God creates this world and the nether worlds and directs the drama called universe and helps people to be in the righteous path. To add variety he creates good and evil and a fight between them. In earlier times there was a clear demarkation of good and evil and whenever the evil gained power, Vishnu, the Protector of the world, incarnated and killed a demon or a king who was the evil doer and set the stage for the drama to go on. God is an epitome of kindness and makes sure that the world with all its sham and drudgery is still a nice place and the universe is unfolding as it should.
But at a later time, around 2500 years before our present time, the divine forces perpetuating the good and evil both entered into the minds of people and the demarkation between them was almost gone. Men were trapped in a dark forest called ignorance and are getting burnt by the forest fire of dry life because of following inadequate schools of philosophy advocated by impostors. At this stage Shiva, the First Guru of Advaitha, who was in a silent penance under a banyan tree incarnated as Shankaraachaaryaa, a teacher, like a cool water pond on a hilltop flows as a river to help quench the forest fire.
We owe to Shri Shankara who is the greatest philosopher ever born on the face of this earth, the slight glimpse of the ancient cult of highest purity and wisdom and sincere devotees of God and a few true saints left in this world ( which incidentally is called Hinduism, a word used by foreigners for a culture below a river they crossed called Sindhu in India. But It was actually a way of life of the whole world at an ancient time which gradually disappeared with emergence of other religions found by other men born later or their followers.)
Shri Shankara wrote commentaries to the authoritative Hindu scriptures to throw light on the true message in them called Advaithaa. Advaithaa is a word meaning "No two". The gist of the Advaitha philosophy is that God, The higher self is the eternal truth. The whole universe is his manifestation like a dream. Man can realise this and resonate with God even when he is alive which means the soul inside every being is not different from God, the higher self. Man, when freed from sheaths around him like his senses, mind and intellect which binds him to this world, stands as the pure self, which is God himself. Shri Shankara walked all over India which is like the heart of the world to infuse new blood to the whole world and met scholars and convinced them to accept advaithaa as the true philosophy.
But that was for a change of intellectual awareness among the philosophers. People at large are not interested in philosophy. Shankaraa was a practical philosopher who did not advocate the toughest ideal of penance and contemplation which needs utmost purity of thought and deed as a prerequisite. He did not mislead the simple minded people to assume that they have already attained a stage of spirituality just because they can read some philosophical books or quote verses from them when they can't even control simple cravings of senses. He placed God, the magnificent form of purity and virtue by whose grace alone can one even get inclined to the search of soul and can even think of walking in the intricate path of spirituality.
Shri Shankaraa re-established the worship and festivals of six major Gods in every household. They are Ganesha, Shiva and Paarvathi, Vishnu, Subrahmanya and Soorya, the Sun. He sang devotional songs to all those deities and reinstated their worship in temples. He made extinct many uncivilised forms of worship prevalent in his time.
His devotional songs are of great poetic value and spiritual content that they have lived through centuries and are among the first prayers even today, in both in temples and in homes. Let us pray at the feet of Shri Shankara who encompassed all other philosophies which were incomplete and emerged with his clear flowing words of wisdom.
Among his six thousand disciples who went with him in his tour winning the hearts of people by his holy presence and the minds of intellectuals by his powerful words, there was a humble one named Thotaka who was contended with service to his master. But on a particular day when Shri Shankara was waiting for him to join the class which he conducted every morning, others who always had the most intelligent questions, mentioned that it makes no difference whether he is there or not. Shri Shankara wanting to show the truth of that statement showers his blessing on Thotaka who comes to the scene singing in great joy that he is seeing the essence of all the books being read there in life in front of him in Shri Shankara. Those beautiful songs show his mind in the words and ecstatic mood in the rhythm. Here it is!
