A friend, family, devotee and a reader of this blog from a far off continent messaged me.
The article Coming to understand the siddha songs....at the end you say He is in us and we in him. What does this mean? So for example, How does it play out? What is the experience? How does it feel so how do we know we are tapping into it.
She was referring to https://agathiyarvanam.blogspot.com/2019/04/coming-to-understand-divine-songs.html. I messaged her back.
There is god within and without we are told. We are all a part of him, we are told. We are Buddha by nature we are told again.
It is just that we do not realize this truth, and move according to our whims and wishes to fulfil our selfish needs and desires. But the moment we follow him he mellows our hearts and brings forth compassion. We begin to sing his praises. We begin to care for strangers too.
With this change taking place in us, his dim spark expands into a huge flame or fire that consumes us. Once this veil of ignorance is removed by equating this body as his temple, he comes within to stay for good. Love expands in us. He is experienced every moment. All our moves are his move.
He lives in us. We realize this when he begins to tap more cosmic energies from the Akash. He passes it on to others around him. The god within extends an arm out of us and fetches his energy so that we and others are healed literally, just as a twinning plant, creeper or shoot reaches out for the sun, and the tree and its root going deeper and deeper into the soil, bringing in sunlight and plant food respectively.
Once we begin to tap these energies we are one with them. The spark that is a gigantic flame now burns our karma, heals us completely and a huge transformation takes place in us, mentally and physically. This is what happened to Ramalinga Adigal too.
The creator created us and we are a part of his creation. A classic example is how Agathiyar created Lobama and came many years later to wed her. Similarly Ramalinga and all the saints saw the divine as a groom and they as a bride or vise versa. The mystic union takes place in these moments. They come to claim what is rightfully theirs. This is yogam, after sariyai and kriyai which are our efforts. After yogam, gnana is given to us as we sit silently at their feet, caressing their feet, listening to them fill us up on the secrets of creation and all the rests of the mysteries.
Another friend, family, devotee and a reader in India is waiting patiently for me to answer his many earlier questions too.
Some have asked why I made this blog private?
As NS Shan mentioned, "Your findings, experiences...are all consistent with have that has been said and experienced by others n their experiences.... With a few " Individualised " extra experiences for you to understand and guide others....", we at ATM have been privileged to be guided and given numerous tasks that were specific in nature to carry out by Agathiyar and the Siddhas. The experiences gained from serving him and the community has done wonders in us, bridging the gap between us and them.
As you already know that I have made this blog private, meaning it is no more for public consumption. The reason is that Agathiyar has customized a path for us leading to the feet of Erai. What he tells us will not go down well with the public. Neither will what has been written down for the common man be applicable to us too. For instance when we served food before prayers at a temple, the temple priests told us to serve after puja for then the deity will know what we did and to whom we gave food. I kept quiet respecting his hold on the agamas. But to us the Siddha asked that we feed the devotees first before beginning our puja. To avoid further instances like the time where a guru of an ashram who was a follower of Agathiyar ridiculed me for worshipping Agathiyar's idol (https://agathiyarvanam.blogspot.com/2017/02/give-according-to-vessel.html) and several emails and comments that came in from devotees who could not bring themselves to see that Erai was one, argued over it, I thought for some while now, whether this direct teachings from Agathiyar should be kept within our circles. Off course there were others who tagged on the popularity of this blog to advertise their ware.
This email was in response to our stand after Agathiyar pronounced that he was prapanjam and that the prapanjam was in him and that he would come in any form we chose to see him. But the reader felt otherwise and wrote to me, sharing what he had been taught in his school of thought.
OM NAMAH SHIVAYA!Thank you for sharing this story (refering tohttps://agathiyarvanam.blogspot.com/2019/03/from-walking-behind-erai-to-cruising.html). Amazing devotion.
I just wanted to comment on your new Video. You show pictures of Aghastiyar worshipped as Ganesha. ganesha and Aghastiyar are different living entities.
The Mayavada theory that all is one and you can worship in whatever way you like is wrong as will be proved from the Vedas and Vaishnava Acharyas:
"Just as the Gangā is the greatest of all rivers, Lord Acyuta the supreme among deities and Lord Śambhu [Śiva] the greatest of Vaiṣṇavas, so Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the greatest of all Purāṇas." [Srimad-Bhagavatam 12.13.16 https://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/12/13/16 ]Translation:
“Śankarācārya is not at fault, for it is under the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead that he has covered the real purport of the Vedas.
