EXPERIENCE 1

Taking directives from Agathiyar and the Siddhas all this while we were surprised when Ma came one day and told us that the Siddha path was one of learning or படிப்பினை (and henceforth gaining experience). This learning (and the relative experience gained from it) will become jnana or knowledge to others she said. Making mistakes is a learning process she added, telling us it was fine to make mistakes and that it was part of the process. She asks us to share the experience.

Agathiyar in my very first Nadi reading told me about my faults and the experiences I have had but assured me that it was fine and that it was all his doing too, and that I needed the experience. That was reassuring. But he sent me off to do my parikara or remedies. There was no escape from that.

Recently Aiya came and specifically spoke on this blog and my writings. He asked to continue to write and not be confused. He cleared the air that he was in my thoughts and was penning the posts and its contents. What a relief it was. After penning the thoughts I always thank him for a very well written post, going back to read it again and again, admiring his mastery of the language and taking in the gist and essence of what was written, for I am learning together with the readers of this blog many new things said and revealed in these pages.

Prior to this Agathiyar had through numerous Nadi readings encouraged me to continue writing. When I decide to call it a day and sign off, I receive a mail or message from readers thanking me for the post and asking me to write further and to share these experiences.

Prof Alan Hugenot says that "Experience is an in-forming of consciousness. We are having a conscious experience that is real." He now believes that consciousness makes the brain and not the other way around as understood earlier. Now we can understand pretty well how and why the Deities, Siddhas and Angels chose to come through mediums to relay messages, heal or work their miracles. To my surprise the divine energy traversed through me too and spoke, bringing messages to those who sought answers or words of comfort. I used to be doubting the occurrences if it was I who was cooking up things or it was genuinely another entity. It was exactly as how Prof Alan equates this phenomenon to that of having two personalities, which he did question himself too.

"..its almost as if like a different person. If I shut the "professor" down, I become the medium."

Then they tell me that it was them. I was relieved. Even then I sit with them and voice out my worry that it should never be me "cold reading" as Prof Alan terms it and misleading these wonderful souls into believing that the divine was addressing them.

The very first instance a Siddha came to heal someone was when the person's energy centers were surprisingly blocked by his guru for reasons only known to him. When I heard this from the ailing man's wife, I was stunned. How could a guru do such a horrible thing to his student I asked myself? All these while I had very high regards of gurus and thought that they would only do good and not harm. Well, Agathiyar showed me the other side or the dark side of spiritualism that day. The Siddhas cured him bringing much relief to an otherwise troubled family.

But deep within, I and my wife did not want this to pursue further. We did not want the home to be listed on the directory for shamans and medicine man. We did not want a line of people waiting hopefully to be cured, their obstacles removed or their wishes granted. I had a family and work to attend too. I was terrified thinking about the scenario that would materialize if we were to remain passive. Agathiyar too understood that I was not ready for this. He listened to our prayers, asking all these manifestations of his powers be stopped, and backed off - at least for some time. He was smart. He bought time. He waited for me to mature spiritually while holding the thin line.  After some time, when things went back to normal, he began to bring the subject up. When I initially revolted, for numerous reasons, not approving of this energy using me for its purpose, Agathiyar, sitting in my thoughts, told me that there was no reason for me to be fearful of what was taking place, assuring me and putting to rest my worries about letting strangers into my home, where I had a family to take "care" of. He assured me that no harm will come to them. He told me that he was there to help selected destined souls whom he brought over to be cured and relieved of their baggage and burden. He asks me to step aside and watch. He told me he was only using my home as a venue and the body as a tool and us as a medium to do what needs to be done. This is what Lord Muruga asked of me to do too, through the Nadi. Give way to this energy and watch it do its stuff, he told me. He reminded my wife too to just watch in many instances. 

Soon we came to witness many miracles take place in others lives. Many came back to tell us that life had changed for the better and obstacles and danger were cleared. Some had to wait a long while for a miracle to happen while there are many still holding on to hope till this day. 

