Pearls of Wisdom ~ Azhaikindran Arangan Episode June 1st 2012

In the kshetram of Kumbakonam, in the aaramudhan sannidhAnam, nadamunigazh,
"aaraa amuthE! adiyEn utalam ninpaal anpaayE neeraay alaindhu karaiya urukkukinRa nedumaalE seeraar senNnNel kavari veesum sezhunNeerth thirukkutandhai Eraar kOlam thigazhak kitandhaay! kaNtEn emmaanE!"
having listened to the above pAsuram, towards the end on hearing the words "Oraiyirathuzh ippathum" and on inquiring of the bhakthar the whereabouts of these 1000 pAsurams, comes to know that everyone is saying that nadamunigazh will one day come to restore these pAsurams. The bhakthar in the sannidhAnam is telling this to nadamunigazh himself.



Nadamunigazh cannot describe his amazement on hearing this. Is the bhagavan going to use him to perform such a leela! Out of the 4000 pAsurams this "Oraiyirathuzh ippathum" which have been composed by nammAzhwar. How is bhagavan going to bring back the 4000 pAsurams through nadamunigazh? The bhakthar does not know this but this has been talked about over the generations of ancestors. What did they talk. There will come a mahatma called nadamunigazh who will come to a mahatma called pArAngusadAsar on the banks of the thAmarabharani river. Acharya nammAzhwar having blessed madurakaviazhwar with the upadEsham of these 10 pAsurams, which when a continuous chanting of the same is performed 12000 times then the pAsurams will begot again. Hearing about such a great thing and with great interest, as soon as he heard this, nadamunigazh immediately left for thAmarabharani and meeting pArAngusadAsar got the upadEsham of the 10 pAsuramns which madurakaviazhwar had described about nammAzhwar. Then nadamunigazh himself did japam of these 10 pAsurams 12000 times, nammAzhwar arose himself from the the archAvatAra thirumEni, although nadamunigazh had desired for 1000, he truly obtained all the 4000 pAsurams. Although the 12 azhwars have composed the pAsurams, if nadamunigazh were not there, even today we would not have had these 4000 pAsurams with us.

How the vaishnava achArya parampara inherits is like this:
"lakshminAtha samArambAm". 
sakshath nArAyanan himself, followed by
piRAti, followed by
vishwaksEnar also known as senaimudaliar, followed by
nammAzhwar.

A greatness that has not been attributed to all other azhwars has been attributed to nammAzhwar. When speaking about Andal we would say, in whichever sannidhAnam for the perumal we go, there will be the 12 azhwars and in the goshti of the 12 azhwars there is a place for Sri Andal as well. In the moolasthAnam, under the kulasekarapadi from which one is having the darshan of the perumal, seen next to the perumal is Sri Andal occupying the place as thAyyAr. This greatness is not attributed to any other azhwar which our nAcchiar possesses, is what we would usually say, isnt it.

Similarly there is a separate greatness that is attributed to nammAzhwar that is, "nammAzhwar has a place among the azhwars as well as being the Acharya himself". nArAyanan, piRAti, viswaksEnar all belong to sri vaikuntam whereas nammAzhwar was born on earth ("bhoolokha"). From nammAzhwar, these 4000 divyaprabhandams were obtained by nadamunigazh and therefore next to nammAzhwar, nadamunigazh comes. After nadamunigazh who comes is,
Uyyakondan, followed by
manakAlnambi, followed by
Azhavandar, followed by
periyanambi, next comes
Ramanujar.

Thus, we see "lakshminAtha samArambhAm nadayamuna madhyamAm asmath Acharya paryanthAm vande gurum paramparAm" comes as a lineage.

What is the place of the Acharya? samsAris like us need not think that we have been born now and lived. If we all ask a question as to why we are living, if we ask ourselves, there is only one answer that we know of - because we have been born, therefore we are living. what else can one answer to this question of why one is born. Similarly for living what else can be the answer. What is the answer we have for why one day we are going to die. There are no answers for all this. Not just because one is born, he is living, no. In fact we have had several such births before this, not 1,2 or 3 births, we have taken crores of births. Until pralayam we take several crore births and again reborn after the pralayam, in case we did not attain mukthi even in the mahapralayam, we will once again enter the cycle of birth and death. Thus we have already taken crores of births, there are crores of births awaiting us as well. In either case this cannot be guarantee that amongst these crores of births taking place, one will get the birth as a human. We can be born as a worm or snail. Having born as a human, with all indriyas functioning, having satsangham and the several sadhus giving us hitOpadesha and not being fully involved in bhagavath bhakthi, how are we then going to perform this in another birth? Apart from the human birth, in an another form how will the bhakthi come? What is the reason for cycling through this samsara - Say one is walking on the street, there are some holes dug at various places on the street for the purposes of drainage system, cable, electricity department and if one is not walking with giving due attention to these holes, falls into a big hole. Say it is night then, 9 or 10 PM. He fell into a drainage which is running underneath. He falls thankfully the water is only upto the waist, his upper torso is still intact and there is no fear of losing life. Looking all around he sees the drainage waste water and unable to control the foul smell. He cannot rise himself up as there is no hold upon which he can use to jump on to the surface. Luckily for him on this day the force of the water is not great to draw him away. He tries shouting from inside the hole. Its night 11pm, not many people on the street and it is a secluded road. So he waits hoping for the morning to come thnking that some people will come during the day time, someone may come to buy vegetables in the morning or go to office and can then hear him shout. No one came in the morning until 9 am when somebody passing by heard him shout and looking down asked him what did he want? When earlier in the night the urgency was to get out and even so early in the morning, but now being further late his hunger had taken precedence, so the first thing he asked was, can he be given something to eat first. His interest in coming up is much less than the desire to satisfy his hunger first. Now coming up became secondary to him due to his hunger taking precedence. If he came up, he will satisfy hunger as well as escape from this hole was not what came to his mind. Likewise, samsAris as we are, if after having been drowned in this world again and again, even if bhagavan himself came from above, we will not ask for the release of our disease of samsAra, mukthi from this bhavarOgam or get an eternal place of srivaikuntam, rather we will ask for marriage, child, work, release from difficulties, relief from loans either in the manner of Arthi or arthArthi.

