Poojyashree Shree Amma's Vedhanaadham - The Sound For The Soul-September 2007!

Bhaktas of the Lord have no means of extinction. This is what the Lord proclaims to Arjuna in Gita. The Lord swears by his words and proclaims that his devotees never face extinction. Those who are always meditating on the Lord are never touched by any sins. Sin will befall those who do their duties out of expectation of the fruits of their work. Those who do karma for the Lord are unaffected by the outcome and hence are untouched by the sins. That is the strength of bhakthi and is considered to be very sacred. A jasmine plant will not yield foul smelling flower even if watered by sewage or waste water. It is the nature of the jasmine flower to emit fragrance. Bhakthi is very sacred and even if appears to produce sins, they are destroyed by the power of bhakthi. Aandal also asserts that if we meditate and sing the glories of the Lord all our present and future sins will burn as if cotton burns when comes in contact with fire. It is a fact that those who chant the names of the Lord are found to wash their present , past and future sins.

Tirumangai azhwar was a true devotee and has lost himself in bhakthi. The azhwar decides to undertake sinful tasks just for the sake of building the temple walls of Srirangam. We often comment that there was no use in azhwar trying to build the walls by doing these sinful activities and instead he could chosen better ways. Even today the walls are present and it only matters what the Lord think about the azhwar's karma and not what the present human race feel about it. Like with a dog determining the capabilities of a Lion, it would be unwise to try to explore the intentions of mahatmas. Similarly a flower with no odour can't comment about a fragrant flower. As ordinary mortals it is enough to observe what the mahatmas have done and not try to come to any conclusion based on our limited capacity. We saw how the azhwar drowned all the workers who helped build the temple. The worker's relatives are pressing the azhwar about their missing near and dear ones.

At a time when the azhwar was feeling a bit low about the deeds, Lord Ranganatha promised the azhwar to save him at all costs as it was His duty to do so. As advised by the azhwar the relatives of the workers came to the temple after taking a dip in river Cauvery. The azhwar requests the relatives to call out their missing ones and they in turn do as per azhwar's advice. The relatives then hear their missing ones speaking to them and they all proclaim that by the blessings of the azhwar, they have attained the highest state of reaching Vaikundam (Moksha). The missing workers speak about the nature of Vaikunda and how they are having a joyous life devoid of all worries. They also advise their relatives in the temple to devote their lives as advised by the azhwar and attain a good state in life. The relatives were ecstatic on hearing this. The workers had a number of bad habits, had accumulated past sins but by the grace of the azhwar they had attained a state which they could not have attained in a million births.

The workers when about to be drowned thought only about the Lord as they had sincerely worked and helped in building the temple walls. They all died with the thought of the Lord in their minds. The Lord also in Gita asserts that a person attains the same that he or she thinks at the time of death. Hence the workers who were thinking about the Lord at the time of their death attained His abode. The workers were ordinary beings and worked for money. But their mere association with the azhwar had proved to get the most sought after thing in life - Moksha. Tirumangai azhwar helped such a big group of people to attain salvation and we can't even imagine such things. Even if they all had meditated for millions of years there would not have been a guarantee that they would have attained Moksha. There is more to come and we will enjoy it in the coming issues

RadheKrishna.
Lord Renganatha

We always take pride about the way we think, our intellectual abilities, our ability to solve day to day problems by proper analysis and achievements as a result of our hard work as compared to the rest of the population. But the fact is that is that the Lord is the most intelligent of all, the most powerful force and is the only one who can accomplish anything. The karmas of our past birth (Prarabtha karma) alone results in granting this pride and subject ourselves to torture. When we do karma with some expectations then it pushes us down to hell. In vedas there are many places where you can come across Yagnas to relieve ourselves from the sins of past births. But then what happens is that it results in karma being done to vanish the sins, karma or yagna being done to accumulate virtue and this results in millions of births to be undertaken by humans. No one can remove the harm effects of the past sins by their own efforts.

As long as we are doing karma with the expectation of some outcome there will be no end to our birth death cycle.If we decide to accept and realise the power of the Lord then our lives will be comfortable and peaceful. The Lord is not asking something big and instead asks us to perform karma for Him and submit the fruits to Him. Is it possible to remain detached to the fruits of ones action?. Let us take the example of a tree. It stands in sun and rain but yet gives shade to people who stand underneath the tree. The tree never expects the people to praise it for providing shade. Similarly a tree would yield flowers and fruits but it will never claim ownership of the fruits even though it yielded it. The trees parts like leaves, twigs etc are only used for the benefit of others and never enjoyed by the tree. Even in Srimad Bagawadam, Krishna says in Brindavan to lead the life as that of a tree. The tree never is sad because it has to live for others nor it takes pride in its actions. The tree continues to do its duty or dharma without any expectations.

The Lord expects us to lead a life as that of the tree and we can surely lead a life as that of a tree. A washing machine whether it is attended to or not will keep washing clothes until it needs to be repaired. Similarly fridge or a vehicle is there and they are all for our own use and derive nothing from us. They never complain of the burden and continue to do what they have been designed for. If these machines need to be repaired they never on their own try to get it done. The users of the machines alone take efforts in getting it repaired. A car is there and it travels in rain and shine but does not complain that the passengers inside it are having a nice enjoyable ride.

Humans should also do all activities as the will of the Lord without any attachments to the fruits of ones action. We are not able to perform poojas properly because we expect good work to be praised. If we do bhajans for one hour or regularly read Narayaneeyam or Bagawadam for the sake of being praised by others then these actions will not yield anything. We must do all our karmas for the sake of the Lord and dedicate the fruits to Him and is considered special. Even if we have flaws in doing our karma, the Lord will discard it and use the rest of the fruits of action. Let us say that we are cutting vegetables and find that there a portion of it is rotten. We tend to cut that piece out and use the rest. In a similar way the Lord will throw out the flawed results and accept the good results if we dedicate our karmas to Him. This is one of the big secrets of life. A brinjal can't by itself remove its rotten portions and only the humans who use the vegetable can do so. Similarly if we do all our karmas for the Lord, He will ensure that all the good benefits are accepted and the flaws are ignored. Hence we didn't have to take pains to think whether the fruits of actions will be good or bad. So we have to accept and do our karmas for the Lord and the Lord definitely knows what to yield as fruits for each of our actions. A child will play all day and the mother alone has to think about providing food and ensure that the legs don't ache due to too much play. Likewise if we do our karma without any thoughts, the Lord will take care of everything. As with cloud without retaining a drop of water sheds everything, like a sun shining as per the will of the Lord, like the wind without preferences breezes through everything ,we should train ourselves to do all our karmas for the Lord. This alone will result in inner peace.karmas.

There is more to come in subsequent issues...

|| RadheKrishna ||