IN THE GURU'S ARMS

This blog has mysteriously opened the hearts of many to come into the path too, as I came to know from messages and emails I received. 

• I have came across your blog many years ago but shut the website as nothing attract me. But once Agathiar appa decided the time, i came across your blog again by miracle and..... everything was so interesting to me. Within 2 months after reading your blog i called Bala to purchase Agathiar geetam and soon was introduced to this beautiful family! I feel when the time is right, we do get the chance to walk the divine path in some way!

• Tavayogi.. Showed you the way to Agasthya. You showed me the way to tavayogi... And siddha  teachings. I take this, day to express my gratitude to you for turning my life so amazingly. Your writings work wonders. My humble salutations to you sir. And to the entire team of ATM.

• Im climbing small steps to leave my desires and learning alot from your experiences Anna. Day by day my perception on things changing. 

When the disciple is ready the master is ready also, we are often told. "When the disciple is ready to receive only then does the master point the way. The master knows that if he had pointed the way earlier, the disciple would not have seen it, would not have taken note of it," says Rohit Mehta in "The Creative Silence" The Theosophical Publishing House, 1957.

Lord Muruga asked for total surrender, at times asking us several times. He made sure we were ready to accept him before he passed on the initiation that opens the heart chakra, for he says it would be a worthless affair if the devotee was not ready. If the devotee was still drowned deep in the issues and matters of urgency that needed their immediate attention, he postpones the initiation asking to come another day. It's rather similar and akin to a Nadi reading where it is of utmost importance that both the seeker and the reader are in a clear state of mind when the transmission of the oracle is done.

Contrary to many who dress alike and ape the saints, the master points the way which leads the disciple to become what he is. "It is only when the process of becoming something ends and the process of becoming oneself starts that the master truly enters the life of the disciple." The saints were never here to manufacture clones of themselves. Again there is a need to reiterate that "The master points the way which leads the disciple to become what he is." I too asked of Tavayogi, "Now guide me as to how I should proceed", to which he showed me Agathiyar. Bringing us to the Siddha path, understanding our lifestyle in a modernized world Agathiyar drafted a simple way to attain his state - that of Guru Kripa. Rather than have us sit for hours in meditation, have us twist and turn our torsos into extreme and complicated positions, or have us starve, he opted to show us the simplest and easiest none exerting way, to beget the grace of the divine. 

Ram Dass in his "Paths to God - Living the Bhagavad Gita", describes this path, one that he adopts and follows too.

Guru Kripa or the method of the guru is one form of bakti practice. It is the specific form of bhakti that focuses on the guru, and on the guru's grace or the guru's blessings."

Tavayogi showed me Agathiyar and stepped aside exactly as how Ram Dass describes a guru. 

"The relationship with the guru is totally an internal matter with its essence being love. The guru is a being who awakens incredible love in us and then uses our love to awaken us out of the illusion of duality" quoting Ramana, "The glance of grace from the master is enough to awaken the devotee from the sleep of ignorance to the knowledge of the real. The guru as a separate entity exists only within the illusion of separateness ... the minute the method of the guru has worked it's awakened you, and it ceases to be anything at all. It has an automatic built-in self destruct mechanism you use it until it opens you in a certain way and then you see through it and let go of it. The guru becomes irrelevant."

Ram Dass says of his relationship with his guru "It became less and less rooted in dualism as time went on." He shares an episode to elaborate this statement. 

"Sometime after I had first met Maharajji (Neem Karoli Baba) I was sitting across the courtyard from him, and I thought to myself, what am I doing here? That body sitting over there isn't what its all about. At that moment, Maharajji called an old man over, and said something to him, and the man came running over to me and touched my feet. I asked him why did you do that? He told me Maharajji told me, go touch Ram Dass feet. He and I understand each other perfectly."

The guru did not see himself separate from his disciple. Once the awakening begins you can't help but feel a profound love for all the beings who have helped you along the way. This is what the Satguru does. "He is the one who is the doorway," says Ram Dass. 

Along the way we meet upagurus, he says, who are like marker stones along the road that say go this way, go that way. "They are teachings rather then teaches," he says. "We can take a teaching here and a teaching there and then go our way, instead of getting hung up on them" he adds. 

Besides these gurus on the physical plane, "then there are the astral guides too, beings on all those other planes as well... helping us along in various ways... all wanting to help us get free."

Ram Dass says "The very essence of the relationship between a guru and a devotee is a sense of complete utter trust" something Lord Muruga is insisting now from us. We trust that whatever the guru does will be for our own good. Then our life becomes completely transparent, they read your mind, they see you, you can't hide, its all in the open now, he adds. We jokingly look towards the sky while outdoors and look around the room if indoors asking if they have installed CCTV to watch us for they can tell to the minutest details what we think, have done or intend to do. Gosh, it's frightening at times. We need to be extra careful these days. But as Ram Dass says "Maharajji knows about all my dirty laundry and he still loves me", the same goes with Agathiyar, Lord Muruga, Ma, and Aiya. 

