Taken from another forum:
SATSANGAM
(Read, Understand, Appreciate, Internalise and Assimilate to reach the Ultimate)
When once this fact is recognised, it becomes easy to have an abiding faith in God, and this faith in God and God alone is going to help us in small and in great things. Be convinced that we are under the guidance of the Lord every moment of our lives. Events that happen from time to time appear to be good and bad to us only because we have enslaved ourselves to our servant, the mind. It is the impressions created by the mind that mislead us into the thought that we are experiencing troubles and miseries. Actually everything that happens to us is happening according to the dictates of our Karmas. And God is ever ready to pull us up from the pits into which we have fallen and bring us into close relationship with Him. if we only cooperate with Him in this business of being brought towards Him, we shall be supremely happy even here in this world. This abiding conviction we must permanently have in our mind.
Never forget that God manifests Himself through us, and God is Ananda, in whom there is no trace of misery. There is a beautiful Upanishadic Mantra, which asks IS IT NOT FROM ANANDA [OR SUPREME HAPPINESS] THAT THE WHOLE WORLD CAME INTO EXISTENCE Examining this Mantra, we find it is literally true. When we are born, are we born with the consciousness of misery When we grow, we live, and for maintaining ourselves we eat. Does anybody feel unhappy when one is eating Is not the satisfaction of hunger happiness or is it misery Likewise, when we die, after the moment of death is over, does not the Jiva enter once again into happiness, because the momentary fear of death is over, the because there is no further limitation of the body
TRUST IN GOD
Therefore, the world is full of happiness if only we would open our eyes and see the happiness in it. If a man enters into a brilliantly lit room, which has in it a thousand watts electric bulb, and goes to a corner and closes his eyes and says I see only darkness, whose fault is it Likewise wherever you turn, you see the glory of the Lord if you only have eyes to see. There is no need for you to make yourself miserable. Fear of disease, fear of death and fear of poverty are the three kinds of fear, which make you unhappy. But why should you worry about these The Jive within has nothing to do with disease or poverty, much less with death. Place yourself entirely in the hands of the Lord. Think that His Will is your will. Surrender yourself absolutely.
When you do so, you throw away all worries and anxieties, you forget hared, anger, jealousy and all other emotional disturbance. Are not the birds daily fed Are not the plants daily looked after by an unseen power Will not the same power look after you It is to emphasise this teacher [this teaching is the highest] that in a verse in the BHAGAVAD GITA the Lord says, IF THERE IS ANYONE WHO HAS NO OTHER THOUGHT IN HIS MIND THAN MYSELF AND WHO WORSHIPS ME AND ME ALONE, I LOOK AFTER HIS NEEDS AS THEY ARISE FROM DAY TO DAY. Maya is only the ignorance, which makes us believe that every object that we see in the universe is an object other than the Lord. That ignorance is not to be worshipped, in other words, entertained.
When God says, I look after him and his daily needs, He is giving us a guarantee that we need not have any anxiety or worry about ourselves. This does not mean that a person should sit idle, doing nothing at all except thinking of God and waiting for the supply of his necessaries to be met by God. It means that we should do what we can for meeting our needs and leave the result in the hands of the Lord. The ability to act is also given to us by God, and if we do not exercise that ability, we are not doing what God wants us to do. Therefore, the meaning is that left everybody use his intelligence and his body in such a way as to make himself comfortable, but let him never forget that God is ever by his side to help him in whatever he does, provided he does not do anything he knows to be wrong.
So we come to the conclusion that all our negative emotions arise from our ignorance, and this ignorance is incapable of being removed without the grace of the Lord, which we can surely obtain by having abiding faith in Him. TRUST THE LORD AND DO THE RIGHT is the principle that should guide us throughout life.
Temples in Karnataka
For those interested, I would like to present this write up about Vaishnavaite Temples in Karnataka. Karnataka has about 600 odd temples following the Southern Vaishnavaite tradition .. both Pancharatra and Vaikhanasa. None come under the divyadesam list, possibly because the Alwars lived and composed between the 6th and 9th centuries, whereas most of the above temples were built from the 9th centuryonwards. A lot of them follow the Hoysala style of architecture built between the 10th and the 14th centuries by the Hoysalas. Most others have the traditional dravidian style.
Of the 600 odd temples about 60 odd may be considered of special interest w.r.t. size, fame, importance, popularity, art, architecture, religious importance, etc. Of the 60, about half a dozen, i.e. aprrox. 1% of the total are well known. Of these are Melukote, Udupi, Srirangapatna, Belur, Somnatpur, & Viranarayana - Belavadi. Udupi as most know, follows the Madhava tradition. Over 90% of the temples are completely neglected and in a bad financial state.
In a few decades, most of them, in villages will not have Sri Vaishnava priests since the community is shrinking and rapidly migrating to greener pastures. Hopefully at least the 60 best temples along with ritual tradition will be preserved . Even this is going to be very difficult. I will write in a another post about the locations of these temples, if someone is interested in visiting them.
For those visiting Bangalore city, Bangalore city has about a dozen temples, needless to say, all doing ok financially, all of them have been built in the last 300 years. (The city itself was founded in 1537) some of which are:
1. Fort Srinivasa temple near city market (built 1695 AD )
2. Ranganatha temple (ballurpete)
3. Tulsi thotta (old city )
4. Krishna temple Malleswaram 11th cross
5. Vasantha Vallabha temple Vasantapura
6. Srinivasa temple mahalaksmi layout
7. Narasimha temple, temple road, Malleswaram
8. Andavan ashramam temple P.G halli
9. Andavan ashramam Rangamannar temple Jayanagar.
10. Srinivasa temple, Banashankari
11. Srinivasa temple, Jayanagar.
Outside Bangalore
12. Champaka dhama temple (Damodara perumal) Bannerghatta 12 km. from city, built 1257 AD. Any mistakes I have made in the above write up, please let me know, and please excuse me.
{The palan one gets by staying a single day in Sri Ahobilam equals a stay of 1000 yugam in KAsi, 100 yugams in GayA and 20 yugams in PrayAg)
- Sri Mangala Giri
- Sri VedAdri
- Sri Kethavaram
- Sri Mattapally
- Sri Vadapally
- Sri YAdhagirigutta
- Sri ShobanAdhri
- Sri SimhAchalam
- Sri GOru konta
- Sri Putta konta
- Sri SthambAthripuram
- Sri RaepAla
- Sri Pushpagiri
- Sri SingarAya konta
- Sri Maala konta
