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Singular grace

CHENNAI : The means to realise God have been elaborated in scriptural texts like the Bhagavad Gita: Karma yoga (action), Jnana yoga (knowledge) and Bhakti yoga (devotion). These three ways relate to the fine-tuning of the three aspects of the human personality— the body, intellect and the mind (emotion) respectively. These Yogas are the techniques to restrain these faculties from their worldly distractions so that they instead facilitate spiritual progress.

In his discourse, Sri K.B.Devarajan said the Azhwars were exceptions who envisioned God and revelled in mystical experiences by the singular grace of the Lord. Among these Srivaishnava mystic saints, the first three known as the Mudal Azhwars— Poygai, Bhutam and Pey— were contemporaries. Born on successive days in Kanchipuram, Mahabalipuram and Mylapore, it was divine grace that brought them together on a rainy night when they sought shelter in the same house in Tirukkoyilur.

Huddled together in the confined space of the foyer of the house they spent the night in discussion on spiritual matters for they had come to worship the Lord in that sacred place when they felt another presence amidst them. God had chosen to reveal Himself to them and they sang His glory in lucid verse with the spiritual knowledge He bestowed on them. Each Azhwar sang a hundred verses in Andadi style and they are known as Mudal, Irandam and Munram Tiruvandadis. Their hymns have been canonised in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham.

Pey Azhwar's hymn describes the Lord's beatific vision in the incandescent light of the lamp of wisdom lit by Poygai and Bhutat Azhwars, "Today I have seen the lotus-dame on the frame of my ocean-hued Lord. He wields a fiery discus and a dextral conch in His hands. He has the radiance of the golden Sun." This is the end a devotee seeks by adopting the formal means to realise Him but the Lord graced these mystics without any pretext. Such acts of divine grace in the lives of mystics substantiate His declaration that His devotees are dear to Him. Poygai Azhwar highlights at the outset that God, who is the end to be realised, is also the means.

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