Siva Yoga Swami bequeathed the priceless heritage of Siva Jnanam in his Garland of Poems called Natchintanai. He came into the world when the world needed him most. He was in line with the stars that had illumined the firmament of time and worked for the good of humanity. This resplendent Star of Lanka was seen by some and unseen by many. To understand Swami fully, one must understand the tradition of the saintly Gurus, and Jnanis of the East and West and more especially the tradition of the Sanatana Dharma which denies the existence of anything unique and peculiar to itself, apart from the local flavor and social adaptations that must be expected in this world, “where nothing can be known except in the mode of the Knower.”
He was unfettered by the discipline of the Charya, Kriya, Yoga and Jnana stages marked out by the Saiva tradition laid out in the Agamas, and yet he was refreshingly conservative in upholding the ancient Hindu way of life. He spoke in the simple language of the Dharma, the Eternal religion of the Vedas and Agamas. He was the symbol of the twentieth century shifting in the thought forms of the Hindus.
Swami is the penultimate Truth, and the experience contained in Natchintanai is but its temporal reflection. In it, there is concrete imagery of the Hindu tradition and mythology, with a sense of overtones of mysticism, with a call for selfless service of Sivathondu to the suffering humanity. Natchintanai is the inspired work of an immaculate Maha Yogi and a sanctified Jnani, who was endearingly known to his devotees as Swami. It is a term meaning Lord and master--He who is one with the Self-Swa.
In our Testament of Truth, we have brought to the fore his glimpses and experiences of the unknowable Beyond, the Absolute Reality, which cannot be penetrated fully, but which can be apprehended as has been revealed in the near-approaches to Truth in the Upanishads, and in our sacred Saiva Tirumurais and scriptures. Who can know? We know not! We have translated those selections which express aspects of divinity as manifested in the objective world of form as well as the formless and the transcendental. The goal of life as well as the means of fulfilling our destiny are given immortal expresion by Swami.
In our Book, we have tried to show the predominant stages of his revelation. As a first step, Swami urges the dire need for everyone to wield an articulate knowledge of himself before he can meaningfully formulate a knowledge of the outer world, and then from introspection to set up an inseparable relationship between the inner life of the cosmos and the individual self.
In this mood of certitude, Swami addresses the peacock, serpent, lizard, cuckoo and the parrot, and makes effective use of the music of the drum, conch shell, the sport of children, and also conjures the charm of the repetition of the Letters Five or the Pranavam Aum, and even the symbology of the adept yogis called Siddhar who speak in parables and folk imagery, inorder to unfold the varied hidden aspects of the phenomenal world, through which the Divine may be apprehended.
A fervent aspirant can gain through these rumblings of ear-whispered utterances an insight into the destiny and objective of life, in relation to the transcendent Reality. What is important is the relation. Existence always implies a relation. In its ultimate Essence, the unmanifest causal aspect cannot be said to be one or many. It is not one; It is not two. Swami signifies in his songs of Experience, a non-dual principle which is said to be beyond the forms of manifest divinity; it cannot be elicited by acts of worship, forms of yoga, dhyana, or morality.
However when we envisage divinity as a personal God and we attribute to it virtues, then it cannot be one but many. The Immanent aspects of ParaSivam are celebrated in many an ode in Natchintanai. Therefore Swami understood both these ways, from the One to the many and from the many to the One. We perceive by his lens that it is the divine manifestation and not its unity which is the magic charm of the universe. Thus he conducts the orchestral music as well as plays the solo melody of the divine symphony of Eternal Truth. His Testament of Truth lays special emphasis on Siva Jnanam.
Siva Jnanam is the full and unmediated knowledge of the spiritual Reality that is Sivam. Inorder to be a fit receptacle, the whole personality of man must be regenerated through appropriate disciplines. Good work--Siva Thondu, and noble conduct--Ollukam, must precede before illumination is attained. In the Psalm of Life and other poems, Swami makes it explicit that the performance of selfless service with devotion and trust--sraddha will not reap the desired effect, if the agent of the act is not moral and pure. Good conduct is the sine qua non of spiritual life at all stages, and Swami enjoins inner contemplation for engendering purity of the soul.
The devout aspirants are exhorted to concentrate their entire attention on the Light of Wisdom within,--Jyothi Aham--in the bright space of the heart. The object of devotion and union (yoga) is the Eternal SWA, whose form is the infinite space, whose spirit is Truth, whose delight is the vital force, whose essence is bliss and peace consummate.
