"maRumaikkE veRumai pooNdu" says azhwar. What this means is that, usually no one believes that there is life after death. The indication that one believes this for certain can be said. if in the present world, one fears death and lives in humility. I beleive God, papam, punyam, life after death, will leave to another world after death - this is no great thing just saying this. It should show in our work that we are following this. If we have lived in this world, we need to be aware that we need to answer to the bhagavan later, also to the other worlds. The way we lead our life will shows how we are believing it. Sakshath ramapiran when he was living life in the forest, once looking at lakshmAzhwar, says that him being the son of a chakravarthy, yet he is roaming about in the forest.
LakshmanAzhwar replies, "I told you so then, we can take the kingdom, even Dasaratha also mentioned that Rama can decide himself, but not having listened to this then, now after coming to the forest you are talking like this". To this perumal gives an answer. Lakshmana, "in this world I am fearful about only two things, one is dharma and another is paralOka." When we are in a small way straying from dharma, we will not know the danger from this. As we go on straying away from the path of dharma and once we are very far off, then we cannot avert the danger at that time. A train as it keeps travelling within the rails smoothly and steadily, that is how it will reach the destination safely. If it slides away from the rails, that will cause danger. All the travellers in the train will be affected by this danger. Like that, we humans must always travel within the rails of dharma. There will be lots of difficulties for the one straying away from dharma, bhagavan will be patient watching him, thinking that maybe he will correct himself and come back again, whether he will straighten himself out having strayed away from the path of dharma.
LakshmanAzhwar replies, "I told you so then, we can take the kingdom, even Dasaratha also mentioned that Rama can decide himself, but not having listened to this then, now after coming to the forest you are talking like this". To this perumal gives an answer. Lakshmana, "in this world I am fearful about only two things, one is dharma and another is paralOka." When we are in a small way straying from dharma, we will not know the danger from this. As we go on straying away from the path of dharma and once we are very far off, then we cannot avert the danger at that time. A train as it keeps travelling within the rails smoothly and steadily, that is how it will reach the destination safely. If it slides away from the rails, that will cause danger. All the travellers in the train will be affected by this danger. Like that, we humans must always travel within the rails of dharma. There will be lots of difficulties for the one straying away from dharma, bhagavan will be patient watching him, thinking that maybe he will correct himself and come back again, whether he will straighten himself out having strayed away from the path of dharma.
If we send a child to the shop to buy some things, on the street if he sees someone showing some games, new shops, the child will stay there watching it immersed in it all. After sometime becoming himself again, eh will realise that he has come to the shop to buy something, so he will speed up to go there. Like that even in our life, time and again, if we do small mistakes or waver from dharma, we need to rectify that and come back to the right path again. But if we keep wavering and straying away from dharma, one day the loss and danger we may encounter at a later point in time cannot be corrected. This is what ramachandraprabhu beautifully says here. So I fear only two things, dharma and in paralOka, for all the work we have done in this world we need to give answers.
The life after death, believed in our culture, is what is determined by the "shrAdHam". shrAdHam itself means the activity must be done with extreme shraddha or faith and devotion. In tamil it is called "neetharkadan" or "thithi". To whom we are giving "Gingely seeds" or "water" or to whom we are feeding food, lets keep the debate whether this reaches the dead ones or ancestors for later. But one thing is for sure, having borne us for 10 months, cleaned all our waste, when we had pain they also suffered with us in their hearts, sung songs to make us sleep day and night, gave us milk and brought us up, once in an year atleast with the shrAdHam we get the chance to think about them. Otherwise in the fast life that we are leading we will forget everything. We may not have the time. Thinking of them atleast on that day, we will shed a couple of tears. How our parents brought us up. Atleast to get that thought, this thithi is becoming a reason isnt it. When the father was alive, whether we give food or not, but we are atleast offering the gingely seeds and water to the departed father, this thought comes to us isnt it. We will think about them and how much for us they have sacrificed, that thought will come to us.
"Matha, Pitha, Guru, Deivam" - the sastras tell us to think of mother as God, father as God. Many bhakthas when singing about the bhagavan, have told that you are my father and you are my mother. As the sastras say think of parents as God, then God itself is mother and father as also said in the sastras, then it shows there is no difference between them. If a son offers thithi to the mother or father, performs shrAdHam, say he lived for 50 or 60 years, he can only do the shrAdHam for that many years. The fathers blessings is very important for the family. In many families if the children are born with diseases, then the reason is that the ancestors have not been happy. This is what the elders will usually say. In whichever family, the ancestors are happy, then the family will grow.
