GOING WITHIN - WATCHING THE BREATH

Tavayogi, when he came again in 2007, refined the rituals we did in conducting the Homam, something that he had started me doing over the phone after I returned from his ashram in 2005. We did not know then that the ritual of Homam was going to help us extend a helping hand to Prapanjam to suppress the COVID Virus some 15 years later. Neither did we know then that it was going to help families in sorrow and misery later on. I have written about this in the last post.

When Tavayogi taught me and several others certain Pranayama and Asana techniques in 2007, which Agathiyar later told me was a treasure, I came to understand later that I was the only one pursuing it for Agathiyar in a Nadi reading for one of them, asked to relearn it from me, saying that I was doing it. Although I did the practice without fail, I did not know its magnificence and its capability to take us to greater heights on the spiritual path until very much later. Though we have read about the eight limbs in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, to experience it was entirely beyond this world. At the height of this practice, I was practically a dead log of wood, except for my senses awake and aware of what was taking place. Here is a chronology of events leading to it.

If many came to the worship of Siddhas, either directed in the Nadi or out of curiosity, they saw it as a substitute for temple worship, bringing their palms together and placing a prayer before them as usual. They then left. But when Agathiyar brought youths to my home to participate, it was for them to watch and learn and later bring the worship into their homes. Many did while others moved on with their lives, losing touch with the Siddhas. Those who stayed on the path and the ritual brought these rituals to the knowledge of their family and friends, and into their homes too. But it remained just that, a Puja and ritual. They never ventured into the next phase of Yoga, which Agathiyar desired for them. 

Agathiyar has debunked the purpose of coming to the Siddha Margam, or path or way. It is to know Sivam, which is the breath. All other definitions, meanings, and purposes are secondary products derived from the inner transformation, its process, and chemical reactions. Before I bid farewell to him to return to Malaysia in 2005, Tavayogi gave me another initiation, the Vaasi mantra, telling me that Siva was the Breath. 

Osho says, 

"The breath is the bridge. Not only is the breath a bridge to your body, but it is also a bridge between you and the universe. Breath is also the bridge between you and space and time." 

In bringing us Shiva's first of nine techniques concerned with the breath, from the "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra", Osho, in his "Book of Secrets", says that, 

"Buddha's enlightenment was based on using breath just as a technique to turn inwards - only this. Buddha said, "Be aware of your breath as it is coming in and going out." 

Agathiyar, in speaking about the breath in my Nadi reading, mentioned that Buddha and Lord Ganapati were authorities on the breath. 

If Agathiyar had me go within and instructed me to do nothing but watch my breath, Osho too says the same. 

"Don’t do anything – no repetition of mantra, no repetition of the name of god – just watch whatever the mind is doing. Don’t disturb it, don’t prevent it, don’t repress it; don’t do anything at all on your part. You just be a watcher, and the miracle of watching is meditation."

(Source: https://hackspirit.com/osho-reveals-almost-everyone-gets-meditation-wrong-correctly/)

Osho explains that contrary to our belief that the incoming breath and outgoing breath are running parallel as in parallel lines, they actually are one single breath, which in actuality flows in a circle. There is a point where the incoming breath turns and becomes the outgoing. Quoting another stanza of Shiva, we are asked to observe and realize this point of turning and becoming a realized soul. When the breath is static, neither going out nor coming in, at this fusion point, we are in our center. Osho in "The White Lotus", Jaico Publishing House, 2004, says it beautifully.

When people come to me and they ask, ‘How to meditate?’ I tell them, ‘Meditation happens spontaneously. There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that’s all. That’s the whole trick of meditation – how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower. When you are not doing anything the energy moves towards the center, it settles down towards the center. When you are doing something the energy moves out. Doing is a way of moving out. Non-doing is a way of moving in. 

Agathiyar calls this center Suzhimunai. Each shall realize his center, he says. It is the place where energy arises, and when a feeling or Unarvu comes with it, "Know it to be your Suzhimunai," says Agathiyar. 

Osho asks us to observe the child's breath. He says children are in their center and at their center. The reason is that children give themselves up completely in all their doings and at all times. Hence, we should learn to follow these children, give ourselves up in totality, and not try to change them to our ways. One who arrives at his center becomes total. Agathiyar calls this the state of Paripuranam.

