This blog is solely about my experiences and that of those on the path of the Siddhas. As I trace the journey I am slowly beginning to understand the subtle reasons and meanings of many of those events that took place. Reading the Nadi catapulted me to another aspect of life's journey away from the norm of my career and family life. I suddenly saw myself naked in the eyes of the Siddhas for they exposed me and my acts. They spoke not only about the present me but what I did in a past birth and predicted the future. Today I understand that I had lived many lives as they came later to expose them too. Today I understand that the prediction given was true as at that period of time and that I could change my fate and my future, bringing about a new destiny.
Agathiyar did not desert me after asking me to worship them in my first Nadi reading. He had the Nadi reader perform a puja for the Siddhas where I received a painting of Agathiyar and a booklet containing the names of the Siddhas. This was my tools beginning on this wonderful journey. I put what was shown to me into practice at home. In wanting to know further about the Siddhas I went around knocking several doors of several establishments, only coming to a dead-end as nobody could fill me and enlighten me further. Everyone who was associated with these peedhams, ashrams, societies, and associations in the name of Agathiyar was also traveling the path, learning, and following from the pioneers before them and their peers. Somewhere collection of funds and charity was done. In another center, people gathered on Thursdays to chant the name of the Siddhas. Elsewhere precious hours were spent in talk in the name of Satsangs. None of these could enlighten me on the Siddhas. Looking into the books I saw that it was very formal and academic focusing on certain aspects of the Siddhas only, either prodding the myths and legends that surrounded them; extolling the Siddhi or powers displayed by them; investigating Siddha medicine and treatment of diseases; or promoting the art of prediction as in astrology or Aarudam or other forms of it. These were not what I sought. I was frustrated as I knew deep within this was not all there was to the Siddhas.
Agathiyar came to confirm our frustrations telling us that many will talk but never give us the experience. He added that gone are the days of talking and discussing the path and that he had come to give us the experience. A classic tale is told in "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Introduction by Swami Nikhilananda", of how Ramakrishna gave Narendra @ Swami Vivekananda the experience of God rather than speak about him or describe him.
The next few years saw tremendous changes in the direction that I was to take with my maiden travel and pilgrimage to India to temples that were built for specific purposes in helping and relieving mankind of their curses and karma. I did as designated by Agathiyar. I was shown to my guru Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai at the tail end of my pilgrimage. Three years on I was shown to my next guru Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram when he was visiting Malaysia. Calling us to the path Agathiyar in carrying on their legacy, through my gurus educated us on Kriyai and Yogam, taking over from where our parents had left having groomed us in Sariyai. Along the way, we were given practical experiences through journeys, events, and programs, with the appropriate circumstances and scenarios drawn up and thrown in by Agathiyar and my gurus. If Tavayogi led me on the external journey, bringing me through dense forest and narrow paths, scaling hills, and boulders and giving a city-dweller a new experience, and bringing us to perform and conduct rituals that before this was in the purview of the priests, Agathiyar has brought us on an internal journey of subtle transformation. For this to take place the gross elements have to be purified and made finer. As we know the water in the ground that forms a water table that keeps it from caving in, is identified and tapped for drinking and irrigation too. This very water oozes out to form streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes. With heat from the sun, water transforms to vapor. With the aid of air, it is lifted to form clouds merging with ether. Similarly, the Siddhas brought about changes to these elements in the physical body making them into their finer counterpart until each element changes into its previous state till it attains the state of Pranava degam. In this second phase of the journey, Agathiyar brought us to first cleanse the physical body by adopting good personal hygiene and then clearing the house of the filth gathered over the years. This applies to both the physical home and the impure body or Assudha degam. Knowing pretty well that we would not clean our homes they pieced together stories of deities into our everyday life. We have festivals like the harvest festival or Pongal introduced, where we are forced to clear the house, at least once a year, of all the "rubbish" collected over the years thinking that it would be of use to us later. Then we are told that a clean house invites Goddess Mahalakshmi and the Lord of wealth Kuberan. It saddens me to see Agathiyar come to remind us of up keeping cleanliness that keeps illness and disease away.
The Assudha degam that resulted from the coming together and materialization and amalgamation of the 5 physical elements namely ether, air, water, fire, and earth, has to be slowly and meticulously transformed into a pure body or Suddha degam by acts and practices of purifying these elements. The earth element that keeps us bonded and attached has to be released as the floodwaters flow. Tapas or the fire of austerity converts it to vapor that is then lifted to higher regions of manifestations in the ether. Defeat gravity and we shall remain young.
