Oh! elections were held inAyodhya, Kashi, Mathura too is it? I wasn’t aware.
When I think why Perumal could have let this happen, the following plausible reasons came to my mind. Not sure if any or many or all of this is correct.
- Perumal executed His desire to have the temple constructed; but those who thought they can use Perumal’s cause to enhance their own political goals, He used their service and didn’t give them the political outcome they desired; they are left only with the punyam of engaging in Perumal’s service.
- If a king is more intent on simply conquering and expanding the kingdom, compromising on the time required to maintain and govern the land under his control properly, that is not of much use. If a ruler is more intent on simply winning one election after another in one part of the country after another, compromising on the time required to execute the already given responsibilities duely, that is also not good. So, Perumal arranges situation for the king / ruler to realise one’s mistake and reset one’s focus. _________________(In our case, we may be aiming to earn more and more money thinkng “I’ll use it for kainkaryam later”, without using what already given to us for some kainkaryam. Or, we may be learning more and more pasurams / slokams with a sense of acheivement, without regularly reciting what is already learnt with devotion.)
- In the past few years we had the Andal issue and Kantha-sasti kavacham issue. At the core both issues are symptoms of the same disease in the society. The religious teachings (e.g. glories of Andal, the meaning of Kanthasasti kavacham) are not easilly available to the common folks. In the bygone decades people like Kripananda variar conveyed religious teachings to common men in a way they could also understand. But now a days we don’t have many people reach out to help common people understand their religion properly. Our Swamy has tried his mite in this direction by distributing calendar and simple educational material to people in rural areas. (it is time for each one of us to reflect whether we took this endeavor seriously and contributed our little mite to assist our Swamy in his endeavor). But a lot needs to be done in the direction of making genuuine spiritual / religious lessons available to people.
On our part, when we go to temple and other occassions, we can make people around us feel that they are also inclusive of the sanatana dharma. They may be ‘uncultured’ or ‘unclean’ in one’s subjective perception. But we should deal with the situation without even slightly, inadvertently making them feel they are insignificant or inferior. A ‘holier than thou’ attitude expressed through subtle body language will make the comman men exclude themsleves from the religion.
To worsen the situation, kali yugam enters each home through the idiot box and idiot phones. Particularly in Tamil nadu, every lay man is so easily influenced by film world personaliteis. One common message these people convey is “you don’t need a guru to connect with god”. If people lose faith in guru, then the society is headed for doom. We are also consuming the same junk; unknown to us, the poison is having a slow effect on us also; and more dangerously, it is having severe impact on our children. The media influence fanned by peer pressure is causing irrepairable damage to the faith in the hearts of our children.
We can not expect one single leader (spiritual or political) to come about and do some miracle to set things right; each one of us must do our little mite every day. Only then Perumal will be pleased with our sincere efforts and He will change the situation such that it is condusive for everyone’s spiritual progress. If we are lackadasical, then He will let us face the consequence and learn the lesson.
What I have expressed here are merely my subjective views; my own reflections on what I have done so far and what I could do in future; I have just used this opportunity to express my thoughts with the hope that feedback from others could help me refine my thoughts. Thank you.
adiyen dasan.