Today is Sri Ramanuja's 994th Jayanthi - An appeal

[Guest guest]

Srimathe Rangaramanuja Mahadesikaya Namaha

Srimathe Bhagavathe Bhashyakaraya Mahadesikaya Namaha

 

Sri Ramanuja's Tanian

----------------------

yonithyam achyutha padambuja yugma rukma

vyamohathas thad itharani thrunaya mene: |

asmad guror bhagavathosya dayaika sindhoho

ramanujasya charanau saranam prapadye||

 

Sri Bhagavadh Ramanuja is the great acharya who established Visishtadvaitha

Philosohy. He is called " darshana sthapakar " of our Srivaishnava sampradayam.

Today is his 994th Thirunakshatram day. In the year 2017, we will be celebrating

the completion of 1000 years of Sri Ramanuja's avatharam. There are only 7 more

years for this. While I was reflecting about the greatness of this day, I also

thought of what we can do as a community. We dont need to spread our sampradayam

like other religions to others. There is no need for that. But we need do a lot

more to bring in more awareness of the great sampradayam to our own

srivaishnavas as many of us frankly are lost in modern hinduism.

 

While there are many who come in the sishya lineage of Sri Ramanuja, if we truly

and candidly reflect the current state, many of us call ourselves Srivaishnavas,

Iyengars etc without knowing what it means. Many dont know who their acharyas

are or even sadly who Sri Ramanuja is. Many of us dont even wear the thirumann

when we go to even divya desam temples or religious functions at our relatives

place. Many iyengars dont even seek their acharyas to perform samasrayanam and

prapatti or bharanyasam which are the core tenets of Sri Ramanuja's

sampradayam. Many srivaishnavas go to other so called swamijis, babas etc

leaving the sadacharyas of our our sampradayam, mainly in pursuit of material

happiness and impressed with their magical tricks. In reality, there is only a

tiny minuscule percentage of today's srivaishnavas who follow srivaishnavam.

 

The point of this reflection is not that we should become a fanatic of our

religion. The point is that we just should not lose the great heritage that has

come all these thousands of year and more till today. Many acharyas have

sacrificed a lot, still sacrificing a lot for our sampradayam.

 

We need to understand the simple tenets of our sampradayam, follow the path

followed by our great forefathers and great acharyas and attain moksha, the

permanent association with Sriman Narayana at the end of this life. More

importantly we should not steal our great Ramanuja sath sampradayam away from

our future generations by our ignorance and indifference. If we dont take

interest to understand or follow, how can we expect our children to understand

or follow.

 

On this day, lets take a resolve to

1. Seek refuge under our own srivaishnava sadaacharyas, stop following

pseudo-acharyas, gurujis and babas of anya mathas.

2. Seek our srivaishnava sadacharyas to bless us with

samasrayanam(panchasamskaram) and bharanyasam (atma samarpanam)

3. Take interest in learning some of our acharya sri sookthis like gadya trayam,

divya prabhandham, sthothrams etc

4. Visit our divya desams and learn about the great alwars and about the

pasurams they sung in that divya desams

5. Teach our children, whatever little we know of our sampradayam by way of

stories and lives of our acharyas.

6. Encourage our children to learn sanskrit and tamil. Not knowing these two is

a handicap to enjoy our acharyas' srisookthis.

 

If some one is already doing all of the above, it is time, we do our little

contribution to the sampradayam by bringing in other srivaishnavas (their near

relatives) to not just call themselves iyengars, but follow srivaishnavam also.

When some one doesnt know the greatness of our sampradayam, they are living in a

blissful state of ignorance. For their ignorance to be removed, they need to

some how be influenced in a positive way without being perceived as thrusting

their own beliefs on them.

 

How about simple things as

 

1. Taking them along for company to divya desams, ashramam seva kalam etc. and

while on the way talking about the greatness of the place, acharyas etc.

 

2. Instead of giving money or other sophisticated gifts such as flower bouquets,

gift our relatives on occasions like marriage, seemantham, deepavali etc with

such things as CDs of our great acharya's upanyasams, upanyasams from great

vidwans. Many hours of upanyasams are available for as low as Rs 100 from our

Ashramams, Matams and popular religious audio stores like Giri traders. One day

or other they will listen to it and will start getting interested. I have seen

many, become ardent srivaishnavas by listening to upanyasams of Srimath

Thirukkudanthai Andavan, Sri Ananthapadmanabhachar, Sri Mukkur

Lakshminarasimhachar swamy, Sri Krishna Premi and Sri Velukkudi Swami to name a

few.

 

3. Have sathsangams with their friends and relatives in their homes on a regular

basis like weekly/biweekly/monthly or on acharya's thirunakshatram days, to

recite sri sookthis and divya prabhandhams

 

 

If all of do our little part, by 2017, the thousandth avathara year of Sri

Ramanuja, we will have many more srivaishnavas who really practice srivaishnavam

and enjoy the bliss of sadacharya sambhandham. More importantly, even if few

individuals start getting interested in our sampradayam and follow

srivaishnavam, many of their future generations would not have lost our matham

due to the current generations' indifference. They will get to appreciate the

greatness of our Sri Ramanuja sampradayam and get to enjoy the fruits of all the

sacrifices of our great acharyas in establishing our sampradayam.

 

 

adiyen ramanuja dasan,

 

Badrinarayana sharma (a) Shyam