SIEVING THROUGH MAYA

Watching the DW documentary "More Life - Decoding the Secret of Aging", I was surprised to learn that science now confirms that man's biological age limit is 122 years something I remembered reading back then in some Siddha text that stated that man could live some 120 years and that if he did he would begin to grow a new set of teeth. Saint Jeganatha Swami is said to have lived 145 years.  

 

We also learn and are now told that the fountain of youth is inside us, something that the Siddhas knew and got working on it in the past. We learn that as we grow old the repair cells intended to heal too grow old and they do not go to the spot that needs to be repaired justifying what Agathiyar told me last Thursday that what was supposed to be a fact that the body heals on its own now has to be assisted as I was getting old too. Just as we are told that inflammatory sicknesses are elevated in old people, I understood the recurrence of the pain in my lower back that is a result of these inflammations. We are told that a man's hair was darkening all over the place, as vouchsafed by his wife, and that made the scientist pretty excited. Agathiyar in holding my hair tells me that it too is darkening and shows his sadness that people, even after seeing this do not believe in the possibility of reversing aging.

Just as New York has Peter Parker for a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man who comes immediately to the aid of those in distress and danger, mine is Agathiyar. As promised my back is better now. I am able to do my routine and daily chores as usual after the tug in my lower back last Thursday crippled me the past two days. But is Agathiyar only here to heal our sore be it physical or mental? Is that what the Siddhas do? Are they here only to heal us as and when we call out to them? Any Siddha physician or a medical practitioner can do the same, right? Are they only here to perform miracles though it does help capture our attention and seek to want to do the same, which is also not the ultimate reason they are here with us. Are they only here to look into our past and dish out remedies for our past karmas? 

Velayutham Karthikeyan Aiya who started the blog Siththan Arul, writing on the origin of the Jeeva Nadi, posted the following way back then. Here is a translation of the piece. 

The Siddhas had wished that whoever seeks out the Siddhas for solutions to their problems and surrenders to the Siddhas, shall be pardoned for their past deeds, however bad and evil they may be, and shall not be put through trial and tribulations and made to face the consequences but instead be saved. Erai granted the Siddhas their wish. The next instant the Siddhas wrote down; the reasons for each individual’s sufferings; listed out solutions and remedies; and showed ways and means to overcome or end the seeker's problems, sins, diseases, illnesses, and sufferings. They wrote them in Tamil prose on dried palm leaves. These writings came to be known as the Nadi. 

What then is unique about these Siddhas that places them above man as a whole? Above and beyond this desire of theirs to bring us to right the wrong we did and that we knowing or unknowingly do still carry on doing, they wanted us to get in touch with our soul or JeevAtma and find our purpose here. The soul would then lead us on the path that we are to pursue after we surrender to the divine will, letting go of our desires and wants, aspirations and addictions. The soul brings us to the guru who is yet another personification of the ParamAtma. If the soul unknown to us brings us to the guru, vice-versa the guru draws the veil aside and shows us the soul or JeevAtma or the Self in us.

But sadly we fall short of seeking favors from the Siddhas and never want to venture to know the soul. And so we come again and again and again and again, just as I had taken crores of births says Agathiyar. Even now I am nowhere close to knowing the Param that IS. All the reading and listening to the stories of the attainments of the Siddhas does not make us a Siddha. All the pilgrimages, the reviews, and the Satsangs neither serve to bring us to this state. As my wife says all the puja and charity we did brought on a high in us, we keep cheating ourselves thinking that this is it and that we are on the path of the Siddhas or even worse self-proclaiming ourselves as Siddhas. It is only when we get to see through the veil that everything that keeps changing is Maya or an illusion, that we settle eventually in that which is changeless. We come to know our soul. We know that our soul and the Param are one. We are the One or Yegan. We arrive at the state of Samadhi. We then abide in the Self.