Oh My God! Episode 11

dear pad, thanks for enriching this thread with your pearls of wisdom. Only last week did my teacher told about Nampillai's given name, Varadharajan. Right now he is teaching me Nampillai's Eedu 36000 padi vyaakyanam for Thiruvaimozhi. My Guru has done a doctoral research on Nampillai's uraithiran. And was throwing a lot of tidbits about the great commentator.
Once an English man gave a long letter to Mahatma Gandhi. It ran into five pages and contained all the choicest abuses of Gandhi. Gandhi returned the letter to the offender.
"Please take whatever that is needed by you. At least there might be something which you will find it right and useful."
Whereupon Gandhi took of the paper clip which was holding the papers together.
"This is the only useful thing in it." He replied. The Englishmen hung down his head in shame.
Nampillai in this incident has used a much softer approach to teach humility to his student.
While commenting about my writing on RV you need not be so apologetic, Pad. What you have stated is true. Anybody be it a mil or dil can cause RV. In the example you have stated what the dil did was not right. But our question here is not whether what somebody else did was right or wrong. But how to avoid RV building up in our system.
I know a woman whose daughter is causing a lot of RV for her. The daughter was recently married and this lady went out of the way to make the function a grand success. But the daughter is finding fault on many small things and is fighting with her mother. When somebody as close as one's daughter causes RV, it would be very strong and you really need all the love in the world to get it out of your system.

take care and God bless,
love,
sridhar

 

dear bas,
thanks for this soothing fb. Not that I look into the number of views and replies. But when there are few takers I start getting doubts on my ability to tell these stories. Of course these stories are not mine and I do only packer's and mover's job. Yet you know at times a packer can break a fragile glass piece of art. I was afraid whether I had fallen into that category.
Unlike ALS, LA or HE, I want this OMG run for a long time. My real desire is to keep on writing this so long as I live. A workable goal is to have a 100 stories. And the idea is anybody who has any kind of stress should be able to come into these threads and find solace.

When you think of the great task at hand you at times lose heart. Then I realised that the "losing heart part" happens only when I think it is my business. It's His business. Let him conduct in the manner he likes. Let Him do it for as long as He likes. Why should a mofussil accountant working as a part time packer complain?

thanks for taking the pains to console me, bas.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Indhu,
How can I behave in any other way towards women? The other day one of my fans who had come to my office to buy my book told me,
"Sridhar sir, why is that you are so obsessed with women? all your stories right from your very first story in Ananda Vikatan (The Love Letter) down to the latest one (Thozhanaai kadalanaai) deal with women. You seem to have a woman's mind."
I told him that there is nothing more fertile than a woman's mind and nothing more fascinating than that. My stories have been successful because they deal with women. Womens Era is a place where I grew as a writer.
And again I was born of a wonderful woman, born with a wonderful woman, am married to a wonderful woman and finally have the most wonderful woman as my daughter. So how can I be otherwise to woman, tell me? Whatever I thought Arvind spoke.

In the very first vyakyaana class my guru Dr.Arangarajan spoke that work, Ichaiye Athikaaram. He should have repeated it a hundred times during the last one year of the classes. The principle is deeply ingrained into my genes.

I know why you are appreciating the arguments regarding prostration. Let me use this forum to tell the world that you belong to the "many times" tradition while I belong to the "one is more than enough" tradition. Both are born out of pure love. That was why we were able to fall in love and contine to be so for 25 years.
And while saying this you have inserted the bowing down simile several times to reinforce your branch of love. Well done, my girl.
All the problems in our life are our real benefactors. If we have the same kind of love as Arvind has we can find them out and live happily. Otherwise we would be complaining forever about this and that.
thanks once again for your time, dear.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear Hema,

I think you have some clairvoyant powers. I had decided earlier not to go in for an epilogue this week and had mentioned it in one of my responses. Then I saw your fb requesting for a epilogue. Well my mind was blank and I had even framed a letter of apology to you for not writing an epilogue. But this evening suddenly I was flooded with thoughts, in fact overwhelmed by them, so much so, that I could not escape from an epilogue. In fact I started responding to the fb only after I completed the first draft of the epilogue which is going to appear tomorrow. So thanks for sowing the seed.

