In all the texts, songs, views, and sayings of the learned and wise and the divine too, two words stand out significantly: learning and experience - learning as in a lesson learned from experience and, experience that brings about or leads to wisdom or jnana. We are told that we have come to learn and experience. Within this short lifespan, we gather all the knowledge gained from these experiences that we receive through life's lessons. Then we pack our bags and leave to return again and continue the learning process in this never-ending drama, schooling for life.
As each day passes we are beginning to comprehend more and more what Ma meant when she said the path of the Siddhas is one of learning (and with it comes the experience that brings lessons to us). Our learning is another's knowledge, wisdom or jnana. That is how the divine experiences of the saints stood the tests of time and became a beacon for us to follow. Similarly, the experiments of the scientists have taught the world much, enlightening us too in many aspects. The many autobiographies of both the famous and the not so famous have taught us lessons in life, lessons in decision making, lessons in making investments, etc. The world is a potpourri of experiences waiting to be tapped, read, listened to and used by others.
Cyndi Dale in her book "New Chakras Healing - The Revolutionary 32 Center Energy System", Llewellyn Publications, 2003 quotes Marlo Morgan from his "Mutant Message Down Under", on the wisdom of aboriginal teachers called Real People.
All human beings are spirits only visiting this world. All encounters with other people are experiences, and all experiences are forever connections. Real People close the circle of each experience.
We do not leave ends frayed..if you walk away with bad feelings in your heart for another person, and that circle is not closed, it will be repeated later in life. You will not suffer once, but over and over until you learn. It is good to observe, to learn, and become wiser from what has happened.
Going through life and its lessons that it has to offer we build up our store of experiences that comes in handy when the need arises. Besides this, we are learning from the experience of others around us too. The mother has a fair share of experiences to share. The father too. Then we have the grandparents and their experiences from a different era. Then there are the movies. Let it be a movie based on a true story or on historical facts or about a person. Let it be the adventure of a hiker, the mouth-watering delicacies prepared by a chef, or a social worker. The camera follows him as he tracks, climbs and finally sits perched precariously on a rock sharing the magnificent view - his view and his experience with us sitting perched on the edge of the sofa in the comfort of our homes. Then we learn from the chef his secrets to making a tasty dish. And we learn to see the world of those living in poverty, in distress, etc through the lens of the social worker.
Reading a book too takes us to the very era and time the story takes place. It takes us inside the mind of another person as Carl Sagan speaks of books.
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”― Carl Sagan, Cosmos.
If both the camera and the books can bring one immediately to experience another's experience, following in the footsteps of one too brings an equally exciting and memorable experience. Thus came about the concept of Gurukulam, spiritual masters and religious teachers. Tavayogi shared his former experiences tracking into the jungles and spending the nights in dark, damp caves that he had gone through some ten years back by bringing me along on the same track. I was surprised that he could find his way in the jungle with the jungle changing every minute. Even after having left these places for so long he walked ahead of me with so much confidence as if he still remembered every stone, tree, and rock on the path, and the joy of returning home expressed on his face.
Agathiyar too gave us lots of chores by way of worship and rituals that brought us new learning, lessons, and experience. Today we can comprehend to a certain extent the wisdom of the wise. The divine cosmos fulfills all our desires. When the desire and thought for something is great, a path is created anew in space and time for the desire to take shape and take place. It is just a matter of time when it all comes into place. But be forewarned that the results might or might not be to our favor, to our liking or as expected. One might question why these divine laws or the promises given by their apostles or messengers are often broken, not fulfilled or delayed or are not to our expectations. As Agathiyar told me we needed these experiences too, that of accepting delays, failures and disappointments too. Having gone through disappointments and failures one comes out of it stronger. The divine does not interfere or mess around with others lives. There is a divine law in place that executes all happenings. But when a prayer, desire or wish is placed or put forward to him he obliges to step in. The divine studies our past records, the present deeds and the many possibilities that the future holds for us. Some of our askings could bring consequences that are detrimental to the health, wealth and well being of the person. So the divine buys time, sending us on what might be called a wild goose chase for some, but during this interim period, the person meets others and gains new experiences, that help build confidence in him, bringing some peace and calm. Eventually, we would drop, or these desires or our wants, would drop on its own. We will move on to new terrains and new experiences. Soon we will stop wishing and submit to his will. The divines way of getting us to lose our hold on all things material and related to the world and instead turn our attention towards strengthening the soul within begins in a subtle manner, thenceforth. But sadly we do not understand the inner workings of the divine and lose faith in them, belittle them, thinking that they have failed us and never kept their promises.
