As I sat in the park taking a break and a moment to draft this post this morning, I took in the sounds and sights of nature. It is only in these moments that we realize nature is around us. Nature like our parents provides for us. It cares for us. It shades us from the blazing sun. It shelters us from the winds and rain. As we begin to love her back, we tend to get angry with the litterbugs who throw rubbish all over and pollute the ponds, lakes, and rivers and those who spit everywhere but we never get angry with nature. Similarly, it is only when nature shows its fury that we take notice of her.
In a recent interview posted on the net, with a famed motivational and spiritual speaker, the compere of an online channel impressed me with the many thoughtful and logical questions that he put forth. The compere asked if reading a few books and walking some distance on the path made us a guide? He asked if the speaker agreed that if he had yet to know if he had attained Gnanam, how could he begin to preach? The compere asked if one could share the things passed on by one's guru to him in private to others and in public? And whether we take it up upon ourselves to teach others or whether we are destined for this purpose and task? This drove a spike into my heart too. "Was I doing the right thing in writing this blog?" It made me rethink and ask myself "Where do I stand on the spiritual ladder?" "Am I a self-proclaimed guru?" "Did I fall for the trap?" I asked myself "Did reading a few books on the Siddhas and taking a few steps walking the path inflate my ego to think that I knew all the answers and begin to show off?" So many other questions were triggered and cropped up while watching the interview. I had to revisit my past to be sure I did not fall for the snare that the compere had mentioned. Upon checking my past moves, I was relieved to realize that I had only followed what was instructed to me. I hope that in doing them I had not permitted my ego to step out of line nor strengthen its hold further. I guess I had exerted caution, always telling myself I was here solely to learn for myself and did not jump onto the bandwagon to teach and preach back then.
Looking Back
Back then, beginning in 2002, I was going about my solo home puja for the Siddhas which was pretty much a private matter, and later with my family, until Jnana Jothiamma, or Molly Menon as she was known back then in 2011, connected with me after going through my previous websites and asked to stream my home puja so that she could follow it from the USA. I accommodated her wish. I began to stream for her eyes only on Skype. Later when another devotee also from the USA asked to watch, I began to stream it trying a couple of platforms Ustream.tv and later on Live -YouTube.
After getting to know Tavayogi and although he asked that I speak about the Siddhas even before my thumbprint had dried up back then in 2005, he never asked me to teach others the Yoga techniques that he taught me and a handful of seekers later in 2007. Neither did he ask me to start a Peedham or Ashram, a group, movement, society, or establishment when many came before him asking him to officiate theirs.
It was Agathiyar who sent the youths to my home later in 2013 to follow and learn the Siddha puja. With their coming my home took on the name Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) for the sole reason of guiding seekers to its location on Google Maps. It was Agathiyar who got us to group together and carry out charity programs. If Agathiyar told me I need not leave the family to start an Ashram and revealed that my present home itself was an Ashram, he revealed in later years that his wish and that of Lord Murugan's for me to build a temple was a test and that in truth my home had become a temple. They dropped the directive. Then in 2022 bringing on some weird and mysterious transformations within, Agathiyar asked that I stop writing about him and instead share these experiences.
If Agathiyar revealed that I had earned Karma that had brought on this birth and sent me off on a pilgrimage in 2003, to soften its hold on me, in later years as he called me up for regular Aasi Nadi readings, he revealed that there were many a moment when he staged the play and had me engaged so that I could have those experiences too. Eventually, he told me that there was no right and wrong and that we were here to be schooled and learn from life experiences. In "The Little Soul and the Sun", a children's parable published by Hampton Roads Publishing Company Ins, 1998, that was an adaptation from Neale Donald Walsch's "Conversations with God", Hodder and Stoughton, 1995, we learn the same that for want of these experiences the Little Soul comes to earth to live it out with other souls that he knew assisting him in all manner to gain these experiences.
