The Siddha path is not merely filling the hall with devotees, but to make each and every one a Siddha too. Towards this, the Siddhas have given us the tools, methods, and practices, and stand by us, watching us each moment, assisting and giving a helping hand to those who listen and put in the effort. However, sadly, for many, it turns out to be one solely focused on worship, similar to what is seen in temples, and is more bent towards doing charity. Though we are put through these phases initially to cleanse the past Karma that has tagged along, and to gain the grace of the Siddhas, we need to step into yoga, where another journey begins, that of purifying the body for the energies to take a leap and travel through the chakras and merge with the energies that would come within. Here in this hallway, the dance takes place. Soon, the flowering takes place too. Like an antenna picking up the signals, and the song fills the air, Gnanam dawns. The journey is then complete. We become Siddhas too. The soul is elevated to its highest expression in the image of a Siddha. Just as we are always told to aim for the highest, Tavayogi asked us to worship Agathiyar. Agathiyar asked to worship Balambigai. Today she has shown us to Siva.
Ramalinga Adigal, who sees God as his beloved, looks up to the moon to show the way to know the Self and to settle in its Bliss. It is said that God or Erai is a thief; he steals your heart; he comes in the middle of the night; he comes without announcing; he comes when least expected; he consumes you; he leaves you desperate and yearning for him; his thought never leaves us after that. Siva has stolen Ramalinga Adigal's heart, too. Ramalinga Adigal did not settle for a place at the feet of Siva but instead asked to be placed with the new moon or crescent that adorns his tresses. He believes that since the Lord adorns the crescent moon, it could share the secret. Show me a way to know myself and immerse myself in its bliss, he asks of it. I would like to join you up there in the tresses of my Lord. I would love to immerse myself in the sea of Sat Chit Ananda. I yearn to be in a place void of day and night. Oh, Moon, who is full of Tejas, or Aura, I wish to become Sivam. I wish to drop all Mala or impurities. Will the Lord secretly come to me? Will he allow me to serve him secretly? Oh, Moon, I yearn for the Kundalini. What is it like to be beginningless and endless? How did you come about without a seed? Teach me a way to attain the state where My Lord and I are one. Teach me so that I realize myself. So much is said about the Vaasi (Breath). Please enlighten me on it? Why does my Lord choose to dance in Ambalam? How does my Lord dance in levitation? How is he in all atoms? Ramalinga Adigal, through his song, entices the Moon to reveal more about his Lord and the secrets kept close to his heart.
Though I had come onto the path late in life at the age of 43, after taking up their worship, rituals, and Yoga, the flowering began as I stepped into my 63rd year. Agathiyar tells me that we shall go through much misery if it happens after 60. But the most compassionate father and guru did not postpone it to another time and in another birth, but tried his very best to see to it that I was not hurt and not in any danger. He comforted me when I was in pain and distress. He woke the sleeping serpent in 2007 and monitored its path without my knowledge. Only on 22 August 2022 did he open up the gates to the Sushumna Nadi and allow the serpent access to the higher chakras. What began as a swirl in the abdomen rose to spin in the crown, but with a lesser intensity, though retaining its coolness the next day. This sensation comes on the moment I bring either my attention, thought, or breath to it. Or at other times it comes on, on its own, pulling me to sit or keeps working in me as I carry on with my work. Indeed, I felt the pull of this energy that was so obvious on the top of my head and that drew my attention to it and brought my breath, now flowing freely, to caress the spot. I could do nothing else at this moment initially. Slowly, it went on as I went on with my limited daily activities.
Then I realized it was more of a flowering or budding. Soon it spread, extending to envelop the forehead and back of my head too. Now it seems like something is dripping as if the ice is melting. It is blissful. I now bathe in bliss that flowers in the crown of my head. As their grace deepens, a slight throb is felt at this spot on the head at exactly the anterior fontanel or the soft spot located in newborns. This throb nudges us to take notice of it and become aware. One who arrives at his center becomes total, says Agathiyar. He calls this the state of Completeness or Paripuranam (பரிபூரணம்).
It was not my effort at all, but it is his beneficence that has allowed me to achieve this state of bliss. Swami Muktananda, in his "Kundalini - The Secret of Life", a Siddha Yoga Publication, published by the SYDA Foundation, 1994, wrote,
When kundalini awakening takes place through grace it will rise of its own accord and become established where it should be established. Kundalini will take care of herself.
When the kundalini is awakened by the grace of the guru the grace itself will guide it in the correct manner. There is absolutely no danger in such a case.
After the awakening of kundalini, meditation comes spontaneously. There is no need to center the mind because the kundalini herself grabs hold of the mind and centers it in whatever place she considers suitable.
But there is much effort on our part and much work on the part of the Siddhas that needs to be put into place before the flowering happens.
Swami Muktananda writes further,
The basis of all disease and pain is the impurities that block the flow of prana in the nadis. These blockages are caused by imbalances and disorders in the three bodily humors - wind, bile, and phlegm. It is only after the body has been purified that the shakti can work with full force.
I went through this process too, where my body was rid of the impurities that I had gathered within. It was much easier for me to sail through the process as I have been a vegetarian for some 28 years now. Agathiyar said that Jnana Jothiamma had a tough time seeing to the discharge of the accumulated non-vegetarian food intake that had become flesh and blood. He had me take his Agathiyar Kuzhambu and had Siddha Physician Ariwananthen Aiya prepare another of his herbal cleansing formulas to consume. Agathiyar had worked hard on preparing my body for the eventual Shakti to be transmitted. So it is only justified that he should get sore with me each time I lose my temper and get angry, for he fears these energies would fall back into the lower regions. After he took stock of my situation, Agathiyar had me drop my Yoga practices, too. We understood the reason from Swami Muktananda.
If one has awakened the kundalini through self-effort it is very difficult to lead it upward because right from the moment the kundalini is awakened until the moment it finally merges in the Sahasrara the seeker has to depend on yogic practices.
Here, although it was awakened by my practice and effort initially, after stagnating and not journeying beyond the second chakra, just as Tavayogi said that our effort is only until the second chakra, his grace saw the bund brought down and the energy travel to the higher regions within a couple of days.
Reminding me how he had to go through it the tough way, Agathiyar told me that he had made it so simple for me that he could not simplify the process further. Tavayogi too quipped that I had come to the path quite easily compared with the rough journey he had. I am indeed blessed. I am deeply grateful to them.
I am grateful to him for another chance to attempt it. I am grateful to him for closing an eye on all my sins and, instead of sending me away, allowing this sinner to participate in the race too. I pray that I shall succeed with his grace and make my gurus proud. I, too, would like to join their ranks and be one with them again.