Not only will the generation grow, there will be no shortcomings in the growth. Therefore we need the blessings of the ancestors, which is what the elders have always said. Even if the son is alive for a certain number of years, how long will this son perform shrAdHam for his parents. Only for a certain number of years, isn't it. But can you believe that there is one who is doing shrAdHam for his parents for over a 1000 years. No one knows when the shrAdHam was started. This is not a human but the bhagavan himself. Which bhagavan is performing such a shrAdHam? Amongst the kshetrams, there is an amazing kshetram called Thirukudandhai. In Kudandhai, there is the Aramudha sannadhi called Sarangapani. This Aramudha temple is curiously different. The temple itself is like a chariot. There is a chariot, the big elephants, the wheels and there are steps to climb on the chariot. Inside the chariot the perumal is in the sayana thirukOlam. Just as a chariot come down from the heavens, made of stone is what we can see today in the Aramudha sannadhi in kudandhai. As we enter the Aramudha sannadhi, on the right hand side, the prakAram is very wide whilst the prakAram on the left side is narrow. In the narrower side of the prakAram is the sannadhi of the kOmalavallithAyar. When constructing or creating any temple, keeping both prakArams equidistant is the norm. Both the right and left sides prakAram must be equal.
In Kumbakonam, such a beautiful kshetram and on the banks of the river cauvery, this Aramudhan sArangapAni enperumAn is offering the darshan to the devotees in an elevated position. The perumal thiruvadi will be beautifully raised vertically. If we look carefully Ganga, Yamuna, Godavari, Narmada, Sindhu, Saraswathi, Cauvery - all these 7 punya rivers will be on the lotus feet of the perumal. What is the significance behind this is that, if we just meditate upon this lotus feet of the perumal we get the benefit of having bathed in the 7 rivers rather than bathing in each river individually. In this thirukudandhai kshetram we can see this beautiful darshan of the perumal. This is a wonderful temple, Aramudhan temple. When beholding the beauty of the Aramudhan, its such a wonderful sight. How much ever we behold the Aramudhan perumal, we will never tire of it. We will not have the feeling of having seen and return. That perumal which one will never feel having seen enough of is the Kumbakonam Aramudhan.
In this temple there was a devotee called lakshminarayana swami. We do not know what time he lived, he was a brahmachari. Without getting married, he was always performing kainkaryam to the Aramudha perumal. Even today on the outside of this temple there will be a big rajagOpuram, this rajagOpuram itself was setup by him only. This person never had the desire to marry, have children and lead a family life. He was always absorbed in the kainkaryam of the aramudhan perumal. But everyone was saying its fine if you don't want to marry, but there is a offering that you will still need to do, for your ancestors, as well as to the gods, the duty is there to take care of living parents, all this debt needs to be cleared. He needs to perform the yaagas and finish the debt to the gods. Whatever the itihaasa and puranas the maharishis have blessed us with, by reading that we need to clear of our debts to our ancestors. Being present right in front of us are our parents to whom we need to offer seva. We need to perform yaaga to the devas and clear our debts with them. Timely srAdham we would need to perform, offer thithis as well as the debts we need to offer our ancestors, we need to clear off. Each and everyone of us born as Hindus, we need to at least once go to the Gaya kshetram and in that Gaya, we need to put the food ("pindam") for our ancestors. Usually in a family there are lots of children born so that atleast one of them may go to Gaya and offer the pindam for the ancestors. Even if you are a brahmachari it is fine now, but once you are dead who will do all the ceremonies, who will light the funeral pyre, monthy or yearly shrAdHam who will do, who will give the thithi for you. But in order to answer them all, lakshminarayana swami will say, for me all this the Aramudhan himself will do. For me the perumal himself will do like this he used to say, people would mock at him. "Are you blabbering, can perumal would do all this for you." But by saying again and again and with bhakthi and shraddha he kept on saying like this. On the day of deepavali, amavasya he attained the lotus feet of the lord. The perumal, coming through the archakan told, 'lakshminarayana swami always kept telling his relatives and friends that Aramudhan swami will do all his ceremonies, the perumal said that on every deepavali, amavasya, HE will do the shrAdHam for him". Even today after 11.OO am the temple will be closed, onvthe deepavali day, amavasya, how the shrAdHam has to be done, perumal will do the shrAdHam and all the respective foods for the shrAdHam, the perumal will be offered with. This shows how much the bhagavan comes down for his bhaktha. That is what in Kumbakonam kshetram, Aramudhan sannidhanam, over many many centuries, the perumal who had given his word to his bhaktha, the desire of the bhaktha is being fulfilled even today
Subham
Radhe Radhe
Read more translations of the other episodes at: http://aranganinarumai.blogspot.com/
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