I was watching a wonderful documentary film "Samadhi - The Pathless Path". Here are some pearls from it. The movie made me accept that whatever is currently taking place before our eyes needs to happen in order for a new order to arise. The narrator enlightens us.
Carl Jung said, "To touch heaven one's roots must reach into hell", out of the furnace of Babylon comes transformation, transfiguration and new human potential. The Eastern traditions say that the lotus of awakening grows out of the mud of samskara, out of suffering. What you see around you right now may seem like darkness, it may seem like madness. Actually this is what awakening looks like on planet earth. What we are witnessing is a release of the old paradigm. You are witnessing the dismantling of old patterns. The collective samskaras or conditioned pattern which creates the conditions of maya. Many people are disillusioned with the current political, social, economic and religious systems. This dispelling of illusion is a necesary part of seeing the truth.
When we follow the movie we understand better and can relate to the happenings around us. Maybe this is the reason for many past civilizations to disappear too, wiped from the face of the earth, giving way to newer worlds and views just as when things are beyond repair it has to be ditched or thrown away. Prapanjam includes and transcends all of creation. Where is our place in it? We are reminded that we are an interface with the world around us. In Agathiyar's 5 tenets given to humanity, man who stood the tallest among God's creations was supposed to help elevate the rest of creation. Instead, look at what we have brought onto us and the rest of God's creation? We were once merged in oneness with the creation when we were a baby in our mother's womb. "Then we grew. We created a character" and at times became a monster. What happened to that sweet little thing, that divine child that we were once? Time then comes along and brings humanity out of the old pattern through a paradigm shift in the patterns. Time deals directly in correcting man's mistakes relieving him of the power granted to him. This dismantling mentioned in the movie is something fearful. The ideal stand we take then would be not to suffer when the world of form changes. "It may seem that all is lost but it is merely a part of the process. Those awakenings will be seen as a threat." Indeed Ramalinga Adigal, Bharathi, Periyaar, and others were seen as a threat too.
Going by the movie, it is interesting to relate to and realize that in getting to expand our energy or Sakthi as in carrying out Sariyai and Kriyai that amounts to going on pilgrimages, doing rituals and puja, carrying out charity, etc they had led us on the Sakthi path. Today in asking us to go within they lead us to the Shiva path, which comprises of non-involvement, remaining silent and indifferent to the world, only tending to the thought that arises and eventually subsides. This is how both Sakthi and Shiva are depicted to us too in all the numerous paintings.
Meditation has to be spontaneous said Swami Muktananda. In this movie too we are told that "The ego, the you that you think you are must necessarily fail in all attempts to meditate for the meditation to come about. To meditate is to burn up the conditioned self." The ego has conditioned me for some 60 years now and many births. It is time to unwind the knots and tangles, to melt the heart of stone, to cleanse the inner self, to rid the garbage of thoughts I carry, and to face the karma squarely that stands before us waiting to deliver in our timeline. Sitting around and waiting for the mud to settle doesn't happen overnight but we can decide immediately whether to engage in it or postpone the task. To free or purify samskaras and karma or all previous programming takes time. "The misidentification process is called purification or clearing." Agathiyar told me to disengage and disidentify with the pain in my lower back. "Being here in the now as well as surrendering to what is there we continue to unbind the karmic knots that create identification with our avatar. We become the breath. We become the yoga posture. We become the chant." Indeed finally we become the words that flow as I pen and as you read this post. When we become lost in what we do that is spontaneous meditation.
"To meditate is to drop your patterns, your preferences, karma, and to drop the fight. This is the only fight that you win by giving up, by surrendering."
We now understand why Lord Muruga asked us numerous times if we had surrendered? "Some like dry wood need just a spark to light up." I guess they had done most of their work in a past life. "Others require more preparation as in wet wood that needs some time to dry out before they ignite. They need teachings, practices to loosen the bonds of the self structure to become free of samskaras."
Going into samadhi burns the karma further. "It prepares the vessel for the awakening of one's true nature which is realized through non-doing or cessation of mind activity." Samadhi is defined beautifully. "Samadhi is less doing and less technique." We are glad that Agathiyar monitored our progress and had us drop both the doing and the technique. The technique, charity, and rituals are "all part of the past now." "We dropped the doing and the doer. We dropped the seeking and the seeker to arrive at the unconditioned present. The techniques were a stepping stone. We don't want to abandon the technique, and nor do we want to cling to it." We understand fully now why Agathiyar had us drop Sariyai and Kriyai and move into Yoga. "Yoga is a cessation of the whirlpool that is the mind. Cessation of karma. Cessation of deep unconscious patterns or vrittis that govern one's life. The idea is to remain none reactive to anything that is appearing within the field of change."
