When my neighbor, a Chinese medium healed me, chanting some verses and writing Chinese characters on a strip of rice paper with red ink, and burned it, collecting its ashes in a glass of water and having me drink it; when the doctors who applied fiberglass cast on my daughter's fracture told us that it would heal on its own accord given her young age; when Siddha physician Dr.Krishnan said our body has the gift of healing itself; when Agathiyar told my younger daughter that the Prapanjam would heal her eyes; when the chief priest at the Buddhist Vihara healed her throat with his touch placing his palm on her head and chanting the sound Mmmm; when a healer placed her palms at her throat and did chakra and energy healing; when Lord Muruga coming through a devotee healed my back by stroking it with a peacock feather and chanting the Arutperunjothi mantra into a glass of water and having me drink it; it is pretty obvious that healing is done by Prapanjam using light, sound, and vibration, taking over after man does the procedures and places his faith in his efforts and in his prayers.
Space resonates. The whole of nature resonates in wonder and beauty and sings a song and a tune, with the breeze blowing gently as in a Bansuri flute, the rustle of the leaves as in tapping a Kanjira, the flowing waters trying to keep up with the tala or rhythmic cycle. Even when it rains it is the sound of music, with the thunderclaps in the distance adding drum beats to the melodious music of the rain.
Temples and places of worship are spaces with a certain resonating vibration. I heard the walls of Agathiyar's sanctum at Agasthiyampalli resonate with the Pranavam AUM as I chanted the mantra. I felt these intense vibrations that overcame me, fell me, leaving me crying in ecstasy at the Dhakshanamurthy shrine in the corridors of the Madurai Meenakshi temple and again at his sannadhi at the Ekambareswarar temple. I felt the walls of Dhakshanamurthy's shrine at the top of the flight of small steps at the Big temple in Tanjore resonate as I sat in the tight space before him chanting the Pranavam AUM.
The woods, forest, and jungles, too must have resonated to a different tune for the 69-year-old Tavayogi for it drove him to take big steps and walk ahead as if he was possessed, never turning back to see if I was keeping up.
The beat of drums, musical notes, and Kavadi Chindhu songs can bring those who are susceptible to the drum beats and vibrations to dance spontaneously while in others its vibrations could open up heaven and bring deities down to vocalize and bless those gathered. Underlying all these are vibrations.
Annie Besant in her talks on "The Laws of the Higher Life", the Theosophical Publishing House, 1903, says,
"The more highly evolved brain that is sensitive and readily responsive to subtle vibrations is that of the spiritual, artistic, and literary genius. 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." For those who cry for want of an explanation, I guess this is how the Siddhas and deities come to us too.
If we could say, those are divine acts, we learn from https://hinducorner.com/, that "The ancient rituals performed by priests, through chants, offerings, visualizations, and through continuous self-purification enable the Hindu Temple to be a center of spiritual power," and "A person’s natural vibration changes through habitual thought patterns and actions. This, in turn, affects everything around them, including their aura, their clothes, and physical space." We have now a reason to visit the temples and go on pilgrimages to holy places.
I remember when I went back to visit my neighbors who cooked meals for me when I stayed a few doors away as a bachelor back then, telling me the tenant who moved into the house after I moved out had cited seeing visions of people clad in white. I guess the deities whom I worshipped at dawn and dusk, and angels were still there though I had transferred to the city. If a simple home puja could bring the deities to come and stay around, imagine the possibilities that lie within the high walls of these ancient temples.
In "Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds - Part 1 - Akasha" we are told that "The ancient Vedic teachers taught Nada Brahma, the universe is vibration. The word Nada means sound or vibration. The vibratory field is at the root of all true spiritual experiences and scientific investigations. It is the same field of energy that saints, Buddhas, yogis, mystics, priests, shamans, and seers have observed by looking within themselves. It has been called Akasha, the Primordial Om, .. and a thousand other names throughout history...... In the ancient traditions of the East, it has been understood for thousands of years that all is vibration...You never see anything in its totality because it is made up of layer upon layer of vibration and it is constantly changing, exchanging information with Akasha.... everything is connected to the one vibratory source. ..."
We learn from another source, a synonym for Nada Brahma.