We have endeavored to state the fundamentals of Swami's Upadesh Perennis from an orthodox point of view, both as to principles and their application. Our testament has drawn mainly from the perennial springs of Natchintanai, through we have dipped now and then at the springs of the Vedas and Agamas, the Upanishads and the Gita, and the Saiva Saints and Vaishnava mystics.
For ninety years and more, our Gurunathan was the custodian of a living, dynamic and vibrant spiritual tradition of the Sanatana Dharma enshrined in Hinduism. He pointed to the Man of the atomic age, the unilateral approach to Anma-Jnanam-- Knowledge of the Self through Siva Thondu. He vitalized the truth of Sivam art all by living a life of supreme surrender to Siva. It is only saints like him who can be termed the real stabilizers of Hindu Dharma, which is the treasure house of security in our insecure times.
Siva-Yoga Swami expounds Siva as an Essence without duality. That what is called Siva is the Entirety (Puranam) which is sonant and silent, (Sabdasabda) saguna and nirguna, and temporal and eternal. Whoever knows Him in His immanent aspect knows Him also in His ultimate (para) transcendent aspect. He is within and without, mobile and immobile, and therefore a total presence, undivided in divided things.
Swami made us read Isopanishad and understand that life in the world and life in the spirit are not incompatible. Work or Sivathondu is not contrary to knowledge of Siva but is a means to it. Renunciation is not of life but of the ego. The goal of both work and renunciation is to know the Sivan within and Siva without. We have cited many allusions from Natchintanai to the act of self-manifestation implied in the descent from the silent level of non-duality to the finite totality in terms of subject and object, and in support of the many forms of existence in the universe as conjoint principles of One.
Swami popularized the practice of Yagjna by various pathways. The word Yagjna implies the submission of the outer man to the inner self, and is the basis of a return to the One Self. It promotes the vision of oneness, when the seer sees the Lord alike in all beings and all beings alike in Siva.
This is the perfect wisdom, the SivaJnanam of the Rishis and Seers of Ancient India, which Swami inherited and disseminated. He was a great Almsgiver. He found man divided between his essence and his nature. When man was against himself, naturally he would be against the forces outside too. In line with the great Seers, Swami helped man to know himself by bringing in unison his essence and his nature. His songs echo the truth of the ninth Sutra in SivaJnana Botham: “That Siva is the only seer, hearer, thinker and knower in us and that whoever sees, it is by His ray that he sees.” However owing to the limitation of the finite ego and the sense of I and Mine, man finds himself involved in the bondage of the tattwas or avenues of experiencing, without knowing the presence of Siva within him. This is the unique way in which he teaches us. He approximates the fulfillment, the realized Seer that he was, and exhorts us to follow in his pathway to the source of Truth.
Swami impressed this Truth not only in his magnificent Odes on “Know Thyself by thyself,” but also by his living example in many imperceptible ways. Whenever any devotee entered his Ashram, he would accost him, “Who is that? From where do you come? Who are you? and the one facing him will answer, “It is me, Swami from X place...I am so and so.” The fettered state of these bound individuals would be know only to him and to none other.
Yet in the light of his presence, a few learnt the answer to this question: “We art Thou--Swami--Thyself.” These were the occasional rays of illumination from the Sun of Truth. It was his way of breaking the bonds to freedom, in the assurance of Thou art That.
That this freedom could be realized here and now as in hereafter is the import of his songs in Natchintanai.
What is the nature of the Jivanmukta who has found the Self--the same as I in all beings, of whom there is none I love and none I hate? The answer is impregnated in the Guru's Upadesh: Oru Pollappumillai. It is bliss to realize the Truth by his Grace that there is no other, and hence nothing to be feared. There can be no ill-will, when good-will reigns supreme.
“Divine Grace sweeps o'er and my soul revels in bliss,
With none resisting Truth reigns supreme.
--Natchintanai. 200.
Swami lived in a certain environment and had to express his utterances in words which that environment could understand. He had himself arisen from the midst of that environment, and his own early perceptions of the truth had been received within its fold. But he uttered in Natchintanai what had been intuited to him by His Guru, through direct experience of the Truth. It is Siva Dhyanam. It is Siva Yogam. It is SivaJnanam. Swami realized Siva and attained SivaJnanam. His mission was to make it possible for all who yearned for the light of Truth also to enjoy its luminosity, by yoking their self to Siva, through selfless service (Sivathondu), and by practicing the presence of Siva by singing His praise!
