Ramón Ruedas Gómez writes of his life's experience and how he came to the Siddhas in https://ashramvettavelieningles.wordpress.com
My pursuit began at an early age, when I was sixteen years old, in Mexico City. I encountered the spirituality for the first time through the Yoga practice at the first Yoga Institute established in that city. From that moment on, I met my guru Juan Víctor Mejías, the then director of the Universal Great Brotherhood. I lived in an ashram in Venezuela and my guru sent me to Spain in 1973 with the mission to establish some centers of Yoga. My quest has always been constant and continuous, teaching Yoga and establishing several centers throughout Spain.
I established El Molino in the year 1993 as a school for personal inner growth and for many years I worked there with Leonard Orr, founder of Rebirthing. I also worked on several paths: Shamanism, Buddhism, the Kabala, some training in Africa. I was trained on Holotropic breathwork by Stanislav Grof. I did some works with Melquisedec and was trained in Tantra Yoga by Ronald Fusch.
The above works have only a supplementary character as I have always been devoted to the training of Yoga teachers, because the main support for my spiritual practice has been and is the Yoga. My work has been invariably focused on the threefold goal of making Yoga known, training Yoga teachers and practicing Yoga as the axis… of my life.
As of 1999 I began to contact the tradition of the Siddha yogis and it was from that point on when my life gave a dramatic twist as far as my spiritual search is concerned; from that moment on I have devoted myself to the investigation and the practice of this tradition. Nowadays my mission is to divulge this millenary tradition that has remained hidden through thousands of years. For this purpose I have founded the first ashram where it can be practiced and taught. It is my belief that this tradition is the most comprehensive and profound one for the full spiritual evolution of the human being.
The goal of my spiritual pursuit has always been the achievement or realization of the Samadhi or Jiva Mukti, and the tradition of the Tamil Siddhas shows the right and proven path to reach it.
Raquel Castillo Prieto having studied and having taught the tertiary system of education and "the educational systems of non-directive and active pedagogies" to children, realized that "although keeping intact the joy of the inner Self they do not show the path to the discovery of the Self as a certain state of consciousness", then moved on to pursue Yoga mentioning the reasons.
I felt that something was missing, that the Transcendent aspect of the individual was not taken into consideration by those types of education. And I might say that this is the end of a kind of first part of my life, being the next one my meeting with Yoga. The Self is something more than that psychophysical identity; it is a state of consciousness free from all desire and this is what the Vasi Yoga works on.
When I met Yoga everything took a radical turn and I could perceive with crystalline clarity that Yoga was my spiritual path; that it had always been next to me but I had never made the decision to embark on it. I began my practices guided by a teacher of Yoga who was a friend of mine, but soon I knew that this was not the kind of Yoga I was looking for. Then I read the book by Yogananda and it awakened in me the feeling that it represented something similar to what I was looking for. I continued my tireless pursuit and got acquainted with Babaji’s Kriya Yoga; and thus I arrived at the Vasi Yoga (the Yoga of the Siddhas) which I knew thanks to Ramón Ruedas (the person who brought it to Europe).
A good teacher, master or guru would not shove his doctrines on his student, but slowly allow him to grow at his own pace, without assigning a deadline. He would let the soul-flower bloom in its own time. He cognizes the ability of his student to shoulder the great responsibilities that come with the teachings and the power that grace bestows on him. Similarly, Raquel Castillo Prieto writes of a good system.
It keeps lit the flame of the search for what we are because the self of the individual is protected and respected from the very beginning; the goal is to identify where the children interests and also their needs are and the teacher accompanies them throughout their development, the target being the autonomy of the individual from the outset. But all this sowing is aimed at the physical, emotional, mental, cognitive development and its target is the external world. They also work with the identification of the needs and wishes of the person.
The recent Tamil movie Raatchasi depicts exactly this, how a dedicated teacher with a vision brings new, fresh and holistic thoughts and ideas, improvises the otherwise barren education system that is in place, amidst much retaliation and rejection from certain quarters who had to gain from the present system.
Raquel Castillo Prieto continues,
The Siddha yogis - who are the fathers of the Yoga, demonstrated and proved the way in which it was possible to reach our essence; all of them got enlightened, i.e. they attained this state of Absolute Bliss on a permanent basis and many of them wrote down their experiences and the manner to arrive at such liberation in the form of verse. Summing up, this is to what I am devoted at Vettaveli - to show the path of the Siddhas to those souls dwelling in children bodies. As Siddhas say, any knowledge that does not help the man to know and free himself is a false knowledge. The education ought to contain in itself something more than a kind of knowledge centered exclusively in the functioning of the external world.
My function is exactly to convey to the families, boys and girls the instruments used by the Siddhas to attain a state of Pure Consciousness so that the individuals are enabled to evolve from the very beginning, without being forced to wait until becoming adults to approach the inner Self.
The last third of my life is inscribed in the tradition of the Siddha Yoga where doubts do not exist and everything is only certainty. I am one more worker within this tradition and the story of the rest of my life will be written with such a tradition as the basis.
Indeed a true and dedicated teacher. Over the last weekend we had Acharya Gurudasan who flew from Bangalore to initiate students into Kriya Yoga in Malaysia spend some time at ATM in Satsang.
I and others at ATM were blessed to pick up the finer points of Yoga and fine-tune our practice when he agreed to sacrifice his time and effort during his working stint in Malaysia some time back. He left his mark behind in uplifting us as a upaguru would, before continuing his career in Bangalore.