Periazhwar’s Devotion

Excerpts from Baba's speech

A King named Vallabha Devan made a golden parrot and hung it in his palace.  He then made an announcement throughout his Kingdom.  “Whoever provides the answer and shows the path by which a soul can escape from the cycle of birth and death will be rewarded with this gold parrot.  I would not give it to him.  If the answer spoken is the truth then the gold parrot will automatically fall into the lap of the person.” 

Many people attempted but no one was able to provide the right answer.  Periazhwar was continuing to do his duty and remain silent unruffled by the King’s announcement.  God appeared in his dream and said, ‘You go to the King and provide the solution to his question.’  Initially Periazhwar refused to go but when God explains its importance to him he agrees to go.  Periazhwar comes to the palace of Vallabha Devan and says, ‘To redeem oneself from the cycle of birth and death, one has to seek refuge at the feet of the Lord.  There is no other way.’  The golden parrot automatically falls into his lap.

Why did the Lord appear in Periazhwar’s dream and ask him to go and provide the answer to the King’s query, when Periazhwar had no inclination towards it?  The Lord gave that eligibility to none other than Periazhwar because of the love and devotion that he had placed on the Lord.  Such devotion and love had come to no one else so easily.  As far as he was concerned, Lord Krishna was a child to him.  That’s all.  He would sing, ‘Come for your bath’, to an imaginary child visualizing him as Krishna, give him a bath, cajole and play with the child and imagine Krishna running around him and playing with him.  He lived thus all through his life.  This is one reason.

Secondly, have any of us ever thought, ‘The Lord is going down in weight’?  We never think like that.  Reason, we don’t feel love for the Lord as a living life force whose health we are concerned about.  But, Periazhwar alone has felt that way.  When he sees the Lord being carried in a palanquin, to his eyes alone the Lord seems to look weak.  When he felt that the Lord has become weak, he thinks the Lord is not feeling well and hence has become weak and composes the song, ‘Pallandu, Pallandu Palakodi Noorayiram..’  (May you live long for many hundred crore years!)   That song is an outburst of his feelings as a father and mother to Krishna...  Perumal is not feeling well; he should live long and in good health. 

Since he had such a depth of devotion for the Lord, the Lord used him as His instrument.  To proclaim a Truth to the world, the spokesman should also be a perfect person.  A spokesman should first believe in what he is speaking for.  He should first have confidence in what he is going to proclaim, isn’t it?  Else the words would become baseless.   What Periazhwar said was really true.  If a human being has to get liberated from the cycle of birth and death, he should seek refuge at the feet of the Lord and have unwavering love towards the Lord, in some form.