Bhagavannamakeerthanam is the only one which gives both mukthi and darshanam of the bhagavan. Whilst saying so, we will get a doubt. What is that? Namasankeerthanam is so easy and with a thing so easy as this how come a great thing as the bhagavan himself will be obtained. Everyone will think that one can obtain a great thing only with lots of difficulty. Only with great difficulty can one obtain a greater thing while a task accomplished in a small measure will beget a smaller thing is the most common opinion.
But if we look at day-to-day life this is not the case. In villages, villagers go to the forest and hilly areas to cut trees, small wood and come back to the village, weigh them and based on the weight they will get the money and with that money even today there are many leading lives. To accomplish this task, the effort put forth by these villagers to cut the trees is enormous and difficult. Usually they will start before sunrise itself, walk a long way, the forest path will be filled with thorns and stones, small poisonous worms would bite but still with great difficulty they will cut the thorn filled trees, fell them, tie them and whilst tying them many thorns would prick them, carrying them on their hands will come back to the village. Then when they finish their business weighing them on the scale and completing the transaction the time would be 6 PM in the evening. They would start very early in the morning and with some rice prepared last night which they would carry with them for their lunch and then bring back the wood carrying on their shoulders and take payment of just Rs.50 or Rs.100 for their living.
But some have an agency and their office is just a room, which will have an air-conditioner and there will be just a phone there. They will just make a phone call and a lorry containing coconuts will be coming from the other state, they will just link the lorry with the businessman in his state. Money will come from whomsoever loaded the lorry with coconuts, whomsover accepted the coconuts will also give him money. He gets several thousands of rupees right at his sitting place. Like this if he carries on with several business in a day, he will get several lakhs. Did they suffer like the woodcutters in the village, no, they earned sitting at their place. No need to move hands and legs, just a phone call was enough. In those days when there were no cell phones, they need to be present in a room with a landline. Today with the advent of mobile phones that too is not necessary, whereever they are, they can do the linking with the mobile phone itself.
Hardest work performed by the woodcutters but they got the lowest salary.
Lowest work performed by the agency people, but see they got the highest salary. Thats why we have a wrong notion in our minds, harder the work we do, greater the money we will get and lesser the work less is the money we will get. But we cannot say so. If we know and realise what is the correct thing to do, thats enough! If you keep doing work as per your thoughts and desires and suffer with it, one can only feel sorry but cannot advise you that you will get the benefit from your hard work.
In the Srimad Bhagavatham it is said beautifully about a method described to attain the bhagavan. If you have not followed the method shown by the mahans and do whatever you think is the best method you liked, you may not attain the bhagavan but what will remain is just "sramam yevahi kEvalam", what remained is the difficulty you faced. There will be no fruit begot. All effort in vain. Because you did not follow the method shown by the mahans.
NAMAKEERTHANAM IS THE EASIEST WAY, THE BEST WAY, THE WAY THAT WILL YIELD GREATEST BENEFITS.
So one cannot ask questions on how this will give us this. why, did anyone tell you there is such a thing as moksham, did you see this? who said? Sastras have said. Mahans have said.
Mahans have said there is moksham, presence of another world, punyam, papam, presence of GOD and if we do such and such a thing we can attain God. Which means you can attain God only in the way dictated by them and not by going down your own path. So the sayings of mahans is the authority, they have shown the path and have said that path is namakeerthanam. If you go all around India you can find several bhakthas. In Karnataka we can find Purandaradasar, ashta dasar, Kanakadasar, Vijayadasar and several such have sung glories of the Lord. If you go to Maharashtra (Marati desham) we can name Tukaram, Namadevar, Gnaneshwar, Janabai, Ekanathar several such bhakthars have sung the glories of the lord. In Uttar pradesh, Rajasthan, Swami haridas, Mirabai have sung in praise of the Lord. So many have sung and for all these mahans a path was shown. All these several bhakthas have followed, be it Swami Jayadevar, Mahaprabhu, be it Bhadrachala Ramadasar, Thyagarajar of Tamil Nadu, they all have followed the path shown by one. Who showed this path? They were the AZHWARS! The path shown by the 12 Azhwars were followed by all these several bhakthas to attain the bhagavan. What is that these 12 Azhwars showed?, what path all these bhakthars took? In India before all these bhakthas came, the foremost among them were the Azhwars. Amongst all these 12 Azhwars, 3 things were common. One Azhwar sang on Rama, another on Krishna, another sang at the same place he lived, yet another toured many places where he sang, these things being different however 3 of them stood out as common.
