GROWING & FLOURISHING

Srinatha Raghavan posted the following on fb a few days ago.

Baba Nanak was a hard task master and He was unforgivably exacting when someone accepted Him as their Spiritual Master. Towards the rest, He would behave like a loving Mother, but with His Disciples He would be like a strict Father.

Once someone asked Him, "Babaji, why are so strict with your Disciples and not with your Followers?"

Baba Nanak replied, "The later are following as per their own need, understanding or wish, but the former I have chosen myself, so they can someday lead, hence they need to be heavily disciplined, so their position of a Sardar, doesn't get to their heads."

Saints of the past never favored a following but rather came to work a miracle and moved on their way. Only during their final years did they settle in a place that would have people gathering around them and claiming ownership to the guru. The Naynamars did not have a following; neither did the Siddhas. But today all this has changed. Just as we are proud to be seen patronizing outlets selling branded items, people have taken to patronizing huge spiritual movements that rather than help break the ego only build on it further. 

When I was asked to come to the path of the Siddhas, I went seeking to know more about them. But existing establishments could not appease my hunger for knowledge about the means to their worship. Agathiyar then sent me unknowingly to Supramania Swami. He was to become my very first guru. He sent Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal who was into the Siddha path to me to nurture me further. While Supramania Swami never ventured beyond Thiruvannamalai, preferring to be with his family and worshipping Erai and his gurus, attending to the occasional seekers, seeking to know their faith through astrology, Tavayogi was destined to bring the word of the Siddhas to the masses within India and abroad. While the divine who initiated Supramania Swami to build a temple came to stop him later; the same divine tasked Tavayogi to build a temple cum ashram that has seen completion at Kallar. The divine who asks me to build one too surprisingly has decided to shelf the plan. Earlier in 2009, Agathiyar who tasks me to commission his bronze statue, a replica of that of his granite statue at Agasthiyampalli, and have it placed at the Mritiga Brindavanam of Saint Raghavendra, asks to stay at my home while awaiting the completion of the Bridavanam. But surprisingly Agathiyar stayed put for good at my home and had someone else furnish his statue for the Brindavanam. Who can comprehend the mind of the divine and his lila?

Srinatha continues, 

Akka Mahadevi the great Mystic Poetess sang, "O Lord! I sought your love and you gave me pain instead. But it took a long time for me to realize that both are one and the same."

Ah! What a beautiful realization it is, as very few get to experience the real fragrance of love, which is pain.

Agathiyar said the same, that it is in pain that there is bliss or anantham, asking me to bear with it. Soon we become accustomed to it and it does not bother us no more. We win the battle.

The spiritual path is a lone journey. Initially, we need a physical guru, shown to us, to show us the way and then later the divine itself comes to take us into its fold and works wonders in us, transforming us internally. A story is told of Guhai Namachivayar of Tiruvannamalai and his student Guru Namachivayar. Once Guru Namachiyar explained that he was putting out the fire that engulfed a curtain at the Chidambaram temple when questioned by his guru as to why he kept slapping his thigh. The guru knew his student was ripe with jnana, seeing that his student was eligible and ready to take on the role of a guru himself, told his disciple to leave for Chidambaram immediately. Guru Namachivayar refused to leave for he had a strong attachment to his guru. He appealed to stay and serve his guru. Finally, when the guru commanded him to leave, his student relented, only after the guru told him that he will meet him at Chidambaram. To Guru Namachivayar's surprise as he entered the chamber of Lord Siva his guru gave darshan as Lord Siva himself! A true physical guru would know when to let go of his students. 

There comes a time when a true guru will have to sever all ties with his student so that he can grow further and find his own way and journey and not be dependent and hold on to his guru forever. Just as the student would find it difficult to depart, it hurts the true guru to see their students leave but he too has to let go. Similarly, I have closed the umbrella group Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) that took on the name Agathiyar Tapovanam Malaysia (ATM) and later Agathiyar Kudumbam Malaysia (AKM) and its offshoot and working group Amudha Surabhi (AS). I felt that it had served its purpose well, showing newcomers to the path of worship to the Siddhas and also the various ways and means to carry out acts of charity. Now they have to carry on either individually or form new groups and venture out to spread the word of the Siddhas and the acts of Dharma. This is how the path grows and flourishes. This is how the followers shall grow and flourish too. 

While Supramania Swami introduced me to devotion to both Erai and guru, Tavayogi showed me Agathiyar and stepped back. Agathiyar, in turn, bestowed me with Jnana. I am grateful to these wonderful gurus for showing me the way and allow me to explore, grow and flourish too. I believe I have done the right thing in releasing others to explore and grow and flourish in the path of the Siddhas by breaking their hold on doctrines, codes, principles, routines, norms, establishments etc.  

