The path to Gnanam or divine knowledge begins with worship. Worship brings forth the grace of the divine besides bringing on a true and thorough transformation within and without us. That is the reason our elders always began any tasks or venture with a prayer. If man needs the blessings of others to bring on success in all his material seeking he needs the grace of the divine to reach the state of Gnanam.
To receive their grace, he has to let go of his ego and arrogance. His Self has to die to be resurrected. Man learns to become a better person from the sacred texts, writings and discourses he listens to. Adopting a spiritual path, he becomes divine in nature. With the grace of the divine he reaches the state of divinity too. He then shines as a guru or a divine soul.
I did ask a devotee of Lord Murugan who attended the Siddha puja at my daughter's home who was Agathiyar. He asked me to tell him. I told him that Agathiyar was Lord Murugan's disciple. Then I asked who was Bhogar. Again he asks to tell him. I told him that Bhogar was Agathiyar's disciple. I told him that he could get more information about them on the net. Then I asked him what was his purpose in taking a birth and coming here. Again he asks to tell him. I told him that I cannot tell him his purpose in being here. He has to find out for himself. He has to take some time to sit and ponder over his purpose in coming. Life does not end with going through the growing pains, getting an education and later a career and getting married and raising up a family. There has to be a purpose in coming.
After we were guided through Sariyai, Kriyai, and Yogam, Agathiyar led us to Vashisht Vaid's blog https://holysageagathiyar.com/ where we discovered Agathiyar's five tenets that serve as the core purpose of human birth. Agathiyar in spelling out man's purpose to the gathering of Rishis during the Tamil Sangam defined these five tenets for the common man.
1. He says that man has to first and foremost understand his purpose in taking birth.
2. With his purpose known then, he should come to thank the divine creator or energy that brought forth his birth (through consultation with the lunar forefathers and their angelic hierarchies that co-exist with us down here). Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal, when he visited us in Malaysia with his aid Mataji Sarojini Ammaiyar, shared the story of Guru Namasivayar who upon knowing from his mother later in life that he was born after she received a Sadhu at her home and he had blessed her, made his way to Guhai Namasivayar and served him. He dedicated his remaining life to his guru's service before his guru chased him away. The younger Namasivayar could not comprehend his master's action until the Goddess came and enlightened him and took him with her. His master had known that his disciple had attained the state of Gnanam and hence set him free.
3. He asks that we then thank all the caretakers both seen and unseen, in the present and the past.
4. There arises then an obligation on our part to "dutifully aid and help, the ongoing evolution of all co-existing human beings."
5. The final task is to extend this aid and help, towards "the ongoing evolution of all co-existing beings and entities, existing upon the lower levels of the evolutionary ladder, dutifully supporting the manifested matrix or prapanjam."
(Summarized from Vashisht Vaid's post on his blog https://holysageagathiyar.com/ )
In introducing his five tenets, Agathiyar shall provide all the tools that serve to enhance and enrich our purpose in taking birth. The mission and tasks and their accompanying techniques, methods, and tools work further in strengthening our body or Udal, breath or Uyir and soul or Atma. To aid in seeing through these five tenets in life the Siddhas drew up a concise plan dividing it into four stages namely Sariyai, Kriyai, Yogam, and Gnanam. Towards this purpose, the Siddhas have written extensively. The Siddhas have given us guidelines on how we are supposed to live this life in their works. Tiruvalluvar gave us the "Tirukkural". Avvai gave us the "Avvai Paadal", "Aatthi Chudi" and "Kondrai Venthan".
After following in the footsteps of our parents and ancestors engaging in Sariyai all life long, we are introduced to Kriyai with the coming of a guru. Following in the footsteps of the guru we are brought to the next stage that of Yogam, or the science of restoring the health of the physical body and that of the soul. Svatmarama gave us the "Hatha Yoga Pradipika". Pathanjali gave us the "Yoga Sutras" towards this purpose.
Pathanjali mentioned in my Nadi reading that prayers (pujai), meditation (tavam) and Yoga (Yogam) can overcome Karma. Before beginning Yoga, Patanjali had stipulated that we adopt a Satvic diet to facilitate the body to conform to the demanding needs of Yoga. He advised on the kind of food to consume. Agathiyar too had mentioned to Jnana Jothiamma that she shall have to bear the pain of the transformation as her body has to rid itself of all the meat and toxins consumed over the sixty odd years of her life. Agathiyar too told me that when the transformation happens late in life after sixty, the body will go through immense disruption as the house is cleared for the divine to enter and reside. He told a teen that he had trouble bringing on the transformation even to a devotee in his thirties and hence asked her to start early. Hence to all those in their youth please adopt the ways of the Siddhas when your body is as fit as a fiddle.
Pathanjali continued to reveal his Yoga. He asks to continue the Asana and Pranayama practices and prayers too. He asks that I stay on this path. He instructed me to spread the teachings of the Siddhas.
