Sunday 5 November 2023

VAALAI

Mataji Sarojini Ammaiyar of Kallar ashram who is in town visited AVM yesterday and is with us over this weekend. Moments after she arrived at my home she told me that the next phase had started for me to take a step into Raja Yoga. Coming out of her meditation later she told me that she had a message for me. I was to worship Vaalai henceforth. Later when Ramalinga Adigal came through a devotee he surprised me by saying the same. He told me that henceforth it was the rule of Vaalai at AVM. When I replied that I needed him to guide me too, he downplayed his role by replying that all the Siddhas including him had looked up to her to attain the state of Siddhahood. Later Agathiyar surprised me with a Nadi reading telling me the same. 

In a Nadi reading for Surendaran Selvaratnam in Chennai, in 2017, Agathiyar instructed us to include hymns for Vaalai too during our prayers. Who is this Vaalai? Vaalai is depicted as a young maiden. But as Agathiyar had put a stop to all rituals and worship, and showed me to Prapanjam and I have come to accept that God is formless but can assume a form for us, how can I go back to placing a painting of Vaalai and worshipping her through carrying out rituals again? Just as this question crops up in my mind, Mataji revealed that Vaalai was the breath that flowed in us. 

When the AVM family set out to India to witness the inauguration of the newly built Kallar ashram in 2016, the deity Karupanasamy blessed us and told us to be on the lookout for Agathiyar in all the places we went. And so we did as told looking out for Agathiyar to appear before us. He did appear as a lady clad in a green/blue saree in all the temples we went to. Returning home Karupanasamy confirmed our opinion and surprised us by telling us that contrary to common belief Agathiyar was a female. 

If Tavayogi showed me to Agathiyar, Agathiyar stepped back after grooming us and asked us to hold the hands of Prapanjam. It was him too he said. Being the Prapanjam he took any form that we desired to see him in. He broke our hold on forms and names. 

The Siddha path is full of surprises thrown in making the journey even more interesting. It seems like we shall never get to the bottom of the truth since everything is a perception, an opinion, a view, seen from various points of view and different perspectives. Just as the speaker delivering a talk on NeuroLinguistic programming held up a credit card and asked us all to define what we saw, one saw the edge of the card while another saw the front and yet another saw the back, God is subjective too. Bharathi spells out this truth in the song Nirpathuve Nadapathuve.

To a beginner, he is told that a piece of rock or metal is God. Growing up he comes to be introduced to numerous other versions of God and Goddesses who have evolved in the hands and minds of man. Coming to a guru he is told that God was within us and in us. He is told that God was the very breath flowing through us. In becoming aware of the breath we begin to sense the energy, Prana, and its vibration traverse within. We are told that this is him. Now extending our hold of it and reaching out to our surroundings we see and sense him in all of creation. We then realize that we are Buddhas.