"Mind is like a pond and thoughts are like waves causing ripples on its surface. Anything you do will stir up more waves. The pond only comes to stillness when you let go of all effort all striving. All movement. Adopting a don't know mind, a not-knowing mind is the gateway to samadhi."
Hence I understood fully why I had to go into hibernation for 14 years in the past, dropping all my home puja to deities and visits to temples. Dropping all my readings of religious literature and Satsang with colleagues. Recently I was made to drop all the puja and rituals I picked up and even yoga except for certain practices that would bring us to the next phase of going within. "Practices and techniques are like stepping stones. You will remain in the pattern as a robotic repetitive state." Hence we understand why Agathiyar made us drop them when we came to a certain state of competency.
"Be still without hope because hope would be based on some idea and would be keeping the energy flowing into the conditioned mind. Having hope brings projections into the future" and with it comes frustrations or disappointments if it does not materialize. "Accepting that we don't know even what to hope for" is the answer to beat frustration at not achieving it later. The guru brings you to the state of humbleness. In humbleness, the mud settles and the lotus emerges.
"We become free of samskaras by having a complete experience by burning in it." Incomplete experiences induce us to take another birth to see through our desires. Hence we understand why Tavayogi told us not to force others to come to the path. They need to live out their desires and gain the much-needed experiences. Agathiyar who spelled out my karma in my first Nadi reading, telling me that I had flawed in the past and hence taken the present birth carrying with it karma that had yet to be let off and pardoned, came again in my second reading some three years later and told me that all the experiences were given to me as I needed to learn from them. He most graciously pardoned me and humbly added that it was his doing too.
Those who never turned to look our way or came for a brief time into the path and left seeking what seemingly looks like greener but in reality are fleeting moments of pleasure, are best left alone says Tavayogi. "If we turn away from experiences that are too painful a conditioning or programming takes place where memory imprints are stored in us." The narrator of the movie relates this to leaving an app open on our phones draining our energy. It is best we put it to rest by satisfying the desire or urge.
It is said that the path of liberation is not about feeling better but about getting better at feeling." Now I understand how the senses that become enhanced make for better absorption of the sights, smell, hearing, touch, and taste.
I was annoyed how could Agathiyar brush aside the back pain that was killing me for some 3 years. When Ramalinga Adigal too told me to stomach the noise and din in my neighborhood for that shall grant me Gnana, I was again puzzled. I understand now that "Enlightenment is in facing one's greatest pain."
Fear arises not from the external and the known but in going within into unknown territories. I understood why I had several bouts of fear as I sat alone in solitude. Fear arises in letting go the existing fear arises in facing dead silence. I understand now that "Enlightenment is facing one's greatest fears."
They broke all the earlier concepts I had built upon with newer thoughts and learnings that arose from newer experiences. I understand now that "Enlightenment is of dropping concepts."
All the reading I picked up was replaced with direct transmission of knowledge from them. I understand now that "Enlightenment is letting go of all our previous knowing."
They are teaching us to be neutral and unbias. I understand now that "Enlightenment is of dropping the judgments of good or bad."
And finally, I understand that "Enlightenment is about letting go of all the practices done earlier. You must be willing to let go of the practice once it has served its purpose otherwise you will just create an identity around it and a new spiritual self-structure (that replaces our earlier self-structure.)"
How very true this statement has come to be for us. We see this happen way too often and we are glad that Agathiyar through Tavayogi trashed our hold on things and practices, beliefs and ideas, opinions and thoughts of the many things held in high regard in the religious and spiritual circles and helped bury them. Agathiyar on his part dissolved the assembly associated with AVM and the Siddha puja and ritual; and Amudha Surabhi and charity. If left standing we too would have geared towards creating an identity like others too.
In doing these thus they are "purifying the human vessel to house divine consciousness." Jnana is said to refer to "to burn it". "It is the burning of defilements of sin or samskaras. It is burning up of identification with the false self. It is burning up the delusion. It is burning up of all preferences out of which the ego construct is made and a release and coming forth of inner energy."
"Silence is the greatest teaching. The purest teaching. The purest teachings are transmitted in silence. One becomes equanimous with what is. Surrender to what is. Attentive to what is." In saying thus the narrator gives an account of Buddha's life.
"Rather than giving a long satsang or teaching with words, Buddha just let the students sit with a flower for the entire time. Only one student received the transmission. Only one student got it. To receive such a subtle transmission requires a subtle mind." Here the need for us to shift from the gross to the subtler arises. The Siddhas teach just that.