Dear Sri Kalaivani, This question has been put an innumerable number of times by people sometimes to themselves and sometimes to others. What I feel on this is as follows : A person does prapatti to the Lord when he realizes his utter helplessness to come out of the clutches of his past karma and the 3 gunas. Also he/she doing prapatti to the Lord indicates that he/she loves the Lord to a good extent. Its only when you love him, you want to do something for him, you want to be good in his eyes, you want to create happiness in his heart when he sees you and so on. So you realize that somehow you want to elevate yourself from the position you are in. But you keep failing again and again on your self-efforts filled with ego ( I can protect myself ). Its no doubt that effort is required from a soul, but while doing that, the person should remember that all these are being made possible by the Lord himself. As Lord Krishna said, "What ever sacrifice you do, do it as an offering to me". There should be no ego that I am doing this. Otherwise, it can result in a downfall. Many people now a days do prapatti to the Lord thinking that thats the end of it and the Lord will protect them. Its not the case. Prapatti is the acceptance of lack of ego and accepting the Lord as the supreme everything for the soul and raising your hands towards him like a fallen child, which is asking its father to lift him up. But one cannot lift the hands to the Lord once, say that he has done prapatti and drop the hands. He need to keep that thought constantly in his mind, that the Lord is the only one who can deliver him from the clutches of this karma and make the soul fit to enjoy serving HIM. Finally its for the Lord to decide on the fate of the soul. If Krishna lifts everyone who just says I am doing prapatti, then there is no justice there. His grace on a soul should be based on something. A person who does prappati ( Accepts the Lord as the Supreme and the one and only relation to Him ), Keeps loving the Lord continuously in all adversities of life, tries to do his small bit of service which is dear to the Lord becomes dear to Krishna and then Krishna chooses him ( ye me vaisha vrunute tena labhyaha ). So real prapatti is one in which the soul has accepted its utter helplessness and is looking for the Lord's grace, but at the same time, continues its efforts to lead a life dear to the Lord. All this is automatic as real prapatti is done by those who Love the Lord to the core and so even after accepting his supremacy, they cannot stop doing things which try to please him. A child which is dear to its father, knows very well that the father is taking lot of pains to save it and also that the father will save it when the time comes. But it also loves its father, when it realizes his love towards it and so starts doing things which try to please him. Today many people say that we have done prapatti and stop there. This is not the real prapatti. Its the mental feeling of total surrender to the Lord, but as the person who loves the Lord really only can do the real prapatti, that person continues to do his small bit to please the Lord and will not remain actionless thinking that he has done prapatti and now its the Lord's turn. All this I said, because the word Prapatti is being used very freely now a days. It is no doubt the easy means to reach the Lord, but it is fruitful and has real meaning when done by people who are in the real exalted position and who have that intense love to the Lord. All others escapists like me, say that we have done prapatti and can forget and live with our worldly selfish pleasures and since we are prapannas, the Lord will some day come and deliver us. Now coming to the worship of other deities,..A person who has done real prapatti really loves the Lord. To him the Lord is his only relative. He is like a pious wife who is only devoted to her Husband and no 0thers. When you have accepted the Lord as the supreme and the only means to deliver you, you have accepted that all others are inferior to him. If you have a doubt in the supremacy of the Lord, then how can your bharanyaasam help you. Personally, even though I am totally a bad guy who is only interested in the worldly pleasures, no other form pleases me except that of Lord Sri Hari. Lord is the supreme one. All other deities are definitely to be respected, but not to be worshipped. So if this is really understood, this question will never arise. Lord is everything. All other deities are working for him and serving him and are parts of his divine body. So all of them become automatically respectable. There is no doubt or question about that. If a person says that Lord Krishna is the only supreme one to me and I have done bhakti or prapatti or what ever to Krishna and I will not respect any other lesser souls, it means that he has the ego that His Lord is great, His family is great, His path is great, His bhakti, prapatti is great etc. How can this be called true Bhakti and Prapatti then?. The person who really did prapatti, respects and loves every being equally, but with the thought that all of them are related to the Supreme Lord who is everything for the person. He will not quarell with anybody about the supremacy of the Lord as he is not egoistic in thinking that he has to prove that his Lord, Path etc are superior to others. He knows, that if the Lord had to prove his supremacy, he can do it himself or make this person as an instrument in that. Sri Periyaalwaar was commanded by the Lord himself to establish his supremacy in the pandya raja sabha and as a real devotee to the Lord He did. Sri Periyaalwar was also called Sri Vishnu Chitta. He had the Lord in his heart forever. He loved the Lord as his son. But he was the most humble person and lived all his life serving the Lord out of love. There were no questions in the great Alwar's minds about whoom to respect, whoom not and how to preach about the supremacy of my Lord. They loved the Lord to the core, served him to the core, had automatic respect to everyother being in the world and they were actual prapannas and deserved the position they got in Srimad Vaikuntham. Guys like me just say that we do Prapatti and do all sorts of non-sense in this world. How can we be eligible for the grace of the Lord?. Its been a long mail, mainly due to my own frustration of not being able to match the standards which will please the Lord. Your mails on Surdas poems ( especially the ones on Little Kannan ) were excellent to me as I really love the little form of the Lord. I wish that someday, he will give me enough Love and strength which will bring me to a position which will please the Lord and make me the true father to my Loving little Lord. I pray to my aacharya to protect me constantly and protect me from falling into the trap created by my own bad karma. Kindly forgive me for any wrong things that I have written. Jai Sriman Narayana Maruthi Ramanuja Das
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