Continuing from the previous posts, now that we understand that this birth is a precious gift and to be born a human is a great and very rare gift, we must now turn our attention towards making this birth into a meaningful one. Agathiyar, in addressing the Tamil Sangam of the past, where he gave mankind the 5 Tenets, through his memo to us, in recent times, has made known the purpose. We have to remember and ponder over the blessedness that we humans have gained, for only the human has the chance to become free from the cycle of birth and death, and no other organism or living form. As Shantideva mentioned, we should not fail to make use of this human birth or human form to find ways to break this cycle of birth and death and to achieve liberation. We have to appreciate this special gift of birth and take steps to attain liberation in this very birth, for we might not get another chance to be born as a human for years to come. We could descend into the lower species, where it would then not be possible to worship God and attain God-realization and enlightenment.
In the book YOGI RAMSURATKUMAR - THE MYSTERY OF BECOMING GOD by Olga Ammann, published by Yogi Ramsuratkumar Bhavan, Mauritius, 2008, the author states,
“The meaning and the aim of existence must be the search for the divine. One that enables the individual to take the supreme decision of his or her life: to leave all behind and go in search of God.”
Does leaving all behind and going in search of God bring us to him then?
Swami Muktananda explains in KUNDALINI - THE SECRET OF LIFE, Siddha Yoga Publication, 1994,
“If he tries to discover a path by himself, he will simply go around in circles, walking for a long time but never reaching his goal. The Guru has found everything you are seeking; that which you want has become the Guru’s wealth. The difference between you and the Guru is that you are the seed and the Guru is the full-grown tree; you are the beginning, and he is the end.”
In Hans-Ulrich Rieker’s translation and commentary of the HATHA YOGA PRADIPIKA OF SVATMARAMA, The Aquarian Press, 1992, B. K. S. Iyengar writes,
“.. .the real goal of a yogi is to become a Siddha. A Siddha, a person in possession of Siddhis, has developed powers that can readily be called supernatural. There are eight Siddhis, the highest of which is nirvana, the great liberation. The Siddhis are signposts on his way to the final goal, liberation.”
So the Siddhis are only the numerous acknowledgements that we get along the way to have us know that we are on the right track, but these should not be our prime goal, for we shall get stuck in it, fall victim to the attention, praise, honor, etc. that comes with it, but walk past these to reach the final Siddhi that of Liberation. If these are considered Siddhis that arise partly as a result of our efforts and partly through divine grace, Ramalinga Adigal says otherwise: all these are Mukthis that number 300 means and ways; Siddhi is the experience of merging.
So the Siddhas are known to break away from the norm. I guess this is the reason Lord Muruga, in asking me to build him a temple too, besides Agathiyar wanting one too, told me that I shall do it differently. Bharathi too broke away from tradition and earned the wrath of his community. Agathiyar tells me that I had erand the wrath of the Namboothri priests in my last birth as I broe awy from tradition. Following Lord Murugan's call to be different, I proposed to two heads of mission to simplify the rituals in their ashrams, but both feared that they would earn the wrtah of their gurus and others.
In QUIET MIND, FEARLESS HEART - THE TAOIST PATH THROUGH STRESS & SPIRITUALITY, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2005, Brian Luke Seaward quotes Teilhard De Chardin,
“We are not humans having a spiritual experience. Instead, we are spirits having a human experience. …..earthly existence is enshrouded in many veils of illusion. It is a brave soul on a noble adventure who attempts to lift these veils. .... If you recognize that you are indeed a spirit on a human path, then every situation that you encounter will be a learning experience. This is how consciousness evolves. The drive that inspires the human journey is a desire to have this view of life - a clearer understanding of life’s mystery and role or purpose in it.”
During the days of my search, many painted a gruesome picture of the Siddhas having broken up couples and families, where Siddhas will roast us in the burning fire, etc. These took me by surprise, for I was always of the notion earlier that Gods, and now Siddhas, would only do good, as they are known to be compassionate, kind, and loving. If in the 80s I was confronted by similar happenings in the lives of devotees who seemed to be victimized by the deities, and after heeding the call from Lord Siva coming in a dream asking me to shelve my questions to a later date, I found out about Karma and its doings from the Siddhas coming in my Nadi reading some 14 years later. I began to accept their fate. Then, walking into the path of the Siddhas, I was in disbelief again. I set out to prove these critics wrong. Today I stand as an example to them. My family is intact, safe, and well because of the grace and love of the Siddhas. When a couple of devotees were ridiculed by their family for carrying out the ritual worship of the Siddhas in their home, telling them that they shall bring down the wrath of the Gods, I told the devotees to bring whoever has bad mouth these practices to my home and have them see for themselves how we live.
The Siddhas do not have us give up our family and responsibilities and adorn the saffron robe and walk out, though some might have taken it up after getting a calling. But then we always have a choice and the free will to choose. What the Siddhas eventually bring about is having us walk away from holding on to our old perspective of things, and interpretation of happenings and events. What the Siddhas eventually bring about is having us walk away from the attention, respect, posts, authority, power, etc. that comes along either with the desires we fed, or walk away from what we are gifted with as a result of our good deeds and merits in a past birth, or walk away from the numerous tasks given when the lesson ends. What the Siddhas eventually bring about is have us walk away from our old self of holding on to ideas, belongings, and attachments without the need to leave the home and family, and without the need to take on a new name and a new attire. This is true renunciation, or letting go, or staying detached and unattached, or Turavaram. It is all to put our agitated minds at rest and our weeping hearts at peace, bringing an inner calm. This is true Spiritual Birth as in the koan, "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is", and so it is with this prapanjam.
During the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese Ch’an master Qingyuan Weixin famously wrote:
“Before I had studied Ch’an for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance, I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers.” (Source: https://tricycle.org/magazine/first-there-mountain-then-there-no-mountain/),
Shantideva writes on yearning for liberation.
“The soul yearns to be free, and through our becoming aware of this we undergo what the mystics call awakening, where we then begin to center our life on a high spiritual ideal. A new aspiration is born in the soul, which frees the need of a larger draught of air, a more expansive horizon, and which desires direct contact with the indefinite existence. In order to attain the highest illumination we all have to pass through a spiritual birth."