Monday, 4 November 2024

MAYA

I did once ask a devotee of Karupanasamy if the deity was caught in a time web and could not evolve further. It appears that the first half of the question is right. We have caught him in the net of the timeline from the past where for a specific mission he took on eating meat, consuming alcohol, and smoking tobacco to bring a change in his self and being so that he could become at par and combat the Asuras from the south. As for the second question he was already a highly evolved soul, a son of King Rama back then in history. It is sad though that we have trapped him in name and form for our purpose. So too I believe we have trapped many more deities from the Hindu pantheon, snapping a still frame from the timeline and worshiping these forms. So too are we trapped in a world of Maya. I had written in an earlier post the following:

Some time back Agathiyar dropped a bombshell that caused immense distraught, and confusion. Lord Murugan came to forewarn me of impending danger by way of a Leela or game played by the threesome Lord Siva, Agathiyar, and Lord Indra. It was just like in the Puranas and movies. Later they revealed that all that we have read, seen, heard, listened to, touched, smelled, and felt was coated in Maya, a term I heard Tavayogi say to me on his very first visit to my home back in 2005 that I could not understand back then and am learning to comprehend now. I needed to sieve through carefully, I was told. Tavayogi the very first instance he stepped into my home and upon leaving shortly after, told me I was living in Maya. The scriptures speak about it. Buddha had personal encounters with it. Anything that changes is Maya. All of duality is Maya. For instance, why is it that if time is running out for one, another finds it hard to kill time? Time and space and life which hangs from it are indeed subjective and relative. We only know something or someone to be short if another is long. We know daybreak if there was night. We know sorrow after being in a state of happiness. We know we are sick after staying healthy. Though all these seem all too real and true, it is only so in a relative world. How can it be the ultimate truth then? Agathiyar in dropping the bombshell that none of these is real, brought down the very establishment and hold we had on him too. Agathiyar wiped the slate clean. So what is real then? The Oneness with the One or Yegan, the state before creation, that is, was and will be in existence.

I understand how Jesus, Ramalinga Adigal, and Agathiyar feel about humanity and the blunders they make knowingly. They only want to deliver us from the hands of Maya who reaches out and envelops us often drowning us. The hold of Maya is so strong that it even latches onto religious and spiritual icons and drags them into the mud.

The following interview cannot describe it better. Agathiyar too says that death is but another doorway to another journey, merely a transition. Even Siddhas have to put at rest this body and move on. Fear not death he says. In preparing us for death while alive, he has us carry out all things, the good, bad, and ugly and eventually has us drop each one of them and our attachments towards them and finally end even the attachment to him.


In having me come to the path of the Siddhas after my very first Nadi reading in 2002, Agathiyar had me drop my personal pursuits and prepared me to carry out his tasks. Receiving a painting of Agathiyar and a booklet of names of the Siddhas, I began my Siddha puja at home. He had me go on a pilgrimage to India, my very first the following year where I met my very first guru Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai. In 2005, he sent Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram who was in the path of the Siddhas to work on me. Tavayogi the very first time he stepped into my home had me drop my attachment to him, even before it could germinate and grow. Since then our relationship has been very professional. I only took in the messages that came through him and never saw the vehicle or carrier. Arriving at his Ashram months after he returned to India, he had me drop my attachment and hold onto the nine gem-studded ring and Rasamani bead that I wore. He had me drop the desire to wear a Rudraksha bead even before it arose. 

In having us drop our claims over all things Agathiyar began to shower his gifts and claim our rights. He offered the Nadi for my use and to read for others which I turned down. Lord Murugan in 2018, had Agathiyar coax me to build a temple for him, something that Agathiyar himself had asked in 2002. Agathiyar later in 2022 told me that it was all a test to see if I took it up. Bringing several youths to my home in 2013 and having us bring our home puja into other homes and temples, and carry out charity, he had us wind up and close shop in 2019, testing to see if I was willing to let go of my attachment to the AVM group, and the respect and honor that came with it. Later in 2023, he had me pass on his bronze statue which I had commissioned and prayed to since 2010, to a devotee he handpicked, again testing if I was willing to let go of the attachment to his figurine. He returned soon after staying in several homes of devotees accompanied by Loba Ma. Then Agathiyar, Lord Siva, and Lord Indra play yet another game or Divine Lila to shatter our hold on all of creation, exposing how Maya had created, veiled, covered, and infiltrated all things keeping us in an illusion and a deep sleep. After the learning that came with much distress, Agathiyar, brimming with a smile asked me if he should make me a Guru too, but immediately pushed that suggestion aside, and instead offered me that of a Siddha. 

He was preparing us to let go of the ultimate desire, want, and yearning. Him. If all the pilgrimages, puja, and rituals bridged both worlds, bringing him down from the status of God to Guru to Companion, eventually he tells me that I have to let go of my attachment even to him, bridging the final gap that separated us, so that we are one he says. From Dvaita he brought us to Advaita. From the many, he brought us to the One or Yegan and embraced us to become one. As we are told in the interview above about awareness and analyzing one's existential experience, finally in living in a world of Maya and learning to sieve through it, and learning from these experiences, Agathiyar and Lord Muruga told me that I had arrived and that there was nothing further to do. To be Still and Doing Nothing is to Watch as a Jeevan Mukta and a Siddha. They asked me to watch the breath and watch the silence that prevails in it, which again amounts to existential awareness of the moment.