Saint Ramanujacharya
According to Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita philosophy Brahman is Paramatma that is supreme soul and individual self is Jeevatama. They can be compared to an ocean and a drop of water. The ultimate goal of Jeevatama is to reach Paramatma, just like the destination of every rain drop is the ocean through complete surrender. Once Jeevatama reaches Paramatma, it will continue to serve Lord Narayana, the Supreme God.
V Shanmuganathan
Great saints and sages of our Mother Bharat transform the lives of people living in this materialistic world and guide them to lead a meaningful life.
In the south of India many spiritual personalities have taken birth to spread the glories of the Lord. Of all these people with divinity, perhaps the most famous was Sri Ramanujacharya.
Millions of followers
Sri Ramanujacharya is regarded as the father of the Sri Vaishnava philosophy. Sri Ramanujacharya was instrumental in spreading the Sri Vaishnava philosophy extensively throughout India. His philosophy is called as Vishishtadvaita, which explains about a way for individual self to reach supreme soul. Vishishtadvaita of Sri Ramanujacharya is very popular when compared to the other philosophies because it has revealed many facts of the Vedantic philosophy. That’s why millions of people follow the Vishishtadvaita philosophy preformed by Sri Ramanujacharya.
Three commands of his Guru
Sri Ramanujacharya was born in the year 1017 A.D., Chitra month and on the day of Arudra star, in the village of Sri Perumbudur, about twenty-five miles west of Madras (Chennai). His father was Kesava Somayaji and his mother was Kantimathi, a very pious and virtuous lady. Ramanuja’s Tamil name was IIaya Perumal. He mastered the Vedas at the young age of 16 years, with the divine grace of Lord Varadaraja and Devi Mahalakshmi in Kanchipuram.
His Guru Alavandar had three desires and wanted him to fulfil them. They were: a) Write commentary on Veda Vyasa’s Brahma Sutras, b) The names of Sri Parasara and Vyasa are perpetuated, and c) Propagate the Vishishtadvaita philosophy as recommended by Alwars in their work, Nalayira Divya Prabandham containing 4,000 verses in Tamil language. Ramanuja vowed to fulfil these wishes. Ramanuja spent rest of his life fulfilling the three wishes of Alavandar.
Respecting sentiments of weaker sections
Ramanujacharya was known for his broadmindedness from his young age. During Ramanuja’s time, there lived a great Vishnu Bhakta called Kanchipurna alias Thirukacchi Nambi. He was a non-Brahmin by birth but had a great devotion for Lord Varadaraja and served him everyday at the temple. Ramanuja was fascinated by his devotion and learnt a lot about devotion and serving God from him. Many people in the village never liked Ramanuja’s association with this low caste Kanchipurna. Ramanuja had a great respect for Kanchipurna and he often invited him for lunch. One morning Ramanuja invited Kanchipurna for lunch and went to Lord Varadaraja’s service in the temple. At lunch time Ramanuja came home with a banana leaf and told his wife to get the lunch ready for Kanchipurna. Ramanuja’s wife replied that she had already served lunch to Kanchipurna, gave the leftover food to the maid, and cleaned the place where he ate. Hearing this Ramanuja was very disappointed with his wife and the way she treated Kanchipurna. Ramanuja’s wife was so orthodox and she exhibited discrimination with the people belonging to other castes. Whereas Ramanuja was an open minded person and had a great reverence for Kanchipurna. He regarded Kanchipurna as a very learned person and a great devotee. He felt that his wife has not treated Kanchipurna fairly and thus he was deeply hurt from inside.
There was also another incident with his teacher Mahapurna, who taught five steps to Ramanuja as to how to become a Sri Vaishnava. Mahapurna belonged to slightly lower level than Brahmins sect. One day Ramanuja’s wife made discriminatory remark at Mahapurna’s wife while collecting water from the well. Ramanuja’s wife said that the water collected by Mahapurna’s wife and her may have got mixed up, and being a higher caste person she cannot use the water that has got mixed up with the water that was drawn by a lower caste person. Due to this insult Mahapurna left Ramanuja’s place without informing him. After learning this from his wife Ramanuja decided to leave married life and become a saint, because he felt that married life is a hindrance to his commitment of learning and fulfilling the three wishes of his teacher Alavandar.
Ready to go to hell for the sake of millions of people getting moksha
The third incident is the most classic of all, and it happened a little later in his life. After establishing worship procedures at Srirangam, Ramanuja approached an elderly spiritual master Thirukkottiyur Nambi to learn the most sacred mantras. He introduced himself to Nambi as the servant of Lord Varadaraja. Nambi taught the sacred mantras to Ramanuja, but instructed him not to share with anyone as they were the most sacred mantras. He also warned him that he would go to hell if he shares the mantras with others. After learning the mantras, Ramanuja shared them with everyone irrespective of the caste, creed, sex and social status. The next day he climbed up the gopuram of the temple and taught the mantras to all those who gathered there. He also advised them to chant that sacred mantras all the time to reach heaven. Immediately Ramanuja’s teacher Nambi called him and threatened him that he would go to hell for sharing the secret mantras with everyone. In reply Ramanuja told his teacher that he would be happy to go to hell at the expense of many people getting moksha for chanting the sacred mantras. At this response his teacher Nambi realised his mistake and Ramanuja’s greatness and decided to become Ramaunja’s disciple.