Osho spoke about bringing our attention to the gap or space between these breaths. Eventually, we shall take notice of the gap or interval between two breaths without effort. 

"If you can feel the gap, Shiva says, the beneficence, then nothing else is needed. You are blessed, you have known; the thing has happened."

Both Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal spoke much of the breath coming through devotees.

When Agathiyar asked each of us why we came to the Siddha path, he gave the answer too, that it was to know the breath. To know that the breath is Sivam. Agathiyar told us that the breath was Sivam. Tavayogi, in referring to Agathiyar's "Sowmiya Saagaram," states our purpose here is to understand the origin and end of Param or Para Sorupam or Siva or Siva Rupaa Rupam or Vettavezhi, the void that shines as Jothi. One who has realized the secrets of the Vettavezhi Prapancham, the Prapanjam within the void, will transform their physical and gross form into a subtle form, and settle in the Jothi or Sivan that is the source and cause of the subtle. 

வெட்டவெளி பிரபஞ்ச ரகசியம் உணர்ந்தவர்கள் தன்னுடைய தூல உடலைச் சூட்சுமமாகி அந்தச் சூட்சும உடலுக்கு ஆதாரமாக மற்றும் காரணமாக இருக்கின்ற முதலும் முடிவுமாக இருக்கின்ற ஜோதியில் ஜோதியாக இருப்பார்கள்.

Tavayogi wrote in his "Andamum Pindamum" that Sivam breathed life or Uyir into all his creations. In his memo to us, Agathiyar said that breath is Uyir that sustains us, the body or Udal, and the soul or Atma. Then we were told that the breath was Vaalai. The first mention of Vaalai was made in a Nadi reading for us at AVM sometime back in January of 2017, when Suren approached Nadi reader Tamaraiselvam in Chennai for a reading. The message was conveyed to us at AVM. Agathiyar instructed us to include hymns for Vaalai Thaai during our prayers. I began to compile some songs for her to be recited during our home puja. "The breath is also known as Vaalai, that man, as usual, has given numerous names, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, limbs, and form, and began to worship", says Agathiyar. The worship of Vaalai and Sivam is, in truth, worshipping our own breath. Hence, we come to worship ourselves. We end temple worship, home worship, worshipping the gurus, worshipping the Siddhas, worshiping Vaalai and Prapanjam in the external world, but instead take her hand and move within the body as Tavayogi says, "Andathil Ullathu, Pindathil Ullathu", the entire cosmos is within it too.

The next instance of her name mentioned to us was by Mataji, who visited us some years back. She had a persistent dream where Vaalai was circling a home, asking to be invited. She did mention that it looked like it was our home AVM that she saw in her dream. Since she had the dream, we thought the message was for her to start Vaalai puja at her Kallar Ashram, and as Agathiyar had stopped all the rituals then at AVM, we did not give it its due consideration. On her later visit, as she came out of a brief meditation, she mentioned the same thing that the Siddhas were hinting at to start the Vaalai puja. As we had refrained from rituals, and as I mentioned this to her, she enlightened us that Vaalai was also the breath. As Agathiyar came in the Nadi reading for my daughter moments later, he asked us to start the Vaalai puja too. When Ramalinga Adigal came through, a devotee moments later, he too asked that we start the worship, adding that he and all the Siddhas eventually held the hand of Vaalai to reach Siddhahood. 

Name it anything, but the core matter was to have us focus on our breath now. Agathiyar tells us to become aware of the breath and follow it. The breath that we thought we inhaled and exhaled shall one day go about without our asking. To sense it and know its place, one has to journey into it. Merge into it. That moment is Dhyanam. 

நீயாய் சுவாசித்த பிராணவாயு இனி உன்னை கேட்காமல் உன்னுள் ஊடுருவும். எப்பொழுதெல்லாம் அது ஊடுருவதை நீ உணறுகிறாயோ இருக்கும் இடம் அறிந்து அதனுள் பயணம் செய். கலந்து போ. அதனோடு நீ கலக்கும் தருணமே தியானம்.

Ramalinga Adigal guided us from there. "Use the breath to go within. Place the effort. Fan the Jothi within using the breath. Merge with the Jothi. I shall be with you as long as the Jothi burns. I shall be with those who immerse in the Jothi", he said.

