SrImatE rAmAnujAya nama:
Dear SrImad jIyar-svAmi-ji, jai SrIman-nArAyaNa! daNDavat praNAma-s & dAsasya vigyApaNam,
I have heard “SaraNAgati is merely the knowledge that the Lord Himself is verily the Means and the End. Therefore any action performed or words uttered by a jIva seeking mOksha/bhakti is svarUpa-viruddhaM (ie inconsistent with SarIrAtma-bhAva/artha-pancaka gyAnam)”.
In view of the above, I have difficulty understanding SrI-rAmAnuja’s explicit requests (in SaraNAgati-gadya) to the Lord to bestow upon him para-bhakti/para-gyAna/parama-bhakti. dhanyOsmi, aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsa:
/Ramkumar.
Jai Srimannarayana!
Your question seems genuine. Sarana:gathi does not mean realizing God as ‘means & end’. It is total surrenderance. You may realize Him in any manner. Once surrendered then you loose your identification. Yet, you do everything, because, your body, mind, intellect and the soul itself became His properity. He makes them to function and for His sake only.
Then all the activities will be there. The only difference is everything will be aimed at God.
As we are not inscient beings, having knowledge of ourselves, we need to show some difference than an life-less object. That is what we call as ‘pra:rdhana’. It, in fact, is not a request for granting anything, including mo:ksha. Still, we request for things to grant, ” IT IS CHAITANYA KA:RYAM AND RA:GA PRAYUKTHAM” that means it is only the result of the knowledge one possesses. And when we know the unbreakable relation-ship with God, He is having all wonderful traits with Him, all are for us only, We also are not otherwise doing anything for our own sake nor trying to go on our own for some other goal, not trying to wipe out our sins on our own, and He is not incapable of erasing them in total, as there is no other reason for our stay here in this world, we plead before God to accept us soon to Him. That becomes the Pra:rdhana, what Bhagavad Ra:ma:nuja made with Lord, of course, it is done for our sake.
=chinnajeeyar=
