Today I briefly had touched the zone of silence. It just came on as I was at my daughter's home. When I told my 4-year-old granddaughter about it she immediately sat down in padmasana and invited me too. She made the gesture of applying the sacred ash on my forehead and body and went back to close her eyes. In taking in the bliss I realized that the silence came from within me and enveloped me. Though the external noises were audible this silence superseded them and drove me to become aware of my breath and watch it. Now I understand how the sages could sit in silence even in the marketplace and in the midst of people and all the din and noise. And I wrongfully thought all the external noises should subside for us to go within and touch the silence. This brief moment of bliss has to be extended says Tavayogi.
Frank Alexander in his book "In the Hours of Meditation", Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta, 1993, describes this moment beautifully,
There are hours when one forgets the world. There are hours when one approaches that region of blessedness in which the soul is self contained and in the presence of the Highest. Then is silenced all clamoring of desire; all sound of sense is stilled. Only God is. There is no holier sanctuary than a purified mind, a mind concentrated upon God. There is no more sacred place than the region of peace into which the mind enters when it becomes fixed in the Lord. Purity, bliss, blessedness, peace. The spiritual consciousness dawns in these silent, sacred hours. The soul is close to its source.
He says that during these intimate and private hours of meditation, "When all was silence in the depths of meditation" the Guru appears with many messages.
Frank Alexander's book, is a great book that brings many insights from the Voice for the Soul and brings insights from the Guru. Every word resonates with truth as we begin to experience these moments. We can relate to the teachings of Agathiyar and Tavayogi pretty well now.
Agathiyar on many occasions reiterated that there was no need to adorn the garb of a mendicant. We could achieve the same while living with the family and society. Frank says the same, "It is the monastic spirit, not the monastic garb that is of importance."
Just as Tavayogi told us not to try to compute and understand life but to live it, Frank says, "The form is nothing; the life is everything." We shall go on forever trying to understand life and waste it in doing so. Rather it would be advantageous and fruitful to pick a path and travel it, picking up and collecting the experiences that come our way.
Frank asks us to, "Bring divinity into commonplace daily life", "see the invisible divinity in the visible universe about us" and "see the difference" for ourselves. He asks us to bring Him into each moment of our lives, spiritualizing Maya, spiritualizing the moment, making even the menial acts divine. Karma then never lifts its hood; never associating with the act.
Let us learn to spiritualize all that comes into contact with us. This is what we sought of the masters, bowing to them and waiting for them to place their hands on our heads to bless us. This is what they did too with their touch. That was needed at the start of our spiritual journey. But we cannot possibly be relying on their touch forever. It is time we worked on this magic that is given to us. It is time we enhanced it with our continuous efforts and as Tavayogi says learn to prolong these moments of bliss, for how long do we want to keep bowing to others or look up to them each time we face a disastrous situation. It does not mean that we have turned against the guru and the saints but on the contrary, they would be happy that we have begun to stand on our own feet. Frank says, "Faith in others will only make thee more and more helpless and miserable. Make thy own self thy Guru. Each is his own savior and his own Lord. Let the human in thee die so that the divine shall be revealed." This is what Agathiyar, Ramalinga Adigal, and Tavayogi are trying to do too. A true guru makes another a guru too rather than have him be a follower, disciple, subordinate, slave, or servant forever. If we learn to build that inner strength or Atma Balam we shall be able to take control of all situations. Tavayogi says the soul (Atma) is supposed to be free as a bird and not caged, free to explore, free to discover, and free to make mistakes, with no dogmas, doctrines, rules or codes to adopt and follow. It learns, appreciates, regrets, and comes back to the fold eventually.
J. Krishnamurthi too implies the same.
I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom. And I, for whom you have been preparing for eighteen years, now say that you must be free of all these things, free from your complications, your entanglements. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization?
J Krishnamurthi adds that "the moment spiritualism is organized it becomes religion. Spiritualism is beyond any dogmas and doctrines." Just like Krishnamurthi laments that "When I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it"; Just as Ramalinga Adigal before leaving his mortal frame, spoke his mind and told those gathered that they shall never listen to the word of God, adding that his teachings would be picked up by the west; Agathiyar too many times voiced his concern. I guess now that that is the reason Agathiyar dissolved our WhatsApp group too.
Frank too says "The religious life is purely personal and subjective." I had vented my anger at others for not coming to the path in my early days of venture into it. As I began to see and experience magical moments and solutions in coming to the path, I shared them with others. But to my dismay, they gave me a cold look and were indifferent to the miracles that I related to them. Then my wife hit me with a brick telling me that their time was not up as yet to awake from their deep slumber. What a great assessment of the situation she had, I told myself. I took a knocking again recently from Tavayogi. When I requested Tavayogi to bring someone I knew into the path of the Siddhas, he surprised me by telling me to let him be. Tavayogi reveals the subtle message behind one's disinterest in taking up the path. He told me that the other needed to exhaust his karma in the form of desires that he cherished and carried with him, otherwise, his karma shall continue to follow him. I realized the words of Frank echo here too, "In listening to another, see the realization side instead of the logic of his speech; then no argument shall ensue and thine own realization shall receive new impulses."
Just as Tavayogi shut the shutters in my face when I proclaimed my joy in having met him after he stepped into my home, telling me that he was a nobody and that I should look up to Agathiyar instead, Frank tells us to be loyal and true to the source from which we received inspirations, "Work to thine utmost, and then to thine utmost be resigned." Let us all be an instrument of the divine. Frank writes,
Make the body a tabernacle for the soul; and let the soul be more and more revealed day by day. Then shalt that darkness which is ignorance be gradually dispersed; and that light which is the divine wisdom shall gradually be revealed.
Frank writes of the bond with one's guru.
The love and insight of the Guru, having been once bestowed, have been bestowed forever. Through his mercy, through his illumination thy most inmost soul has been resurrected. He has sought thee out and through him thou hast been made whole. The realization of the Guru descends in torrents upon the disciple. It is ceaseless; and nothing can resist it. His love for thee knows no bounds. To all lengths he shall go for thee. Never shall he desert thee. Even his curse is blessing in disguise.
Frank continues,
More and more does the personality of the disciple merge in the Guru nature while all the time the Guru's personality is seen to merge more and more into that of which even his body had been a manifestation. Then the sublimest oneness is attained. The waters of the dual personalities of Guru and disciple become the ocean of the infinite Brahman.
This is the state of Sarupam, the third of four stages that we climb. We take on the form of the guru and divine.