The Devarams, Tiruvacagam the Cantos of the Alwars, and later Saiva saints like Pattinattar, Tayumanavar and Siva Yoga Swami, reveal the supreme beatitude of a Siva-Jnani immersed in the bliss of SivaJnanam. The precious pearls of SivaJnanam-- Wisdom, found in Swami's Natchintanai are the affirmation of the celebrated Saiva Saints of the Periyapuranam epoch as well, for whom the consciousness of being is valid absolutely, as is their doctrine that the Jnanam of the Immanent Siva can be realized now within each one of us.
Swami's songs breathe of the essence of the experience that God is, and that is the way followed by the illustrious saints, immortalized in the Hindu Scriptures, “Whom to know is our highest good and the highest goal.” It is the way and the goal for man today.
Swami shared the buoyant freshness and the wise penetration of St. Sambandar, whose psalm on the gracious acts of the Supreme Siva composed for his father Sivapathahiruthayar and known as Tiruvelukootirukai 1.128., remained a favorite with him. This song deals with the One only who in manifestation became many. It was Siva with Sakti, His Energy who manifested as three forms, four, five, six and eight and thus endlessly magnified, till its all pervasive manifestation filled this earth, and in its subjective, microcosmic aspect took its abiding place in the Anma--the eternal entity of the Soul, with its habitation in the body of man. Swami's song on Tiruvunthiar reiterated the same truth:
That became One and It became two--who doth know?
The Parâparan of five and six forms, doubt not.
He loves to dwell in the hearts of the devotees who for e'er
Meditate on Him.
--Natchintanai. 221-222.
In Swami's Ashram, St. Sambandar's canticle would be sung every morning before the commencement of the Dhyanam at dawn. St. Sambandar whose life was one of spotless purity and wisdom, was one of the shining revivers of Saiva religion in the early seventh century A.D., and his songs tinge with the flavor of sublime wisdom. His Devarams found a significant place in Swami's discourses.
In the many poems of Swami's Natchintanai, we note similar tones of purity, devotional certitude and clarity of vision of the One Supreme Pathi who eludes analysis by reason, but who is caught in the net of love by His devotees. “Know Him first, Oh, man! Before anything Seek Him, Love Him, Bind Him and Serve Him and Him alone.”
St. Sambandar's Devarams have embodied the truths of Saivism in psalms, the fascination of which never flags. It is not merely the elegance of language, the exquisite grace of diction, the musical inflow and the fitting of syllable into syllable, and line to line, that charm and captivate our attention. His words speak from the heart to the heart. The appeal is through the senses to the soul, from the aesthetic to the spiritual. His cantos on Siva's Name and the grandeur of the Holy Ash, and the Madura hymns, like tears spread their translucence even like dew drops on the petals of the lotus, in those shrines where he sang so mellifluously on the glory of Siva.
His Devarams are word-garlands woven in praise of Siva, the Supreme One, and are expressed in flawless poetry, only because they had been transmitted into the actualities of life's experiences and assimilated to his soul's exalted aspirations. This is the secret of the magnetic influence of these songs, among the Tamilian Hindus even today. St. Sambandar had the unique illumination of Siva-Jnanam at the age of three and we give the first canzone which the Saint composed on the banks of the temple tank at Seerkazhi.
“His ears are be-ringed, He rideth the bull;
His head is adorned with the crescent moon's ray;
White is He with ash from the burning-ground swept;
And He is the lover who my heart steals away.
Great Brahma enthroned on the lotus full bloom
Erstwhile bowed down and His glory extolled,
And singing received he the grace of our Lord
Who dwelleth in famed Bramapuram old.”
--St. Sambandar I.I.I.
His Devarams allude to Siva's infinite grace, and make reference to the gracious form of Siva as Neelakandan with the blue throat, because out of compassion, He sucked the poison that polluted the ocean of milk when the Devas and Asuras churned it in affray. Thus He saved them from annihilation. He is also extolled as the All-Embracing One who is in good and darkness.
“Thou art right and Thou art wrong,
Lord of holy Alavay;
Kinsman, I to Thee belong;
Never fades Thy light away.
Thou the sense of books divine,
Thou my wealth, my bliss art Thou,
Thou my all, and in Thy shrine
With what praises can I bow?”
--St. Sambandar. III. 52.3.
In the same manner, Swami sang in Natchintanai, on the glory of the One without a second, the Auspicious-Siva as his greatest protection, armor, and guide. He takes his place in our hearts like a thief and lover. He is immanent in all sentient and insentient objects of this Universe.
