Dear srEvaishNavites,
DEEMED WEALTH-THE REAL WEALTH.

It is commonplace to attirbute wealth to the followign:a good place to live
in, an army of vehicles or even one coupled with luxurious living, possessing
lot of jewels and raimnets, high standard of living and so on and so forth.
English adage however puts "helath is wealth'. this is what is stated by
AuvaiyAr as "nOyaRRa vAzhvE kuRaiyaRRa selvam".

What do our AzhwAr-s think in this regard. They have got a very simple formula.
Those people who are near to the Lord/who are blessed by the Lord, are wealthy.

This can be clearly inferred from the pAsuram
".. selvach chirumErgAL.." thiruppAvai 1. These children do not possess any
wealth in the common materialistic parlance. However, they receive the grace of
the Lord sriman nArAyaNA. Hence, they are deemed wealthy, which is in fact the
real wealth. ARayirappadi vyAkyAnam underlines this point precisely
-"athmAvukku srEmath, bhagavath sparsamiREA" - The wealth for the soul is nexus
with the Lord.

In the sam thiruppAvai a friend of Lord krshNA who is always with Him is termed
as "naRchelvan thangAi" thiruppAvai 12. Here ARAyirappadi vyAkyAnam mentions -
"kainkaryamiREA sampathu"-
Is not service to the Lord real wealth?

sri vibhEshanA who had to leave his motherland and family is termed as "selva"
vibEdanan by thirumangai AzhwAr in periya thirumozhi 6-6-5;

One should recall that when iLaya-perumAL was ready to leave ayOdhyA for the
forest, sri vAlmiki referred to him as
wealthy. This was because he was to be with the Lord always.

Should we not then desire for the deemed wealth, the real wealth.

vanamamalai padmanabhan