RELEARNING

God comes into our life only when we begin to listen. When we stop talking and begin to listen more, then he begins to speak. When we stop listening to the continuous chatter that goes on in our mind then his voice is heard. When we sit quietly and listen to our thoughts go by without grabbing them, he shows himself. When we stop running after our dreams and begin to live his dream then he comes. In short, he reveals himself when we lose ourselves. 

Eckhart Tolle in "Oneness with All Life", Plume, 2009, says, "The cosmos is not chaotic. The very word cosmos means order. But this is not an order the human mind can ever comprehend." He gives an example - the forest. "Although one would choose to see only disorder and chaos in the forest, there is no distinction between life and death here. Everywhere new life springs out of dead material. He says only if we are still enough inside and the noise of thinking subsides can we become aware that there is a hidden harmony here, a sacredness, a higher order in which everything has its perfect place and could not be other than what it is and the way it is."

Eckhart says, "As soon as you sense that hidden harmony, that sacredness, you realize you are not separate from it, and when you realize that, you become a conscious participant in it. In this way, nature can help you become realigned with the wholeness of life."

Could this be the reason the Siddhas took to the forest to contemplate? Dwelling in the forest brought man close to nature and its laws. They studied nature and learned from it.

This sacredness in the calm and silence of the moment is God. God is felt and experienced in this silence.

How can we escape from the clutches of sorrow? When we learn to see everything as a whole. It is only when we see fragments of events that we react without knowing its cause. The Siddhas see the whole picture hence they understand why events take place.

Eckhart says "The universe is an indivisible whole in which all things are interconnected in which nothing exists in isolation. There are no random events nor are there events or things that exist by and for themselves in isolation. The atoms that make up your body were once forged inside stars and the causes of even the smallest event are virtually infinite and connected with the whole in incompressible ways."

Could this be the reason we do Archana at temples stating our star or natchathiram? Is this a means of strengthening our star and showing homage to our source, our place of origin, from where we came?

Eckhart continues, "If you wanted to trace back the cause of any event you would have to go back all the way to the beginning of creation."

So if we want answers to our lives sorrows we have to be prepared to travels to the past and discover what we had done that justified these sufferings. Are we ready to face the truth and its consequences? Would not it suffices to understand the law of karma that is in place and act to rectify them without knowing the details of our past? Knowing the past might shock us.

Ramalinga Adigal writes of the many possibilities that brought forth his birth in his "Manumurai Kanda Vasakam."

“Did I create fear in others?
Did I hurt my loved ones?
Did I summon and tarnish others?
Did I stop others from making donations?
Did I smear my friends?
Did I sabotage my friendship?
Did I speak ill and gossip that led to families breaking up?
Did I refuse to help one in need?
Did I increase taxes and rob others?
Did I make the poor suffer?
Did I act unjustly?
Did I stop the means of income of others?
Did I entice others and cheat them?
Did I rip work from others but refuse to pay accordingly?
Did I adulterate the rice with pebbles?
Did I ignore the hungry?
Did I refrain from feeding the poor?
Did I expose those that had taken refuge with me?
Did I aid those who committed murder?
Did I scout and spy on behalf of thieves?
Did I snatch properties belonging to others and lie to them?
Did I sleep with those who had lost their virginity?
Did I abuse virgins who I had a responsibility to protect?
Did I rape those who already had had a husband?
Did I lock up birds in their cages?
Did I not feed the calves?
Did I sustain this body by consuming meat?
Did I poison drinking water?
Did I fell trees that gave shade?
Did I destroy others out of revenge?
Did I demolish public halls?
Did I not listen to my parents?
Did I not greet my Guru?
Did I not give my Guru his dues, for his sustenance?
Did I envy the learned?
Did I find mistakes in the writings of the wise?
Did I offend devotees of Shiva?
Did I offend the yogis?
Did I prevent the public from conducting their prayers by shutting the doors to the temples?
Did I smear the name of the Lord?
What sin did I do, I do not know”, questions the Saint.

Nature teaches us many things provided we are prepared to watch and listen. Sadly these days we are so engrossed in the hype that tugs at our senses and pulls us away. Guess we have to learn to let go of all our previous understandings and learn anew. In short, we need to format our drive (Self) and install the divine's program. But the divine took up that task knowing that we shall never find the moment and time to come to him. Agathiyar has come to cleanse the harddisk and Lord Muruga has come to install his program in us. As our parents let us roam the neighborhood only to call us out as dusk approaches so too when the time is right the guru comes to claim his student. We are blessed for we are the cow that jumped into the pond to save ourselves from the ferocious tiger.

Once upon a time, a cow went out to graze in the jungle. Suddenly, she noticed a tiger racing towards her. She turned and fled, fearing that at any moment the tiger would sink his claws into her. The cow desperately looked for some place to escape and at last saw a shallow pond. Barely evading the tiger’s reach, she jumped into the pond, and in the heat of the chase, the tiger blindly leaped after her. To the surprise of them both, the pond was extremely shallow yet filled with deep recesses of mud. After toppling over each other, the cow and the tiger found themselves a short distance apart, stuck in the mud up to their necks. Both had their heads above water but were unable to free themselves no matter how much they writhed. The tiger repeatedly snarled at the cow and roared, “I am going to enjoy the sound of crunching your bones between my teeth!” He thrashed about in a fury but soon became fretful as he found no prospect of escape. 

The cow thoughtfully laughed as the tiger struggled to free himself and asked him, "Do you have a master?”

The tiger disdainfully replied, “I am the king of the jungle. Why do you ask me if I have a master? I myself am the master!”

The cow said, "You may be the king of the jungle, but here all your power has failed to save your life.”

“And what about you?”, retorted the tiger. “You are going to die here in this mud too!”
The cow smiled mildly and said, “No, I am not.”

“If even I, the king of the jungle cannot free myself from this mud”, snapped the tiger, “Then how can you, an ordinary cow?”

The cow gently replied, “I cannot free myself from this mud, but my master can. When the sun sets and he finds me absent at home, he will come looking for me. Once he finds me, he will raise me up and escort me home sweet home.”

The tiger fell silent and coldly glared at the cow. Soon enough, the sun set, and the cow’s master arrived. He immediately recognized the plight she was in and lifted her to safety. As they walked home, the cow and the master both felt renewed gratitude for one another and pitied the tiger they both would have been happy to save if only the tiger had allowed them.

The Purport of the story:  The Cow represents a Surrendered Heart, the Tiger represents an Egoistic Mind, and the Master represents the Guru. The Mud represents the World, and the Chase represents the Struggle for Existence therein.

No matter how many troubles appear to be created by the egoistic minds of the world, who are themselves as stuck as the surrendered heart, ..the surrendered heart has faith that the Guru is always going to come at the right time to save her and take her back “home” - the inner happiness in us is pure and true home. So when totally stuck and helpless, when one has already done all one can and has no more means left, when every other effort fails, the surrendered heart still does not give up hope. She will just wait patiently until sundown.

Isaikkavi Ramanan explains the true nature of surrender in his talk. Watch from 50.35 minutes.