| One of the signs of decline of the
Saivites is the fact that a submissive and slave mentality has come to prevail. Under the
notion of ?Samarasam? they have lost their capacity to struggle against the tides and live
only by TRUTH. In order to seek out
truth and live in it one has to be brave and adventurous. And this requires the
destruction of submissiveness and cowardice. A good model for us in this regard is Appar
and his struggles must be retold and his philosophy reanalyzed in order to make Saiva
Siddhantha a living force again.
In his epoch making hymn ?Nam Yaarkkkum Kudiyallom....?
he is in fact outlining a new philosophy of human freedom which is quite different from
the concept of freedom that is available now in the Western countries. Genuine freedom is
not simply a permissiveness to do whatever one wants, neither is it going along with
majority opinion. For permissiveness is slavery to passions and the majority can be quite
wrong in number of cases. Genuine freedom requires the absolution of personal desires and
seeking out TRUTH no matter how problematic and difficult it becomes.
Appar also mentions that true human freedom is possible
only by being close to and intimate with SHIVA for it is only SHIVA who as the ABSOLUTE
BEING is totally free. We human beings become free only to the extend we proximate SHIVA.
For Appar understands Siva as "Thaan Yaarkum
Kudiyalla Sangkaran" which means Siva is not only totally transcendent but also
totally powerful and authoritative. There is no power in the world that can excel him and
exceed him, a notion that was also articulated by Thirumular. with the words
"Thanakku thane Thalaivanagiya Thatparan".
These notions have been forgotten by the Tamil people
and because of which they seem to emphasise submissiveness and mental slavery. We have to
realise this fault of our present day Saivite culture and draw up programmes so that we do
not continue to create youths who are afraid of seeking out truth and only truth.
Our whole education programme must be revamped so that
creativity and productive thinking are encouraged. We should discourage repetitiveness and
encourage the production of new thoughts, novel ideas no matter how deviant they are from
established modes of thought.
Only when the mind is free to explore the whole world
of ideas unhampered will it understand the enormous dance of Siva and only then they will
understand the truths of Saiva Siddhantam.
(By Dr.K.Loganathan, Extracted from
Saiva Ulakam 20, Vol 5, No.4 ) |
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