Destination of every rain drop
According to Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita philosophy Brahman is Paramatma that is supreme soul and individual self is Jeevatama. They can be compared to an ocean and a drop of water. The ultimate goal of Jeevatama is to reach Paramatma, just like the destination of every rain drop is the ocean through complete surrender. Once Jeevatama reaches Paramatma it will continue to serve Lord Narayana, the Supreme God.
Complete surrender to Lord Narayana
Ramanuja was an incredible devotee of Lord Narayana, and this he was able to demonstrate on many occasions. In his effort to fulfill the three wishes of his teacher, Ramanuja travelled extensively to spread Sri Vaishnava philosophy. When he went to Karanataka, he learnt that the daughter of the king of that area was haunted by evil spirits. Learning the greatness of Ramanuja the king requested Ramanuja to heal his daughter. Ramanuja simply chanted the name of Lord Narayana and gave princess the holy water to drink. Immediately the evil spirits left the body of princess and she became well. As the king hailed Ramanuja, he replied that it is the greatness of Lord Narayana that healed the princess and He protects anyone who surrenders to Him completely.
This incident is a great testimony to Ramanuja’s complete surrender to Lord Narayana, and in fact he was the true messenger of Lord Narayana.
Every one is eligible for God’s grace
Ramanuja was instrumental in establishing correct practices in all Vishnu temples, including the famous and the most sacred shrine of Tirupati. He taught his disciples the correct way of worshipping Lord Narayana through Pancharathra Agama. He also made sure there were no errors in worshipping Lord Narayana. He made sure that there is a place for Nalayira Divya Prabandham, the works of Alwars, in the day to day worship of Lord Narayana.
He also made sure there was no discrimination against the people of other castes. One great example is a Lord Vishnu’s temple in Melkote in Karnataka, where a very special celebration is held once in a year called Vairumidi. This celebration goes for almost a week, and during that period people of lower castes are given maximum importance to celebrate and worship God in their own way. Thus, Ramanuja was a great social reformer. Ramanuja made a point many times that everyone, irrespective of caste, creed and sex, is eligible for Lord Narayana’s grace, and it can be received with complete surrender to Him.
Atma Ram Kejariwal
British rulers gave us the education system, which produces only white collared citizens. It makes a person literate but not necessarily educated, knowledgeable. The mentality across populous has become to go for English medium and convent schools. Nothing wrong in this preference, but most of the parents make their own opinion about standard ratings of each schools and make every sort of efforts to seek admission of their kids in targeted schools. They do not hesitate to go beyond their financial means to seek admission in desired schools even if this is far away from their residence. In this process they forget how much stress and hardship is being inducted in the lives of their kids. The mentality is such that as if admission is secured in desired school, nothing more is needed and it is ultimate.
Broadly today’s kids are facing many hardships which are curable and can be classified in following: Tender age of admission, Time spent in commuting, Weight of study material to be carried.
Kids are left in day time with either domestic servants or day care centres which work purely on commercial basis. Nuclear family resulted in snatching kid’s company with and care from grand parents. This is result of education system made by British. Financial compulsions, desire to live luxurious and comfortable life, comparison with other are few of the reasons which make mothers to go for job or profession ignoring her own kids to whom she herself has given birth. Our values have changed drastically. It is a good part that few of mothers give importance to their kids over job/profession and gives due affection, love, and care to her kids.
Some concrete actions are needed to come out of this damaging situation. It may be difficult but is both possible and feasible. Solution in the form of exchange programme between schools for children already in schools, change in parent’s false notions for school brand image needs to be developed at social, administrative and other levels. General awareness has to be created in the society against this evil. If designed and planned well, large scale coverage on TV and print media in the form of advertisement, write up, short stories, TV Serial episodes etc. will be effective with miraculous results.
At administrative level various actions can be taken including following: fixing geographical limit of kid’s residence from school-provided sufficient admission request to fill available seats are being received by school; financial penalty for minor breeches and de-recognition of the schools from respective boards in case of measure default; stopping financial assistance by government and other bodies; providing land at concession to new institution/schools with this condition similar to condition of admission to weaker section of society; centralised admission system for each well developed locality of a city/metro as being done in professional courses etc. These are few ideas; more possible solutions can be discussed at broader forum including all stake holders, academicians, social persons etc. Some people can out right disagree with this suggestion but this definitely deserves sincere considerations. This cannot be implemented overnight, it will take some time, may be few years. Once this action is implemented it will help kids immensely and will have excellent results. Moreover reduced travel distances of school buses will help in reducing pollution and will help our environment, which has already become over polluted in cities and metros. It will also help, up to some extent, to reduced foreign exchange out go for import of petroleum products. Traffic congestions will also reduce.
