THE SWEETNESS OF MANIKAVASAGAR'S DIVINE RENDITIONS

What was theoretical knowledge that made little sense once; What was songs that merely sounded sweet to the ears; What was movie scenes that merely depicted scenes from the Puranas; What was mere lines of expression and experience of others; has today taken on a new meaning, a new understanding, a new perspective  and a new life, after having traveled the short but sweet years on a journey with Agathiyar. Today we can comprehend better the experiences and inner meanings of the saints having relived their experiences to a certain extent.

G.Vanmikanathan in "Thiruvachagam", Amudha Nilayam, Chennai, 2002, writes that ,

"Maanikkavaachakar was enslaved stage by stage at various times by diverse means, unceasingly pouring grace on him and drawing him closer and closer for the ultimate embrace of eternal union. Maanikkavaachakar relates not only his own experience but also that of all the mystics who have gone before him."

G.Vanmikanathan writes of the numerous dangers that Manikavasagar warns man traveling his path. As the thought of the existence of God dawns in his mind and as man tries to seek and gain his divine feet, he has to face many dangers while even in the mother's womb. The sorrows and dangers he faces in the world to the innumerable obstacles which the world places until his very last days are relived in Manikavasagar's "Potri Thiru Agaval."

Manikavasagar too sings of the moments where he feared that he was slipping from his ranks just as Yogi Ramsuratkumar too did mention that there were days he hit rock bottom. G.Vanmikanathan writes that Manikavasagar after upholding the discipline required of "in gaining purity of heart and the soul, finds himself slipping back from proximity to the Godhead, due to the revival of the old attachment to the "I" and "mine"." We have been reminded in many ways of the dangers of slipping and falling back from grace as we stand at the gateway ready to take the final step towards receiving "the experience par excellence, that of the Lord making a tabernacle of this body." Even one in the state of a Jeevan Mukta is cautioned of the dangers lurking around in returning back to society or living in society and is reminded to stay aloft at all times.

G.Vanmikanathan in relating the external temple structure with the internal temple within the physical body writes,

To Maanickkavaachakar and indeed to all the saints, and for that matter even to the common man, the abode of God is his own body, his mind, his heart. Thirumoolar in his "Thirumandhiram" calls the body the temple of God and instructs man to keep it pure and healthy. This faith has been extended to the ground plan of the temples by the great sages who wrote the Aagamaas. The human body has according to the seers and savants 7 centres, 7 seats or 7 stations. (Similarly) The ground plan of a temple closely follows the ground plan of a human body with these 7 sites. Therefore when one worships God externally in a temple, he worships him as enshrined in his body." This theme is rendered in his song, "Keerthi Tiru Agaval."

G.Vanmikanathan explains further,

Maanikkavaachakar exhorts the devotees to don the armour of sacred ash. Such wearing of the sacred ash corresponds to donning an armour. The five courtyards in the temple represents the five sheaths of a human body. The devotee crosses these entrances to the innermost court. At the sacrificial altar he sacrifices his Aanava malam. At the flagpost (or kodimaram), he reinforces his faith, and resoluteness of his purpose here. He proceeds now to worship God in the sanctum sanctorum where the eternal effulgence shines.

Prapancham means both the animate and the inanimate world. Poornam is wholeness. The soul once it attains purity and maturity of perfectness is entitled to be united with the Lord. The Lord's grace falls on it in a timely manner and the soul is absolved into the arms of the waiting father.

G.Vanmikanathan says that "contrary to the common belief that gnana or jnana is a result of one's effort, gnosis or gnana is not a product of the intellect but is a grace received as a result of spiritual discipline and one-pointed contemplation. Gnana dawns on one rather than achieved."

G.Vanmikanathan continues that "it is the soul's experience that it should see itself elated to a state of joy first; from joy to ecstasy; and from ecstasy to an all-encompassing and surpassing bliss, as the soul is seen uniting with Civan to the point of extinction of duality, to the point of the absence of any difference between the soul and Civan."

In their pursuit to bring this body into a state of purity, the saints have sung of how they had to endure pain, in Ramalinga Adigal's case for 12 long years. If Ramalinga Adigal's songs portray similarity in experience with Manikavasagar, G.Vanmikanathan writes that Jalaluddin Rumi's utterances parallel Manikavasagar in a remarkable way too. Jalaluddin Rumi wrote, "I am in love with grief and pain for the sake of pleasing my peerless King." 