Agathiyar here then brings us to Yoga where volumes of prana is tapped and injected within through Pranayama techniques. The journey within begins with us tagging and hitchhiking on the breath as it traverses the Nadi piercing chakra upon chakra, hence bringing them back to top form from a state of sluggishness. The dormant energy rises within, fuelled by the breath and prana that is tapped in volumes from the cosmos. The breath that traverses the Brahma granthi then leaves for the Vishnu granthi. Slowly with practice, it arrives at the Rudra granthi where it knocks on the door at Ajna. We learn to observe the breath remaining in Kevala Kumbakam then. The prana comes to reside within permanently, the body now becoming a storehouse of prana and energy. The prana and energy are easily connected by merely bringing attention to the breath. As mentioned in the movie "Sliding Doors" then something ungoverned by us shall happen. More doors are opened and more passages open up as we continue to journey within into new terrains and worlds, we are told. The ultimate shall be in attaining the Oli degam or Light body. When the door opens with the grace of the guru and the divine, it makes its way towards the seventh chakra. Once then and there our true purpose in taking birth is revealed. This is both the souls and the divines desire. Returning back to society he is a Jivanmukta who does and goes about carrying out the divine's and the soul's will which are one then. He then comes as the way to others compared with us now trying to follow and adapt the ways of the saints.
Agathiyar did not desert me after asking me to worship them in my first Nadi reading. He had the Nadi reader perform a puja for the Siddhas where I received a painting of Agathiyar and a booklet containing the names of the Siddhas. This was my tools beginning on this wonderful journey. I put what was shown to me into practice at home. In wanting to know further about the Siddhas I went around knocking several doors of several establishments, only coming to a dead-end as nobody could fill me and enlighten me further. Everyone who was associated with these peedhams, ashrams, societies, and associations in the name of Agathiyar was also traveling the path, learning, and following from the pioneers before them and their peers. Somewhere collection of funds and charity was done. In another center, people gathered on Thursdays to chant the name of the Siddhas. Elsewhere precious hours were spent in talk in the name of Satsangs. None of these could enlighten me on the Siddhas. Looking into the books I saw that it was very formal and academic focusing on certain aspects of the Siddhas only, either prodding the myths and legends that surrounded them; extolling the Siddhi or powers displayed by them; investigating Siddha medicine and treatment of diseases; or promoting the art of prediction as in astrology or Aarudam or other forms of it. These were not what I sought. I was frustrated as I knew deep within this was not all there was to the Siddhas.
Agathiyar came to confirm our frustrations telling us that many will talk but never give us the experience. He added that gone are the days of talking and discussing the path and that he had come to give us the experience. A classic tale is told in "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Introduction by Swami Nikhilananda", of how Ramakrishna gave Narendra @ Swami Vivekananda the experience of God rather than speak about him or describe him.
In a state of mental conflict and torture of soul, Narendra (Swami Vivekananda) came to Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar. He was then eighteen years of age and had been in college two years. He entered the Master's room accompanied by some light-hearted friends. At Sri Ramakrishna's request he sang a few songs, pouring his whole soul into them, and the Master went into Samadhi. A few moments later Sri Ramakrishna suddenly left his seat, took Narendra by the hand, and led him to the screened verandah north of his room. They were alone. Addressing Narendra most tenderly, as if he were a friend of long acquaintance, the Master said: "Ah! You have come very late. Why have you been so unkind as to make me wait all these days? My ears are tired of hearing the futile words of worldly men. Oh, how I have longed to pour my spirit into the heart of someone fitted to receive my message!" Then, standing before Narendra with folded hands, he addressed him as Narayana, born on earth to remove the misery of humanity." Narendra was startled, "What is this I have come to see?" he said to himself. "He must be stark mad. Why, I am the son of Viswanath Dutta. How dare he speak this way to me?"
In answer to Narendra's question, "Sir, have you seen God?" the Master said: "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you." Narendra was amazed. These words he could not doubt. This was the first time he had ever heard a man saying that he had seen God. But he could not reconcile these words of the Master with the scene that had taken place on the verandah only a few moments before. He concluded that Sri Ramakrishna was a monomaniac, and returned home rather puzzled in mind.
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself.
But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. A few more meetings completely removed from Narendra's mind the last traces of the notion that Sri Ramakrishna might be a monomaniac or wily hypnotist.
Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized that the words of the Vedanta were true.Muruganar's narration of Bhagavan Ramana's story on Lord Dakshinamurti and how he subdued the minds of his students' lends credit to the importance and relevance of experience rather than questions.
