In the midst of the Nadaswaram echoing at the temple I chose to go to for the Navarathri puja days ago, my grandchildren and I were caught by surprise when an advert appeared during the recitation. Apparently, they were playing music from YouTube that carried advertisements. Apparently, those seniors running the temple had no expertise to correct these flaws. I realized that nothing much has changed out there. It reminded me of the days when I had offered to extend aid to the patrons of temples and establishments, bringing technology within their reach and expanding their reach to others by hosting websites, blogs, and YouTube channels. As my ideas and offers to help them were turned down in the past, I began to create something for myself that soon gave birth to numerous websites, including indianheartbeat, the blog Siddha Heartbeat, and a YouTube channel, podcasts, and online Publications.
If academicians speak based on facts and research, the religious and spiritual tend to say things unsubstantiated, as the latter is about adopting a way of worship, faith, and belief. Tavayogi always tells me to question and not follow blindly and to support our argument with facts and references. In its absense ones own experiences hold water. The religious and spiritual also tend to hold on firmly to rituals and practices carved in stone. But the Siddhas surprised us when they brought us to carry them out directly. We saw for ourselves how the Siddhas came down and conducted the rituals and puja at AVM that we immediately adopted.
I ask myself what has changed and what has stood still. Is whatever we profess and follow the original, or has it all been replaced either in its entirety at one stage in time or diluted over time?
Subsequent to this and the dilemma I posed, which I posted in my last post, I came across the following video moments ago that sheds light on my queries.
I am glad that I was adaptive to the many changes that the Siddhas had me bring about on this short journey of mine, walking through the phases of Sariyai, Kriyai, Yogam, and Gnanam. It has released me from being held captive by rituals, methods, ways, means, practices, etc. I am free to soar in the skies. I am not attached to a brand or name. I am my own self, Shanmugam Avadaiyappa. This is not arrogance nor ego, but knowing the truth and becoming aware of the numerous snares and traps in both the material and the religious and spiritual world. If many desire to rub shoulders with celebrities, politicians, businessmen, etc and gurus, and be in their good books, I was blessed to come to know the Siddhas instead. I am proud to have made it to and to be accepted into their fold. I am grateful to them.