When Lord Murugan and Agathiyar came yesterday, my wife posed the question as to why many fall victim to false gurus, masters, and teachers who dish out initiations freely and to a large crowd where some find themselves suffering and in pain later. Agathiyar replied that it was fated. They have to fall a victim and learn from these painful experiences. In another earlier discourse with Agathiyar, he addressed the issue of mass initiation reminding us not to go for it. The Siddhas always initiate in private he said.
பொது சபையில் ஏற்படும் எதுவும் ஏற்க வேண்டாம். சித்தன் வழங்குவது என்றால் தனித்து தான் வழங்குவான். உடல் நிலையை பார்த்து, மண நிலையை பார்த்து, சுவாச இயக்கத்தை பார்த்து வழங்குவான்.
There are things that we desire to carry out be it in the material or spiritual field. Then there are those things that the divine desires for us. Looking around and scouting for an initiation gets us into trouble. Agathiyar and Bhogar question us if the master who was dishing out these mass initiation takes into regard three important matters, that if not in top form could harm us, before initiating one: our physical state, the state of our mind, and the flow of the breath.
As I write this post it suddenly dawns on me the reason for having to retake the initiation that night in 2005. I had gone to Tavayogi on my own accord after reading an advert in the Tamil daily that caught my attention for several days on. The name Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal rang a bell in me. A leaflet that the Nadi reader Senthilkumar of Avinasi had passed on to me some three years back then and that I kept with me carried the name Thaiveedu Thangarasan M.A. He was sourcing funds to build a temple for Agathiyar in Kallar. I took the leaflet with me to verify if it was him when he visited Malaysia in 2005 to officiate a local affiliate of his. It turned out to be him. When I told him that Agathiyar had asked me to come to the worship of Siddhas, he told me that I had come to the right place and I shall learn much from his local affiliate. While Tavayogi wanted to initiate me that midmorning, the organizers informed him that they had arranged for several others to be initiated later that night and that I and my wife could join them. We attended the mass initiation. Yesterday when Agathiyar came and spoke, I realized that this initiation did not carry any weight as it was an organized affair and not one that the Siddhas initiated.
When I mentioned to him that Agathiyar had asked me to come back for a reading after three years and that time had come, I was shown to T.Ramesh. Agathiyar had me get initiated again that baffled both Tavayogi and me. This time he was alone as I headed to the center where he lodged immediately after the reading as directed by Agathiyar. It was done in private, one-to-one. Though Agathiyar had told me later that he had sent Tavayogi to me the moment of initiation has to be determined by the divine. In telling us that they shall not initiate us in public, Agathiyar reveals the reason he had me go back to Tavayogi to retake the initiation that fateful night.
பொதுவில் நாங்கள் எதுவும் வழங்க மாட்டோம். அதற்காக தான் இந்த பாலகனை மறுபடியும் அனுப்பிவைத்தோம். தீக்சை ரகசியமாக நடக்க வேண்டியது.
My fate changed that fateful night. My destiny was rewritten. The reading was mysteriously erased after I listened and followed and went back to Tavayogi the night of the reading for that mysterious and puzzling initiation. I was called for another reading, my third that rewrote my destiny. There was no mention of the local Peedham but instead, Agathiyar directed me to spend several days with Tavayogi and him in the former's ashram in Kallar after his return. A wonderful relationship blossomed that day as I was redirected to come directly under the tutorship of Tavayogi.
This explains why I failed to receive the blessings of Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar when I included his Kudil in my itinerary in 2003 after it was suggested by his devotees in his local affiliate in Dengkil. I had gone on my own accord. It was only in 2008 that Agathiyar after explaining the state of the guru in three consecutive readings asked me to go and receive his blessings. I did not go as I had settled for Tavayogi then.
This also explains why the Nadi reader Senthilkumar and I failed to pick out and establish any Nadi as mine on our first sitting even after going through three whole bundles. When we came together some two weeks later my details appeared precisely in the very first bundle itself and in the first few leaves that he turned over.
Turning to me last evening Agathiyar said that the reason he sent me to Supramania Swami before I met Tavayogi was to keep me safe and under his custody till Tavayogi came along. When Tavayogi came along, Swami passed me on to him. Now I understand why he sent me off to see Tavayogi the day after I arrived at his Kudil in Tiruvannamalai on my second visit to India in 2005. I shared my Nadi reading of Agathiyar mentioning that Tavayogi was my guru too. Though Supramania Swami was my guru too he had no reservations about sending me off to see him. Upon my return from Kallar Supramania Swami surprised me further by asking how Tavayogi was doing. I have yet to see gurus of the nature of Supramania Swami and Tavayogi who are humble to the core.
