| You are here: Sri Vaishnava Home Page : Bhakti List : Archives : July 2001 |
From: Srikant Sadagopan (srikasada_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jul 09 2001 - 12:14:45 PDT
Dear Bhagavathoththamas,
Now that the main topic of discussion has slid into thoughts on what the
Srivaishnava(SV) community has done to help the downtrodden, I'd like to
share with you all some introspective thoughts on the same.
Let me begin by saying (IMHO) that the SV community itself is on the verge
of regaining its full glory after nearly 300 years but with a 'VERSION'
CHANGE FOR this century! The reasons for *NOT* being a successful community
when it came to OUTREACH programmes were:
1. The community for hundereds of years believed in sharing and passing on
VEDIC WEALTH more than anything else. Parasara Bhattar inherited all of
Kuratthalwan's Vedic wealth and *not* his lands in Kuram.
2. Most professions of SriVaishnavas were Vaidika in nature and very few
were lucrative. Amassing wealth and then sharing it was not the idea at all
until a few years ago. We do not have a SriVaishnava YELLOW PAGES book yet
where SV's of the world network or share and care!
3. Some professionally(monetarily) successful SV's were/are so lost in their
pursuit and ego-trips that they never cared to look back!( A non-Iyengar
friend of mine used to tell me this joke- there are 3 I's of ego. 1.Iyengar
2.Iyer 3.I -Imagine his perspective...when the ordinary man's "I"thvam or
ahankaram comes 3rd!!)
The past two decades has seen some monetarily successful SV's and the
religious meets still cant replace a Diner's club meet for a businessman
wanting leads!(Though I have seen some SV's network with temple-contacts
etc..and this IMHO isnt wrong. It's plain SV-survival instinct..balancing
both work and Kainkaryam!)
Finally there's this other(dont know if its fortunate or unfortunate) thing
catching up- FANATISM for one's lineage and Acharyan. Fanatism is slowly
replacing BHAKTHI BHAAVAM and the feeling of a large gifted community is
almost gone with rivalry building among the already diminished
Bhakthakootas)
Any thoughts on how to balance this?
dAsan!
To Sri Nadadur Madhavan: Please forgive me for prolonging
>this discussion, for I feel it is an important one. We must
>fully explore the notion of kainkarya and dharma. Let it be
>clear that no particular organization is being criticized or
>indicted in this discussion. It is a general topic applicable
>to all of us as Sri Vaishnavas
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
--------------------------------------------------------------
- SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to: bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/