Unlike the other serials I want to write on this subject for so long as I live. When you have such an ambitious dream you are bound to get some kind of a set back. Some kind of a doubt whether I am not living up to the mark. Please see my response to Lalitha on this subject. I have explained to her how I got over that feeling.

And Hema thanks for being there for me. Your fb was so soothing and filled me with love, hope, confidence, inspiration... the list is endless.

thanks for the loads of love sent in my direction. You will see the effect in OMG 12 and especially the epilogue.
love,
sridhar

 

Dear bas,
thanks a lot for starting a very lively discussion. Unknowingly we have stepped into a very intricate point, the point which divides the two branches of bakthi religion. Like the elephants and donkeys in the American Politics, we have the monkeys and cats in our divine literature. The monkey is the one who says that we will have to do something to win Her grace - chant Her name, go to her temple, offer her flowers, show camphor. The cat is the one who says nothing is necessary to win Her grace. It's already there. And unless SHE thinks so we can't even show our bakthi to her. In this context I said I belong to the cat group and not to the monkey group.
Now, Madam. I never said that we should not go to the temple.
I only said no effort should be put forth by us to win over His love. Or rather no effort is necessary to win His love.
In this context we should remember that going to Her temple is not an effort, is it? Immediately before your surgery you went to see the Holy Mother at her temple. But you did not take it as an effort but only as an expression of love. You knew for sure that even without going to the temple she would have showered Her grace on you.
The Cat Group to which I very proudly belong says that whatever you want to do for Her, please do. Like going around the temple, fasting.. whatever it is. But Her Grace is not dependent on your actions. Whether you visit Her or not, Her love will exactly be the same.
We the cats think that She does not shower more love on those who go to Her temple.
Am I clear, Madam?
thanks once again for the lovely, lively discussion.
love,
sridhar

 

hi krips,
as the super star says, "லேட்டா வந்தாலும் லேட்டஸ்டா வந்திருக்கீங்க.'
Coming to the same super star example suppose somebody burns the picture of the super star, will not his fans pounce upon him? after all a picture is only a piece of photographic paper. (the same arguments which we saw in an earlier episode)
Maraneri Nambi very genuinely feels that if his relatives were to dance around his body uttering profanities in a way it would be an insult to God and his Guru. If somebody insults the statue of God don't we get angry? Maraneri's body is a place where the good God and his loving Guru resided so long as he lived. So he does not want his body to be insulted by his relatives.
Only yesterday we were discussing this incident. You know normally when somebody is cremated the person doing the ceremony will take a bath to purify himself. After cremating Maraneri Nambi Perianambi even refused to take a bath. He told his relatives that merelly by performing the final rites of a loving soul he had already been purified. So he wont take a bath again to purify himself.

I have read Meera's arguments. I will tell you one more reason why women were discrimnated against. I am being brutally frank here. So if you think I have exceeded my limits please tell me so.

There is a world of difference between a way a man looks at a woman and a woman looks at a man. Playboy magazines which carry pictures of women sell in millions; but if there is a corresponding magazine carrying the sexual picture of men, I am sure women won't buy it. Not that women are prudes. But the system operates differently in them. A woman is not tempted by a handsome man in the same way a man is tempted by a beautiful woman. This is the core distinction.

So men find women a great distraction in their religious groups. Since men are used to seeing women as merely objects of pleasure they could not have them in their midst when they are discussing God and religion. It is absurd, no doubt. But that is the way men are. At least most of them are.

On the other hand women are never tempted by handsome men. We have had scores of men-saints decrying women. None of the women saints have banished men from their presence. That way women are always one step above men.

And Krips, this final argument. We always have this nayaki bhavam. We have had Azhwars, Nayanmars thinking themselves as women longing for the Lord's love. But do you know something? There is not even a single song where the baktha thinkself as Nayakan and the Lord as Nayaki. Even Andal has not sung that way.
This only shows that women are more prone to bakthi than men. Women are naturally inclined to bakthi than men. Many men very specifically Nammazhwar bridged this gap only by placing themselves in a woman's position.
Have I answered your arguments?
love,
sri