SreeNarayanaGuru

[gopu]

Daiva Dasakam( A Prayer in Ten Verses)Sree Narayana Guru

This is an article which i found on internet, sharing with you all....

[gopu]

1. Daivame kaathu koLka angu
Kai vidaat ingu njangaLae
Naavikan nee bhavaabdhikkor-
Aavi vantONi nin padam

daivame- O God
kaattu kolka- confine (us) in your succor, protect( us ); make( us) secure;
angu- there. ( The state of absolute security is seen as something far removed by the seekers who consider themselves to be away from God )
kai- hand
vidaate- not letting go of; without de linking; without disconnecting; without with holding support.
ingu- here
njangale- us
naavikan- sailor; captain of a ship; helmsman
bhavaabdhi- the turbulent ocean of life, ocean of life's sufferings.
aavi vantony sure, secure and efficient vessel like a steam ship.
Nin- Your
Padam- foothold; stance; footing; position;


God! Keep us ever in Thy succor, there;
Forsake us not, my Lord here,
Thou the helmsman, and Thy foothold,
Sure vessel, on rough seas of life!

[gopu]

Daivam (God) is the word with which this opening verse begins and padam (foohold; stance- position) with which it reaches its culmination. Daivam, we may note, is very much like `Our Father " of Jesus and `Allah' of The Holy Koran. It does not ascribe to God any specific name , form or other appellations: names like Krishna, Rama, Yahova,; forms like ` `five headed', `serpent like', etc.; appellations and dispositions like crowned, enthroned, with matted locks, wearing specific weapons , dancing, mirthful, wrathful, courting, crucified , weeping etc. See that daivam does not admit even gender difference like male god and female god. Sree Narayana Guru has here in one stroke freed the concept of God from all limiting adjectives and put that in the frameless- ness of the infinite!. True, what is infinite is indefinable. However, if we should ever relate to it ( and when we pray, that is primarily what we do: attempting to relate ourselves to God) it has to be somehow brought within definitions. I believe The Guru has provided a definition in this very stanza.

The first line projects a plea: a plea for succor, security or safety. Such a plea can go only from one who finds oneself insecure, to one who is the repository of all security; from a position of insecurity to a position of security. Therefore, in daivame kaathukolkangu kaividaathingu njangale , the prayer is one that seeks from a position of insecurity to relate and reach out to a position or person that is absolute security. In so doing, God is being defined as `Absolute Security'.

[gopu]

What could be the nature and manifestations of `insecurity' in human situation? What are the fears that haunt us? We fear that life cannot go on forever. We fear that there may not be enough of all those things we need in life, like food, clothes, dwelling, health, enjoyment, love, companionship, friendship, position, recognition etc. This could be an unending list that in summing up would be the entirety of human misery or what is called in the terminology of general Indian spirituality, bhava sagara ( The sea of the created /suffering). In this poem, the Guru calls it Bhavabdhi- the ocean of the created ( Worldly Suffering).

It has been said of `fear' that it proceeds from the awareness of the other and the incomprehensible. This often is understood as the fear of the other person or other being. However, this could also be the other situation. The frame of reference is one in which the other situation is pitted against what could be called the own situation or home situation. In this frame, home situation is one in which all is in place, comfortable, peaceful, fulfilling etc. and the other situation is where all is in disarray, uncomfortable, diverse, painful insufficient, lacking etc. Seen thus, where there is absolute and perfect security it is the epitome of the home situation and a personage endowed with this ultimate security could be termed as the perfectly at home personage. Seen from this standpoint of this personage, all should appear as coherent, agreeable, loveable and blissful.

God as the haven of absolute protection and provision, is seen here as distanced from the human situation as` angu' (there). The human situation is a forsaken `ingu' (here) from where a desperate cry of ` Oh ! Lord, leave us not here ' – kai vidaat- ingu njangale could emanate. The fervent plea kaathu kolka not only does seek succor but vividly suggests the very means by which that may be achieved. It is by means of koLka ( by being received into God's being; by being gathered back into or contained by God's being). The knowledge that one is remaining within God's being is the state of the Garden of Eden and to be exiled from His being is to be cast in the desperate ingu (here) which is the misery and sin of the fall of man.

It is the state of being one with God that the poem addresses as ` your foot hold ' – nin padam. We may hear the same idea from The Guru in Chijjadacintanam :where the spiritual aspirant directly begs of God for his footing -`nin nila’ :

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Nilamodu neruppu niraNNozukum
Jalamaasukanambaram anchilume
Alayaateyadikkadi nalkuka Nin
Nila yiNNitutanne Namukku mati.

