When Ramalinga Adigal on charting out the many levels of the soul's journey and its spiritual experiences says that there are still higher stages that he hesitates to express I gather that the world around us shall look different to each person standing on a different level of experience, understanding and acceptance. Someone might settle for a particular understanding since he has had experience only until that stage. He would not comprehend what is beyond or above him or for that matter things subtler than what is visible to his eyes. A scientist sees more than what we see with the instruments at his disposal. An astronaut sees things that we never saw unless he shares them with us. Experience indeed maketh a man. And no two experiences shall be the same. This is true of miracles too. Some might see it while it is veiled from others. Some might choose to believe it while others might call it a hoax.
As we gain newer experiences and learnings, there is a need to revisit our earlier understanding from a different point of view or perspective. We shall surprise ourselves how life which is in constant change demands a constant need for re-evaluation of understanding as we take each step. In asking me what was happiness எது மகிழ்ச்சி என்று நீ கூறுகிறாய் Agathiyar drove the point home that whatever keeps changing is not real. நிலையற்றதே மகிழ்ச்சி. Indeed joy is prompt to change, changing to sadness the very next moment. Or the joy of owning something intensifies the moment we grab onto something larger and better. This applies to experience too. It is similar with learning too. It is as if the moment we think we have understood something another portal opens up as we dwell deeper into the subject or another object appears in the murky waters as we wade through it further in. It looks like there are no concrete answers to life's mysteries. Life simply mystifies us and baffles us at every step. We are told in the documentary "Samadhi" that all levels within the field of change are Maya. So here we have it. We are indeed living in Maya. Everything seems like a dream. It is like a flowing river.
If whatever is subjected to change is Maya, now we tend to ask the question "What is that that never changes?" As Agathiyar says true bliss and happiness are in finding that which never changes, this is what we have to look for. He says that what we are in search of has no form, name or tattvas. Though he points us to it, it is still a mystery. நீ தேடி செல்லும் ஒன்றுக்கு வடிவம் இருப்பதில்லை, நாமம் இருப்பதில்லை, தத்துவங்கள் இருப்பதில்லை. We arrive at the source then. From it evolved everything else that is prone to changes.
Where was the embryo or pindam that was me? Where is the toddler that was me? Where is the teen that was me? What we have are photos and some memory. We need another to fill us in about ourselves at that age. Our memory too fails us eventually. Our eyesight, hearing, our limbs, and internal organs all shall fail us someday. We are changing every moment too. What is that in us that never changes? Even death is not permanent. Death is another doorway to another journey says Agathiyar. மரணம் ஒன்றும் அல்ல. மற்றொரு பயணத்தின் கதவு. From www.lionsroar.com we read that "In Buddhism generally, death isn’t death - it’s a staging area for further life." Time too doesn't stand still. "As soon as it occurs, it immediately falls into the past." "All conditioned things have the nature of vanishing,” the Buddha said. All conditioned things pass away. Nothing remains as it was. The body changes and weakens as it ages. In response to this, and to a lifetime’s experience, the mind changes as well. The way one thinks of, views, and feels about life and the world is different. Even the same thoughts one had in youth or midlife take on a different flavor when held in older age." (Source: www.lionsroar.com)
Agathiyar too has taken many forms according to our state of spiritual maturity and acceptance. In revealing himself, Agathiyar came as the words in the Nadi in 2002. Then he came with form and name as a painting. Then he came as a granite stone at Agasthiyampalli and Papanasam during my tour of India with Tavayogi in 2005, and a bronze statue at AVM in 2010. Tavayogi says Agathiyar is the Vaasi or Breath during my third initiation from him at Kallar Ashram in 2005 and in asking us to observe it, brought us to step out of Sariyai and Kriyai into Yoga in 2008. Tavayogi tells us that Siva and Agathiyar are one when my family and I follow him to Nattadreeswar temple in Erode in 2013. Upon returning from our pilgrimage to India in 2016, the deity Aiya surprises us by revealing to us that Agathiyar was of the female gender, the lady whom we met and greeted at numerous spots on the pilgrimage. Then Agathiyar comes to us and says he is the sensation or Unarvu that we feel at certain times, during puja, and in doing charity. He later declares that he takes the form of vibration or Athirvu as in going within. To those who have worked their way up and are able to accept that he is beyond name and form, Agathiyar comes within as the Magnetic wave or Kaanta Alai. Tavayogi told me that Agathiyar had come to him as Jothi giving him this darshan in the Kallar hills just above his old ashram when I meet him at his Ashram in 2005. Agathiyar is Jothi. Dhanvantri came after Tavayogi went into samadhi in 2018 telling us he at attained Jothi too.
Following the manifestations of Agathiyar, it looks like he too has gone through numerous changes to adapt to our understanding. So is the worship of deities and Siddhas enveloped in Maya too? As this question arose in me it sent shivers down my back. I realized that we now stood at the threshold of Bhagavan Ramana's teachings - enquiry into the source of his being. So I go to Sri Ramanasramam at https://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/teachings/. Ramana greets me with the following quote of his. "Keep turning your attention within. One day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking stop, and it will eventually lead you to the goal." Then the realization dawned on me that this was exactly what Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal have been pushing us to do.
