26.03.2006
821. Satrutaapanah –“The Scorcher of enemies.” When the devotee offers himself at the altar of His Feet, He burns down all the negative tendencies polluting the devotee’s heart.
822. Nyagrodhah –“The One who, while controlling all beings, veils Himself behind this Maayaa.” The Consciousness constantly functions within us, but due to the Vaasanaas, our attention is constantly distracted to the perception of objects outside and not to the Effulgent Being which is the core in us. At the same time Sree Narayana, the Self, is the very Life which has made possible the entire manifestation of the world. Still, by His own playful inscrutability we recognize Him not. Interpreted in another sense, the term can also mean, “He who is above all.’ The nobler, the mightier power which controls and regulates any organised set of activities, when it is conceived by human intellect, it is always expressed as something higher or above. Therefore, the significance of this term must be clear to the students.
823. Udumbarah –“He Who is the Nourisher of all living creatures”-supplying each with its appropriate food. The term also suggests: “one who transcends even Aakaasa, the subtlest of the manifested elements.” Sree Narayana, the Source out of which all creatures have emerged, He alone must also be the Great Cause from which even the subtlest element, Aakaasa, (space) has sprung forth. The cause is subtler than the effect, therefore, the essential principle, Narayana, transcends even the concept of space.
824. Asvatthah -In the Upanishad, (Kathopanishad) and in the Bhagavad Geeta (Chapter XV), Lord Narayana is indicated as the great “Tree of Life,” the Asvattha. Ficus Religiosa is a perennial tree, seemingly relatively immortal, as compared with the quickly-perishing mankind that comes in waves, generation after generation, to play under its shade, to make love at its base; to grow old in its breeze. Even when they are dead, their bodies are carried in moonlit procession to the burial ground, where under the tree’s dancing leaves, a play of light and shade splashes a wizardly pattern upon each lifeless face. The children of each departed one, in their turn, repeat the unending cycle of life under the shade of the same old tree whose nodding grimace mocks the procession of fleeting joys and sorrows. This tree has been chosen to represent the finite play of the Infinite and the Tree itself has been named: A-svattham meaning: “That which will not remain the same tomorrow.”..
825. Chaanooraandhranishoodanah - “The slayer of Chaanoora, the great wrestler. Andhra means wrestler.”
To be contd...