The intelligence, although is seen as a wish-fulfilling Genie for most folks, apparently for those who have taken refuge in him, vets through these desires of theirs without blindly granting them. For those who continuously connect with the divine and surrender their lives to it, the divine begins to draw a new path and carve a new life for them. Then it becomes not a matter of fulfilling their desires but that of the divine energy that now takes charge in all matters. When personal desires are dropped the personal karma accumulated too sees a drop. When personal desires are transformed into those carried out for the well being of others, the community, and society, karma does not attach its stigma to these actions.
Cyndi Dale says of how the charitable acts can transform karma.
Karma is only important because it leads us to dharma; the dharmic conversion process is the only one that can help us transform karmic energy ( from pain to wisdom). If karma is the process which pulls us back toward our past, dharma is the process which pulls us forward toward our future. Dharma is actually another word for purpose.Life now has a new purpose - that of serving others. In serving others existing karma is drastically reduced. Hence the reason Agathiyar shows us the door out and starts us feeding and serving others immediately after our Nadi readings. Cyndi speaks of dharma as the key to transformation just as Agathiyar, Buddha, Ramalinga Adigal, Jagannatha Swamigal, Chitramuthu Adigal, Yogi Ramsuratkumar, Neem Karoli Baba, Rengaraja Desigar, Tavayogi, and many other saints have reiterated time and again of the importance of feeding and serving others. Wiederman too subscribes to this thought. Cyndi quotes Frederic Wiederman: "It (dharma) is to serve (other) life and increase god consciousness ... the souls calling can be viewed as a blueprint which contains information as to why we are here." Our karma that is energy, if converted to dharma expediates the process of clearing the backlog of baggage we carry and helps speed up "the healing process of the soul and soul body which is integrated with the mind and the physical body."
Cyndi Dale shares further Frederic Wiederman's view on karma from his "Between Two Worlds: The Riddle of Wholeness, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1986. Frederic Wiederman sees karma as "the sum total of the consequences of all our actions .. regardless of whether our actions create positive or negative karma, the law of karma, assures that we must experience the return of the effects of our actions. While this may seem binding... it is in reality very freeing."
Dr. Krishnan, astrologer and Siddha practitioner once told me that many fear and shun the approach of Saturn's Dasa and Buthi in their horoscopes. But the coming of Saturn into our lives and its planetary effects on us that is feared and dreaded by many is a blessing for it provides an avenue, the environment, and circumstance for us to work out our debts or karma. Indeed there is an opportunity for us to expedite the process of exhausting the karma that we have accumulated and in the event, free ourselves from the clutches and the chain that binds us to repetitive birth and death. The next time you see someone going through a tough period understand that the divine is helping them clear their backlog of karma thus helping them go through the process speedily.
As Wiederman views the law of karma as a "cosmic feedback system which allows us to become conscious of our deeds and therefore learn from them", time and again we are brought back into the classroom to learn lessons on how to live life properly. As Supramania Swami said "Never mind we shall work on it" saying we are being polished to shine, as in metal wares, here we will be subjected to polishing till we shine in the brilliance of the divine. Tavayogi too says its all right to come back again to work on polishing our wares to shine in the brilliance of the divine light.