Sunday, September 26, 2010

Love ! !

For a long time, i have never understood love.....i have seen people talk a lot about love.... how it transcends individuals... how it could be the same - loving your country or loving your beloved...but i have never seen or felt love as a powerful emotion... being brought up in a household where we were not used to say i love you amma / i love you appa......guess that had its own disadvantages......and then the Art of Living happened... i could see how Love had made a difference in the lives of many , many people....including my own. How all the negative emotions and that burdening feeling in your heart vanished the moment you thought about someone you loved.....

Today as i write this blog, through my sisters laptop (in my aunts home in Chennai, where we are all gathered for the ceremonies of my paternal grandmother - our patti who passed away on 24 Sep 2010), i have a much deeper understanding and reverence for LOVE.


Why???? because i feel that the most powerful human emotion of all is LOVE. A love for a son, which makes a mother follow his footsteps into the realm of divinity exactly one day short of one year from his departure..... A love for a daughter- in-law, which makes a mom-in-law a mother, a love for a grandson- aing a love for an entire family spanning almost millions of miles. . . a love for the divine.. .. .. .. .. accepting HIS decision of taking her son away and yet yearning for him day and night. . . . .

Today, as a mother follows the footsteps of her son in the journey to Vaikunta - the realm of the divine, leaving behind scores of weeping kith and kin, i realize one thing - that Love is the most sacred of human emotions. And when Love arises, nothing can stand the aura of it.

Let us pray that mother and son attain the realm of the divine peacefully !!!

Anil

(Note - Appa (Sri D Srinivasan) attained the lotus feet of the Supreme Master on 25 Sep 2009. Patti (Smt D Rukmani) attained the lotus feet of the Supreme Master on 24th Sep 2010 - exactly 364 days later

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Samashrayanam & Panchasamskaram


 


SamAshrayanam means 'to approach (AchAryA) with all sincerity'.In a nut  shell , during 'SamAshrayanam' ,the AchAryA initiates a person , irrespective of caste,creed or sex, as his sishyA. It is a commitment from the disciple that he or she will live as per the wishes of the AchAryA. Thus  the person gets the  link to the Sri Vaishnava paramparA. During SamAshrayanam ,                    Pancha SamskAram (five Purifications) is performed and he becomes a "Sri VaishnavA".
         
      The five samskArams and its main purposes are 
 
    1. thApam   : To emboss the impressions of heated Sankha and ChakrA on the arms ( near    the shoulders ).
 
    2. pundram  : To wear the dvAdasa OOrdhva pundram ( 12 Thiruman & Srichoornam )
 
    3. nAmam    : To be christened by the AchAryA afresh as "RAmAnuja dAsan" (addition of 'dAsA' at the end of  ones name) to indicate that one is forever a servant of the Supreme Lord Sriman NArAyanA and BhagavAn RAmAnujA .
 
    4. manthram : To get the initiation of "Rahasya Traya MantrAs" -  AshtAksharam , Dvayam    and charama slokam  .
 
    5. Ijyai    : To learn the worship of Sriman nArAyanA in proper form ( Bhagavad ThiruvArAdhanam) .
 
Today, 
by the blessings of our Lord Sri Lakshmi Narayana Perumal , 
by the blessings of our Sri Vaishnavite Acharya - H H Sri Ranga Ramanuja Maha Desikan (Srimad Srimushnam Andavan), 
by the blessings of our Guru HH Sri Sri Ravishankar,
by the blessings of my father Late Sri D Srinivasan, grandfather Late Sri R Devanathan and of all the members of this illustrious family  - I have completed my Samashrayanam and panchasamskaram .... Feels Gr8....
 
Adiyen Bharadwaja ( Btw having the conch and chakra (panchajanya and Sudarsana ) embossed on my shoulders also feels cool. will post pics sometime

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Sita Kalyanam @ Hosur Satsangam -

Photo taken after the Sita Kalyanam performed at a hall near our home.

 

The lord with his consort and lakshmana and hanuman gracing the car of my uncle who was a part of the organizing team of this festival.

 

Blissful Beauty !

 

Anil

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Ganesh Chathurthi

Come Saturday-11 Sep 2010 and it is Ganesha Chaturthi !

Lets hear something interesting on Ganesha which Guruji has talked about :

Ganesha Chaturthi is celebrated on the day on which Lord Ganesha is believed to bestow his presence on earth for all his devotees. Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati, is worshipped as the supreme god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. Though it is celebrated as the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the symbolism behind the festival is much deeper.

                                                   The essence of Ganeshji is brought out beautifully by Adi Shankara. Though Ganeshji is worshiped as the elephant-headed God, the form (swaroop) is just to bring out its parabrahma roopa. Ganeshji is described as Ajam Nirvikalpam Niraakaaramekam. This means that Ganeshji is never born.He is Ajam (unborn), he is Niraakaar (formless) and he is Nirvikalpa (attributeless). Ganeshji symbolises the consciousness which is omnipresent. Ganeshji is the same energy which is the reason for this universe, from which everything is manifested and it’s the same energy in which the whole world will be dissolved. Ganeshji is not somewhere outside of us, but the very centre of our life. But this is very subtle knowledge. Not everybody can perceive the formless without the form. Our ancient Rishis and Munis knew this; so they created the form for the benefit and understanding of people at all levels.

Those who can’t experience the formless, over a period of sustained experience of manifested form reach the formless Brahman.
                                                     So in reality, Ganeshji is formless; yet there is a form to which Adi Shankara prayed and that form carries the message of the formlessness of Ganeshji. Thus, the form serves as the starting point and gradually the formless consciousness begins to manifest.

Ganesh Chaturthi marks a unique art of reaching formless Paramatma called Lord Ganesh by repeated worship of the manifest form of Ganesha.

                                                      Even the Ganesh Stotram, the prayers recited in the praise of Ganeshji, conveys the same. We pray to Ganeshji in our consciousness to come out and sit in the idol for us for a while so that we can play with him. And after the puja, we again pray asking him to go back to where he comes from; that’s our consciousness. While he is in the idol, we offer back whatever God has given us through the puja of the idol.

The ritual of immersing (visarjan) the idols after few days of worship reinforces the understanding that God is not in the idol, it’s inside us. So experiencing the omnipresent in the form and deriving joy out of the form is the essence of the Ganesha Chaturthi festival. In a way such organized festivity and worships lead to an upsurge in enthusiasm and devotion.

Ganeshji is the lord of all the good qualities in us. So when we worship him, all the good qualities will blossom in us. He is also the lord of knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge dawns only when we become aware of the Self. When there is inertia, there is no knowledge, no wisdom, nor is there any liveliness (Chaitanya) or progress in life. So the consciousness has to be awakened and the presiding deity of consciousness is Ganeshji. That’s why before every puja, the Lord Ganesha is worshiped to awaken the consciousness.



Therefore, install the idol, worship it with infinite love, meditate and experience Lord Ganesha from within. This is the symbolic essence of Ganesh Chaturti festival, to awaken the Ganesha tatva which is masked inside us.

and btw, I will be in Chennai starting 10th till 14th so look forward to seeing a lot of ganeshas and will post on that soon.