based on the vyakhyanam of Sri Periyavaccan Pillai
by Smt Sumithra Varadarajan

"Manisarukkai PadAdhana Pattu" - Emperuman undergoes number of hardships for the sake of we Jeevatmas. Let us now see what all hardships the emperuman undergoes. In the last posting we said that PVP starts the avadharikai with a question. Who a samsari is? Sri Periya vaachan pillai asks such a question because he doesn't belong to that category and wants to keep himself away from them. But all of us know who a samsari is. "Asaare Samsare Vishaya visha sangaakudiyA:" The samsaris are always at the back of some vishayam(matter). Whenever we call them to bhagavat vishayam they have some way to say no. They consider many more things important and highly urgent to be done when it comes to bhagavat vishayam. But saddhus like PVP considered the samsaaric pleasures to be equal to a poison which kills us little by little. Samsaaric pleasures are like a disease and only medicine to this disease is Emperuman and bhagavat vishayam. But leaving this medicine the samsaris prefer to drink the poison. But can the Emperuman who is the father of all simply see his children drink poison? So he by his apaara Kaarunyam tries to pull us out of this.

But if he says don't go at the back of samsaaric pleasures instead fall under my feet, I will protect you then there is not even a single person to listen to him. When a child eats mud though we condemn its act, next time it tends to eat but now without our knowledge. So the mother now lets it to eat and also keeps the medicine necessary handy. When the child suffers she gives the medicine and teaches the child a lesson. Similarly we jeevatmas will never listen to advices so the emperuman lets us in our own way and then teaches us a lesson. But unfortunately even after a lot of miseries the vaasana of the jeevatmas still pulls him only towards the worldly pleasures and never turns his attention towards the bhagavan.

So as Nammazhvar says "Maari Maari pala pirappum pirandhu" and Sri Adisankarar says " Punarappi Maranam Punarappi Jananam" the cycle of life and death continues. The jeevatma does papam or punyam in this world and undergoes the svarga vaasam or Naraga vaasam and then comes back to the world with the vaasanas of the previous birth. In Vedanta such a jeevatma is called Anusayi. Vedantha also says "GathA Gatham Kaama kaamA labhanthe" . Thus the jeevatmas do punyam or papam in this world, both of which will ultimately bring them back to this world only. You may all wonder why PVP is telling all these things in the avatharikai to this Prabhandam! It is to increase our Vairakhyam. Only when we get little detached from this world we can think about the other world(Bhagavan and Bhagavat vishayam). Even when we have to sit in a upanyasam for 2 hours we have to leave other activities in this world, right? That again needs some vairakhyam. Only to build this vairakhyam Sri PVP starts his vyakhyanam with such an avadharikai. As our acharyas say when we see the world we cannot see bhagavan and when we see bhagavan the world never enters our vision.

The jeevan which has nullified its punyams in the Svargam and papams in the naragam then returns back to the Mega mandalam from where he reaches the bhoomi through the rain water and then he combines with the annam (grains) which is grown in the soil and then from the Annam he reaches the purusha sareeram, from the purusha sareeram (man) he reaches the Stree Sareeram(women) and then he undergoes Garbha vaasam. The child develops in the womb of the mother which is supposed to be the Jail sentence for the Jeevan. It has to be inside the womb for 10 months and undergo a lot of suffering. Even after undergoing so much suffering inside the womb only a very few are born as jnani's rest start enjoying life and get involved in worldly pleasures. The child starts crying for milk, then for food and toys, then for so many other things and then the crying continues till his end. When a child is born his mother feeds it with milk and at the last people put rice in the mouth of the dead so the improvement in a man's life is only from milk to rice. For this In between he undergoes such a lot of sufferings. Still people do not realize the truth they do no get vairakhyam, they don't realize that everything in this world is temporary and emperuman is only permanent. This is the sad state of a samsari.

But does Emperuman enjoy seeing us suffer? No not at all. He is so much pained by seeing our hardships that he keeps on doing many things to release us from this samsaram. What does Bhagavan do? He first does the creation to wake up the jeevatmas who where sleeping in the pralayam. It is like a mother waking up a child to feed if the child sleeps without eating. The child doesn't know about its hunger but the mother knows. Similarly emperuman wakes us all up after pralayam. After creating, emperuman gives the jeevatmas two options to choose. The jeevans can either enjoy the pleasures of the leela vibhuthi as per their wish or they can shed the miseries of the leela vibhuthi and fall under the feet of the emperuman to grant them the divine moksha where there is only 'Anandam Anandam", from where the jeevan never returns to the miseries of this world('Na cha Punaraavarthathe'). If we choose the sittrinbum(worldly pleasures) he grants us them with stained mind and if we prefer the pErinbam (moksha) then he grants us that with lot of joy. The shrusti, stiti and samharam what ever the emperuman does is only for the welfare of the jeevatmas.

After the creation he then gave us the sastras to show us the right path. "Tene Brahmahrudhaya Adikavaye" says Bhagavatham and Nammazhvar says "peedhagavaadai peraanaar parama guru vaagi vandu" that emperuman delivered the sastras to the world as the first guru. A man should have two types of knowledge. He should be capable of differentiating between Dharma and Adharma and Nityam and Anityam(nature of objects). If a man is not able to differentiate which object will stay permanently and which will not and which is dharma and which is adharma then he can be equated to an animal. Only this knowledge differentiates a man and an animal. So a man has to act according to the sastras. "Tasmat Sastram Pramanam te karya karyau Vyavastitow" (only the sastras are the pramanas to tell the do's and don't's). Still the jeevatmas refused to accept the sastras and act accordingly. Then what did bhagavan do did he get angry with them? Let's see in the next posting.