SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
Instruction 25
vishnOr vA vaishNavAnAm cha nAma sankIrthanAni cha |
kurvatha: puNya purushAn dhrushtvA’navApya vai mudham |
AsthAnamapachAra: syAn madhyE thEshAm suniSchayam ||
Simple explanation: When puNya purushas, that is noble people are performing dhivya nAma sankIrthanam (singing divine names) of bhagavAn or his great devotees, or singing glories of bhagavAn and his great devotees, we should feel happy. Instead, if we remain indifferent amidst them then that is certainly an offense. Here few aspects are very important. Those who sing bhagavAn’s names or bhAgavathas’ (great devotees) names such persons are puNya purushas. Only puNya purushas can sing the glories of bhagavAn and bhAgavathas. Now when they do that, we should naturally feel blissful and happy because it is a great fortune to hear the divine names of bhagavAn and bhAgavathas. bhagavAn himself says that one of the main identity or quality of his devotees is to happily enjoy someone glorifying his names or his devotees’ names. So, when we are in the gOshti and we hear bhagavAn’s names or bhAgavathas’ names being glorified, we must feel joyful and blissful. If we don’t do that and instead if we are having indifference towards them, that is we are neutral towards them (not feeling happy or sad) or we feel upset that somebody is glorifying bhagavAn or bhAgavathas; both of these carries great offense. It is our fortune to listen to bhagavAn or bhAgavathas’ divine names. In this samsAra where everything is focused on materialistic aspects if someone is glorifying bhagavAn or bhAgavathas and if we are present to observe that, we must feel blissful and joyful.
Video link: https://youtu.be/qVm8jKPn5cE?si=OAvZ4kmvEGekB_0C
Instruction 26
SrIvaishnavAnAm sarvEshAm dhEhachchAyAm na langayEth |
Simple explanation: One should not step over or cross over the shadow of a SrIvaishNava’s divine form. Whenever we mention SrIvaishNava, we should only say dhivya mangaLa vigraham, thirumEni. That means their form is not just ordinary materialistic form because they are very dear to bhagavAn. When we say SrIvaishNavas, they must be those who are fully committed to bhagavAn and consider bhagavAn as the only upAyam (means) and bhagavAn as the only upEyam (goal). So, such SrIvaishNavas, anything related to them whether it is their lotus feet, shadow, speech, blessings etc., they are all considered to be sacred, holy and divine. So, in such case, let’s say we are walking close to them or they are standing in one place and we are getting close to them and their shadow is falling on the floor / ground, we should not step over that, or we should not cross over that. We should go in the sideways without stepping over it or crossing over it because just like the divine body/form of a SrIvaishNava is sacred, his/her shadow is also sacred. This is how our pUrvAchAryas considered the greatness of SrIvaishNavas. When they live up to the standards of our sampradhAyam, they are treated in a very high standard. So, because of this reason, when we go near a SrIvaishNava, if the SrIvaishNava’s shadow is falling on the ground we should not step over that or we should not cross over that.
Video link: https://youtu.be/WXjXKnlKwcc?si=coOTVZWstbEkKxBy
Instruction 27
svadhEhachchAyA samsparSam vaishNavEshu na kArayEth
Simple explanation: We should not let our shadow touch or fall on SrIvaishNavas. The concept here is that our feet or our shadow whatever it may be, we should not let them touch SrIvaishNavas because that is considered as disrespectful. While we consider SrIvaishNavas shadow to be honourable and sacred that we should not step on that, on the other hand, we should consider our shadow to be something inferior and we should not let that overlap on SrIvaishNavas. This is very similar to how we consider SrIvaishNavas feet to be divine and we would long to get the contact of their divine feet on our heads. On the other hand, we will not let our feet touch other SrIvaishNavas’ body. Same thing applies for the shadow too. While we should not step on SrIvaishNavas’ shadow, on the other hand we should not let our shadow fall on SrIvaishNavas.
Video link: https://youtu.be/1dLRbq2rGYM?si=RFRrr7UpfReWyY4r
adiyEn vidhyA rAmAnuja dhAsi
Proofreading done by – vEnkatESa rAmAnuja dhAsan
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