When we are told that the "individual human minds are merely brief reflections within a cosmic one" at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/dec/25/movies-embraced-hinduism, it reminds me of the Rishis who supposedly have discovered many things in their realm that are projected to men - the spiritual and the scientist - who are receptive to it on earth.
Agathiyar leaves us to learn from the experiences we gather in our practices, ideals, faith, beliefs, and relationships, coming to correct the wrong perspectives we carry and confirm the right. There is no hearsay or blind faith here. Rather the Siddhas want us to see and realize for ourselves. I have yet to draw the image or picture of Agathiyar for I had told him unless he gives me a darshan I shall only be reproducing the many previous images of his that have come down to us. As he has not come before me I have not attempted to draw him. Rather than come before me in flesh and blood and add to the numerous existing paintings and statues of his, he comes within me instead and has me realize him in my flesh and blood, bringing on an intense vibration within from without till it shakes the very cells. What else would one want?
If he were to appear before me and I were to draw him I would end up worshipping that image too. I believe he would rather have me see him within and worship the Self or Atma in me that is him. Housing him in me I shall have to always remind myself that he was living in me. Hence my previous ways and qualities have to be dropped to reflect that of Agathiyar's ways and qualities. I guess this is what he meant when he asked that I walk tall back then. Tavayogi always carried himself well often having us wonder if Agathiyar was walking the face of the earth through him.
But sadly we remain "we" and look at the divine as "them". The only moment we communicate is when we visit the temples and pray before them at our home altars. Sadly there is a large divide between the creator and his creation as a result of the work of Maya veiling the Atma. Going by the many written and spoken words of seekers who made it to the state of gurus hailing their gurus, we realize that indeed a genuine guru has to come to draw the curtain and reinstate our relationship with the divine. Blessed are those who have had a guru. I am blessed to have had Supramania Swami and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal and their lineage come to my aid, not forgetting the entire company of the Siddhas led by Lord Murugan and Agathiyar and the entire pantheon of Gods and Goddesses led by Shiva and Parvathy and Narayana and Laksmi.
Srinath Raghavan posted the following on fb.
We all live in a personal bubble of our own,
A bubble which is highly colorful but opaque,
So nothing outside it's purview is ever seen by us,
We live and die our life, inside this fantastic bubble,
Thinking and believing whatever in it is the only truth,
Nothing outside can ever exist and it should not too,
We can very well break it's brittle wall from inside,
But we choose not to, for the fear of being exposed to uncertainty,
When with the touch of the Master from outside, the bubble breaks,
That's when we will finally realize, how foolish and limited we were,
To have accepted the truth that's known to us, as the Final Truth...
~ Freedom is breaking the bubble and seeing and feeling the reality beyond your own.
Indeed, the guru comes to break the bubble that we have created around us. With the touch of the Master from outside, or rather the Atma within, the bubble breaks, and reality dawns. If Bhagawan Ramana says, "... the spiritual energy of a master transforms the consciousness of men", Swami Muktananda mentions in his book ‘SECRET OF THE SIDDHAS’, Siddha Yoga Publication, 1980, that his master gave him one word that completely transformed him. Swami Muktananda says his joy arises from the one word - Guru Om; from the churning of the love between the guru and the disciple. He echoes Ramalinga Adigal's words adding that, "Only the guru can know that delight and taste the elixir that arises in every pore of the body."
ஆணிப்பொன் னம்பலத் தேகண்ட காட்சிகள்
அற்புதக் காட்சிய டி - அம்மா
அற்புதக் காட்சிய டி.
சந்நிதி யில்சென்று நான்பெற்ற பேறது
சாமி அறிவார டி - அம்மா
சாமி அறிவார டி.
(Source: https://www.tamilvu.org/)
Bhagawan Nithyananda, who always traveled barefoot, to everyone’s surprise, once wore sandals only to pass them on to Swami Muktananda, telling him, “Take these sandals, put them on.” At that very moment, Muktananda saw a ray of light coming from Bhagawan Nithyananda’s eyes and it went straight into him. He could feel it too. Margaret Simpson 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 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. Muktananda says, "That word (Guru Om), which I received after so many years, spread through my body from head to toe like wildfire carried by the wind. It produced in me both inner heat and the coolness of joy. Before meeting my guru I had practiced many different kinds of yoga, but it was I who had practiced them. However, that word activated a spontaneous yoga within me. I was filled with amazement." He says everything - postures, Mudras, and breathing processes - all happened on its own. He became ecstatic.