"We can translate the meaning of Nada Brahma as the Sound of the Universe and translate the word Nada as a Sound of vibration and Brahma, the name of God. Brahma is simultaneously the Universe and the creator – the same, like an artist and his art = an inseparable synergy. In one of the first notices of ancient India, it was told that Brahma the creator was sitting on the flower of lotus, opening eyes, and the world became the composition of matter. When Brahma closes his eyes, the world leaves the composition of matter. Meditation practitioners across centuries proved that closing the eyes and moving to the deep level of consciousness exists as a kind of field. It is the field of Akasha, or let’s say the kind of notes of Akasha, that keeps all the Universe’s information. Although, we will never see this field in all its beauty because a high volume of vibrations layers this field. One layer is mixed with another one. These vibrations are all the time changing, communicating information with Akasha. All the experiences of the past, current, and future. Akasha was, is, and will exist forever. From this field, or we can also call it matrices, come all things, starting with subatomic elements and closing with galaxies, stars, planets, and all life. (Source: Joseph Karma at https://www.aboutsmartcities.com/)
We have it coursing through us too. The intensity of this vibration in us varies from person to person. Man or Manithan who is a combination of the Impure Tattvas is actually working towards becoming Punithan or Pure, progressively making his way up to higher states of vibration. It is said that the whole village could sense the arrival of Gautama Buddha. Such was the intensity of his Atma. When the Siddhas came down to be present with us during our Homam only Mataji Sarojini Ammaiyar sensed an intense vibration akin to the ground shaking under her seat. She shared this with us not knowing what it was. Agathiyar confirmed a couple of days later in Tavayogi's Jeeva Nadi reading for a devotee that the Siddhas did arrive at our home that day. That vibration was shown and felt only by Mataji. When a devotee asked Agathiyar what his true form was, he told her it was the vibration that coursed through and that they felt while chanting his name, during puja, and in doing charity.
The transformation that is spoken of and desired by some seekers and desired by the Siddhas that we too should go through, is both on the gross plane and the much more subtle plane. If in the gross it brings us to purify the body turning it from the Asudha Degam to that of Sudha Degam, in the latter it is more of refining, tuning and finally settling in the finer vibrations.
A man seeking spiritual elevation and emancipation would first have to begin to work on dissolving his past karma and build positive merits and virtues to free himself from the grip of the gross and slowly bring his vibration to a state of purity, subtleness, and fineness.
Annie Besant draws two distinct divisions to people and their brains namely "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 brain has to be changed, refined, improved, its connecting links fashioned and manufactured for the purposes of the expression of the higher consciousness... Here we see a consciousness that shapes bodies according to its needs, gradually refining them and bringing them under the control of the higher."
As Annie Besant wrote, "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", it is in stillness that God speaks. It is the stillness that is the ultimate goal. If it took us to engage in family life, career, seeking, discipleship, and in carrying out puja and charity and finally having to drop them, it only could mean that we had to clear our previous debts in this life and the many previous lives. Once that is done we get the time to sit still doing nothing.
She continues, "They are waiting, waiting, waiting with tireless patience in order to find someone willing to be taught, and when one human heart opens itself out and says, "O Lord teach me", then the teaching comes down in a stream of divine energy and floods the heart. Unlock the heart and throw away the key and you will find yourselves flooded with a wisdom which is ever waiting to come in."
As Tavayogi told me we should only give according to the vessel, Annie Besant too says, "Never does the spiritual teacher withhold knowledge because he grudges the giving. He is hampered in the giving by the want of receptivity in those to whom his message is addressed."
As Neale Donald Walsch in his book "The Wisdom of the Universe" says God is always speaking and it is only us not listening, "I talk to everyone. All the time. The question is not to whom do I talk, but who listens?", Annie writes, "It is not the withholding of the teacher but the closing of the heart of the hearer; not the hesitation of the teacher but the want of the ear that hears; not the dearth of teachers but the dearth of pupils who are willing and ready to be taught."
Waking away from the hustle and bustle of the city and the crowd and its noise into the confines of the high walls of the temples and monasteries brings us to experience and feel the vibrations prevailing in these places The many chants and prayers that we heard as we visited the temples and holy places with our parents as a child and later with our children helped increase the vibration in us when we walked the phase of Sariyai. The hours we spend in the comfort of our home at our altar or puja room create this atmosphere bringing it within the four walls of our homes. The many chants of mantras and prayers we recited when we were roped into doing the rituals as in Kriyai by our gurus and Siddhas increased these multifold. With their arrival and blessings, it increased further in amplitude. After bringing us to carry out intense activities that involved puja and charity for some seven years, the show ended and the curtain was drawn closed. In sitting alone and watching the breath Agathiyar had us settle down and let go of both the act and the fame that came with it. After three years the sacred space where Agathiyar sat as the bronze statue today is empty today except for an oil lamp burning. But before he left he told us that he would bring down the full intensity of the Prapanjam having given us installments and samples, previews, and trailers of its magnanimity earlier. This Prapanjam that is formless took the form of a devotee and hushed us to say no more bringing us to chant Shanti Shanti Shanti, having us settle in peace with ourselves and the world around us. I guess this is what Ramalinga Adigal did in having him locked in from the outside and immersing himself in the Light away from the madness of the world. I guess I too have to step into that empty room now and immerse myself in the Prapanjam. Bye.