DEIVATHIN KURAL # 129 (Vol # 6) Dated 17 Feb 2013

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 129 (Vol # 6) Dated 17 Feb 2013

(These e-mails are translations of talks given by PeriyavaaL of Kanchi Kaamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. Today we are going ahead from page No 883 of Volume 6 of the Tamil original. The readers may note that herein ‘man/he’ includes ‘woman/she’ too mostly. These e-mails are all available at   http://Advaitham.blogspot.com updated consonantly)

எந்த உபாசனையிலும் யோக, ஞான, பிரேம அனுபவங்கள்

Similar Experiences through Different Approaches

470.  "What is this?  He neither goes anywhere close to the KuNdalini Yogic methods nor letting us get anywhere near that approach!  Then how can we ever be     entitled to get such wonderful experiences?  At the least he could refrain from talking about such things, isn't it?"   I know that some of you are thinking on those lines. Let me answer those doubts!  There is no such compulsion that one has to go only by the KuNdalini path.  Whatever the Upãsana path one may adopt as per direction of one's own Guru with sincerity, trust, concentration, dedication and total faith; whatever the benefits from one path will also be available from the other path.  For example whatever the inhalation, exhalation and retention of breath supposed to be done, without our noticing it, automatically it will happen as required.  At further higher levels, when we are one with the very aim of our efforts, the breath may just stop as Kumbhaka (retained inside without any inhalation or exhalation)!

471.  When we are normally attending to our daily activities, the breath may be noticed to be through the left nostril.  But, when we are having darsan in a temple or in the presence of a Mahatma, the breath will be through the right nostril.  At further higher levels that will be parity and balance between the right and left nostrils.  Still higher levels the breathing will come to a virtual standstill, without any harm to the body or hiccups!  Such natural changes will be there without any participation by the devotee aspirant.  Even in normal day-to-day life, when over taken by some extremely good news, don't we experience a few seconds of breathlessness?  Do we not say in Tamil, "உச்சி குளிர்ந்து போச்சு"!  What we mean is that, 'We are feeling a sensation of sudden coolness in the head'!  That happens because of an experience of an infinitesimal bit of the Amrita Bindu, felt in our nerve ends!

472.  The Bhakti Marga, that is the path of devotion too takes you right there to the zenith!  This we can say with authority because the experience of Thiru Gnãna Sambandar, as he says at the start of 'Namachivãya Thiruppadigam' – "காதலாகி கசிந்து கண்ணீர் மல்கி" – has been equally available to even people who did not necessarily go through the KuNdalini Yoga path!  I am talking about so many famous devotees of Siva known as Nãyanmãrs, devotees of VishNu known as Ãzhvãrs, devotees of God in which ever form such as from Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, Orissa and Bengal; many Sufi-Sants from an off-shoot of the Muslim religion and many Christian / Jewish Saints clubbed together as mystics; have all had flashes of understanding, comprehension and revelation, which brings the oneness in their experiences despite the differences in culture, language, religion and mode or method of approach to the ultimate in divinity, as revealed by their poems and quotable quotes!

473.  Is it a Yoga Anubhava or Gnãna Anubhava or Prema Anubhava?  When we are trying to define the indefinable, draw the parameters of infinity in to the confines of words, we end up calling it so many names as Rama or Krishna or Allah or Christ or Vittal or Jehovah or bringing in the gender difference as Kãmeswara and Kãmeswari!  That is also the reason why, they have had inter-national followership!  So, the experiencing of divinity at one and the same time, could be seen as Yoga/Gnãna/Prema/Adwaita Anubhava and Ãnanda!  The intrinsic experience is one and the same while the differences are in the words of explanation!

474.  Here I must talk about the Prema Anubhava.  What we said about Ichcha Shakti, Kãmeswara and Kãmeswari about the basic root matter is very subtle and pure love between matter and power, between Siva and Shakti.  The use of the word Kãmam seems to have some crassness about it.  As a Guru and a Sanyãsi though even saying a little bit about it seems to be out of place, there is nothing wrong in fact.  There is a basic peaceful truth of existence with which the power of knowledge, to wish and to do is inalienably entwined, which is symbolically indicated as Shakti and Sivam.  There is nothing wrong or out of place or untoward in it and that is why uniformly all saints of whichever denomination have had remarkably, noticeably and intrinsically similar experiences and have spoken about it with the innate compassion and kindness that others may also experience the pleasure of what one has had – which is said in Tamil as, "யாம் பெற்ற பேறு பெருக இவ்வையகம்"!

475.  God has willed it so or AmbãL has made it happen that, at the end of their efforts of Sãdhana, many Mahatmas, Rishis, Munis and Saints have had similar experience or Anubhava through Gnãna/Yoga/Bhakti Marga as well as the Sringãra Marga, in appreciation of beauty in whatever form, whether it is in human relationships or in literature, arts and crafts or simply in appreciation of Nature!  If in the basic principle's evolution we think of Ichcha Shakti and the beautiful couple of Kãmeswara and Kãmeswari, at the end of Sãdhana in involution, every aspirant has invariably thought of God as the Nayak and himself as the Nayika, as the Lover and Love in the penultimate stage before Aikyam that is oneness – that is Adwaita!

