I wrote in an earlier post that "The day we are pure to the soul we shall merge in God that day. In progressing towards this goal, we have to purify the body and mind first by embarking on a journey. But it now seems that there is no journey in the very first place that has to be undertaken and a destination or goal to arrive if one is identified with the soul that is ever pure in nature. This can happen in a matter of seconds compared to taking on a physical journey and an internal one. But to arrive at this understanding one cannot avoid traveling the aforementioned journey."
This truth was relayed to us at many moments through hints that came along but we failed to see it thinking that it was all out there to be explored. In autographing my copy of his book "Andamum Pindamum" released in 2007, Tavayogi stated this truth with these words, "God resides within you in your heart. This is both the starting and ending point of the journey". ஆண்டவன் உரைகின்ற இடம் தங்கள் உள்ளம். அதுவே பயணத்தின் தொடக்கமும் முடிவும். It is to be noted that he did not mention this in welcoming me to the path but only after having brought me places in 2005.
The Little Soul in Neale Donald Walsch's "The Little Soul and the Sun", knows pretty well that it is Light, yet it wants to experience Life. But as all is a play of God, every memory is kept stashed away. We fail to see that all that we seek is already at the feet of the Lord. For want of experiences, they let it be, knowing pretty well that we shall return to them. We learn lessons from the experiences gained along the journey and eventually return to the state of Buddha, Light, Oneness, and Awareness.
Prem Niranjana shared Odhara Moon's wonderful post on FB some time back.
"SEARCH FOR A MASTER"
A man went in search of a Master. He was ready to go around the world, but he was determined to find the Master, the true Master, the Perfect Master. Outside his village, he met an old man, a nice fellow sitting under a tree. He asked the old man, "Have you ever heard in your long life ... look like a wanderer ..."
He said, "Yes, I am a wanderer. I wandered all over the earth."
The man said, "That is the right kind of person. Can you suggest to me where I should go? I want to be a disciple of a Perfect Master."
The old man suggested a few addresses to him, and the young man thanked him and went on.
After thirty years of wandering around the earth and finding nobody who was exactly fulfilling his expectations, he came back dejected, and depressed. The moment he entered his village he saw the old man who had become very old now, sitting under a tree. And suddenly he recognized that he was the Master! He fell at his feet and said, "Why didn't you say it to me, that you are the Master?"
The old man said, "But that was not the time for you. You could not recognize me. You needed some experience. Wandering around the earth has given you a certain maturity, a certain understanding. Now you see. The last time you met me, you had not seen me. You had missed. You were asking me about some Master. That was enough proof that you could not smell the fragrance. You were utterly blind; hence I gave you some bogus addresses so you could go. But even to be with the wrong people is good, because that is ... how one learns. For thirty years I have been waiting for you here. I have not left this tree."
In fact, the young man, who was not young anymore, looked at the tree and was even more surprised. Because in his dreams, in his visions he was always seeing that tree and there was always a feeling that he would find the Master sitting under this tree. Last time he had not seen the tree at all. The tree was there, the Master was there, everything was ready ... but he was not ready." - Sufi Story
Sriinaath Raghavan who is known to give us gems writes another.
"There was an ardent practitioner of Kriya Yoga who would go to the Mountains often to meditate. On one such trip, he unexpectedly happened to meet the Eternal Yogi, called Babaji. He fell at Babaji's feet, and told the great Saint, how he always wished to see him and receive Deeksha. The Saint however kept silent and listened with a patient ear, because all of them who happened to meet, more or less told the same thing. After the Seeker finished talking, Babaji asked him to follow through a dense jungle, winding their way across many slopes, till they finally reached a cave, where the Saint lived. They sat inside and Babaji offered the Seeker a drink of something plain like water, but one that refreshed him to the core. Then the Seeker settling himself down asked, "Can you initiate me into the practice of Kriya Yoga?"
Babaji gently nodded his head in approval and imparted the highest wisdom of Kriya to the Seeker. The Seeker after receiving the teachings felt uncommonly dejected and turning towards the Master complained, "Master this was not how it was mentioned on the website, it was far more complex with a lot of Mudras and Bandhas?"
Babaji once again nodded his head gently and vanished from sight. It is said that this Seeker still roams the Mountains in search of Babaji, who is yet to confirm which one is right, He the Master of the Kriya or the Website. Alas! No matter what, we can never look beyond the book because we are hooked."
Swami Muktananda proclaims that the Masters themselves were the secret! Paul Zweig in the introduction to Swami Muktananda’s THE PERFECT RELATIONSHIP, Syda Foundation, 1985, (Muktananda, The Perfect Relationship, 1985) writes,
“He (Swami Muktananda) felt that God's ‘secret’ was not contained in any Sanskrit formula, ancient ritual, or technique of meditation; that severe austerities and physical deprivation would not reveal it. He felt that the ‘secret’ resided with great beings, with saints; they were themselves the ‘secret’ and he could learn what they were by loving them and sitting at their feet. After almost twenty-five years he (Swami Muktananda) met Bhagawan Nithyananda who became his Guru.”