Just as Swami Muktananda saw a ray of light coming from Bhagawan Nithyananda’s eyes and it went straight into him, I too had a similar moment with a stranger Sadhu who was at the prayer/meditation hall of a local Swamiji in the north, going around the Navagrahas as I entered the hall with my nephew and brother-in-law. He walked up to us and my nephew who knew him from an earlier encounter began a conversation with him. I was stunned by his penetrating look that went through me and beyond.
Muktananda continues, "After the awakening of the Shakti, this process of yogic movements began to take place within my entire body. The pulsation of his ecstasy pervades my entire body like the movement of the wind. The Kriyas were his, the yoga was his, and meditation took place because of him. The final message that I received was from him. The power of his word permeates each of my blood cells; the fluids of my entire body are his. That is why I am joyful. Gurudev entered me and replaced all my bodily fluids with his. He evicted me and took up residence in me. He annihilated my ego. By making my individuality his, he became me. This is the guru’s compassion. Only when I lost myself in the ecstasy of Bhagawan Nithyananda did I realize who he was."
Swami Muktananda mentions in his book SECRET OF THE SIDDHAS, Siddha Yoga Publication, 1980,
“Forgetfulness of one’s true nature is the moss of ignorance that muddies the experience of the self. The Guru is the means of removing it. Just as the wind disperses the clouds but does not create another blazing sun, so the grace of a Siddha simply removes the veil of ignorance so that one realizes that one is already perfect. For this reason, all scriptures and Sadhana are simply means of washing away the filth of ignorance. They have no ability of their own to reveal the wisdom of the self because that principle is self-existent, perfect, and always manifest.”
Paul Zweig in the introduction to Swami Muktananda’s ‘THE PERFECT RELATIONSHIP’, SYDA Foundation, 1985, writes that "in a flash of self-understanding Muktananda knew that he had found his other half; that now he was whole again."
Tavayogi who came for me lives in me as there is never a moment he is not in my thoughts and never a day where we do not talk about him. So why would I hang a photo of him and pray to him? Agathiyar surprised us by saying that just as we are forever talking about them, they too are constantly talking about us. Imagine Agathiyar who can summon all the Siddhas by a clap of his hands as the Rajahs and kings did in days bygone, comes to us amidst us and listens to all our nonsensical talk. He even went to the extent of asking me to pick certain garden herbs and kitchen spices and went on grinding them with a granite pestal in a granite mortar and placed a poultice on a devotee's injured knee. He even arrives from Pothigai to sit in on the Annual General Meeting of our charity organization Persatuan Teman Setia (PTS) and runs the meet.
Agathiyar ran through briefly the inherent and dormant energies within us and what they could do if initiated. We are ignorant of these inherent energies he says. When these energies are released the body shall go through many transformations. The body should be able to withstand its onslaught though, he cautioned us. Only the Siddha knows if we are ready and if the body is prepared. The Siddha shall reveal them to us according to our readiness to receive, preparedness, the age factor, and our existing stock of karma. As it would not be the same for all do not compare with others for each shall have his own journey to travel. This is not a race to compete in and win, he adds.
பல சக்திகள் நம்மில் உறைந்து கொண்டு இருக்கிறது. அதை உணராமல் இருக்கின்றோம். இச்சக்திகள் வெளிப்படுவதால் உடலில் பெரும் மாற்றங்கள் ஏற்படும். அது உங்கள் உடம்பு தாங்கிக் கொள்ளுனும். சித்தன் அதைப் படி படியாக உணர்த்துவான். உங்கள் பக்குவத்திற்கு ஏற்ப வயதிற்கு ஏற்ப பாவ புண்ணியத்திற்கு ஏற்ப சித்தன் கைபிடித்து அழைத்துச் செல்வான். அது அனைவருக்கும் ஒரே மாதிரி ஆக அமையாது. அது வெவ்வேறு பயணமாக அமையும். அந்தக் கணக்கு சித்தனுக்கு மட்டும் தான் தெரியும். யாரையும் ஒப்பிடாதீர்கள். இது போட்டி அல்ல முந்தி அடித்துக் கொண்டு செல்வதற்கு.
For Swami Vishnudevananda, meeting his guru entirely changed his perspective of things and his outlook on life, as he narrates in his book ‘MY YEARS WITH THE MASTER’ available 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 - realized 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 ego-less 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 my 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 skeptical. I was of a scientific temperament and knew that a river is only water, H2O - imagine worshiping 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."