A rare interview of Sringeri Jagadguru by Telugu film personality and Sringeri disciple Sri Tanikella Bharani Translation by Sri Sreenivasa Rao Suraparaju Swamiji interviewed by Tanikella Bharani, a popular Telugu film personality ----------------------------------- Om Sri Gurubhyom namaha, Harihi Om Bharani: Guruji, You are here after a long time, Welcome and prostrations from devotees in Andhra Pradesh and from MaaTV. (‘Q’ – question from T Bharani and ‘A’ – Swamiji’s clarification) Q: Sri Shankara travelled all over the country preaching dharma. What is the need of Guru, how to take refuge in Guru? A: Gnaanam is very important to humans, “Nahi gnanena sadrisam pavitramiha vidyate”, Lord said in Gita. No other form of education is better than Gnaanam. Divine knowledge (Gnana) is of utmost importance, it is only possible through a guru. Only a Guru can give elucidate (through upadesam) and get us out of this worldliness. Q: How to serve him and take refuge in him? A: “ Tadviddhi praneepatena pari prasnena sevayaa, upadekshyanti te gnaanam gnaaninaha tattva darsinaha” , Lord said in Bhagavatgita. Be very alert, serve guru, do prostrations to guru and get answers to your genuine questions. You can achieve fulfillment by the grace of guru. Q: Dhanyosmi (Grateful for the clarification). Youth today is progressing down the path of science and intellect, they seem to look down upon our culture and traditions, is there a way to turn them towards our culture and values? A: Parents are the first Gurus to everyone, from childhood itself we need to impart those values and faith in our dharma. The impressions created in childhood work so well. If parents leave them to their freedom, there is no use repenting later. Parents have to inculcate culture and values in them. Q: What definition do you give to matam (religion)? A: It comes from the word Mati (intellect). Prophet (Pravakta) preaches from his intellect (mati) to followers, so becomes matam. Ours is Santana dharma or Vaidika dharma. The name Hinduism is a recent one. We need to call ours as Santana dharma or vaidika dharma. Sanaatanam indicates it has been there from times immemorial, Vaidka dharma comes from the fact we abide by the doctrines in Veda. Q: True. It is difficult to call ourselves followers of Sanaatana dharma than Hindus now, my parents, grandparents, so on have been known as Hindus. I have been calling myself a Hindu, somebody needs to define this again, … It can cause confusion. What should we call ourselves going forward? A: They were all Sanaatana dharmis (followers of Sanaatana dharma), you too are. We have to propagate the same. Q: Sri Adi Shankara propagated Santana dharma and later Sri Vivekananda did the same, why are the Peethadhipatis and saints not doing it so effectively afterwards. A: They do it according to their capability, we cannot compare one to another. We cannot compare Shankara to Vivekananda, each has a different personality. If everyone does it to their best abilities, our dharma will not be harmed. Q: We see mostly negative energy in media like sadness, bloodshed, backstabbing, etc.., let it be news or whatever. What is the way out? A: You know it is because of TV. It was not there before TV arrived. They need to broadcast only the necessary content according to dharma. They should not broadcast bawdy stuff and the ones not suitable to our culture. Q: Intelligence, civilization, etc.. seem to be in focus these days. How to do betterment of our values, traditions and culture? A: We need to impart them from childhood; parents need to take care of this too. Syllabi need to reflect them. In our childhood, we had Maha Bharatam, Ramayanaworks of Kalidasa, Vikramarka stories in our books. Where is it now? How will they know about our culture, it is a sad state of affairs! Q: They see it visually in media. What is the need for those to be in text books? A: It has to be in the books at the root level. In our books, we had Arjuna’s archery skill, Kacha Devayani story, Uddankopakhyanam. Kumara sambhavam of Kalidasa translated by Nannechoda and translation by another author of Megha sandesam. “Marudagni Jaladhumamayamaina…….” , There used to be at least one story from Mahabharatam in each class. It is not so in books now a days. We used to get their commitment to satya and dharma in our heads; the teachers were so good at imparting them too. Q: We studied them too, now that Sanskrit is dead !! A: It was in Telugu, not in Sanskrit. For example Nannayya’s (considered Aadi Kavi) use of “Vaadi mayukhamul ..”