When the four aged Sanakadi rishis first saw the sixteen-year-old Sri Dakshinamurti sitting under the banyan tree, they were at once attracted by him, understanding him to be the real Sadguru. They approached him, did three pradakshinas around him, prostrated before him, sat at his feet and began to ask very shrewd and pertinent questions about the nature of Reality and the means of attaining it. Because of the great compassion and fatherly love (vÄtsalya) which he felt for his aged disciples, the young Sri Dakshinamurti was overjoyed to see their earnestness, wisdom and maturity, and hence he gave apt replies to each of their questions. As he answered each consecutive question, further doubts rose in their minds and still they asked further questions. Thus they continued to question Sri Dakshinamurti, for one whole year, and he continued to clear their doubts through his compassionate answers. Finally, however, Sri Dakshinamurti understood that if he gave more answers to their questions more doubts would rise in their minds and hence there would never be an end to their ignorance (ajnana). Therefore, suppressing even the feeling of compassion and fatherly love which was welling up within him, he merged himself into the supreme silence. Because of their great maturity (which had been ripened to perfection through their year-long association with the Sadguru), as soon as Sri Dakshinamurti thus merged himself, they too were automatically merged within, into silence, the state of Self. (Source: "Mountain Path", http://www.sriramana.org/ramanafiles/mountainpath/2017%20IV%20Oct.pdf)
In the movie "Saguni" we are given a very poignant message delivered through a comic scene. A Guru who is a good orator, unfortunately, could not capture nor sustain the attention span of his devotees who were more interested in his handouts of talisman, etc, and in getting cured and getting rich quick. He is observed from afar by a lad. He approaches the Guru with an idea and offers to bring a change. The lad mentions to the Guru that what he needed to do was to repackage and market his "product" anew. The Guru was asked to stop talking! When the Guru stopped speaking everyone is anxious as to when he (the Guru) would speak next and whether he would speak to them or chose another. It turned out to be a successful move. Although it was a comedy sketch it made much sense.
The next few years saw tremendous changes in the direction that I was to take with my maiden travel and pilgrimage to India to temples that were built for specific purposes in helping and relieving mankind of their curses and karma. I did as designated by Agathiyar. I was shown to my guru Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai at the tail end of my pilgrimage. Three years on I was shown to my next guru Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram when he was visiting Malaysia. Calling us to the path Agathiyar in carrying on their legacy, through my gurus educated us on Kriyai and Yogam, taking over from where our parents had left having groomed us in Sariyai. Along the way, we were given practical experiences through journeys, events, and programs, with the appropriate circumstances and scenarios drawn up and thrown in by Agathiyar and my gurus. If Tavayogi led me on the external journey, bringing me through dense forest and narrow paths, scaling hills, and boulders and giving a city-dweller a new experience, and bringing us to perform and conduct rituals that before this was in the purview of the priests, Agathiyar has brought us on an internal journey of subtle transformation. For this to take place the gross elements have to be purified and made finer. As we know the water in the ground that forms a water table that keeps it from caving in, is identified and tapped for drinking and irrigation too. This very water oozes out to form streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes. With heat from the sun, water transforms to vapor. With the aid of air, it is lifted to form clouds merging with ether. Similarly, the Siddhas brought about changes to these elements in the physical body making them into their finer counterpart until each element changes into its previous state till it attains the state of Pranava degam. In this second phase of the journey, Agathiyar brought us to first cleanse the physical body by adopting good personal hygiene and then clearing the house of the filth gathered over the years. This applies to both the physical home and the impure body or Assudha degam. Knowing pretty well that we would not clean our homes they pieced together stories of deities into our everyday life. We have festivals like the harvest festival or Pongal introduced, where we are forced to clear the house, at least once a year, of all the "rubbish" collected over the years thinking that it would be of use to us later. Then we are told that a clean house invites Goddess Mahalakshmi and the Lord of wealth Kuberan. It saddens me to see Agathiyar come to remind us of up keeping cleanliness that keeps illness and disease away.
The Assudha degam that resulted from the coming together and materialization and amalgamation of the 5 physical elements namely ether, air, water, fire, and earth, has to be slowly and meticulously transformed into a pure body or Suddha degam by acts and practices of purifying these elements. The earth element that keeps us bonded and attached has to be released as the floodwaters flow. Tapas or the fire of austerity converts it to vapor that is then lifted to higher regions of manifestations in the ether. Defeat gravity and we shall remain young.
Agathiyar here then brings us to Yoga where volumes of prana is tapped and injected within through Pranayama techniques. The journey within begins with us tagging and hitchhiking on the breath as it traverses the Nadi piercing chakra upon chakra, hence bringing them back to top form from a state of sluggishness. The dormant energy rises within, fuelled by the breath and prana that is tapped in volumes from the cosmos. The breath that traverses the Brahma granthi then leaves for the Vishnu granthi. Slowly with practice, it arrives at the Rudra granthi where it knocks on the door at Ajna. We learn to observe the breath remaining in Kevala Kumbakam then. The prana comes to reside within permanently, the body now becoming a storehouse of prana and energy. The prana and energy are easily connected by merely bringing attention to the breath. As mentioned in the movie "Sliding Doors" then something ungoverned by us shall happen. More doors are opened and more passages open up as we continue to journey within into new terrains and worlds, we are told. The ultimate shall be in attaining the Oli degam or Light body. When the door opens with the grace of the guru and the divine, it makes its way towards the seventh chakra. Once then and there our true purpose in taking birth is revealed. This is both the souls and the divines desire. Returning back to society he is a Jivanmukta who does and goes about carrying out the divine's and the soul's will which are one then. He then comes as the way to others compared with us now trying to follow and adapt the ways of the saints.