The spirit that wanted to realize and experience a segment of life and its related emotions, sends its spark to take on a soul. The soul has the capacity to record the outcomes of its desired journey on earth. The soul designs the body needed for its venture according to its recollection of its past karma that is stored in the Akashic records. The body we take, the parents to whom we are born is all predetermined by the soul. The soul ensures that the form it takes and family it is going to be placed in will contribute to its growth and will provide the experience that it seeks further. The spirit then engineers and supervises the formation, growth and sustenance of the body and eventual separation of the soul from the body. The spirit cares for the fetus, sustains it, supervises its growth, and eventually brings it to the world. It determines the length of our live span too. Letting the soul journey freely and accumulate experiences, it departs returning to its source once the physical body drops. Exceptions are made in the case of Siddhas where both the soul and spirit lives on in the body that is made imperishable.
Hence the spirit takes on a soul that determines a physical body again and again to work out its karma and gain new insights and experience through a wide range of possible births.
R.Venu Gopalan writes in his "The Hidden Mystery of Kundalini", Heath Harmony, 2001,
After completing the cycle of all the eighty four lakh yonies the soul takes rest in the purest heart of the Lord himself. To keep the soul from accumulating the burden of piousness and sin, Lord himself decides on the concept of repaying back all that is taken and all that is to be given so that when the soul rejoins with him it is pure.
Manikavasagar mentions the various births it takes to reach the rare and gifted state of a man in his Sivapuranam. The Lord is known only through this amazing creation of his - man.
புல்லாகிப் பூடாய்ப் புழுவாய் மரமாகிப்
பல் விருகமாகிப் பறவையாய்ப் பாம்பாகிக்
கல்லாய் மனிதராய்ப் பேயாய்க் கணங்களாய்
வல் அசுரர் ஆகி முனிவராய்த் தேவராய்ச்
செல்லாஅ நின்ற இத் தாவர சங்கமத்துள்
எல்லாப் பிறப்பும் பிறந்து இளைத்தேன், எம்பெருமான்
மெய்யே உன் பொன் அடிகள் கண்டு இன்று வீடு உற்றேன்
உய்ய என் உள்ளத்துள் ஓங்காரமாய் நின்ற
மெய்யா விமலா விடைப்பாகா வேதங்கள்
Oh lord by becoming grass, small plants, worms, trees,Several types of animals, birds, snakes,Stone, human beings, ghosts, different types of devils,Strong asuras, sages, devas,And I traveled all over this spectrum of moving and not moving things,And took all types of births and became tired.Truly I have attained salvation seeing your golden feet,Oh God, who stood as letter “Om”,in my mind so that I would be saved,
Agathiyar complements Manickavasagar. Taking the rare human birth, one progresses from a common man to a divine man, a master (guru), a Rishi, a Siddha, a Gandharva, a Deva and finally heads back home to the kingdom of Erai.
It is said that the animals closest to man in this hierarchy is the cow and the elephant, hence the reason these animals are kept and worshiped in temples.
How then do we break this cycle of birth and death?
Just as Buddha says the thought will only subside if we replace the thousand thoughts with one, the thousands of desires we carry and its associated karma and those that we already carry, will have to go. The thousand desires need to be replaced with a single desire. The karma that arises as a result of our actions due to our desires reduces as we drop our desires. The entire load of karma carried from the past needs to be shed too.
Then even that single desire too has to be dropped as Thirumular reveals.
ஆசை யறுமின்கள் ஆசை யறுமின்கள்
ஈசனோடாயினும் ஆசை யறுமின்கள்
ஆசை பாடப்பட ஆய்வருந் துன்பங்கள்
ஆசை விடவிட ஆனந்தமாமே
How do we let go of that single last desire of us? When we stand in front of a deity instead of asking for our needs Agathiyar says ask for the needs of others and all of prapanjam. Our desire for the individual self is replaced with that for all of humanity. This desire does not warrant any karma. The needs of an individual drops as one progresses spiritually. Even his yearning to see Erai shall drop. He would not be asking anything of Erai, but just shed tears of joy in his presence, silently thanking him for his birth.
Bhagawan Ramana explains this transformation in BV Narasimha Swami's "Self Realization, The Life and Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi", Sri Ramanasramam, 1985.
Formerly I would go there (the temple of Meenakshi Sundareswara) rarely with friends, see the images put on sacred ashes and sacred vermilion on the forehead and return home without any perceptible emotion. After the awakening into the new life, I would go almost every evening to the temple. I would go alone and stand before Siva or Meenakshi or Nataraja or the sixty three saints for long periods. I would feel waves of emotion overcoming me. The former hold on the body had been given up by my spirit, since it ceased to cherish the idea 'I am the body'. The spirit therefore longed to have a fresh hold and hence the frequent visits to the temple and the overflow of the soul in profuse tears. This was God's play with the individual spirit. I would stand before Isvara, the controller of the universe and the destinies of all, the omniscient and omnipresent, and occasionally pray for the descent of his grace upon me so that my devotion might increase and become perpetual like that of the sixty three saints. Mostly I would not pray at all, but let the deep within flow on and into the deep without. Tears would mark this overflow of the soul and not betoken any particular feeling of pleasure or pain. I had no desire to avoid rebirth or seek release, to obtain dispassion or salvation... in the language of the books, I should describe my mental or spiritual condition after the awakening, as Suddha Manas or Vijnana, ie the intuition of the illumined.
One who is in this state would want to share with others this joy and bliss. He takes it upon himself to spread this joy that he has experience. His personal desires that had been extinguished is replaced with Erai's desires. He seeks of Erai what else he can do to serve him and his subjects. He lives for Erai's cause.
Ramalinga Adigal ask of Erai what was he to do further, waiting for his directive.
பொழுது விடிந்ததென் உள்ளமென் கமலம்பூத்தது பொன்னொளி பொங்கிய தெங்கும்தொழுதுநிற் கின்றனன் செய்பணி எல்லாம்சொல்லுதல் வேண்டும்என் வல்லசற் குருவேமுழுதும்ஆ னான்என ஆகம வேதமுறைகளெ லாம்மொழி கின்றமுன் னவனேஎழுதுதல் அரியசீர் அருட்பெருஞ் சோதிஎன்தந்தை யேபள்ளி எழுந்தருள் வாயே.
When it is time for him to depart, the soul that has gathered all these memories leaves its body, its memories now shelved as Akashic records. The spirit seeks out its parent house or source from whence it came. The Nadi in a way is a means and tool for the Siddha to leaf through the Akashic records looking for the individual's past records and revealing them through these oracles.