Gnana Jhothiamma had to endure severe conditions of pain as Agathiyar told her the cleansing was going on. The years of sustaining on meat called for and needed thorough flushing of the system to the very core, to purify the very cells and atoms to receive God's light. Hence a gentle reminder to all those who seek to bring the divine within - please refrain from consuming meat. If you are happy about seeing the divine as a wish-fulfilling Genie whom you bring forth in times of need by rubbing Aladdin's lamp, whenever you desire favors or when a tragedy befalls or you are faced with sorrow or suffering, then I guess it's fine to carry on or continue to see him as an entity or a goods among others that the world has to offer or displays externally, for now, till the day he invokes the compassion in you to see life in all things.

Having waited patiently 17 years, an understanding dawns in me as I read G.Vanmikanathan's observation, "When they (both the divine and its matters) are beyond our comprehension, our duty is not to dismiss them as meaningless, but to wait patiently for enlightenment by the spirit of the saints in their own time", something that Lord Siva pointed out through a dream. In that dream, Lord Siva spoke, asking me to shelve all my questions to a later date. Today I understand his reasons to stall me in my journey, having me hibernate for some 14 years, was to make me better understand the truth. Certain processes needed to take place and I needed certain experiences too prior to coming to an understanding of matters.

And so, Agathiyar has told me to bear with the intermittent pain that comes and goes, assuring and comforting me, saying that it is all part of the process. If in the initial stages and years before, Agathiyar just brushed away my pain and agony aside, giving no importance to it, and asking me to ignore it, saying that it was merely superficial discomfort, compared with the gift of inner transformation that he had gifted and awakened within - the painful experiences that continue till these days are in fact Ananda Paravasam or bliss, he says, asking me to endure it.

As Agathiyar pacified me, so too does G.Vanmikanathan write that "one receives the assurance of a comforting mighty presence which grows on more and more until one realizes that it is God revealing himself in a light that is painful to one's nature and all its faculties because it is infinitely above them and because its purity is at war with your own selfishness and darkness and imperfection."

We have been told of God's 5 job scopes namely Creation (Padaithal), Sustenance (Kaathal), Dissolution (Azhital), Veiling (Maraithal) and Grace (Arulal). I used to wonder and question why a most just, fair and compassionate God, who wants us to get back home to him as fast as possible, chooses to place veils and obstacles and make it more difficult for his children to find their way home?  G.Vanmikanathan says veiling is "an act of grace too, by which he hides reality from the soul so that it can gain the experience provided by good and bad karma in the world. When the soul is mature enough God withdraws the veil concealing reality.

Maayai is the raw material of the matrix (prapancham) or space where everything including the universe and the human body is formed. When cataclysm comes the universe and the souls recede into Maaya and Maaya recedes into Civan. Maaya in contact with Aanavam becomes impure.  God works on the soul through Kanma malam and redeems it from the bonds of the Aanava malam." His dynamic aspect Sakti works as Maayai, sings Manikavasagar, creating or having 60,000,000 (sixty million) powers or forms or manifestations of lesser energies that enable it to provide the world and the body. Ramalinga Adigal calls it Maamayai.

We have seen in an earlier post the truth in this statement too. In the "Metaphysics of Saiva Siddhantam - Sivagnana Boodham" by Thiruvilankar Canagarayar, l96l, we read that,

The husk, bran and sprout or germination of a paddy seed are comparable to Anavam, Maya, and Karmam that encompass the soul. In order to purify the soul, the Primal One by His infinite Grace, applied Maya and Karma Malams, (the other impurities) to the fettered soul, just as a washerman applies Fuller’s earth and cow-dung to remove the dirt in a piece of cloth. The many probabilities and possibilities for illumination or otherwise, are outlined as follows.

When the husk (Anavam) and bran (Maya) are removed the paddy seed will not germinate, and the sprout (Karmam) will not spring up. Similarly, when the Anavam retreats and Maya retires, then the energy (Karmam) of maya also retires with Maya. When the Anavam retreats from battlefield its opponents Maya and Karmam retire. When Maya and Karma Malams counteract on Anavam, the ignorance of the soul, being the effect of the function of Anavam, is removed from the fettered soul and its intelligence illumines.