(Not for me,The earth the Fire and the Water that reaches out everywhere, nor the Air nor the Sky. May I no longer wallow in the five of these. My sole goal is Thy Station!, My Lord ! That is my one fulfillment.
It is the experience from this God's own footing that is encapsulated in these blazing words of Sathya Sai Baba :

"The moment you see your own inner beauty and are so filled with it that you forget all else, you become free from all bonds. You realize that you are all beauty, all the glory, all the power, all the magnificence of the universe, for the Jiva (the individual) is the reflection of God in the mirror of Nature. Once you attain self-realization, you recognize everyone else as but the reflection of yourself. This is the true basis of the unity of mankind. "

First to conceptually envisage this foothold and then gradually to practice getting into His Shoes is what one may do to cross over from the quagmire of worldly insecurity to the Perfection and Bliss that God is. That is why God's footing is described as the sure and secure vessel like a sturdy steam ship ( aavi van thoni ). Once he gets into this God's footing and the voyage sets off, the marooned mariner should realize that he himself is the helmsman, on whom he depended to be ferried across

This could be read as paralleling the THY WILL BE DONE footing of Jesus Christ. (Luke.11.2-4) " take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt". (Mark.14.36) In the Gethsemane is to be seen the transition from the bitter constricted cup of body- mind centeredness to the unbounded ocean of nectarine Love that THE WILL OF GOD is. The cup is bitter and is filled with insecurity, while the WILL OF GOD is abiding security and all encompassing Love. That is the Love extolled by St. John in: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him". (John-1. 4.16). The Angel greeting of ` Lord is with thee!’ also may be read as being of the self same tune.

When one is gathered back unto God, he should feel `I am God '; `Sivoham' – `I am Siva'. When one is `Siva', he accepts like Siva, even the most dreaded halahala into his bliss. ( The puranic story is that while the Devas and Asuras were churning the milky ocean for the essence of immortality- amrit -, there issued from the mouth of the serpent Vasuki , disastrously poisonous halahala, which on touching ground was believed to have been capable bringing about extensive destruction. Lord Siva received it and partook of it. It brought him no harm; but added unto his glory. He became Neela KaNtha the Blue Necked, which is a name in which He is glorified.)

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2. Onn onnay eNNi yeNNi
totteNNum porul odungiyal
nonnidum drikku pol ullam
ninnil aspanda maakaNam

Reckoning one after one to infinity-
When names and figures are all done,
Like unto the serene Eye remaining,
May our self in thee perfect tuning find

Onn onnaa yeNNi yeNNI - reckoning one and then one, so acknowledging;

so registering.
tot t-eNNum porul A –tottu + B eNNum + C porul

A. tottu -touch. Here it stands for all contacts established by the senses and
the resultant impressions.
B. Ennum - reckoning, registering, acknowledging.

C. porul – knowledge. Here tools and adjuncts of the acknowledging process. ( In the absence of C, B is not possible. In identifying an object as red or yellow, a necessary condition is prior experience of the colors concerned and labels or names - forms and shapes too)-associated with such color experiences in memory. These semantic adjuncts are inevitable tools in the acknowledgement of persons, creatures, things and, moods)
Odungiyaal- when exhausted.

Ninnidum – remaining, abiding.

Drikk – eye, vision, awareness.

Pol in like maner, similarly.

Ullam – heart, soul, the self.

Ninnil- in You



Aspandam- perfect unison without even the slightest pulsation, perfectly
tuned.
AakaNam – so be it.

[gopu]

It may be seen that, worldly knowledge is one that is dependant on adjuncts like name and form or similar stuff belonging to the area of mind and memory. The great poet is absolutely justified when he says that a rose would be a rose even it were known by any other name. However, a rose cannot be a rose if there were no name whatsoever with which to name it. In the event of you not having at least a generalized name like ` a flower` `a thing` ` a what's that` … etc. it would cease to exist for you.

The problem with these 'tools' is that they are never absolute, pure or universal. What is 'red' to someone needs not appear as the same shade of red to another. Moreover, the experience of anything; - be it a color, an object, a person or a mood – gets a coloring contributed by the emotional aspect of individual who experiences. The most basic form of this emotional factor is to be found in like/ dislike. Given that these ' tools of knowledge' are defective and vulnerable, no unruffled, unsullied vision of reality can result from sense contacts. Only when all these coloring, perturbing and distorting elements of non-permanence are removed or overcome through a proper realization of their futility, would the pure vision of reality, reveal itself inside the seeker.( What remains is the infinite primal residuum which may be seen in the Puranas as the Adi Sesha or Ananta on whom Lord Narayana reclines when a creative cycle has been gathered back into Himself ) This vision is serenity itself . This is the ninnidum drik ( abiding vision) of the poem. When this mirror of pure and abiding vision is held up to God, His Full glory would be reflected in it without the slightest ripple blemishing the perfection of the image. The mirror and the mirrored shall be in such perfect tuning that they merge in the Absolute ONE. This state could be identical with what is addressed as ` nin padam` (your foothold) in the preceding verse.