To reduce travel time of kids for commuting from home to school and back even for smaller distances in same locality, parents and school authorities should consider using small size vans over larger buses. As large buses have larger sitting capacity, these buses takes longer routs for commuting kids which is time consuming and causes hardship to kids. Small size vans with lesser sitting capacity will take much less time. Logistics can be worked out.
Another area of concern for the kids is physical weight of study/educational material one has to carry every day to school. One can here concern/joke that weight of bag is more than the weight of the kid. This is not merely a joke but harsh reality of society. In many cases schools come out with newer and newer study material which may or may not impart quality education to kids but definitely increases harsh ship to kids. Commercial angles for such introduction of study material can not be ruled out.
The weight of study material to be carried every day can be reduced by splitting text book of a subject in multi parts say 4 or 5 as the case may be. For example any book having some 300 pages can be divided in 4/5 parts, each part will have some 60 to 70 pages. This may increase binding cost of book a little bit but will reduce weight of study material to be carried drastically. Student will carry only that part of book which is taught on that day. Similarly note books for writing and home work can be of much less number of pages to reduce weight. These are few suggestions and such more solutions can be thought off and practical solutions can be implemented.
It is high time that educationist, social reformist, spiritual leaders come together to discuss in details, exchange views, discuss every aspect, practicality and suggest required reforms for better lives of our kids who are future citizen of our country.
(The author is a Mechanical Engineer and Gold Medalist from University of Rajasthan)
Guru Dakshina
Guru Dakshina reflects the samarpan bhava (qualities of faith, conviction and sacrifice) of a swayamsevak. There are numerous ways of expressing samarpan bhava. Pracharaks (those who have given their life for Sangh) offer tan (physical body), man (in spirit) and dhan (forgoing any personal profit) for work of Sangh. That is the ultimate dakshina.
Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, founder of RSS, revived the tradition for organisation building. As no individual is perfect and immortal, a symbol of purity, sacrifice and victory, Bhagva Dhwaj (saffron flag) is regarded as the Guru. The swayam-sevaks take an oath in front of the Guru and express their sense of sacrifice and gratitude for giving inspiration of unlimited love for the motherland, Bharat Mata. When swayamsevaks selflessly took up the task of massive relief operations during the Uttarakhand tragedy, they were manifesting the spirit of nationalism and humanity already existing in them and nurtured by the RSS shakha. Here are some real stories reflecting nurturing of values of sacrifice and devotion:
True incidents
It was an evening student shakha in Jamnagar, Gujarat. All the young swayamsevaks were in full uniform and were assembled to perform Guru Puja. After the customary bauddhik, every swayamsevak walked towards Bhagwa Dhwaja, did pranaam, placed flowers and dakshina at the feet of the Guru, and returned to his place. An inspiring chorus, praising the Bhagwa Dhwaja, was being sung by swayamsevaks during this ceremony. It was getting darker and the last swayamsevak had offered his puja. The shikshak was about to ‘order’ uttishtha for the final prayer when he noticed a woman walking towards the seated swayam-sevaks. All the swayamsevaks watched her as she walked towards the Bhagwa Dhwaja and placed a small packet. She bowed and then went away outside the shakha compound. From her clothes and face, she looked poor. After the Prarthana and Vikir, the shikshak enquired who the woman was and what had she offered. The packet contained some coins. The shikshak found that she was the mother of a very young swayamsevak who had died few months ago.
He went to her house which was situated near the shakha ground in a slum area. She told the shikshak that her son used to work part time and had saved some money for the Guru Puja utsav. She had found money with his belongings. When she came to know about the utsav, she decided to offer his dakshina to the Guru. The shikshak was overcome with emotion and his eyes swelled with tears.
Such was the Samarpan Bhava of this young swayamsevak.
*****
Shri Rattan Agarwal was a young swayamsevak of Mombasa shakha (Kenya). He was very dedicated and regular in shakha. He suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised. His condition was serious. Somehow he realised that he may not survive long. One evening the nagar karyavaha Zaverchandji had gone to see him in the hospital. After a short stay, Zaverchandji stood up to go home. He wished him quick recovery and back to work. Rattanji’s eyes were wet with tears.
He said with choked voice, “Zaverchandji, please take this as my Guru Dakshina” and placed an envelope in his hands. “I don’t think I will live upto the Guru Puja Utsav”. Zaverchandji consoled him and assured him that he will soon be back home in good health. Rattanji did not survive long. On the day of Guru Puja utsav, Zaverchandji placed the envelope at the feet of the Guru, paying tribute to the Samarpan Bhava of Rattanji.
(Incident narrated by Shri Zaverchand Shah and Dr. Sanjeev Oza)
(Courtesy: bauddhik.org/Guru%20Dakshina%20-%20True%20Incidents.pdf)
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