Ram Dass touches on a very pertinent point of truth that we consider: that the world is his stage and we the players: "I used to sit in front of Maharajji... I felt like he had created me out of his mind in order to play with me."

A guru "will say or do something that causes a certain flip to happen which leads that person to the next stage. The guru is just there doing whatever the dharma of the moment demands", he says. There is no ploy or deceit. Neither a plan. Just plain living in the moment.

Ram Dass speaks about reasons the gurus engage in an outward show of their Siddhis. "Most of the time gurus use Siddhis to break a person loose at the point where he or she is ripe for a certain change to happen" adds Ram Dass. When a devotee is ripe the guru uses his Siddhis to impress him and bring him into the path, as what Supramania Swami and Agathiyar did. When we are ready all that is needed is a tap. Siddhis are generally used to shake up people and to bring them out of their dream state into Reality. But at times they turn us down or fail us in the moment of our need only because they see through the past, present and future and chose not to involve and change the cause of happenings for our own good. 

"The love for a guru is a process of surrendering," says Ram Dass of his love towards Maharajji. "I learned to let go into whatever he thinks best for me. I surrender to his version of my storyline in place of my own." Instead of writing our own script for life let him write out the script of our life. It would definitely be a good story. 

Just as Tavayogi said we become what we desire to be, Ram Dass guides us into Guru Kripa:  coming to the guru, invite him into our hearts, install him in the altar within the heart, offer yourself to him, sing, chant, pray, love him as you love yourself, open up to him, watch and slowly become - Him.

I came to my gurus as a blank white paper ready to be written on. I had never known saints. All I knew was temple worship and the deities. I believed in God, as most people did lifting my hands in salutation both at the altar at home and in the temples. As a bachelor who had taken up a new job away from home, I had so much time on my hands. That is when I delved into reading about religion, rituals, custom, art, music, and dance. I began to pick up certain methods from the books and performed these pujas in my room/home. Persistently engaging in prayers both at dawn and dusk, I had dreams upon dreams of Gods and saints that never made any sense to me then. I used to engage with some senior colleagues in discussing religion. If the books told me that the divine was full of compassion, it was the opposite in real life. I saw those around me suffer and undergo pain. I became disgusted when the divine attributed that it was it's doing too. Why would a merciful God punish his children? As questions and doubts began to accumulate and nobody I knew then could shed some light I was beginning to become disillusioned by all that I read and saw. As if to save me from further torment and mental torture, Lord Shiva came in a dream and asked that I keep my questions for a later date (time). I stopped all my reading, discussion, frequenting the temples and home worship. At the same time, I was transferred to Kuala Lumpur city from the small town of Lumut. I got married. I had a child but I kept frequenting the temples for the sake of my wife and child. There was a period of non-involvement in religious matters from 1988 till 1998 when my second child was born. At the same time, a new temple had come up for Lord Muruga in my vicinity. We frequented the temple. In 2002 my colleague brought up the subject of the Nadi reading that he had had a year back. It rekindled my thoughts had having heard the Nadi mentioned by Dr. Krishnan in 1996. I asked to see the Nadi. My life changed that day. I went empty. I received what I was told and executed all that I was asked to do. I just fitted into the play of the divine, placing some efforts doing their asking. I suppose Agathiyar was overjoyed that here was a fellow ready to listen and work with him for he began to call me up and give further instructions, directives, and guidance. A bond was cemented between us through the Nadi. He threw me at the feet of two wonderful gurus in the physical form, Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram. They guided me well. Today although both of them are not with us physically we sense their presence and hear from them regularly. The divine comes in various ways to guide us further. This journey of ours is beyond words to express. We have no goals, no expectations, we live in the moment, executing his directives and await for more directions. There is not an iota of doubt or questions about their existence. We have given ourselves to them to run our lives, just as Lord Muruga had asked of us. We know we shall be in safe hands, just as the child falls free knowing the Father will catch him.

Today many have taken Agathiyar has their guru and follow his path at ATM. They too are seeing miracles and changes taking place in them and their surroundings. We are grateful to the lineage of gurus who look over our shoulders 24/7.

We thank Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal, Chitramuthu Adigal, Jeganatha Swamigal, Ramalinga Adigal, Agathiyar, the Siddhas, and all other saints who were upagurus to us. We thank the divinity in its various forms: Lord Muruga, Lord Vinayaga, Ma Parvathi and Lord Shiva, Ma Laxmi and Lord Vishnu, Ma Saraswathi and Lord Brahma, and the whole pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. We thank our parents, soulmate, siblings, children, and friends, and our ancestors. We thank our Kula Deivam and Yellai Deivam. We thank all the planets and stars that today have become gurus to us and shower their blessings on us. We thank all of nature and this prapanjam in sustaining us, and ask that they forgive all our misdoings out of ignorance and at times due to arrogance.