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Can you define what living means?

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raghu M • November 6, 2000 


Om Asmad Gurubhyo Namaha!
Sreemathe Ramanujaya Namaha!!

With great love and complete surrender to
the Lotus feet of my a:charya,
translation of Sarga 21 of U.Ve. Sriman Sri
Bhasyam Appalacharya Swamivaru's Sundara Kanda
Tattva Deepika continues..

Seethamma says,
"Ravana! If you don't want youself and your
kingdom to be destroyed, extend a hand of
friendship to Lord Rama. Even if you decide
you don't want to extend this hand of
friendship and decide to die instead, there
is still time for you to act as if you are
trying to be friendly. This will make sure
you won't die such a disastrous death"

Due to the concern our Mother has, she laid before
Ravana both his options " Extend your hand of
frienship or atleast act as if you intend to do it".
Knowing Ravana's Ahamkaram Mother knew that
he would never ask for 'Sarana:gathi'.

'Friendship' brings an equality between the two
parties but 'sarana:gathi' means one party is
is greater while the other party is helpless
and cannot exist without the first party's help.

Seethamma knows that Ahankaram will cause
people to forget who the giver is and how our
actions and reactions should be with respect to
the giver.

If one decides to cut a tree's branch he or she
should be on the tree while attempting to do
that. Similarly even if one decides to play
with fire like God, he should be dependent
on God himself.

Seethamma says,

"te:na maitri: te: yadhi ji:vithu mecchasi"
"If you have a desire to eagerly seek His
friendship."

There is a lot of significance to this
upadesam done by our mother.
What exactly is living or surviving?
We think if we are able to move with this
sareeram we possess, it is called living.
But that is not exactly what living means.
We (atma) not deserting our body (sareera)
is called living.  Who is living? Not us.
But the Sareera ( body ) has life as long
us we (atma) don't leave this body. Ofcourse
do we have control to do that is a different
question.

Just like soul (a:tma) is for the body(sareera)
in a similar fashion God ( parama:tma) is for
us souls (a:tma).  So we are considered
living as long as we are in constant association
with our Lord with extreme, incessent love.

.... to be continued ...

Om Namaha Parama Rushibhyaha namaha parama rushibhyaha,
Jai Sreemannarayana,
Raghu Ramanuja Dasa;


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