When Mataji Sarojini Ammaiyar stepped into my home AVM, after the formalities, she passed a message telling me that the next phase was that of knowing Raja Yogam. I used to take notes each time I read a book in the days of the past. Going through Swami Vivekananda's book on Raja Yoga again, I came upon something that I had noted then. "Burn the seeds of action. Be still and know God." Lord Muruga said the same too to Arunagiri. He told us too that our thought and actions were driven by the breath. We have come to understand that by taking hold of the breath we shall know God.
Swami Vivekananda writes "I could preach you thousands of sermons but they would not make you religious, until you practiced the method. These are the truths of the sages of all countries, of all ages, of men pure and unselfish, who had no motive but to do good to the world." Just as Swami Vivekananda wrote, "Very few people have the power to grasp the higher fewer still the patience to attain to it" Lord Muruga told us that though Agathiyar had taught us simple means to start our journey towards enlightenment and attaining Gnanam sadly many gave up settling for brief moments of bliss.
Swami Vivekananda writes "The man who has discovered and learned how to manipulate the internal forces will get the whole of nature under his control." Agathiyar told us the same telling us that nature and Prapanjam shall then comply with our needs and wants, which obviously are none in that state. But if the need arises to summon a thing, the Siddha will be able to do it. This is said to be the play of Siddhu or Siddhis.
In Raja Yoga, while Yama and Niyama are moral training, Asana is maintaining certain posture. Nadi Suddhi helps purify the nerves. Then begins Pranayama which is the control of the breath. Just as Lord Murugan told us Swami Vivekananda says that the breath is the flywheel of this machine - the body. "In a big engine, you find the flywheel first moving and that motion is conveyed to finer and finer machinery until the most delicate and finest mechanism in the machine is in motion. The breath is that flywheel supplying and regulating the motive power to everything in this body... In this body of ours, the breath motion is the silken thread by laying hold of and learning to control it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts and lastly the rope of Prana controlling which we reach freedom."
Swami Vivekananda writes further on the breath, "To get the subtle perception we have to begin with the grosser perceptions. We have to get hold of that which is setting the whole engine in motion. That is the Prana, the most obvious manifestation of which is the breath. Then along with the breath, we shall slowly enter the body which will enable us to find out about the subtle forces, the nerve currents that are moving all over the body. As soon as we perceive and learn to feel them we shall begin to get control over them and over the body. The mind is also set in motion by these different nerve currents, so at last we shall reach the state of perfect control over the body and the mind making both our servants."
To those keen to know how the Siddhas and deities come within a man or woman to pass on their messages, it is through the breath too.
Mother Dewi told us that the Siddha path was of learning lessons from experiences. Agathiyar told me in the Nadi back then that he had thrown in several events so that I would have those experiences too, besides the baggage I had brought with me due to my past karma. If part of the results of our past actions and desires form the flesh and blood in us, another creates the ideal situations for us to go through pain and suffering, joy and happiness in the present. What is in the control of us is the future. As Lord Murugan told us they have given us all the tools to settle in the breath and all actions subside too we create a new future.
Mataji shared a song by poet Kannadasan that is a song steeped in Gnanam. She sang a few lines that she could remember. I looked up the net for the rest. This song of Kannadasan explains it all.
(Source: https://rajarajanrj.blogspot.com/)
Swami Vivekananda writes "In all the religions, we find that the truths they teach are the results of the experiences of particular persons." It is based on experience. Swami writes, "Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge that is direct experience. The teachers all saw god they all saw their own souls, they saw their future, they saw their eternity, and what they saw they preached."