Swami shared with St. Tirunavukarasar, also called Appar, and who also lived in the Seventh century A.D. the outstanding quality of service to humanity. St. Appar also had a long span of life like Swami, and was unabated in the pursuit of his goal which was to perform continual service unto Siva and his flock. Swami's call to do Sivathondu is as insistent as St. Appar:
“Sivathondu leads to the summation of action, conduct and
discipline on earth. It culminates in SivaJnanam-- the grand enlightenment.”
--Natchintanai. 186.
St. Appar enjoins all to repeat the Name Sivayanama, and work as one team in love and fortitude, so that Siva will establish the work of their hands. His Devarams proclaim that Lord Siva came down with a begging bowl and waited outside the huts of His devotees to share the meal. “So when you till the fields, God will plough your hearts and when the time of harvesting comes, the body, mind and heart shall echo the song of liberation.”
“The moving water He made stand unmoving in His hair;
And He my thoughtless heart hath fixed in thought of
Him
alone;
He taught me that which none can learn, what none can see
laid bare;
What tongue tells not He told; me He pursued and made
His own.
The spotless Pure, the holy One, my fell disease He healed,
And in Punturutti to me, e'en me, Himself He revealed.
--St. Appar. VI.43.1.
Swami follows his praise with a plea for service to Siva:
“Follow Truth; speak the truth boldly and cherish the Hindu
Dharma which sees all mankind as belonging to the
great family of Siva and Sakti, and serve one and all in
humility and love. This is Sivathondu.”
The yagjna-sadhana which Swami initiated at the Sivathondan Nilayam, was an attempt at the sacrifice of the self, a self-giving in dedicated service to ameliorate the physical, social, and spiritual needs of our fellow-brethren. If the Sivathondar meditated together in silence, they would feel the sense of belonging to a holy order which worked for the attainment of SivaJnanam.
“Will ye not gather in the Sivathondan Nilayam
And gain the peace of contemplation?”
--181.
In these jnana yagnas, old and young, rich and poor, men and women, seekers of truth and of worldly wisdom, and those intent on the pursuit of jnana or karma or bhakti margas would encounter each other in mutual dialogue. They would come together to seek the wisdom of Siva, by meditating on the incantations of the Tirumurai Saints, and other sacred Texts and Natchintanai, all of which help open out the secret chambers in their hearts for the divine grace to have its full play.
“Peerless art Thou; Divine father art Thou.
My wealth art Thou: solace of Life art Thou.
--Natchintanai. 313.
Thus would they respond to the appeal of St. Appar's Dasa Marga--the relationship of the seeker in the position of a servitor, and God in the role of a Supreme Teacher. They would sing this Devaram which Swami often sang:
Thou to me art parents, Lord,
Thou all kinsmen that I need,
Thou to me art loved ones fair,
Thou art treasure rich indeed.
Family, friends, home art Thou.
Life and joy I draw from Thee;
False world's goods by Thee I leave.
For gold, pearl and wealth art Thou to me.
--St. Appar. VI 95.1.
Swami warns us that man cannot serve God and the world at the same time. He must at all times learn to serve God alone. His body, mind and soul must be tuned to do SivaThondu. He must be fearless in the pursuit of Truth. Purity, desirelessness, humility, compassion and chastity are essential before any man can claim to be the servitor of Siva. Inorder to prepare for the worldly vocations, man receives training for a number of years before he can enroll himself as a doctor, lawyer or teacher. How much more strenuous should be the preparation to serve the Supreme master, Siva?
“We'll not feel restrained to withhold from giving.
But evince love to one and all alike.
Inheritors are we of endless bliss!
To none are we subject!
The Lord of Thillai's Feet shall we reflect.
And pine we for Lanka, our motherland.
--Natchintanai. 315.
Swami would also sing the song of St. Appar, that man is the inheritor of Siva's infinity, and as servitor to Siva, the Supreme, he shall not owe allegiance to any other powers on earth.
“No man holds sway o'er us,
Nor death nor hell fear we;
No tremblings, griefs of mind,
No pains nor cringings see.
Joy, day by day, unchanged
Is ours, for we are His,
His ever, who doth reign,
Our Sankara, in bliss.
Here to His Feet we've come,
Feet as fair as flowerets fresh;
See how His ears divine
Ring and white conch shells wear.
--St. Appar. VI.98.1.
In this way Swami made his devotees develop the spirit of selfless service.
