Nammazhwar's recipe for worldly ills

CHENNAI, JUNE 7. While holy texts and saints who had mastered them had extolled the merciful qualities of the Supreme Lord, yet they had also mentioned about the grief that lurks in Him. His regret and concern are that human beings have not taken advantage of the various types of opportunities which had been made available to them to escape from the worldly turmoil but still they continue to remain immersed in the ephemeral pleasures and do not take steps to reach the goal, viz salvation, which will mean no rebirths at all thereafter.

Born as humans, they have before them the procedures to be adopted to reach His divine kingdom, left by Him in His incarnations or by the messengers deputed by Him to explain how it is easy for them to shake off this earthly coil and return to the place ever to be in His presence and enjoy Bliss. The wonderful human body was however not properly used for such an end but prostituted for prohibited purposes. This can be compared to a person being given a luscious tasty mango who allows the fruit to slip and fall into the gutter. The prerogative of free will was thus permitted the fullest latitude. Still they disobeyed His commands and grew impure in their hearts but the Lord, out of His kindness, did not let them down. In the Bhagavad Gita, He has placed before humanity, the paths leading them to the goal. Likewise, the hymns of the apostles sent by Him to reform the erring souls and the outpourings of their divine experiences present a glorious picture of what awaits them when they enter the Divine domain. Among these outstanding personalities, the Azhwars who had left a rich treasure, Divya Prabhandam, containing the call of God in the Vedas, had put down their views in Tamil language. Nammazhwar stands foremost among them and his four hymns, particularly the Thiruvaimozhi, spell out the essence of the Visishtadwaita philosophy.

In a discourse on Nammazhwar's birthday Sri (Pattanna) Veeraraghavachariar said, the saint's works refer, among other topics, to the five essential requirements which a devotee should know when he aspires to be at God's service, viz., the inimitable traits and features of the Almighty, the nature (with his limitations) of the ordinary pestered souls, the impediments which block the latter to approach the former, the methods to clear these obstacles and the destination (Moksha) where he could enjoy the presence of the Lord. One of Nammazhwar's ``Paasurams'' urge Him that we be pardoned of all our sins and ensure that we cease to cling to this mortal frame.

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