Miscellaneous - Religion   

God's accessibility

CHENNAI : It is not always possible for the majority of people to visit temples due to the pressures of day-to-day life. Devotional practices are intrinsic to spiritual life and hence must be advocated for spiritual progress. But a sincere spiritual seeker can take heart from the fact that the Puranas while elaborating the glory of the Supreme Being in His incarnations reiterate that when the mind of the seeker becomes calm and steady in meditation, the Lord Himself rushes to the side of His devotee.

In his discourse, Sengalipuram Sri Rama Dikshitar said the objective of all spiritual practices was to realise God. So a spiritual aspirant can achieve this end by listening to the exposition of the Lord's glorious deeds in His advents for the mind attains concentration easily. Among the incarnations of the Lord His advent in human form as Krishna takes the pride of place as it continues to be a perennial source of inspiration in spiritual literature, the reason being not only His endearing nature but also His easy accessibility to one and all. For the common man who easily becomes dejected by the basic postulate of the scriptures that the Supreme Being is beyond human perception and understanding when they undertake scriptural study, the Puranas come as a boon as the emphasis here is His compassion for human beings which makes Him take birth in the world to make Himself accessible.

The Bhagavata Purana was written purposely by Vyasa to describe the life of Lord Krishna and the depiction of His childhood deeds reinforces the paradoxes in His nature— supremacy and easy accessibility. Krishna chose to be raised in the cowherd community of Gokul. These simple folks had no pretence to scholarship or sophistication but without doubt had unconditional love for Krishna who endeared Himself to them by His pranks and superhuman deeds. Their lives became centred round Him, so much so, without any effort on their part their minds dwelt on Him all the time. In his hymn Narayaneeyam Bhattatiri exclaims that the Gopis were fortunate as their minds engaged in Him so spontaneously.

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