“Serve Him by praise, by the action of the hand, by touch and sight, by the power of the mind and soul, and such dedicated work will take you to the supreme goal of Siva:
“There is one thing that man implores of Siva, if he is to serve Him unto aeons as His bondsman. His pledge of eternal servitude can only be fulfilled with His Grace, and so by ceaseless contemplation can Siva blossom in the hearts of the devotees.”
St. Appar in the seventh century, and Swami in the twentieth century have demonstrated the efficacy of Sivathondu to attain Truth, here and now, in time and eternity.
How can man tune himself to receive this fountain of Grace from Siva? Without Grace man will continue to wallow in material bondage, ignorance and desire. without freeing himself from these strong cords of attachment, man cannot become a fit receptacle to receive the Grace of the Lord. subject as man is to desire and fear, he needs the guidance of the Guru, who alone can make him know his own true Self.
Swami reiterates the need to “Know Thyself by thyself'. “Let the lamp light of the Guru be used to light your heart, and when you see yourself as others see you, and also see within you the light of God radiating its rays, then will you gradually begin to see the real Self in you.”
This is the Yoga marga followed by St. Sundarar, who exemplified in his realisation, the relationship of a friend with God as his intimate friend.
In consonance with the symphony of St. Sundaramurthy, Swami taught a way of life that bestows discrimination, and santham--peace with understanding, the peace that strengthens, unifies and illumines our souls, while we are still engaged in pursuing our duties and obligations in the world. He dissuaded asceticism and flight to the forest, and use of ochre garb to proclaim the inner renunciation! He shared the affinity of seeking God as a good companion with the bard of Tiruvarur.
Many songs in Natchintanai echo St. Sundaramurthi Nayanar's breadth of vision, and the beauty of perfect renunciation of a man of God to the supreme Will of ParaSivam. Swami stirred everyone to live in the world and realize God as his Best Friend, exactly as St. Sundarar did, calling upon Him to guide and shelter him at every crucial event in his life, and to share his joys and sorrows. He would teach the young boys and girls to sing the first Devaram of this loving bondsman, who called Siva a madman, in the same way as Chellappa Swami was called a madman:
The love of God shines in this first hymn which unfolds one of St. Sundarar's crucial experience of divine grace.
“O madman with the moon-crowned hair,
Thou lord who art the fount of grace,
How could I bear to forget?
My soul hath a place for Thee,
Venney-nallur, in “Grace's shrine,”
South of the stream of Pennai, there
My father, I became all thine;
How could I now myself forswear?”
--St. Sundarar. VIII. 1.1.
Swami would make some of the young aspirants who were drawn to the path of Yoga to sing the hymns of this great Saint during the evening hours at his Hermitage.
“Ah Me! I have left the path of love and service pure!
Now know I well the meaning of my sickness and my pain.
I will arise and go and worship at Aarur;
What folly! how long can I remain apart from Thee?
My pearl, my diamond rare, Thou king of great Aarur.”
--St. Sundarar. VII. 51.1.
St. Sundarar's most famous testament of Faith as expressed in,
“Eternal allegiance to Thee alone
I owe--To none else”.
VII. 95.1.
was another of Swami's favorite hymns, which he would sing frequently and make his devotees join in the chorus.
Our Gurunathan would sometimes greet his devotees with the popular hymn of St. Sundarar on the magnificat of Namasivaya:
“Linked to naught else in life, my mind thinks only of
Thy Holy Feet.
I'm born anew, from this time forth I pass the way of birth
no more.
In Kodumudi, Lord austere, where wise men Thee with
praises greet,
Even if I forget Thee, my tongue will utter adoringly
Namasivaya.
--St. Sundarar. VII. 48.1.
The songster Thuraippah would take up the refrain in his sweet voice, the song from Natchintanai on the remembrance of the Lord's Name:
“Sing ye in joyful strains Siva, Siva.
The felicity that generates from the Word,
I cannot recount, except be immersed in it.
The source of knowledge is mine without learning.
The key of existence lies in the palm of my hand.”
--Natchintanai. 18.
Filled with the fervor of the Saiva Saints, Swami would often say ‘You and I belong to the holy galaxy of the servitors of Siva.' Seeing a pious devotee in distress, he once exclaimed, 'Leave it at His Feet as did St. Sundarar,' and began to sing the Shakespearean Ode, “Fear no more the heat of the sun,” inorder to dissociate the distress from the sufferer, in comradeship. He would consume by the flame of his Yogic gaze, the lack of faith and purity among the doubting votaries who sought his solace. He would admonish them to quieten the mind:
“Your friend is within. Tap at the door and keep on tapping, till He opens it. Call on Him incessantly. Chant His Name and He will respond as He did to St. Sundarar.”