When Tavayogi told me that the soul should not be caged and should be left free to explore and experience back then when I came to know him, I asked myself if it was all right to carry out crimes hiding behind the cover of wanting to explore and experience. Now I understand that what he meant was to free the soul from being caged up by our ego. The ego that overruled us after some time and sent the soul behind bars should be checked. This is what the great masters have taught us through the years asking us to adopt virtues, honesty, righteousness, compassion, and love. Coming to the spiritual gurus they have us carry out puja that connects us with the Siddhas and God and charity that brings out the compassion in us and socializing among seekers that bring on love towards all creation. The living gurus make us a better man. That is about all they do. With a concerted effort and putting the techniques they taught into practice, traveling on our internal journey we arrive at the second milestone, the Svadhistana Chakra. Henceforth the divine comes to lift us further up covering the other milestones till we arrive safely in their kingdom. But the journey does not end there. As Yogi Ramsuratkumar told his followers at his deathbed not to cry as he could do a better job in the subtle plane and as Agathiyar told us that while Tavayogi was doing Agathiyar's work in their realm, Agathiyar had to carry out guiding us from where Tavayogi left, and as Ramalinga Adigal in defining the various stages tells us that there was an infinite number of stages that await us beyond and above what he listed, no one can claim he knows all.
While Ramalinga Adigal is said to have built the Satya Gnana Sabai as a school for the Devas, which to our disappointment did not take off for reasons only known to them, similarly, the world is a school for us. We are here to be schooled. If initially, our parents school us on the right ethics, virtues, what not to do, and what is acceptable, the teachers at our school teach us about science and maths, and other academic subjects, and the mysteries surrounding the earth we live on. Soon stepping into life as a teen and youth, brings us to fall in love with the opposite sex, while as an adult we are taught about responsibility towards the career and the new family that has evolved around us. We then begin to give back to society. After facing all kinds of crises, we face midlife crises. Before we know it we are at the edge of our life span looking down at the bottomless pit. We begin to look back on life. We want to change many things, the decisions we made, the steps we took but then it is too late and there is no way to reverse the clock. We might seek pardon from those we had harmed provided they are around and alive. As for the rest of the blueprint and design, that we had thought out in space; that we breathe in as desires and ambitions; executed on the ground; and sailed it as in a boat on the water; that has now come to be written in stone, we can only bear witness to whatever has taken place and pray that we come back to correct and fix them or do it all right the next time around. For those who refuse to learn or are so engrossed in the illusions thinking that life is permanent, missing these moments to come to a realization and to pursue their true purpose, they find themselves jolted out of this dream state as they keep falling into the abyss when their time is up. For the majority who walked the path that religion showed, religion tends to be an armor protecting them at all times and to which they could turn for all their needs and seek solace in trying times. Those few who pursue further and arrive at the brink of religion find themselves falling into yet another bottomless pit of spirituality, where they discover more than the eyes meet. They begin to travel within and into new unexplained and least understood territories. Venturing within they come across the beast and the monsters hiding within them. Soon they realize that not everything is Holy on the spiritual path either. As one walks the spiritual path, sexual urges peak, ego inflates and the tendency to lie arises. All these if left unchecked and if one gives in to these weaknesses, shall bring disgrace and dishonor. He then falls from grace. He is disgraced. Walking the path is akin to walking on a razor's edge.
How does one safeguard himself from the onslaught of these traps? Only by the grace of the divine for all our attempts at defeating the devil shall fail. In summiting to God who comes as a guru, we submit our ego. The guru shall destroy our ego either instantaneously or as we travel along with him. If Swami Vishnudevananda's ego was subdued the moment Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh fell at his feet first while the former who was a military personal found his ego disallowimg him to do so, Yogi Ramsuratkumar was chased away several times by Ramdas. Eventually, the master took him in. By this time Ramdas had broken the Yogi. The Yogi is said to have said, “In 1952 Ramdas killed this beggar”. The Yogi from then on addressed himself as the Beggar.
When I asked to see Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal, Tavayogi told me that it was possible but asked me if that was what I wanted? When I adorned gems, and mercury beads on me, he told me that we do not need them. If Tavayogi began to break me bit by bit at the start of my journey, Agathiyar came towards the end to break me loose of the remaining shackles. When I told him I wanted to make him proud he replied "How would that be possible as he was beyond name and fame?" When I thought taking birth upon birth to serve him would repay his kindness, he had me rethink again if that was what I wanted. When I thought Gnanam was the thing to ask for, he told me it was not gifted and that I had to work towards it.
In coming to worship, we put aside our logical and scientific thinking and begin to believe. We begin to surrender. Now the transition takes place where we are handed over to the Gods. We gain the grace and protection of the angels, the Siddhas, and the Gods. His grace tells us that we are not alone in this battle and that he has taken up arms and is with us. They give us the courage to live life through the toughest and trying times. You can erase everything in this instance and rewrite your journey. Do not let past guilt hold you back. Forgive yourself. See all your mistakes and blunders as part of a learning curve. Who hasn't made mistakes or blunders? Even the saints will have gone through this. We have all sinned. It is all right. Let us move on. I too am in the same boat. I too have many weaknesses that I'm trying to work on. These are the last obstacles or traps before taking flight, the last few links in the ring shackles, the last few links of the chain that hold us back from taking flight.