It might seem that we only carry Anava Malam or Ego or Ignorance while both Maya and Karma are the doings of Erai then. So we now understand that Erai out of love and compassion for us, chose to cloth us in Maya or illusion and subject us to acts that accumulate Karmam. Only after having to go through a systematic mechanism of cause and effect and having gone through pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, beaten and molded, we tend to come out polished and shining minus the ego that dies a natural death.

When Agathiyar told me in the very beginning, through the Nadi reading, where he pointed out the wrongs and harm I had done in the past births, adding that it was all his doings and I had to learn and gain experiences essential to my spiritual growth, I could not comprehend how could that be his work, although I was happy that he had decided to pardon me and that I was excused. But he added that as the effects of these wrongful past actions had been generated and were released, I still had to carry out remedies that he stipulated deemed fit to subdue the results and damage on my life. I took heed and came on round doing my parikaram to his satisfaction.

Elsewhere Agathiyar tells us that the prerequisite to take birth is that one needs at least a small amount of ego in him, be it even in the case of a saint who intends to come back to continue his mission. With karma exhausted to a certain extent through temple worship and by performing fire rituals like homa and yagna, finally, the remaining karma is exhausted in the fire of Tava Kanal or heat generated in intense meditation or tapas or tavam.  The illumination of the soul is hastened and actuated by the process of karma and by serving its dues, as some saints choose at times to live it out rather than change it or soften it. With true understanding of the process and karma burnt, comes the lifting of the veil. Hence Maya too retreats and true knowledge dawns, and remains. Jnana illumines.

In asking, "Infinite bliss I gained; what did you gain from me in return?" Manikavasagar shows his overwhelming sense of indebtedness says G.Vanmikanathan adding that we are able to access the immeasurability of the bliss bestowed on him. If Goddess Parvathi herself had to perform many austerities taking several births to gain again and again the hand of Lord Siva, imagine we being just mere mortals, would have the need to come again and again and again thousands or more times just to come to worship him, let alone hold on to him tightly as did Manikavasagar. But Agathiyar took us in and groomed us irrespective of all our flaws and karma. Today we often tell ourselves that we lack gratitude for the immeasurable and undeserved grace showered on us by Agathiyar.  Our gratitude towards him can only go so far as gifting him with material things. But by going further and giving the body and the soul and all our possessions to him, still, it seems far from enough or inadequate in paying him back for his gift of life and all the good that has ensued. We have now arrived at a revelation that "What else can one give but his love towards him?" Let us love him as we would ourselves. Let us love and cherish him as dear and close to our hearts.

Finally the grand question of all time. Would declaring oneself as a God amount to being egoistic? Jalaluddin Rumi thinks otherwise. " "I am God" is an expression of great humility. The man who says I am the slave or servant of God affirms two existences - his own and his God but he that says "I am God" has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says "I am naught; he is all there is; nothing but God's." This is the extreme of humility and self-abasement."

G.Vanmikanathan says that "there are two ways of knowing or looking at the world. One is knowing things as separate entities while the other is seeing God alone in all things as the enlightened do."

This answers a question I had as to why the saints allowed their followers to worship them rather than the divine? Why could not they issue an order or command and stop their followers and devotees from falling at their feet; bathing them in milk and honey; placing garlands and feeding them etc?

By not allowing them to carry out their wishes and instead dictate his desire to end it would constitute he having an opinion and a wish, apart from the desire of his God, that is shown and demonstrated through his followers and disciples as Jalaluddin says "it affirms two existences." I have come to understand that a man of God is one with God, hence he does not stop nor interfere with the desires of God, as Thomas Merton is quoted by G.Vanmikanathan, "When the next step comes, you do not take the step, you do not know the transition, you do not fall into anything. You do not go anywhere, and so you do not know the way by which you got there. Not knowing the way by which the experience came."

How true. We can only cry out Achcho...Achcho...Achcho (an exclamation that expresses astonishment mingled with wonder and gratitude at one’s good fortune).

Let us join the ranks of the enlightened. God who is formlees comes to his devotees as a statue or a painting or as a vision or an inner voice. God who is formless comes as a father, a mother, a guru or Upaguru. God who is formless comes to as rain in times of prolonged drought or as a sip of water in times of extreme thirst, wetting the ground and quenching our thirst respectively. God who is formless comes to us as heat in our body that keeps us alive and fire that keeps us warm in the cold of the weather. Let us begin to see God in all things.