Come Thou Oh Siva! Heed our call and come!
Thou wondrous One in manifold forms,
Oh pure One who doth the cosmic dance.
Stainless art Thou with Sakti by thy side,
Illumined rock of the Vedic seers--Come, Come unto us!
In the exalted moments when Swami recalled the gracious acts of His Guru, and in his finest Natchintanai songs on Sri Chellappa Swami, he reminded us powerfully of St. Manicavasagar. We understand Swami's Guru-Gems better through Tiruvacagam, which reveal the Saint's all-consuming Love for His God-Guru, who made him His own at the foot of the Kuruntha tree.
“Thou gavest Thyself to me and Thou didst take me.
Beneficent Lord! Tell me whose gains are more?
Everlasting Bliss have I scored on my side.
What hast thou added from me and my largess?
Oh Lord, who are enshrined in the essence of Man,
Siva, dweller in the great holy shrine,
Father mine! Thou did'st come to fortify my body.
Naught have I to give Thee in return!
--Tiruvacagam. 22.10.
Again in Tiru Venba (47) St. Manicavasagar sings of His Guru, as the divine panacea for all human ills and griefs:
“He stood before me,
Routing all my past deeds good and bad,
The great Ruler who can exterminate births,
Lord of South who dwells in Perunturai.
Benevolent wielder of Grace,
Balm of all human ills.
Our Gurunathan would recall that Tiruperunturai was not something outside, but was the sanctum in the cave of the heart, where the inner Guru resides. In an intense fervor of consecration, Swami has sung adoringly on the wonder of the supreme surrender to his Guru, Sage Chellappar, whom he called fondly as the Lord of Lanka, His blessed Abode:
“He searched for me in the coconut-groved Lanka and made
me His own--He whom none can ever, ever
apprehend; He it
was who made me know myself, in and through
myself.
So entrancing was His love, more tender than the deep
love of my mother.”
--Natchintanai. 142.
Man must heed the urge to free himself from finite impediments, and learn to surrender at the Feet of the SatGuru, who will revolve him in the crucible of the Lord's Grace, till finally he comes out with a new sight to experience His power divine and bliss ineffable.
Thus we hail Swami as an illumined Seer of the twentieth century in the direct tradition of the Saiva Saints. However, his universality was all comprehensive that whoever came to him for solace, he would speak in his tradition and religious perspective. He spoke the language of Christ with the Christion adherents. To a Muslim, he would utter the words of the Prophet; He greeted the Buddhist with the blessings of the Triple Gem, and the Hindus understood him as the perennial source of Siva's Grace. All of them looked up to him as the substratum of eternal truth.
On many occasions would he play the role of the Yogiswara Krishna, when he discoursed on the dialects of Yoga-Marga as enunciated in the Bhagawad Gita, and bade us work and worship steadfastly without the motive of self gratification.
Again, like Muruga, he would chastise the aggressive elements in us, and bid us give up violence and passion and turn to victorious living in the active service of God. Swami pursued the least of us as did Murugan with Valli, and sought our weak vessels to fill with his elixir of grace. In this process, he brought up our impure elements to the surface and external exposure, only to requite us with immeasurable love. His was the wisdom of the elephant-God who protects His own from perils known and unknown. On countless situations, he would assume the role of the ever wise Pillaiyar, who shielded the seekers from stumbling into obstacles and confusion. When he fed us with manna sweet and nourished us so tenderly in all planes of existence, he was truly the divine Mother Thayalnayaky, on whose lap we basked in the warmth of love.
In great moments, He sat like Dakshinamurthi, immersed in transcendental silence, and taught us the greatest truth of knowing the Self, and led us to experience the bliss of Summa Iru in serene quiescence.
The dewdrop on the lotus leaf is tangent but not adherent. So is He in mySelf. His shaft of light is switched on to enlighten us. Ultimate, unheard, unreached, unthought, unseen, unspoken--thinker, listener, seer, speaker, and fore-knower of that inner person, everyone discovered that He is himSelf, without a centre and a circumference!
Our Gurunathan embodied this unified experience of Reality as a single timeless moment of divine self-manifestation. We recall his beautiful testament:
Dearly loved Kandan,
This is the message of this humble self. Know thou, the resting place of this lowly self is the shelter of each being's heart, the shade of the trees and the junctions. Heed the world of the seer:
“First resolve and then act. It is ignoble
To retract after resolution.”
Yours--
YogaSwami.