. We were told we cannot join Telugu and Sanskrit words (samaasam), but Nannaya could. Who teaches with so much depth these days? Q: Women have a great role in preserving our culture for ages, the way they dress, wear bindi, .... It seems to be changing now; we cannot even distinguish between a man and woman. What message do you give to them? A: One needs to know they are going down a wrong path. They need to understand our culture, knowing how their mother and grandmother were. They should not think they are more intelligent to imitate women in media. Q: How can parents help? They send them to school, cannot do much after that! The parents suffer when they see children taking a wrong path. A: Parents need to take that responsibility. They need to teach their children. Q: Unfortunately, the purpose of education seems to be only earning money. It seems the number of people visiting temples is coming down across the world. May be, Is there anything people like you could do? A: What we do is teach about Rama, Dharma Raja, Harischandra, and what we need to understand from their personalities. It is the youngster that needs to make a commitment based on what has been taught. It is not useful to praise guru’s speech and go away without taking the message. Q: Adapting it to real life seems difficult; It is hard to survive sticking to dharmam and satyam! A: It is wrong to think so. There are many doing well while following dharma. Certainly there are dharmic people in all fields, they command respect. It is an illusion to think one cannot survive if one sticks to dharma. Why cannot we follow these dharmic people? It is unfortunate people do not take these dharmic as idols. Q: One needs to make a choice among earnings, intellect, culture or something else? A: They are not different paths. One can go down the path of earning via fair means. They are not mutually exclusive. Q: One may not be satisfied with those fair earnings? A: Contentment is related to mind, it has nothing to do with outside means. If your mind is content, you do not need objects outside to be satisfied. If you are not content, no amount of worldly objects can satisfy you. One needs to realize they can live happily via fair means. There are so many dharmics shining without giving up on dharma. The above said means (earnings and dharma) are not contradictory. Q: Like diamonds, these dharmic’s are very few. A: These diamonds outshine others, despite being a few. Q: Why are we unable to follow those diamonds? A: We need to understand that, apply our minds. Use our discretion to follow dharma. Q: Your message via MaaTV for fellow Indians? A: Have faith in God. No one should think he knows all, there is so much more to know. What we know is a drop in the ocean of knowledge. Never be indifferent to God, serve your parents. Children do not take care of parents these days. Parents do not get required attention, despite their toil to bring up children. May be because of one’s higher status and parents’ low status. Q: Children say, this is because they were thrown in a boarding school. Not taken care to be close to family. A: It is wrong, what if the children were left for themselves. Scripture clearly says “Matrudevo bhava, Pitru devo bhava”, even Acharya and God came later. When Rama was asked to go to forest, did he say “you are senseless” to Dasaratha,. He consdiered obeying his father to be his duty. They are our idols. What is the use of worshipping Rama and building temples for Rama, if we do not learn from his actions? We have to always have blessings of our parents; we need to take care of them. Leave egos aside, have faith in God, love parents, do no harm others, carry out your duties according to scriptures. Then one’s life can be called fruitful. Q: “Sivaya Visnu rupaya siva rupaya Vishnave” teaches advaita. There are differences between these two groups. It does not seem to help to have this kind of split within the same dharma. This is almost on a war footing.. A: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. We have only one lord with different names. One who thinks otherwise is without mind. Sahasra nama does not mean thousand gods, it is thousand names of the one and only God. These differences of opinion because of form and name should not be there. One can use the name one likes for worship. Message as summarized by Interviewer --------------------------------------------------- Swamiji’s message was clearly: parents are responsible for continuation of dharma, it is absolutely necessary to guide future generations. We do not need to take short-cuts for so called success (fame and riches). The purpose is to be happy and content. You can be happy following dharma, than follow short-cuts for success hoping to be happy. https://youtube/watch?v=6kJRy8gN38Q
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 07:37:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015