What happens is a gradual refinement of the process of experience through liberating it from the lingo of thought. In Vedantic parlance, this is doing away with names and forms. Freedom from this lingo weakens the thought process, and exhausts the subsistence of the mind stuff. Chittavrittti ceases resulting in Yoga. ("yogas chittavritti nirodhah"- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali )

[gopu]

3.anna vastraadi muttaate
tannurakhshicchu njangale
dhannyar aakkunna nee
onnu tanne njangalku tampuraan

With grub and garb all providing
Who, for ever us in fullness secure hold
With no lapse or miss to intervene
Thou indeed art our bounteous Lord

Anna - food ; vastra – clothes aadi – etc. Together these stand for the
entirety of human needs.
muttate- without ever a want, incessantly.
tannu – giving; providing.
rakshicchu – protect, secure, keep in care.
njangale – us
dhanyar aakkunna – enriching, keeping provided.
nee onnu thane – you are the singular one .
njangalkku – for us
thampuran – the supreme provident Lord.

[gopu]

The Gods plenty that the seeker finds here far exceeds anything in earthly human experience. There is no lack of anything ever. Neither is there the slightest notion of insecurity. It is virtually the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden tree. Yes, such a vision of splendor is possible only from the point of view of the one made in the image of God. That point of view is the ninnidum drikk – abiding vision of the second verse and that of what is alluded to as nin padam – your footing –in the first verse. Again this is the standpoint of the yogasthah of The Bhagavath Geeta who would be in a state of perfect contentment and non attachment. ( yogastah kuru karmaaNi sangam tyaktua Dhananjaya).

What we have here is an unmistakable realization of the hope and faith expressed in Psalm 23 of the Holy Bible. The entire psalm is quoted below as I believe that would enable deeper and more valid readings of both the Daiva dasakam verse and the psalm itself:

PSALM 23
1.The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
2.He leadeth me beside the still waters.
3.He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me through the paths of righteousness for his names sake.
4.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5.Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It may be profitable to note here the mudras of vara ( giving)and abhaya ( protecting) that are ubiquitous in eastern religious iconography. Hindu gods and goddesses are seldom portrayed without these symbolic positioning of the palm. This shows that assurance of material and spiritual plenty as well as protection from all kinds of fear are seen as fundamental to the idea of God. Parama Siva ( supreme godhead that is the embodiment of sat-chit-ananda) riding Nandi ( the divine bull on which Lord Siva rides)offers another iconographic and puranic detail which could be seen in a similar light. Realization of God proceeds from due acknowledgement of all the goodness that we are provided with. nandi literally means this acknowledgement and resultant sense of gratitude. The fact that Nandi is given the form of a bull could be suggestive of the idea, that the God realization downs with the perception of the beneficial even in something that confronts one in the form of a charging bull that apparently is at once adverse, uncontrollable and lethal.
Most Christians add a thanksgiving part to their family prayer, which could be very close to the following lines:

Thank thee, Lord
For all my many blessings,thank thee, Lord.
I have bread, and boardthank thee, Lord.
Thank thee, Lord, for friends and family.
God takes such good care of me.
Amen.

[gopu]

4.aazhi yum tira yum katt umThank thee, Lord
aazha vum pole njangal um
maaya yum nin mahima yum
nee yum enn ullil aakaNam

Let this in conviction sink, that as truth of ocean,
To the waves and wind and fathomless deep do link
So we, to illusory Nature, Thy splendor
And Thy transcendent Truth, do link.

aazhi: ocean
tira : breakers,wave
kaattu: wind
aazham: depth; the ocean currents and variety in temperatures, salinity, density etc. that are hidden in the depth.
pole: in like manner

njangal: we
maaya: the incomprehensible and illusory power and process of subtle and gross manifestations that results in mind and matter that constitute the experienced universe. This is often referred to as play of maaya ( maaya leela) or play of the Devine.
nin: your
mahima : greatness, manifest signs and symbols of supreme power.
Nee: You
ennu: in the self same manner
ullil : centre of awareness, inside,
aakaNam: should be so (comprehended)

The parallelism wrought in this verse is one where:
The ocean = Nee (God)
The depth= maaya
Wind = nin mahima (God's manifest glory, power)
Breakers (waves) = njangal (we humans)