My blog posts might seem repetitive. A friend and reader from Kerala once wrote in, saying, "Even if you wrote it umpteen times, we learn from repetition the most." Science says that in repeating 21 times, only then shall it begin to register in our subconscious minds. Repetition and making a habit of good things register a corresponding response and outcome in the subconscious. I used to wonder why Tavayogi kept repeating the same speech everywhere he went. Reading the book "Jeeva Brahmakya Vedanta Ragasiyam" by Satchidananda Yogeeswar, I was asking myself why the author repeats the same matter again and again in subsequent pages. He answers my query in a later chapter, saying that one needs to drive a notion again and again so that it is registered and remembered. So too, I guess I end up repeating the same in these pages, at least so that I can remember them too. Please bear with me.
Now, coming to today's post, are we ruled by the stars? It sure does seem so. Are we merely living out what has been determined in the stars? Going by what Tavayogi says, that we are living in the past, and creating the future, it sure holds water.
As there is a barrage, onslaught, and overdose of talk shows on the net currently, where astrologers are each predicting what is going to happen to us, due to certain planetary movements taking place currently, though I had left seeing my horoscope after taking Agathiyar's hand, curiosity and having much time on my hands, I too was drawn into watching them. And they sure answered the what and why of things that happened the way they did. I can settle in peace now, knowing that it was not my doing, but the circumstances and events were all their doing, all laid out waiting to happen. Knowing that relationships, and the direction they took, too, were determined by the stars and not of my doing, has me lay down my guilt. I remember Agathiyar telling me that though karma prompted certain actions, Agathiyar too had pushed me into certain circumstances, and for the sake of gaining those experiences, too, had me engage in them.
As Bhagawan Ramana too says that all is well, the saints tend to leave it as it is. They live a life, bringing in and channelling the divine love and showering it on others, and share the bliss, too. I came to know that even if one wants to be a saint, it has to be written in the stars, from reading JN Bhasin's book "Events and Nativities Explained", Sagar Publications, 1974, where he studied the birth charts of prominent people, including saints, and wrote about the expressed need to have vairagya in one's charts.
No astrologer, neither AM Duraisamy nor Dr Krishnan, mentioned vairagya in my charts. Supramania Swami expressed his wish to chart my chart, wanting to know why I came to him. He told me something had taken place the previous night as I was sound asleep. As I was sleeping on the floor of the living area of his kudil, while he was sitting beside on his bed made of jute ropes, rolling the Rudraksha beads, a mother and child had come and sat beside me. They were in conversation, oblivious to Swami watching them. The kid placed his hand on my belly button. Soon, the kid invited his mother into Swami's prayer room. Following them into the room, Swami was surprised to see the room empty. Swami shared this with tears brimming and a smile the next day. Before that, he told me that he was taken aback when I stepped out of the car and approached him upon arriving from Malaysia. The reason being that he heard the Pranavam loud and clear that moment. When I asked him later why he had closed the window with a gunny sack, which he purposely positioned to watch the Holy Hill from his bed, he told me that he could no longer see Annamalaiyar's form, as he was fiery. He told me that he saw Siddhas and Rishis going about doing their work on the hill. He surprised me by saying that he saw me too in their midst. Agathiyar, in coming to us after Tavayogi's samadhi, told us that he had to come to guide us further, as Tavayogi was called in to do Agathiyar's work in their realm or Siddha Loka.
It is said that all findings and discoveries are made in this realm by the Siddhas and Rishis before man discovers them for himself. I always wonder how lyricists and music directors come up with such soulful songs, be it for the cinema or devotional. I have come to believe that these writings and tunes are constructed in another plane before these souls pick them up, arrange and conduct them, and deliver them to us, just as the writings come to me in a continuous flow as I pen these posts, too.
When we come to the Siddhas, they speak about karma and reveal ours. The option is there for us to live it through without interfering, or take measures to try and make it favorable, less hurtful, and less of a torment. I understand now, when I had noisy neighbors, during the period of my solitude, Agathiyar asked that I bear with the noise, as it was a test. Rather than attempting to change others or confront the external source of our troubles or problems, he asked me to change my mindset and go with the flow, instead, watching the transformation taking place within.
As Siva Thondan wrote earlier, in his analysis of "The Kolaru Pathigam" by Thirugnana Sambandar,
"For one who has taken refuge in Shiva at Sirkazhi, the planets — all of them, in whatever configuration — become 'pure good' (Nanmayae Aavaarkal)....
This is not a promise of astrological correction — a better chart, an improved Dasha. It is a statement about the ontological transformation of the soul's relationship to cosmic forces....
This is not the dismissal of planetary influence; it is its theological reframing....
What it promises is that the devotee who is anchored in Shiva-bhakti — whose soul is oriented toward Pati rather than contracted around its own Prarabdha — will not be bound by what the planets deliver. The experience may still occur. Its binding power will not.....
This reflects the Siddhantam's precise theological priority: the devotee's relationship is with Pati, and Pati's Grace operates at a level that encompasses and transcends the Pasa order of which the planets are a part....
The practice of its recitation is itself a living enactment of the philosophical principle: the devotee does not ignore the astrological warning, nor does the devotee capitulate to fatalism. Instead, the devotee brings the planetary situation into the field of Bhakti — into Shiva's presence — and there the cosmic arithmetic is reconstituted.....
..this practice as expressing what the Siddhantam teaches: that Karma is real, that planetary influence is real, that they must be engaged and not bypassed — but that Arul operates from a level that neither Karma nor planets can constrain.
The Kolaru Pathigam is not magic. It is sadhana — it reorients the soul's fundamental posture from anxiety about cosmic forces to trust in the sovereignty of Shiva. And in that reorientation, the planetary machinery — still running, still delivering its consequences — ceases to be the defining reality of the soul's experience."
I guess, though, I don't have viragya or the determination that buries all other aspirations in solely wanting only to reach the Holy Feet of the divine, in my charts; their mercy, grace, and blessing have fallen on me, seeing those little moments where I attempt to carry out what they say or gave me to do, which has brought me this far. This is enough. And Agathiyar, in telling me that I had taken crores of years, traveling with him, to just arrive at this stage only now, has me realize that there is a long way ahead. As Supramania Swami and Tavayogi say that there is always a tomorrow, another birth where we could perfect our skills and attain Siddhahood and Godhead, I shall keep polishing my skills and keep trying.
Though it seems our life is predetermined and we have to live it, Siva Thondan, in sharing Thirugnana Sambandar's song, gives us hope.
Saiva Siddhantam takes karma seriously enough to have built a precise and systematic account of it. It takes planetary influence seriously enough to situate the Navagrahas within a coherent cosmological hierarchy. And it takes liberation seriously enough to insist that neither karma nor cosmic alignment constitutes the soul's final condition.
The Siddhas and the divine have the final say!