have no possibility to hear
about religion in any organized manner unless and
otherwise influenced by special situations; resulting
in surfacial superstitious beliefs if not complete
loss of religion.
In hard times like these, it is no easy to spread the
good word of God, where the entire money and machinery
is under the hypocritical greedy people. Even in such
upstream conditions, the compassionate AchAryas are
trying their best to reach all men with the sole
purpose of redeeming them, and are preaching the
philosophy of self surrender. Every politician, news
network, scientist,? promises to give freedom to the
people, and sufficient food for their senses, sothat
they are always busy not to find that they are bound
in sense enjoyment. And the poor AchArya has to
convince the people that their freedom is in surrender
to the supreme Lord, SrImAn nArAyaNa. Alas! We always
shut doors to our well wishers, to paramAtma and
AchAryas.
Even among the demons, great personalities like
prahlAda and bali appeared; fortunately so, some
vaishNavas are still remaining in this kaliyuga 5000
years after parikshit maharaja left for SrI
vaikuntham; which is why this mail finds some purpose
and audience. Our pUrvAchAryas appeared on the face of
this planet to grace their genuine mercy upon us and
give us the path to retain our swaroopa (our original
configuration, i.e., servant of the Lord). We are the
lucky few to notice the generosity of our AchAryas
(adiyEn sincerely feels myself unfit to receive such
mercy, which is simply causeless[nir-hetuka]), and
have a vague idea of the incalculability of their
gift.
1. What is the value of a great gift which we cannot
be utilized to yield us the desired result
(un-interrupted Service to the divya dampati)?
2. What is the value of a great gift whose value
cannot be shared with other needy fellows?
First of all, we have to realize that we are offered
an invaluable gift by the AchAryas in the form of
prapatti mArga. Once we make ourselves clear about
this, we automatically develop the urge to utilize the
opportunity and also to pass it to others. In the
present context, the gift is devotional service unto
SrIya: pati SrImAn nArAyaNa. How can we cultivate this
gift? By simply, performing devotional service. The
easiest way to perform devotional service is by
executing the instructions of the AchArya, i.e.,
chanting the mantras into which we are initiated, by
always doing hari nAma smaraNa; by doing his bhajans
(praises); these we can cultivate better, if we find
the company of people who are having similar goals.
Which is why, AN ASSOCIATION OF SrI vaishNavAs is
necessary. This is important for all SrI vaishNavAs
living in India and abroad; and especially for those
who live in abroad.
In bhagavad geeta, Lord KrishNa says, ?by associating
sense organs with their objects, one develops lust?.
In this world, we always find sense objects which
attract the attention of our senses, no matter how
hard we try to control them. This being the case, we
can best regain our normalcy by being in touch with
other vaishNavas who remind us of our dharma. Another
important activity for all vaishNavas is to praise the
Lord with songs and bhajans. This is also best carried
out in the association of other vaishNavas.
Before the colonial rule, people were good at their
mother tongue and AchAryas like rAmAnuja insisted on
bhajans in the language which people can understand.
Hence all the Tamil hymns became part of sankeertans.
Most importantly, aLwars sang in praise of our perumAL
in this very language. Hence Tamil has been the main
language of worship. However, now, by the tireless
efforts of our AchAryas, SrI vaishnavism crossed the
boundaries of Tamil speaking lands; and it becomes an
absolute necessity to let the other language devotees
understand our philosophy and sing our hymns. English
slowly claiming its universality, it becomes a
necessity to make scriptures available in English
translations.
If we want to eradicate confusions, and confirm
uniformity in the practices; it is at most important
to make scriptures like SrI Bhagavad-Gita with SrI
visishTa advaita commentary available freely to every
one(probably online versions) and promote every one to
read them. It is also important to distribute the
basic level information to every one in the form of
books in simple language. Even if the people cannot
read the books right now, even then, they have to be
distributed now, sothat one fine morning they can open
it and read. The priority is not just to publish many
books but also to make people learn the minimum
things. This can be done more at a personal level, by
teaching to the family members, relatives and friends
and others about the vitality and significance of
practicing SrI vaishNava life. We must take this
responsibility, each one of us. If we realize that we
are gifted to practice a SrI vaishNava life, we
automatically try to share it to others, because, we
do not enjoy great things alone. Soulabhyam
(availability) is the greatest quality of nam-perumAL.
Hence, we should work keeping His scheme of things in
mind.
How to form an International SrI vaishNava
association:
Here is a prototype to form a fully connected
progressive International SrI vaishNava
association(using small world networks model).
1. List all the vaishNavas that are associated with
you and make them part of your personal association.
Try to be personally associated with them, share your
devotional life with them. You should associate at
least with 2 other vaishNavas.
2. Inform your associates to do the step 1 in their
vicinity
3. Make one vaishNava(who is not already in your
group) in your group member?s group as your own group
member.
4. Ask your group members also to include one member
like in step 3.
In a little amount of time, this kind of network can
connect any 2 vaishNavas within a chain of few
(probably less than 5 members) people. When we develop
SrI vaishNava association, we can also reclaim all the
SrI vaishNavas who are currently associated with other
organizations like ISKCON.
It is not just sufficient for us to exercise prapatti
ourselves, but have to inform many unfortunate people
who are least aware of the transcendental nature of
paramAtman. We can inform people about our sidhAnta as
much as they can digest, and bring them little more
closer to Emperumanar.
There is a great interest in the western world about
the philosophy of east, which allowed gaudiya
vaishNavas, advaitins, neo- vedantins and budhism
produce in-roads in to the western countries. This
example should be seriously considered by SrI
vaishNavas, as we are bound by AchArya rAmAnuja?s
instructions to spread his SrI bhAshya far and wide.
Main points:
1. Books in simple English a.bhagavad gIta b.
Important upanishads c. puranas and acharya's
literatures
2. Simple keertans from poorva AchAryas
3. association of sri vaishnavas, need to form a
distributed networks, and getting to know each other
better
4. teaching visishTa-advaita to relatives and friends
as a customary effort to let know
5. spreading sri vaishnavism to the European and
Western frontiers
reclaiming sri vaishnavas who are in other
organizations and other paths by providing them SrI
vaishNava association
dAsOham,
SrIperumbUdUru vEnkaTa vinOd.
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