In continuing to brief us about the false, Agathiyar pointed out to us that one would not know light if there was no darkness. Similarly one would come to know the true path and a true guru only if he has the experience of living under a false one. In an earlier assembly, Agathiyar pointed out that we needed experiences to gain clarity. They shall give us these much-needed experiences.
நாம் தெளிவு அடைய அனுபவங்களை சித்தர்களே வழங்குவார்கள். அப்போதுதான் தெளிவு பெறுவீர்கள்.
In reviewing my past karma in my first Nadi reading, Agathiyar told me that I had messed up my past lives. But as I shed tears and could not accept and come to terms with it, he consoled me that they were experiences that were much needed for my evolvement and that he had staged them. He asked that I forgive myself first.
Indeed when I recall now it all makes sense. In my burning desire that started in 1980, to get to the bottom of many things that was misquoted, the many misbeliefs, superstitions, and sheer nonsense that existed in the tradition and custom, I read and read but only became more confused. I wanted to make sense of all the practices and rituals carried out but it led me nowhere. Satsang with my seniors too led me nowhere. As I watched helplessly the sufferings of those close to me, I began to question the deities and the unfair acts and justice that they meted out to their own children and devotees. When their very devotees suffered in their hands it irked me further. Standing on the brink of lunacy, that is when Lord Siva came in a dream and asks me to cool off. The divine saved me through that dream in 1988. I did take a long break. The ice was broken after some seven years when I was intrigued to know further about gurus and masters after receiving Yogananda Paramahansa's book, "Autobiography of A Yogi" from a colleague who resigned from his job to become a monk at Yogananda's Ranchi ashram in 1994. After receiving this treasure that changed my course of life, my attention turned to reading about the gurus and spiritualism. I was recalled into temple worship when my wife carried our second child in 1998. The Vasudeva mantra was passed on to me by my nephew through his guru's lineage that I came to know later was from Agathiyar. Agathiyar had come to reclaim me that hot Saturday afternoon in 2001. A year later I read the Nadi. The following year in 2003, I met Supramania Swami in Tiruvannamalai when I made my rounds doing my remedies given by Agathiyar in the Nadi reading.
I believe now after what Agathiyar had revealed yesterday that in my eagerness to know about the worship of the Siddhas that Agathiyar had asked me to undertake, fearing that I might fall for some false guru and their teachings he had me come under the custody of Supramania Swami. He kept me safe till I was passed on to Tavayogi. Supramania Swami passed away a year later after I met Tavayogi on our shores. I guess I was spared the suffering, probable financial losses, loss of sleep, and complications to health as many others had to go through to learn a lesson. Though the spiritual path too is known to be full of thorns Agathiyar safely guided us through the thorns.
Neale Donald Walsch tells of a beautiful tale in his "The Little Soul and the Sun" that is very much in line with what Agathiyar told us last evening. A Little Soul though it knows that it is Light wanted the experience.
Then God said, "Since you cannot see yourself as the Light when you are in the Light, we'll surround you with darkness." He continued, "in order to experience anything at all, the exact opposite of it will appear" and he went on to explain the opposites of things. Giving him a list of ways he could be special and having the Little Soul add on to it, God tells the Soul "Let your Light so shine that everyone will know how special you are", and went on to ask, "What part of special do you want to be?"
The Little Soul opts for the part to be forgiving, saying it wants to experience it for itself. God grants the Little Soul's wish. A Friendly Soul then steps in to help the Little Soul realize the experience. When asked why it volunteered the Friendly Soul tells the Little Soul "Don't you remember? Oh, we have danced together, you and me many times. Through the eons and across all the ages have danced. Across all the time and in many places have we played together. You just don't remember. We have both been through all of it. We have been the male and female, the good and the bad, we have both been the victim and the villain of it. Thus we have come together, you and me many times before, each bringing to the other the exact and perfect opportunity to express and experience who we really are. I will come into your next lifetime and be the bad one this time. I will do something really terrible and then you can experience yourself as the one who forgives."
