Tavayogi used to tell me that whatever we say or write has to have references, his being the songs of the siddhas. He used to refer to these songs when explaining concepts and practices to us.
Stephen Fulder in "An End to Ageing - Remedies for Life Extension", Destiny Books, NY, 1983 writes "First men whether Hindu or Biblical are sometimes held to be immortal at least before their fall."
From what I understand, Vedic science tells us that the age of Brahma or the one assuming the portfolio of creator and who governs the universe is 311.04 trillion years. Brahma's life span equates with the life span of the universe, its birth and expansion. Then the life span of both Brahma and the universe is the duration of one single breath of Vishnu. When he exhales, Brahma and the universe is given birth. When Vishnu inhales, Brahma and the universe gets sucked in. Vishnu's breath creates universes upon universes with each exhalation and with inhalation there is complete annihilation, which also prevails for the same duration. Brahma is suppose to be an embodiment of Vishnu.
(Source: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/~goyal/age_of_universe.php, The Science of Spirituality by Lee Bladon, Glimpses of Hindu Genius by Ravi Kumar)
My mother used to tell us stories that the gods walked the earth. But there came a time they decided to leave. The gods were living with us then. Why did they chose to leave? So did we fall from grace then?
Watching the devotional movies we are shown how the gods for mistakes made in their realm, were banished to this earth to live a life of a mortal, perform rituals and prayers before they were eligible to return.
Stephen Fulder writes of Gilgamesh who seeking to escape death was told that "When the gods created mankind they allocated death to mankind, but life they retained in their keeping." So the panacea for continued living is in the hands of the gods, right? This reminder from the Sumerian epic tells us that if we are in the good books of god maybe, just maybe, we might get an extension to live longer. There is hope then.
As Nicholas Wade writes in his "Life Script - The Genome and the New Medicine", Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, 2001, when a conference on immortality was held in the Egyptian room of the museum of the University of Pennsylvania, sadly, except for one participant, the rests denounced it as pagans engaged in sub human quest.
When the world is just looking at the prospects of prolonging the human life and attaining immortality, the siddhas have ages ago dwelt into this subject and somehow found the means to achieve it. Their songs we are told, speak of elixir and methods to sustain the physical body long enough to achieve immortality. But these borders on mystery, myths and legends.
MA Kandasamy in his "Arokiya Arulamutham", Sri Mappilai Vinayagar Pathipagam, Madurai, list the siddhas ages as:
Tirumular 3000 years; Kaalakandar 1200; Viyaasar 1000; Tanvandri 800; Vaalmeegi 700; Teraiyar 300 and Karuvooraar as having lived 300 years too.
MA Kandasamy in his "Arokiya Arulamutham", Sri Mappilai Vinayagar Pathipagam, Madurai, list the siddhas ages as:
Tirumular 3000 years; Kaalakandar 1200; Viyaasar 1000; Tanvandri 800; Vaalmeegi 700; Teraiyar 300 and Karuvooraar as having lived 300 years too.
The site http://www.oldest.org/people/human-remains/ list several archaeological findings of the remains of early man.
Max Roser writes in https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy, "Estimates suggest that in a pre-modern, poor world, life expectancy was around 30 years in all regions of the world."
Nicholas Wade writes that in England where the sovereign dispatches birthday telegrams to its subjects, they sent 5,218 in 1996 compared to only 255 in 1952. This dramatic increase in life expectancy, which Nicholas Wade says is presumably brought about by public health measures, antibiotics, medical interventions, and good nutrition. In present day life expectancy has increased rapidly.
Man's life span is limited if compared with nature. The longest living organism is said to be trees, with redwoods and conifers living as long as 1,500 years and bristlecone pines, some 5,000 years, measured by counting their annual growth rings, writes Nicholas Wade.
If the siddhas knew the mystery to prolong life force and live longer, they had hidden this knowledge in their songs, in the thousands of verses and poems and hymns of theirs, that have yet to be deciphered correctly. When we ask of Agathiyar he tells us of what use is the knowledge to you? Much has been hidden from us, we are told often. Many documents have been washed away in floods and deluge we are told. Many are lying in the darkest caves and in moulds of earth waiting to be discovered.