Firstly, They sang glories of the bhagavan in their mother tongue! From the heart if one were sing they would love and experience bhagavan with their song. Using a different language other than the mother tongue will not bring forth the words at the speed of thought. When using a different language whatever thought that arise in the mind will not come with the same speed from your mouth. You need to convert it to the language you have learned, but while speaking in your mother tongue the words will fall naturally from your mouth. While we travel through the villages, when we ask the address and directions to go to a certain place showing the visiting card, the villager will say he cannot read but when we ask by our mouth he immediately answers. Why, although the villager has not read, his mother tongue comes automatically when spoken. These 12 Azhwars have sung all the glories in their Tamil mother tongue. That's why Purandaradasar sang in his mother tongue Kannada. That's why even Mira sang in her mother tongue Vraja. Similarly all the Maharashtra bhakthas have sung in Marati. If we need to love and relish the bhagavan as we like then we need to sing in our mother tongue which is what these Azhwars told. Although Thyagarajar lived in Tamil Nadu, yet he sang in his mother tongue Telugu. That is what is comfortable. Then only the words will fall beautifully into place. This is remarkable.
The Second thing thing Azhwars told is to sing about the bhagavan and it would be easy to attain him if we sing. Do Namakeerthanam. That's the reason why all these bhakthars sang about bhagavan. If we fully read the 4000 Divya prabhandam again and again its about singing. Without doing namakeerthanam what's the use of reading the divya prabhandham. The full of prabhandam talks of singing the namakeerthanam. Since these 12 Azhwars told so, all the bhakthars from Maharastra, Purandaradasar, Jayadevar and Bhadrachala Ramadasar all mention the significance of the namakeerthanam.
The Third thing Azhwars told is just not to sing the glories of the perumal in Vaikumtam or in Parkadazh nor even the antaryami bhagavan in our heart. This is because the ordinary devotee may feel that he may not be able to know about Vaikuntam, nor go to Parkadazh nor the antaryami inside and may think that bhagavan is not for us and thereby move from this. Since the Azhwars wanted to bring all the devoees together the common thing with them was they never sang about an unseen God. They always sang about the archAvathAra perumal only. 'arimEya viNNagaram nenje' - when talking about the arimeya vinnagara perumal Azhwar says 'arimEya viNNagaram, vaNangu mada nenjE'. When saying 'mada nenje' that's a very beautiful tamil word. What will be an equal word in sanskrit language for this most beautiful word, I thought? 'Mada nenje' was told by Adi Shankara as 'Bhaja govindam Bhaja govindam govindam bhaja Moodamathe', this 'Moodamathe' our Azhwar has told beautifully in Tamil as 'Mada nenje'. 'Thiru Alli Keni kandEne arangamAnagarulAnE'. Not singing about a bhagavan elsewhere, not even singing about the bhagavan present during the time of the avatars, the Azhwars but told about the leelas of the bhagavan. These were about the VadabadrasAyi of Srivilliputhur, Sriranganathar of Srirangam, Pundarikaksha perumal in Thiruvallarai, the Azhwars bringing the archAvathAra perumal to the front and showing that the bhagavan is actually here. Go and see HIM in the parthasarathy temple, sriranganathar in srirangam or to the nearby kshetram of tiruvallArai to see Pundareekakshan or the one residing on the other bank of Cauvery, 'Appa Kudathan' or the bhagavan residing in Sembanarkoil, sempanarasan or thiruchitrambalam pallikondan or the Gopalan residing in Kavalampadi. Thats why having described and sung the divya desham perumal, the same way was followed by all the other bhakthars of India who followed the Azhwars. So many abhangams that were sung by the Maharashtra bhakthars, those abhangs were not for the Vaikuntapathi but for the residing Pandurangan in Pandaripur. Purandaradasar sang so many keerthanas which was for the Krishna in Udupi. Jayadevar and Mahaprabhu sang so many keerthanas and it was for the Jagannathan in Puri. So many keerthanas that Thyagarajar sang it was for the idol he worshipped - Ramar. Similarly Bhadrachala Ramadasar who sang keerthanams, it was for the Ramabhiran in the temple at Bhadrachalam. Thus showing the main moorthy in each of these places and establishing that this moorthy is the bhagavan, the Azhwars and mahans have sung the keerthanas and in the case of Thyagarajar, he sang on his aradhana diety which he kept with himself.
These 3 paths were shown primarily by the Azhwars.
a) Sing the glory of the lord in your mother tongue
b) Easiest way to attain bhagavan is Namakeerthanam
c) Sing about the Perumal residing in the temples
The Azhwars laid a path and all the bhakthars followed this path and thus, the foremost among the bhakthars are the AZHWARS.
Radhe Radhe!
Subham!