Living a purposeful, meaningful, and fruitful life, coupled with a sense of gratefulness will then bring forth the showering of his blessings and grace. These blessings and grace and the efforts in carrying out his dictates results in the soul gaining strength or Soul Power or Atma Balam. Eventually, Gnanam shall dawn on us by the grace of the Guru and the divine. One who achieves a high state on this evolutionary ladder with disperse the karma of his ancestors too hence freeing their souls too.
Agathiyar asked that we show appreciation to the divine that gave us an opportunity to take this birth again to come to terms with it and sort out our lives. To those chosen few who get the calling to read the Nadi, the Nadi comes to a layman, seeker or aspirant to reveal his purpose. To those who take heed of the contents of the Nadi, the Guru comes to reveal his purpose further. To the sadhaka who takes heed of the contents of the Nadi and acts accordingly he is then told to go within when he has seen through the stages of Sariyai and Kriyai. In going within he learns his true purpose in taking birth. These are the means man comes to realize the cause of his birth and his mission. To a layman, he is told he took birth because of past karma. To a disciple, he is told that he has come for a mission to undertake for the good of society and mankind. To a Gnani, he realizes that he has come to merge with the divine.
If Agathiyar in his five tenets for mankind spelled out the above five responsibilities of man thus fulfilling his purpose in taking a human birth that is considered precious and that is to be treasured, his disciple Bhogar shows us the way to rise from man to Siddha. What Bhogar says tallies with the messages given earlier by Agathiyar and Pathanjali too. The five tenets of Bhogar help us to reach midway on the journey or path of the Siddha, attaining at least the state of partial Siddhahood.
1. Purging the body of toxins accumulated over the years.
2. Substituting or replacing Rajasic or Tamasic food with Satvic food that includes lots of greens, and fruits.
3. Learning to breathe properly by adopting breathing techniques as taught by the Siddhas.
4. Bathing the right way so that we do not jolt or freeze the body and to prevent slag in the nerves in old age as a result of this.
5. Finally Bhogar asks us to appreciate and acknowledge nature and learn to love all of nature and live with it. This is the first step in linking with the prapanjam.
Shantideva says, “The human body is the vehicle for longevity, while the spirit is the vehicle for immortality.” He wrote on the soul and its yearning for liberation.
“The soul yearns to be free, and through our becoming aware of this we undergo what the mystics call awakening where we then begin to center our life on a high spiritual ideal. A new aspiration is born in the soul, which frees the need of a larger draught of air, a more expansive horizon, and which desires direct contact with the indefinite existence. In order to attain the highest illumination, we all have to pass through a spiritual birth. Man as a creature, brought into being out of nothing, certainly is at the mercy of his creator. Man as a spirit, by becoming spiritually conscious he can control his destiny.”
The Siddhas teach us the ways and the means to beat nature at its game and have it serve us as an ally. Besides conquering death in becoming spiritually conscious and one with the Prapanjam one can dictate his fate and destiny and that of all other creations, just as the Siddhas do.
God’s grace is of utmost importance on this path to realization. With his grace (Arul) the ego dies as Shantideva says, “God appears when the ego dies”, much like the Ancient One says, "Silence your ego and your power will rise."
For his grace to come within we need to take the first step that is to make this physical body the abode of the divine, that then brings him in to work on us further. We need to prepare, uplift and elevate ourselves to the state where the divine comes within to bring the Egoless Self to know itself or attain realization, drawing the curtains and veils that cover the ability to see clearly.
Just as we read on https://ekatvam.org/stages-of-spiritual-evolution/,
"In the initial stages, a person needs tools and techniques to make progress on the spiritual path. As one gets closer to the end, in the Jnanam stage, the need for all such tools drops off. One can simply be. And that is the state of silence, of knowing, of being in Divine Bliss", we have arrived there when all previous passions, desires and activities die a natural death. For instance, there was a time when sitting at puja I would begin to sing the praise of the Siddhas from my Complete Book of Praise to the Siddhas that was some 355 pages thick. Then there was a time when I could not recite more than a couple of songs. Just days ago, I thought we should conduct a homam but I could not bring myself to sing as I was immersed in bliss. When Agathiyar asked me to wind down in 2019, and just lately again I asked him what I should then do. He replied "Nothing" referring to Tavayogi as a role model. He has asked me to remain silent. Let your writings speak, he said.
As I wrote in the last post, "Lessons in Letting Go" Agathiyar in getting us to do his tasks gave us immense experiences from which we learned valuable lessons, only to have us leave or drop them and move on. All these experiences both worldly and spiritual shall strengthen the soul bringing on Soul Power or Atma Balam he said. With his grace coming within as the Prapanjam or consciousness that creates, drives, and sustains all things man is elevated to another state. Rather than set our goals on it Agathiyar had define the path for each individual to progress at his own pace. But for some he comes knocking our doors and wakes us up from our sleep of ignorance. When he knocks on your door next time take up his cause and make it yours as Bharathi sang in his "Ninnai Saran Adainthen Kannama".