உமது பிரணவத்தை கொண்டு செல்லு. முயற்சி செய். ஜோதி அதனைச் சுடர்விட செய்யுங்கள். ஜோதியோடு கலப்பாய். உன்னுள் ஜோதி எரியும்வரை நான் உன்னோடு வருவேன். ஆழ்ந்து இருப்போருடன் நான் சேர்ந்து இருக்கிறேன்.

When I began practicing these Asanas and Pranayama, I saw an immediate influx of breath coming within that felt like a balloon expanding to the verge of bursting. It was rejuvenating traveling right to the tips of the limbs. What I did not know was that the bellows awakened the sleeping fire in the Muladhara. It traveled to Manipuraka, where it stagnated after some two years. It was only after another 10 years that it was released by the grace of the divine to travel to the summit and settle there. 

Shortly after, upon waking up and stretching myself in bed at 6.40am, Monday, 22 August 2022, I felt an "explosion of energy" in my belly and a nerve pull and tug right below the navel. If Tavayogi told me that the true journey had only begun, then, as he took me to the abodes and caves of the Siddhas in 2005, "The journey within begins here", said Osho, referring to the exact spot where I felt the sensation, which the Japanese call Tanden, some two inches below the navel. It brought on a swirling sensation followed by a chillness. My whole body became numb right to the tips of my fingers and toes. I felt nauseous and had the urge to pee and urinate. Rising from bed, I collapsed twice on the way to the toilet, picking myself up each time. I was alone then, while my daughter was in her room asleep. Back from the toilet, all was fine. A blissful feeling came over me. Narrating this to my daughter later that evening, she called for her mother, who arrived from our grandchildren's home to accompany me. 

The next day, Tuesday 23 August 2022, I woke up at 7.20 a.m. to go to the loo, but I could not pee. I fell again. I picked myself up and climbed onto the bed as my wife watched without any inkling of what was going on. Agathiyar had told her in the past to just observe and watch. My body became numb from the shoulders down. I lay like a dead log on my bed. Although I could not move even an inch of my torso, I was able to see, hear, and talk, and was aware of what was happening to me. I had no fear or anxiety. I asked myself if this was what "to be dead" was. Soon, the experience went away. 

Seeking answers to what had taken place, Agathiyar cleared the air later. He told me not to worry and said that the stagnated water was released. Nevertheless, he gives a warning to all of us. When the chakras are activated late in life, it can have some adverse results on our bodies. When the heat of tapas increases in our body, blood flow will be less, bringing on numbness. This would result in urinary and excretion problems. 

கவலை கொள்ள ஒன்றுமில்லை. தேங்கி இருந்த நீர் வெளி கொண்டது. ஆனபோதும் முதிர்ந்த நிலையில் சக்கரங்கள் திறப்பதனால் உதிர வாட்டம் கொண்டுள்ளது. ஆகையால் எண்கள் மேரு பெறும். ஆங்கில மருத்துவம் கொண்டு அதனைச் சுத்தம் செய்து கோல். முதிர்ச்சியில் சக்கரங்கள் திறக்கும்போது அவ்வுடல் சில பாதிப்பினை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளும். ஆகையால் மருத்துவம் உனக்குத் தேவை. உனது உடலில் உஷ்ணம் ஏற ஏற உதிரம் குறையும். உதிரம் குறைந்தால் உடல் மறுத்துப் போகும். உடல் மறுத்துப் போனால் சிறுநீர் கோளாறு கழிவில் கோளாறு. மருத்துவம் கொண்டு அதைச் சீர் படுத்திக் கொள்.

The swirling sensation felt for several weeks in the abdomen just below my navel was regularly felt in the crown of my head, but with a lesser intensity. I guess this is what Agathiyar meant when he said I shall feel a magnetic wave arise. A couple of days later, it seemed more like a flowering of petals and was blissful. A chillness and swirling that is akin to a flowering went on, irrespective of my daily activities these days. It was more intense each time I brought my attention to it. Following the flowering in the crown that went on without my effort, participation, or action, I asked Agathiyar what I should do further. His reply was to do nothing and that "IT" shall do its work. He basically told me to submit and let go, and to go with the flow. But Agathiyar warns that we have to constantly keep watch of our actions lest they fall back into the lower chakras, and it would be a wasted effort. What after this? I do not have any idea, nor do I want to speculate. The one who giveth this could also snatch it away. One wrong move and we lose it.