The teens, youths, and young adults these days seem not to interact with the wise and elderly, not wanting to learn a thing or two from their experiences, but instead place their entire faith in the net and what it comes up with in their searches. Then again, the wise and elderly too are steeped and stuck in the web of time and space, tradition and customs, that are regarded as superstitions and ignorance by the young.
In asking me if I knew what Maya was, Agathiyar told me that they had created everything pure in the beginning, but man, through his mind, had tainted it. To come out of this, one had to undertake Atma Vichara. We have to drop the external and engage with the soul. I understand now why he had asked for a reply not from a devotee, but rather for her soul to make a choice: whether she wanted to live or leave, some time back. All our sufferings would end if only we began to listen to the soul. Days ago, he told another to quieten down, speak less, and be silent after she asked for relief and a solution to all her troubles. It is only in sitting still and being silent that one can begin to engage with the soul. All the solutions are with the soul if only we care to listen. But the Maya that we created around us would not have us see through the dense and thick veil and listen to our souls.
Our soul is our true guru. All others are superficial and add-ons to the existing layers of Maya. But we need to know the dark to arrive in the light. I understand now why he had asked me why I was tinkering, whether I did the right thing in allowing a troubled family into my home recently. The soul that is one with Agathiyar had permitted. But my identity was questioning it. Agathiyar told me that it would be yet another experience and a lesson for me to add to the chapters in my life and this blog. It is as if he were asking us to volunteer as participants in a game in the circus show that my grandchildren came back from watching today. Yes, the Great British Circus is in town.
In asking others to read this blog, he wants to connect with other souls hence bringing on a realization in them too of their individual souls and identity. These souls collectively make the larger soul, the divine. We are indeed connected in more ways than we think.
As for the changes, the bodily pain and numbness is still there. The tinkering in the head that is pleasant for a change goes on bringing some brief moments of relief and bliss. I can see a likeness to the sufferings that great masters went through. Why then do the gurus who showered love and compassion in the end suffer in pain too. This is yet another unanswered question.