We have arrived at our last lap of the journey. They finally get us to observe the breath where we slip spontaneously into a state of meditation. We came to know that it shall unfold many mysteries. It is the road back to our source. If going on pilgrimages and adventure brings us on the road to discovering God and the Prapanjam around us respectively, hitching on the breath brings us to a realm of calm and much-needed peace. Just as before we play a tune, we check the strings of the musical instruments, first, we check on the flow of the breath in our nostrils and correct them. With dynamic breath we increase the intake of air and oxygen, and with it Chi or Prana. Soon we settle in on only observing the breath. As we halt all external activities and learn to go within, soon it happens spontaneously without our effort. We just fall into this deep space and moment. Contrary to the common belief that abstaining from speaking was Maunam, Tavayogi corrects this misperception telling us that it is not about speaking but going beyond the space and moment of silence that we then arrive at the state of Maunam. Agathiyar in his song "Manamathu Semmaiyaanaal" tells us that we can leave all our activities and practices once the Manam (mind, thoughts, desires, wishes, wants) settle. All that was achieved and derived through external means is now experienced by sitting on our own and looking within. Even what is considered taboo and sinful as the pleasures derived from sex or the thoughts of it are achieved in meditation. Though the remaining Vasanas keep coming to the forefront, in ignoring them, they slip away and die a natural death. For those like me who find it a battle to overcome them, or subdue these negative and Rajastic and Tamastic energies, he needs to convert them into that of a positive and Satvic nature. This is what the Gods did as told in the Puranas. After overcoming the dreaded Asuras they turned them into other benevolent forms of energies and kept them with them to do their asking. The ego which is the tread that holds us back from the alter ego that is required for continued existence in this body, dies a natural death too.
If Haary Roshaahn Yograj's reading of the "Spiritual Numerology of Moses" better known as the "Soul Contract Reading", revealed my purpose here was to be a catalytic spiritual teacher, Agathiyar came around asking how was he to depend on one person to do his work. He had to raise everyone to come to the state where they carry out his work. Agathiyar surprised me by saying that I had desired it and as such he had to fulfill my desire. Never in my dreams did I want this portfolio. Neither did I want all the gifts he was prepared to shower on me for my obedience and being faithful to the path. He had me teach Mahindren the Yoga techniques that Tavayogi taught me which I put into practice and told Mahindren to teach the rest. He had me initiate a couple into the path. That was about all he had me do. Agathiyar who had to prepare me for the role asked that I accept all the trials and tribulations that would come my way and keep my calm and peace. He asked that I do nothing, telling me that this itself was a test and a practice for the moment referring to my earlier query as "What should I do?" after he triggered, activated, and set off the dormant energies within me in 2022. Most recently he threw the question if he should make me a guru. As I had refused all the promised goodies before, and since I just wanted to give back to him for all the kindness, love, compassion, guidance, and practices given, I nodded my head and gave in finally. But the very next second he surprised me saying, "No, No, I shall not make you a guru but a Siddha instead". He begins to talk with us from within, in our thoughts, through our deeds henceforth. He gives us a sermon, he writes us a memo, he speaks through us and writes through us that surprises us. As Angelon Young writes at Remembering a few stories from the first time I met Yogi Ramsuratkumar — AWEN that "Yogi Ramsuratkumar seemed to me a true spiritual son, molded in the image of the father and yet also a uniquely different expression of the Divine", we are a personification in the flesh of the guru in the subtle form.
If Christy Beam wrote in her memoir, "Miracles from Heaven", "Standing in the light of all he's given us, in the light of all that's happened I can't not tell you our story", Neale Donald Walsch writes about his conversation with God that "I could have kept this latest dialogue private but everything within me shouted, don't you dare." He felt that he should share keeping a promise to God. Ramalinga Adigal revealed all that he saw and experienced too. I take solace in the words of these saints and tell myself that it is all right to share, whatever little we know. But I remind myself, just as scientists rewrite science and archeologists and historians rewrite history in the wake of making newer discoveries, that as I progress spiritually I shall change my stand or opinion and make the relevant changes to what I thought was the truth earlier. Ramalinga Adigal did just that and we have the 6th Thirumurai of his Thiru Arutpa in our hands.