Siddha Heartbeat: GRATITUDE & SURRENDER AT THE LORD'S FEET PART 1/2

Bala Chandran sent me a wonderful message at 7.49 am this morning.

Good morning Anne. How r u? Anne, today is my 1st anniversary being in Siddha Maarkam. Last year, in the same date I was at Agathiyar Vanam n Anne gave me the chance to worship Agathiyar Perumaan. I m really happy n feeling blessed to be in this amazing n wonderful maarkam. n Anne playing a very big role in my journey of Siddha Maarkam. I took this opportunity to thank Anne, n family. thank you so much. Tc Anne. Om Agatheesaaye Nama.

I did not keep count of the days. Bala reminded me today. Earlier Suren Selvaratnam told me it has been more than 3 years now since he frequented Agathiyar Vanam. When I asked Suren to confirm this morning, Suren e-mails me from Kenya,

Hi Sir. I came across your website in 2010 and I commented on that. After that I added you in facebook which was at the end of that year. We spoke a bit on Nadi and you invite me for the guru pooja in your house which was going to be held soon. I met you in person during the first guru pooja in 2010.

Jnana Jyothi Amma always mentions to me about that moment when she went into my website indianheartbeat (now defunct) that led to her mailing to me asking about Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal.

It is wonderful to know all these people who have come together or should I say, brought together for the sole purpose of promoting the Siddha Margam. Along the way we have been introduced to Velayathum Karthikeyan, one of the key personals who through his blog SITHTHAN ARUL has reached a vast number of devotees with revelations from the Nadi especially revealing to us the workings of the Siddhas. Then we have Nadi Gurus like T.Ramesh of Kumbakonam and Sentilkumar of Avinashi, through whom Agathiyar communicates with his devotees.

What Bala has done is showed his gratefulness and gratitude via SMS. Ramalinga Adigal showed his gratefulness through songs that were compiled as the TIRUARUTPA. In his sixth and last volume of the TIRUARUTPA, Adigal is purely singing his gratitude to the Lord for showering him with blessings, turning him into a Siddha and passing him the staff of authority to create, to sustain, to destroy, to veil and to shower grace.

With the Indians it is customary to fall at the feet, to show one's gratitude and gratefulness. Usually this is done as a mark of respect to the elders especially the parents, foster parents, in-laws, those who had cared for us, the Gurus be it the religious Gurus, spiritual Gurus or those Gurus who have taught us the fine arts. By falling at their feet, one expects to receive their blessings for a good life. It is like getting a boost or a spur of energy to move on with life. In some instances it denotes one's surrender to the other.

When someone falls or touches one's feet, that person is bound to bend over and help the fallen up. God and Gurus do the exact thing too.

On the spiritual front it is liken with one dropping his ego. One grab's the feet of the Lord, and by doing it shows that in the Lord's presence "one" does not exist. That is losing the ego.

Swami Sivananda (left) and Swami Vishnudevananda

The most excellent episode of one who has dropped his ego is enacted in this episode between Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh and Swami Vishnudevananda. Swami Vishnudevananda writes on his first encounter with his master Swami Sivananda, in ‘MY YEARS WITH THE MASTER’ at http://www.sivanandaonline.org.

As if by chance, I had found a piece of paper that intrigued me. One night when I was working late and was searching for a misplaced paper, I found a small pamphlet in the trash basket. It was called ‘SADHANA TATTVA’ and was by Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh. As soon as I read it, my body began to shake. It began with ‘An ounce of practice is worth tons of theory.’ Here was a teacher who was down-to-earth and practical. There was nothing mysterious about his teachings; I felt that I had to meet him for myself. I got a few days leave from the army.

I was an arrogant boy on leave from the army. It meant that I had to travel a day and a night from my army base in Jullunder. I would have only a few hours at the Ashram - just to see the Master and then go right back.

The first time I saw Swami Sivananda he was sitting with about 30 or 40 people around him. He looked like an ordinary man among them. The look on his face and manner of speech were simple and straightforward. Each word came from his heart. There was no kind of religious hypocrisy, no sitting on a tiger skin with ashes smeared all over his body. He had an extraordinary spiritual glow.

The second time, I saw him Swami Sivananda was coming up the stairs in my direction. I didn't want to bow my head to him. I was young and arrogant and never wanted to bow my head to anybody-Swami, God-realised soul or whoever, I didn't care. But it is the tradition in India that you should bow your head to a holy man. To avoid the situation I just moved out of his path.

The Master saw me and headed in my direction. He asked me who I was and where I was coming from. Then he bowed down and touched my feet!!

My whole body began to shake violently. With all my heart, with all my life and love, I learned to bow without any type of reservation. He touched my heart not with miracles or shows of holiness, but with his perfect egoless nature.

He didn't consider that I was just a stupid boy standing there, though I was just that. He touched my heart and broke the ego. That was my first lesson, and if I could attain one millionth of the state of egolessness of the Master, it is His Grace.