Paul Zweig adds,
“Swami Muktananda himself traveled all over India seeking a Guru. He became a monk at the ashram of Siddharuda Swami. After almost twenty-five years, he met Bhagawan Nithyananda who became his Guru. Swami Muktananda realized that the ‘secret’ was with the Guru and so the need for one to learn at the feet of such a Guru. Paul Zweig writes, “In a flash of self-understanding he knew that he had found his other half; that now he was whole again.”
As the Sufi saint told the seeker, "You were utterly blind; hence I gave you some bogus addresses so you could go. But even to be with the wrong people is good, because that is ... how one learns", and as the seeker in the second story wanted a more complex practice, I guess this is the reason we keep coming back again and again until we recognize and submit and surrender to the guru and the divine. I am glad that my search stopped after Agathiyar showed me to Supramania Swami and Tavayogi.
We have become both religious and spiritual tourists embarking on religious and spiritual journeys and disembarking at a place only to hitch a ride and board the next transport that comes along. It is a cycle that we repeat. We go in cycles finally ending up nowhere. All these journeys, instead of diminishing our ego, only fuel it further. If we think that we have become spiritual in trending a path it is not to be so. We are only religious and religiously trending it, upholding the traditional practices, adorning its symbols, following the codes of practice, and even willing to give our lives to uphold them. We are so steeped in it that we dare not make changes. We are not at liberty to take charge and bring changes. It is law and has to be abided. We are condemned if we fail to uphold or deviate from the path. There is no true expression of the soul here. On the contrary, it is only when we summon our soul to the front that we are truly spiritual. If religions bond us to beliefs, knowing the soul truly frees us. Now I understand why Tavayogi told me that the soul cannot be caged.
We often fail to realize that we are already a Buddha or the Enlightened One. If only we drop the veil that covers this truth, we shall realize our true selves. The guru comes to help us shed the veil not by removing it for us but by taking us on a long walk and giving us experiences both bitter and sweet, and finally knocking some sense into us to bring on the realization of the soul or self. Tavayogi, Agathiyar, Shirdi Sai Baba, and recently Yogi Ramsuratkumar have all given me a knocking too to arrive at knowing my true self.
From the onset after visiting my home the first time, Tavayogi saw my growing tendency to heap praises on him that if left unchecked shall flower and have me heap garlands and worship him as God, he stopped me and nipped it in the bud. Instead, he showed me to Agathiyar. Later visiting him at his Ashram, he had me drop all "my prized possessions" including the nine-gem studded gold ring that I wore on my finger and the Rasamani bead that I wore around my hips. He had me drop the thought of wearing a Rudraksha bead on me even before it arose telling me "We do not need these." In our excitement to show others a way out of the problems that they shared with me and my wife in the beginning years of our worship, we gave free advice that landed us in trouble, Tavayogi bluntly asked us "Why do you involve? Show them to Agathiyar." Agathiyar in asking me to build a temple for him in my Nadi reading, immediately broke my thought bubble that elevated and lifted me off the ground telling me that I must be pretty special to be given the tasks. The young 24-year-old lad, Sivabalan who continued to bring in the Nadi readers from India after the demise of his father and who accompanied me during the reading, burst the bubble that moment telling me that Agathiyar had mentioned it to some 50 others before. Recently reading Ruzbeh N Bharucha's book, "The Fakir - The Journey Continues" Shirdi Sai Baba revealed the reality in my asking Agathiyar that I did not want anything that he had to offer. Thinking that it was the ultimate asking, I told him that I just wanted him. I wanted him to come within me and reside in me for the rest of my life. I did not anticipate that wanting Agathiyar would have me accept both paradise and filth. Baba in showing Rudra paradise and then bringing him to sit among the filth, tells him, "So we sat in paradise and now we sit in the bowels of filth. If your focus is your master, then neither will matter." He points out that though we love the master, we love our weaknesses a little bit more, which is very true too. "It was all about whether you loved your master more or yourself." Agathiyar in having me go within had a noisy neighbor move in too at the same time. Now how was I to meditate? Though Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal explained that these adverse forces were a much-needed component on my spiritual journey traveling the chakras within towards attaining Gnanam, they added that I had to face them squarely and had to combat and overcome them silently without any confrontation, in simple terms to bear it and be patient. But I failed miserably. Then Devaki Ma in sharing glimpses of Yogi Ramsuratkumar's life and his experiences, speaks of the moment he is beaten up by a mob. In stopping one Perumal who wanted to avenge the injustice done to the Yogi, he tells him to let it be and that they have come to do their work and let us do God's work. I too took another beating. I am forced to submit and surrender to the consequences. I understand now why Lord Muruga when he came to us back then, kept asking us again and again if we had truly surrendered. At times we question ourselves if we are truly sincere in saying that we have surrendered and that we only want him in our lives. As usual this realization came after the experience.
Though I have had several knockings, meant to bring on a deeper understanding of life and its purpose, Agathiyar offsets it by spiking the readership numbers of this blog, bringing on a smile on my face.