476.  Just before the Adwaita Anubhava, all other thoughts or identity as the Jivan are forgotten and the aspirant simply feels as the Nayika who has to anyhow become one with the Ultimate.  With that inexorable urge, he or she is likely to feel, "There is nothing for me to do any more, it is all Your Wish!" and surrender.  Even the wish to join Siva has dropped with only Siva's Ichcha in balance.  That is, this Sãdhak's involution after all the efforts has met with Siva's first evolution and merges.  At that point in space and time, Siva himself instead of expanding in evolution, involutes and takes this Jivan back unto himself!  Normally when a piece of something is dropped in the flow of say a river, waves carry it forward along the flow or side lines it in some shore.  But if there is an eddy in the flow, it will take this thing in.  Such a thing happens when this separate entity is reabsorbed.

477.  Siva's first and last Ichcha, both are symbolised as an action of Sringãra, of Love and compassion.  In this there is a uniformity and parallel between the experiences of all Saints and Mahatmas from all religions of all nations, as seen from their words, poems and couplets of Sufis such as Khalil Gibran and Rabeya, Mystics such as Francis of Assisi, Krishna Chaitanya of Bengal, Mira Bai of Rajasthan, Thrukkovaiyar, MaNikka Vãsagar, Prabhu Pãda, Nimai Goswamy also known as Chaitanya Maha Prabhu, Nimbalkar and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and so many such others.  The Anubhava of Yoga, of Gnãna and Prema are all uniformly and equitably common, similar and parallel!  If the Siva and Jiva are in love, that is in other words if you as an individual has love of God; that 'spandam' in you is also AmbãL's work only.  After your absorption you are also Sivam, but the process of reabsorption is her job.  I told you earlier that in Bhakti itself, there can be the highest experiences that can happen through other approaches such as Yoga, Tantric and Mantra Japa.  But unlike those approaches, in the Bhakti Marga when we feel and say to AmbãL, "Amma, all those methods are beyond my reach and ability.  You are Para Shakti and you are my shelter and resort!  Do your wish, I have nothing to say!"  If we continue our devotion with that attitude, there is no chance of our getting conceited that we are doing some great Sãdhana.  In appreciation of our humility, that Mother will lift us to the highest pinnacle of whatever experience that we deserve.

478.  When the breath of life – the PrãNa Shakti reaches the Sahasra Dala Padma at the peak of one's head, there is light of the full moon brilliantly flowing; Amrita Dhãra is showering.  When we hear about this, we do not have to feel bad that we are not experiencing this and that we are missing something!  Haven't we seen in the seventh sloka the description, 'परिणत सरत चन्द्र वदना'?  It is enough if we keep thinking that AmbãL's face is like the full moon.  If we just keep visualizing the flow of the nectar of her smile and glance, she will make our thoughts real and realised, with the inner moon and flow of the moon light!

479.  Let those with the power and ability go through the path of KuNdalini Yoga do whatever they can.  All that we have to do is to have a stubborn faith and belief in our devotion to Amma.  Whatever anybody else gets by any other method, it is her job to make it available to us and she will do it.  On the other hand she can also make those who have been going by the route of difficult Sãdhana methods, to give up all that and simply be silent in self-surrender.  We should take note of how this sloka, in which AmbãL is said to cause the Amrita Rasa flow in our Nãdis, has been concluded.  Having moved the KuNdalini from the Moola Ãdhãra Chakra to Sahasra Dala Padma and causing the Rasa Dhãra to flow, instead of finishing in Adwaitam that the Jivan is made to merge in the Param, it is said that the PrãNa Shakti comes down back through each of the Chakra-s to Moola Ãdhãra Chakra and there without any more power coils back and goes to sleep.

480.  This lying down rolled into a coil of three and a half turns, is the reason for the name KuNdalini.  A snake when it rests will be rolled into a coil.  When we sleep we may twist and turn, but finally when we go to sleep we generally get stretched out as we say, 'அடிச்சு போட்டாப்பல தூக்கம்' or 'sleeping like a log' isn't it?  But from a dog to a cat to an elephant, they role their body into a coil with their head rested on the front legs only when they sleep.  On top of all this, a snake will be fully turned in to a coil. So since we have only an infinitesimal fraction of the power of Parã Shakti, the Shakti in us is said to rest in the Moola Ãdhãra Chakra as KuNdalini in 3½ coils like a snake.  There is one more reason.  In all living beings the life in us is represented as PrãNa Shakti.  The snake is believed to live on air as the only input for sustenance.  So it is in the rightness of things that KuNdalini, which is equivalent of PrãNa Shakti, is represented as a snake.   

481.  "Let those matters be the way they are!  What is this, as he was talking about experiencing the Adwaita Anubhava and tasting Amrita, having suddenly brought all of us down, he has brought the AmbãL in us as KuNdalini Shakti all tired and sleeping coiled like a snake, down in the Moola Ãdhãra Chakra, deflating our aspirations in the bargain!  What is the purpose and what is the message?" Till there is the sense that, "I have done all this", AmbãL can roll us down, including even those Yogis who have almost tasted the nectar of Amrita.  So, whatever be your approach, whether Bhakti Marga or KuNdalini Yoga Marga, the inner conviction of 'Not Me but You' of SaraNãgati, is the key that will open the lock! 

(To be continued.)

Sambhomahadeva