Before leaving, I went down the Ganga where it was the custom of the Ashram to do Aarati (waving of lights) every evening. All the devotees and inmates of the Ashram assembled by the banks of the Ganga to watch Master perform this evening worship. I was sceptical. I was of a scientific temperament and knew that a river is only water, H2O-imagine worshipping H20!!

But as I stood there and watched Master waving the lights, I saw the river become a mass of flowing lights. At that instant the river assumed a divine flow, a manifestation of the Grace of the Lord. Master turned and looked at me and in my mind I heard his message, “God pervades everything; this too is His Special Form.” This entirely changed my outlook on life.

After reading the personal account of Swami Vishnudevananda, I was proud to be in a land where Swami Sivananda had once served as a doctor.

Ram Dass describes his very first meeting with an Indian saint, who was to become his Guru later, and how the saint broke Ram Dass's ego.

"The night before I met Maharaji, I went outside to go to the bathroom. Under the star-filled Indian skies, I thought about my mother who died the previous year of cancer of the spleen. As I was thinking about her, I experienced the powerful feeling of her presence. Telling no one, I kept this meaningful experience to myself. The next day, I met Neem Karoli Baba – that experience changed my life forever…."

Ram Dass narrates the rest of his story at http://www.ramdass.org/meeting-maharaji/ and at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkmOdbJnMGw

In the following episode the Guru Bhagawan Nithyananda kills the ego in his disciple Muktananda and sends bliss and joy into his disciple by passing him his footwear or Padukas.

Bhagawan Nithyananda, who always travelled barefoot, to everyone’s surprise once wore sandals.

“Take these sandals, put them on,” he instructed Muktananda.

Muktananda questioned his guru, “Gurudev you have worn these Padukas. How can I wear them?’’. But nevertheless he did accept them. Then at that very moment he saw a ray of light coming from Bhagawan Nithyananda’s eyes and it went straight into him. He could feel it too.

Margaret Simpson in ‘A PERFECT LIFE’, Siddha Yoga Publication, 1996, writes,

It was searing red hot and so bright that it dazzled his eyes. Every hair on Baba’s (Muktananda) body rose in awe. He kept repeating, “Guru Om, Guru Om,”

He lost all sense of himself. He only came out of it when Bhagawan Nithyananda made a sound. As he set off for home that day carrying Bhagawan’s sandals on his head Muktananda was filled with wonder and gratitude.

On the home front, I was gifted a pair of sandals or Paatharatchai and its companion Vaasikol by Tavayogi on my recent visit to Kallar in October of last year. It came as a surprise to me. As my family and I got ready to leave Kallar, Tavayogi called aside both my wife and me and handed a pair of sandal to me and a vaasikol to my wife. We were overjoyed in receiving them. We understood that they were made from the very trunk of the Nuna tree which was the stala vriksham of Kallar Ashram. The tree had been uprooted due to strong winds just a couple of weeks before our arrival at Kallar.

As I already had a pair of sandals and a vaasikol that I had purchased, and was worshiping I asked Tavayogi what I should do with them (the earlier pair). Tavayogi told me to keep them too. Later after arriving in Malaysia, I wanted to give it away to Suren. Suren had asked me some time back where to purchase a new set so that he too could start worship the Paduka. So I called Tavayogi and asked if I could pass the set that I had worshiped to Suren and Tavayogi consented.

Suren received the set from me just before he left for Bangkok on assignment. From Bangkok he flew to Kallar to have a reading of the Jeeva Nadi by Tavayogi. On that memorable day (15.2.2014), for both Suren and me, Agathiyar mentioned about the Vaasikol given to Suren and told Suren that he was present in that Vaasikol in his (Suren's) house.

உன் இல்லமதில் வாசிக்கோல் வடிவில் நான் உள்ளேன்

Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal when he went on rounds preaching or visiting devotee's homes, he sent the word around that none should perform the ritual of washing the feet of the Guru with milk and water or Paatha Puja on him. In fact Tavayogi sent a sense of horror in me when he picked both my sandals and his from across the bank of the stream that flowed through Kallar and brought it over to the opposite bank where I was waiting. I was shaking with fright, head to toe seeing him do that.

On the contrary, when my brother invited a prominent Guru, from a well established religious and spiritual movement, but did not perform the Paatha Puja, the Guru was visibly agitated and walked into the home with his sandals.

When both Tavayogi and I were shopping for greens at the market in Methupalaiyam, and as we were making our way to the car, seeing me struggle with the goods that we had purchased, Tavayogi walked up to me, snatched the sack of vegetables from my hands, and casually threw it over his shoulders and walked the streets of Methupalaiyam back to the car.

When Tavayogi came over to my home the very first time, all my friends and family were on hand to invite him in. My mother who was upstairs at the moment of his arrival, came down shortly. Tavayogi uttered, "Only now am I seeing my Mother!" and fell at her feet to the amazement of all gathered.

My family and I fall at Tavayogi's feet as we see him as a Guru and a Father. He represents Agathiyar, the Siddhas and the Path itself. Even today many fall at Tavayogi's feet out of respect however much he dislikes this act. With all the reminders, posters and signage in place, it still does not register with the devotees. Tavayogi has finally given in as he realized he just cannot do much to stop this ritual.