[Advaita-l] Re: institutionalization of religion

[Lakshmi Muthuswamy]

  Namaste
  
Rama wrote,

  "Go to any mutt and you will find people donating lots of money getting royal treatment and personal talks with the aachaaryas. It's very difficult not to do otherwise. Let's stop critcizing the RK folks and
just try to find out whether the same things go on in your favorite
Mutt. I guarantee that you'll be surprised."

Ramaji you are right.
   
  The head of the institution has to feed the numerous heads which are depending on him. One man earns, for hundreds of people. He has to generate a perennial income for the somany holy hobos surrounding him. If the money supplier is not given his due importance and his ego not boosted, he will go elsewhere to find another ego booster. Stiff competition. He will loose the money supplier and the chelas as well to the Christian and Muslim community.
   
  Todays world the Christians and Muslims are greater threats for the Hindu Mutts in this competetion.
   
  Any mutt is an institution. And institution is made of people. More so in Hindu religious institutions there are more number of people who have not found themselves fit either in education or able to take responsibility for themselves and their families. Most of them are drop outs. They dont fit in anywhere.  
   
  Such people also have to survive. Its BhagavAn's way of feeding these jIvas. So some puNyavAn has made a lots of monies. He has to find a way out to spend. So at atleast he is feeding these souls indirectly. Ishvara makes it all happen.
   
  All the mutt heads are adept at  following the management principle "THINK BIG" in terms of owning hundreds of acres of land and a number of inmates to maintain the place. So for his maintenance and upkeep, BhagavAn fills the coffers of some other person and makes him philanthropic and make him do charity acts, boosting his already bloated ego of owning wealth.
   
  All this is vyAvahArika jagat. In this vyavahara - what is it that can be said as right and what is it that can be pointed out as wrong? It's BhagavAn's lilA.
   
  No mutt is right and no mutt is wrong as long as its not a game of survival.
   
  As students of vedanta, we need to remind ourselves often that every man/woman has taken the janma to exhaust his pApa/ puNya. So if a person is living without much to worry about and somebody else slogs and feeds him in the name of the mutt, his earned puNya  is exhausting this way. One is exhausting puNya and the other accumulating puNya.
   
  So just watch, be a sAxI, contribute if possible/if necessary, or just smile  keep moving.

om namo narayanaya
   
  Lakshmi Muthuswamy

 		
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