Tavayogi once told me that the spirit cannot be curtailed and that it has to be free; free to investigate and learn. No amount of doctrine can satisfy the spirit. At AVM we did not lay rules but everybody understood and conformed to these unwritten rules. All the philosophical thoughts and discussions will give one an idea of what Erai isn't but would not show him. He has to be experienced. That is Anubhuthi. 

J. Krishnamurthy says that the moment one organizes spiritualism it becomes a religion. He narrates a story to make us understand further.

“You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it." - Source: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/about-krishnamurti/dissolution-speech.php

Dr. TN Krishnaswami writes in the chapter "Jnana and Bhakti" in "Fragrant Petals", Sri Ramanashramam, 2005,

Giving up 'mine' is bhakti; giving up 'I' is jnana. In the former case one gives up all one's possessions; in the latter one gives up the very possessor of the possesions.

This is what Jnana Panditha Lord Muruga desired us to do too. He wanted to know if we had surrendered totally the self before he could bestow us the gift of Jnana.

Krishnaswami writes further,

In bhakti ...one fixes one's mind on the Higher Power. When the mind, at last, becomes fully aware of the Higher Power it is awed by it and absorbed into it. This is the total surrender of the ego. The man no longer is; God alone is.

He quotes Ramana,

It is jnana to know that the Master is within you, but to commune with him is bhakti. When the love of God or Self is manifest it is bhakti; when it is in secret it is jnana. To know the self as bliss is jnana; efforts to uncover this natural bliss are bhakti. 

A bhakta makes no plans, trusting God who sent us her has his own scheme, which alone will work. He claims nothing. He has surrendered his personality so that his actions and their results are due to the higher power. He accepts whatever befalls him with equanimity. He understands that actions go on of themselves without an actor. A cyclone causes havoc but there is no actor responsible for it. God has created actions but no actor at all.

Similarly, Agathiyar in my very first reading tells me that I had erred in the past and proposed that I carry out certain remedies to set the faults right. I listened and followed. After three years he tells me that the wrong I had meted out in the past births were all his doing too. I needed the experience he said. He put the shame and blame in me to rest, asking me to forgive myself, forgive others and asking others to forgive me and finally he forgave me too.

I can only pay homage to him in silence for all that he has done for me. If I may borrow Ramalinga Adigal's expression of the divine and how he came as a savior.

எனக்கும் உனக்கும் இசைந்த பொருத்தம் என்ன பொருத்த மோ
இந்தப் பொருத்தம் உலகில் பிறருக் கெய்தும் பொருத்த மோ

அப்பா நின்னை அன்றி எங்கும் அணைப்பார் இல்லை யே
அந்தோ நின்னை அன்றி எங்கும் அருள்வார் இல்லை யே
எப்பா லவர்க்கும் நின்னை அன்றி இறைமை இல்லை யே
எனக்கும் நின்மே லன்றி உலகில் இச்சை இல்லை யே.
எனக்கும் உனக்கும்

அரசே உன்னை அணைக்க எனக்குள் ஆசை பொங்கு தே
அணைப்போம் என்னும் உண்மை யால்என் ஆவி தங்கு தே
விரைசேர் பாதம் பிடிக்க என்கை விரைந்து நீளு தே
மேவிப் பிடித்துக் கொள்ளுந் தோறும் உவகை ஆளு தே.
எனக்கும் உனக்கும்

என்னை ஆண்ட வண்ணம் எண்ணில் உள்ளம் உருகு தே
என்னை விழுங்கி எங்கும் இன்ப வெள்ளம் பெருகு தே
உன்ன உன்ன மனமும் உயிரும் உடம்பும் இனிக்கு தே
உன்னோ டென்னை வேறென் றெண்ணில் மிகவும் பனிக்கு தே.
எனக்கும் உனக்கும்

நினைக்க நினைக்கத் தித்திப் பெனது நினைவில் கொடுக்கு தே
நின்பால் அன்றிப் பிறர்பால் செல்ல நெஞ்சம் நடுக்கு தே
எனைத்துன் பொழித்தாட் கொண்ட நின்னை அன்னை என்ப னோ
எந்தாய் அன்பி லேன்நின் னடிக்கு முன்னை அன்ப னோ.
எனக்கும் உனக்கும்

அன்றே என்னை அடியன்ஆக்கி ஆண்ட சோதி யே
அதன்பின் பிள்ளை ஆக்கிஅருள்இங் களித்த சோதி யே
நன்றே மீட்டும் நேயன் ஆக்கிநயந்த சோதி யே
நானும் நீயும் ஒன்றென் றுரைத்துநல்கு சோதி யே.
எனக்கும் உனக்கும்

Read and listen to the full song at http://www.thiruarutpa.org/thirumurai/v/T347/tm/meyyarul_viyappu