BG5.13

Today's [4th December, 2007] lecture is from the Sri Andal sannidhi in Thirumaliruncholai. Sri Andal in Her Nachiar Thirumozhi, in the pasuram 'naaru narumpozhil...', offered 100 thada [ a large vessel] full of butter and another 100 thada full of akkara adisil, mentally. Akkara adisil is a sweet dish with rice cooked in milk and plenty of ghee, jaggery, almond, cashew nuts and raisins are added. In Thiruppavai 27th pasuram, Koodarai vellum seer Govinda, She imagines how the dish has to be abundant with ghee such that it should flow in one's arms while eating. Sri Andal only imagined to offer this but Swami Ramanuja, while visiting this kshetram actually got ready the butter and akkara adisil in the quantity Sri Andal imagined and offered them to Sri Kallazhagar. After doing this he went to Srivilliputhur to report and Sri Andal was so pleased that She called Swami Ramanuja as Her elder brother. [ It is customary for elder brothers to offer gifts to sister's husband]. Even this day to mark this incidence, in Sri Kallazhagar temple in the Margazhi festival on the 27th day [Koodarai vellum], butter and akkara adisil are offered to the Lord. On Pankuni Uthram day the Lord appears with all the Four Consorts. Dosa offered is special. Flour paste needed for the dosa , in about one and half kilo quantity, is made into a single dosa with thickness about the size of a cycle tyre thickness. Sri Andal never mentions that She offered the butter and akkara adisil and this reflects the Gita preaching that we are to do the karma without the feeling 'I-am-doing'. We will now see the 13th sloka:

sarva-karmani manasa
sannyasyaste sukham vasi
nava-dvare pure dehi
naiva kurvan na karayan

"When the embodied living being controls his nature and mentally renounces all actions, he resides happily in the city of nine gates [the material body], neither working nor causing work to be done."

Earlier He said that the atman should feel that the organs are doing their duty and atman is not involved in that. But how to relinquish the feeling I-am-doing and leave it with the organs? For this the mind has to play a great role. He says that this body is with nine gates and so He compares it to a fort with nine gates. The nine gates are two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, one mouth and the two excretion holes. Atman is not the nose or mouth. Mind should think that all karma done is the duty of the respective organs and not of the soul. Such a thought keeps the atman happy. This way the mind also gets controlled. Mind is then steady and does not drift and wander about. He calls the holes in the body as gates in a fort. Because, it is at the gates, enemies invade and in our case the material desires are enemies knocking at the nine gates. Also, the body only has all these gates and so it is attacked and destroyed. Atman does not have these gates and is free. The body does all karma due to the various papa/ punya accumulated over infinite birth cycles.