Purport:
[...]
“The Māyāvāda philosophy,” Lord Śiva informed his wife Pārvatī, “is impious [asac chāstra]. It is covered Buddhism. My dear Pārvatī, in Kali-yuga I assume the form of a brāhmaṇa and teach this imagined Māyāvāda philosophy. In order to cheat the atheists, I describe the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be without form and without qualities. Similarly, in explaining Vedānta I describe the same Māyāvāda philosophy in order to mislead the entire population toward atheism by denying the personal form of the Lord.”
In the Śiva Purāṇa the Supreme Personality of Godhead told Lord Śiva:
dvāparādau yuge bhūtvā kalayā mānuṣādiṣusvāgamaiḥ kalpitais tvaṁ ca janān mad-vimukhān kuru“In Kali-yuga, mislead the people in general by propounding imaginary meanings for the Vedas to bewilder them.” These are the descriptions of the Purāṇas.
[...]
This is confirmed in the Padma Purāṇa, where Lord Śiva tells Pārvatī:śṛṇu devi pravakṣyāmi tāmasāni yathā-kramamyeṣāṁ śravaṇa-mātreṇa pātityaṁ jñāninām apiapārthaṁ śruti-vākyānāṁ darśayaḻ loka-garhitamkarma-svarūpa-tyājyatvam atra ca pratipādyatesarva-karma-paribhraṁśān naiṣkarmyaṁ tatra cocyateparātma-jīvayor aikyaṁ mayātra pratipadyate“My dear wife, hear my explanations of how I have spread ignorance through Māyāvāda philosophy. Simply by hearing it, even an advanced scholar will fall down. In this philosophy, which is certainly very inauspicious for people in general, I have misrepresented the real meaning of the Vedas and recommended that one give up all activities in order to achieve freedom from karma. In this Māyāvāda philosophy I have described the jīvātmā and Paramātmā to be one and the same.”
How the Māyāvāda philosophy was condemned by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His followers is described in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Antya-līlā, Second chapter, verses 94 through 99, where Svarūpa-dāmodara Gosvāmī says that anyone who is eager to understand the Māyāvāda philosophy must be considered insane.
This especially applies to a Vaiṣṇava who reads the Śārīraka-bhāṣya and considers himself to be one with God. The Māyāvādī philosophers have presented their arguments in such attractive, flowery language that hearing Māyāvāda philosophy may sometimes change the mind of even a mahā-bhāgavata, or very advanced devotee. An actual Vaiṣṇava cannot tolerate any philosophy that claims God and the living being to be one and the same.[Chaitanya Charitamrita https://www.vedabase.com/en/cc/adi/7/110 ]
As quoted above "... where Svarūpa-dāmodara Gosvāmī says that anyone who is eager to understand the Māyāvāda philosophy must be considered insane", sadly they have no reservations in degrading others. I was taken aback to read in a movement's publication that those who did not worship their object of worship were regarded as rascals.
Agathiyar has told us not to debate or argue with others and even if a faith, belief, teaching or practice does not conform to his teachings, let it be. As we uphold his teachings, we avoid all forms of confrontation.
As Siddha Vaidyar Bhani once said that a particular song of Lord Vinayagar had three profound meanings over time. As a child and student, he was told that it was a song of praise to Vinayagar. Later while learning Siddha medicine he was told that that song carried a secret formula to make a concoction or medicine. Finally coming to Yogi Ramaiah, he was told it was a song related to Jnana.
Similarly, it is with the Aasi Nadi readings revealed by the Siddhas. Over the years it threw a new meaning on re-reading them, bringing a new perspective and better understanding.
So is it with the songs of Ramalinga Adigal, Pattinathar, Sivavakiyar and Pambatti and others who had strongly opposed and many a time ridiculed and regarded as unproductive the numerous measures and means taken as with upholding the performance of rituals, chanting of mantras, worship of yantras and other agamas. They had apprehended society for upholding age-old beliefs, customs and traditions. We fail to realize that all these although true are practical only when we have reached their state of consciousness and their state of existence, having burnt their karma in tapas and living apart from society in solitude. Similarly, as we now have access to the ocean of knowledge out there in the form of books, net, streamed talks, and life gurus, we are more confused than enlightened by the differing stand of all these authors, speakers and holy men.
We at ATM have opted to follow the word of Agathiyar and he is guiding us well as and when necessary. As the wise say why rock the boat that is sailing well, we shall patiently await for Agathiyar to lead us on towards the light.