True to what Ma and Aiya said of the Siddha path that it was a path of learning lessons and gaining experience and that that experience will, in turn, become jnana, Swami Vivekananda in his "Jnana Yoga - the Yoga of Knowledge", Advaita Ashrama, Kolkatta, 2004, writes of experience as the start of knowledge.

All human knowledge proceeds out of experience: we cannot know anything except by experience. The fear of death, the duckling taking to the water and all involuntary actions in the human being which have become instinctive, are the result of past experiences. 

He adds that,

Each man and each animal is born with a fund of experience, and that all these actions in the mind are the result of past experience.

He speaks about the thoughts held and experienced and its influence in determining the soul's evolution very clearly. "What directs the soul when the body dies?" he asks. The answer he says is "the resultant - the total sum of all the works it has done, of the thoughts it has thought."

If the resultant is such that it has to manufacture a new body for further experience, it will go to those parents who are ready to supply it with suitable material for that body. Thus, from body to body it will go, sometimes to a heaven, and back again to earth, becoming man, or some lower animal. This way it will go on until it has finished its experience, and completed the circle. It then knows its own nature, knows what it is, and ignorance vanishes, its powers become manifest, it becomes perfect, no more is there any necessity for the soul to work through physical bodies, nor is there any necesity for it to work through finer, or mental bodies. It shines in its own light, and is free, no more to be born, no more to die.

This sums up to the state of attaining jnana. Now we understand pretty well when Dhanvanthri said this of Tavayogi that he shines in his own light and shall guide all those who know him. 

From the above revelation of Swami Vivekananda, it looks like we are here to exhaust our fund of experiences gained over time, by giving it away in some form or other to others. I now realized why Supramania Swami passed on his 40 years of tapas or tavam in toto to me before leaving his mortal frame. He told me we should not take anything with us not even that divine experience gained from doing austerities. We understand the reason for saints to share their experiences through their songs, leaving it behind for the future generation. It makes sense now when we are told to consult the wise for decisions or a direction. They can advise us better with their fund of experience they carry. I now understand why Agathiyar told me I needed the experience however bitter and hurting it was. 

The Akashic records out there then is nothing but the accumulation of the vast past experiences of souls, that if tapped could provide extensive knowledge to us. Now we understand even better the need for us to go within and remain silent, for in that silence this knowledge will be made available. If we needed the aid of the Nadi and its reader to have the Siddhas reveal to us our past birth, Tavayogi tapped into this knowledge and knew his former birth. Supramania Swami tapped into these records and made me sit spellbound for five hours in a row, revealing about me. This past knowledge that is retrieved from the Akasha would prove valuable in helping others, to allay their fears, to provide remedies, to provide intuition etc. In days gone by people used to seek wise men for advice.  These men although have left their mortal frames exist in the unseen world. Knock on their doors and you shall receive their knowledge. Ask and it shall be given. Agathiyar reveals a secret to decipher the teachings of saints that were encoded in songs that are neither comprehensible or make any sense to us. For instance, he tells us to ask of Tirumular to tell us or reveal the essence of his songs, rather than depend on translations. Only the saint knows what he was talking about. The saint will come within to reveal. Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar always advocates us to recite the names of the Siddhas, hardly showing one to control the breath or do pranayama. He says the Siddhas will enter and facilitate the breath when we are ready. Here we shall see no risk nor danger involved, compared to an attempt to navigate the breath learning from books, correspondence courses, tutorials or Youtube. 

Now we understand the Siddha Neri or path is one of living day to day, incorporating its teachings into everyday life, and not one confined within the walls of an ashram. Once conferred by the guru and the spark is lit it is kept burning by the Siddhas as one sincerely travels the path with devotion and discipline. The goal is neither something waiting to be achieved and attained within a certain time or neither is the spark that ignites it deployed at a certain time, at an ashram or through the guru, but can take place anywhere irrespective of time and space. We can never know the beginning and the end of the path.