The reason being, even more than mukthi we are more concerned about relief from the difficulties arising out of samsaram. Because of the level of desires we have and the need for enjoyment in the samsAra, the prospect of mukthi itself is becoming secondplace. As we have been again and again, having being drowned in the ocean of samsAra over many many births, we do not know how to get out of it and attain mukthi and neither do we have the desire to get mukthi. Like a chain this samsAra is extending and we need to somehow break this chain of birth and death. When will we really go to the bhagavan is, in whichever janma you get the paripurna kataksham of the achAryan, you get the paripurna kataksham of a jNani or mahatma and this gets fulfilled, only then this chain of the samsara will be broken and we will attain the lotus feet of the bhagavan.

When we say that we need to attain the achArya, guru, jNani, sadhu, in that aspect there is a lot of attention we need to put in and focus on. What is the attention that is required? The sound of the word "Guru" and who is the "Guru" is what we need to clearly understand. How?, if one says he is a jNani, he cannot be taken for that. If one says he is a Guru, he cannot be attained like that, either sadhu or mahatma are not titles that one can take himself nor can one be given the title by the world even. Just 10 people join together and proclaim one is a sadhu, jNani, guru, mahatma or do some research and come up with a title that can be given from the likes of an university. No, it is not like that. This achArya, Guru, mahatma is indeed given by the bhagavan and it is the bhagavan who gives this place or title. This is what we see beautifully exposed in the Srimad Ramayanam. What we see in the ramayanam is sakshath mahalakshmi (piratti) and bhagavan, in that we see both jeevan and jeevatma as a goshti. However this piratti is imprisoned in Sri lanka for over 10 months. What is the reason for Sage valmiki not to mention it as 8 months or 9 months but 10 months exactly is that a jeevan lives in the womb for only 10 months. Thus a jeevan is experiencing the pain of living inside the womb for 10 months. Even the rakshasis amongst piratti is also depicting the difficulties faced when jeevan is inside the womb. Then bhagavan desires to get that jeevan unto himself to join with himself.

Whether you have the desire to attain the bhagavan or not, the bhagavan is desirous of getting you attached to himself all the more. That is why we see Sita piratti always in sadness, fasting and crying for the 10 months. Her body has become thin. No taking bath, no food and always crying without making any effort. Only ramapiran is trying hard and struggling to find ways to get piratti back to join with himself. It is only for the bhagavan to find the way to get the jeevan back to himself. Though Sugriva, jambavan, nalan, neelan, angada and the entire vanara army being with rama, its only to Sri Hanuman that Sri Rama gives his ring etched with rama nama. This ring has been given to no one else.

What this depicts is, Hanumar is the Guru, Sita is the jeevan, Rama is the bhagavan - to get the suffering jeevan attached back to himself, the archarya that is being sent is decided by the bhagavan himself and not one who self proclaims himself as a jNani, mahatma or guru and there is no solace gained by surrendering to one such. So with Hanumar being sent is the signet ring by the bhagavan rama himself, with the seal (just like one who comes from the government shows an identity card) that is imprinted with ramanama on the ring. Hanuman is being sent as the representative, such an acharyan. Acharyan is one who is being sent by the bhagavan himself. How then do we recognize an acharyan sent by the bhagavan himself? - these are not things known or can be seen by the naked eye, even things seen with the naked eye are often misunderstood or misinterpreted either due to our lack of knowledge or awareness. So how one comes to know is by way of the acharya parampara, when one is coming through the parampara then he is to be taken as refuge without any doubt. So in order to bring such an avichinnamAna, thailadaraiya parampara, the bhagavn himself sets it up for us to beleive in and take refuge. That is what we have been seeing. Where does this parampara start, right from sakshath narayana himself. Then piratti, then senaimudalaiyar, then nammAzhwar and if we take refuge in such an acharya parampara, then we will have no doubts at all whether one is a mahatma or not, whether it is right that we have taken refuge in one, whether we can go on this path or not. That is why the bhagavan himself has setup such a acharya paramparAm, which samsAris can follow without any doubt or concern and thereby eventually attain the lotus feet of the bhagavan.
Subham
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Azhaikkindran Arangan by Anand Sundaresan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License Purely for Educational and Non-Commercial Purpose.
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