The Friendly Soul tells the Little Soul that in having to do that unkind thing it would have to slow down its vibration and become very heavy. Annie Besant in her talks on "The Laws of the Higher Life", the Theosophical Publishing House, 1903, draws two distinct divisions to people and their brains.
"The coarser vibrations of the lower world and those adapted to it are one. The others are those who are in the front of evolution and of a subtler nature. The more highly evolved brain that is sensitive and readily responsive to subtle vibrations is that of the spiritual genius - spiritual, artistic, and literary. Then the normal brain under undue stress and emotion becoming sensitive and tense is the brain of the religious mystic and seer."
"While the former is careless of ordinary affairs, the latter with its "intense desire to reach a higher life overstrains the nerves hence rendering it sensitive to answer vibrations from the subtler planes of being. Then visions and abnormal happenings will occur. The superphysical consciousness finds at least for a brief moment a vehicle sufficiently sensitive to receive and answer to its impulses. The neuropathic brain affords the conditions necessary for the vision that belongs to the superphysical world, to impress itself on the physical consciousness." I guess I currently fit into this category. Annie Besant cautions us though that "We are dealing with vehicles in the ordinary stage of evolution, unfit for subtle vibrations." The medium could place himself in danger. The unfit brain, in straining itself to answer to the higher could go cuckoo."
Just as all the bookish knowledge that I gobbled up ferociously almost led me to turn cuckoo some 43 years back before Lord Siva told me to take a break, Lord Muruga too cautioned me in a Nadi reading on 9 October 2018 and had me pull the brakes just as Annie Besant cautions.
அன்னவனும் என்னுடைய சக்தியை ஆக்கைக்குள் சதா இறக்கி கொள்வதாலே அன்னதுவால் அவன் தேகம் நடங்குதப்பா. அதனாலே நாடி நரம்பு எலும்பெல்லாம் பழுதாகக் கண்டு, உறைக்க அதற்கு ஏற்ற உணவு சவரத்னை இல்லை அதனால் தான் அவனுக்கு இக்குறைக்கான செப்புவதால் அன்னவனும் சமநிலை ஆக வேண்டும். சிறப்பாகச் சக்தியை இறக்கி கொல்லாதே. அன்னதுவால் அவன் தனக்கு தேக சோர்வு காட்டும். அடுத்தடுத்து அவனுக்குச் சிக்கல் உருவாகும். செப்புகிறேன் எங்களின் அருள் பலத்தால் சிறப்பான ஞான நிலை அடைவானென வாக்குப் படி சில காலம் இருக்க வேண்டும். வா என்று மரணத்தை அழைக்க வேண்டாம். மிக்கதொரு அமைதியாய் அகம் அடக்கி மைந்தனவன் தியான வழி சிந்தை கொள்ள அவன் தனக்கு சக்தி பெருகும்.
Annie Besant cautions those who want to engage in Yoga with an impure diet and body.
"You must begin to purify the body before you attempt to practice any yoga worthy of the name. For real yoga is as dangerous to an impure and undisciplined body as a match to a cask of gunpowder." She asks us to look towards the East for answers to "how this danger has been understood and guarded against and avoided." "The self gathers around it upadhi upon upadhi, vehicle after vehicle, gradually shaping its own instruments." Annie Besant explains that "The brain has to be changed, refined, improved, its connecting links fashioned and manufactured for the purposes of the expression of the higher consciousness."
"Here, in the jungle, they meditated making the brain tense and refined by the concentration of the mind, and restraint of lower faculties, fixed in rapt attention on the higher, with the consciousness working from above playing on the physical brain and tuning it to respond safely to the higher vibrations. Then it strove to draw the lower upwards (as Tavayogi says of our efforts that are only till the first two initial stages, Muladhara and Svadisthana, and that the Siddhas will draw us upwards) until it answered no longer to the stimuli of the outer world. This is a state of yoga - complete withdrawal of consciousness from the Indriyas. Now making the mind steady, holding quiet the powers of the mind, the mind ceases to vibrate, and it becomes still - able to answer the vibrations coming from above."
This is the reason the Siddhas have us engage in Sariyai and Kriyai to earn their blessings before engaging further in Yoga which itself has eight limbs or angam. This is how from an impure body or Asudha degam, one moves to become pure or Sudha degam. Soon the vibration in him becomes subtler in nature as he takes on the other forms, the Pranava degam, Gnana degam, and Oli degam.