While many of the saints and siddhas hid their discoveries and experiences from the common man, Ramalinga Adigal took the bold step to dispense all his knowledge so that even the commoner could attain immortality. But we have yet to read or hear about another similar achievement by the many masters after him.
Just as Nicholas Wade says that "the human genome is written in an ancient and vastly alien language. It is designed for the cell to use, not for human eyes to make sense of", could the nadi or secret oracles of the siddhas be designed for their use only, hence the reason they are written in ancient languages, are difficult to decipher and are still hidden from human eyes?
The siddhas way is not to fill us in with all the complete knowledge but to give us just sufficient and let us experience it for ourselves. A piece of the puzzle at a time is made available to us. They expect us to work on what is given before they give us another lead.
The siddhas established that the physical body was important to sustain the spirit in it, thence prolonging the spirit's longevity too. It is with the aid of the body that the spirit's salvation and purpose could ever be accomplished. Hence they seeked a way to preserve the body and indirectly preserve the life force. While living in the body they used it as a tool and endeavored to gain atma siddhi or spiritual immortality, besides gaining kaya siddhi or physical immortality. The means for these were by leading an ascetic life and with practice of yoga to achieve the former and consuming kaya kalpams or elixir to save the later - a yogi in the former and a siddha in the later.
The Taoist speak of elixirs too. Just like the siddhas, the Taoist developed means to achieve immortality too. Stephen Fulder writes that "the attainment of long life was a preoccupation of everyone, from Taoist priest to laymen, scholars to emperors", alike. The Taoist seeked a healthy old age. We too should strive for a healthy old age. Their aim was to extend the life of the tool by proper usage, in this case our body.
How do the Taoist do it then? They speak of Tao "that is the underlying constant essence or character of nature." Man these days knocks on ashram doors thinking that he can know god. But men of days of yonder looked for god in nature, sleeping under the open skies, sitting in the dark caves, bathing in the rivers, feeding on the produce from the jungles, and taking in the pure air. It is only in nature that god reveals himself.
The Taoist work towards merging with nature and the natural flow of things building the insight needed to recognize the Tao and through quiet ecstasy, writes Stephen Wade further. They adapted the way of Wu Wei or harmonious effortless action, preserving resources and increasing energy. By tapping from the unlimited power of Tao they prolonged their lives, they became free of harm and disease becoming Hsien or immortal saint like being, full of impish and youthful vitality, he adds.
Ramalinga Adigal sings that he had attained this state and defeated death that took various guise. Buddha too had to fight off Mara who tempted him.
காற்றாலே புவியாலே ககனமத னாலே
கனலாலே புனலாலே கதிராதி யாலே
கூற்றாலே பிணியாலே கொலைக்கருவி யாலே
கோளாலே பிறஇயற்றும் கொடுஞ்செயல்க ளாலே
வேற்றாலே எஞ்ஞான்றும் அழியாதே விளங்கும்
மெய்அளிக்க வேண்டுமென்றேன் விரைந்தளித்தான் எனக்கே
ஏற்றாலே இழிவெனநீர் நினையாதீர் உலகீர்
எந்தைஅருட் பெருஞ்ஜோதி இறைவனைச்சார் வீரே.
(source: http://www.thiruarutpa.org/thirumurai/v/T360/tm/thanith_thirualangkal)
The Taoist learnt to replace struggle and effort with skillful and easy action. Today I realized that Agathiyar too gave us the boon of achieving results through skillful and easy action without struggle and much effort as acknowledged by Tavayogi.
As the final result of achieving immortality takes a long time we need to keep the body alive and with vitality throughout this period.
Stephen Wade writes that "the process of attaining super longevity was termed initiating the embryo since it attempted to quieten body processes until it became possible to obtain food without eating like the fetus in the womb - a return to the womb."
Magical. Mysterious and Astounding is the way of our forefathers.