“If ye truly yearn to Know Him,
Know Him as thySelf.”
--Tirumantram. 1788.
“Who doth know the luminosity of His Grace,
That spreads its radiance everywhere?
Who can fathom the grandeur of His gracious Feet?”
--Tirumantram. 1798.
“I am not the mind or the intellect,
Nor am I the self nor the cognising power;
Thy sky is not I, nor the land,
Neither am I the ear, the tongue, the nose, the eyes;
Neither light nor wind am I;
For, I am Bliss-Consciousness,
Siva is in me and I am Siva.”
--Nirvanashatka.--Sankaracharya.
Siva YogaSwami of Yalpanam in Ceylon belonged to a brilliant succesion of saintly Gurus who have enlightened Hindu culture from the Vedic era to the modern times.
His early life and history are shrouded in mystery. Tradition avows that he was born on Wednesday, 29th May 1872, on the asterism of Aviddam. The last decade of the nineteenth century was the age of spiritual renaissance when saints like the Paramahamsa Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Shirdi Sai Baba, Sri Ramalinga Swamigal were blazing a trail of religious fervour and piety among the masses. This was also the era when the custodians of Hindu monasticism flourished in the Sri Sankaracharya Mutts and the illustrious Saiva Adhinams, especially the Dharmapuram and Tiruvavaduturai Mutts. In Ceylon, the lion hearted awakener of spirituality, Kadai Swami was striding the four directions of Yalpanam and igniting the flame of yogic illumination among the people of North Ceylon.
The sage of Columbuturai belonged to this group of religious seers, who alone can command a total vision of humanity and its destiny. In the footprints of the Guru Paramparai of Kadai Swami and Chellappa Swami came Siva YogaSwami, as the expression of life itself, the life of a new seed bursting forth on the arid yet aromatic soil of Yalpanam--the torchbearer of the ancient and honoured heritage of the Saiva religion in the fair Isle of Lanka.
Born in the historically famed village of Mavidapuram off the Northern coast of Yalpanam, with sacred associations of the Kandaswamy temple, and the healing springs of Keerimalai with hoary traditions, Swami spent most of his years in the paternal precincts of Columbuturai in the South West coast of the Jaffna Peninsula. Columbuturai at one time was a busy port plying a brisk trade with the neighbouring countries of India, Arabia, the islands scattered in the Indian Ocean, and the mainland of Lanka with its fertile hinterland of Poonakari, the northern Wanni and Mannar and Mantai areas.
Columbuturai is an orthodox suburb skirted by the Jaffna lagoon, and can be justly proud of her many schools and temples. Many distinguished visitors have paid glowing tributes to the munificence and piety of the people who are mostly Hindus, and who are engaged in the cultivation of highland crops, dairy farming, business pursuits and the marine trade. Many of the inhabitants own coconut plantations and paddy fields in the Poonakari and Vettukadu areas, and are noted as a contented yet conservative community. Swami rarely spoke of his early life or of his family, as he had ceased to be identified with the physical body locus and time, and had freed himself from the nostalgia of environmental forces.
Little is known of his parentage except that Ambalavanar, his father who hailed from Columbuturai, was engaged in business in the Kandyan region, and his mother Chinnachi Ammayar, who was from a family of pious Saivites from Mavidapuram, died when Swami was yet an infant. Thereafter Yoganathan was brought up by his paternal aunt Muttupillai Ammaiyar, who lived at Columbuturai near the Kerniady where there was then a small temple for Vyravar. Nallar Ganapathy, her father-in-law, and a well reputed astrologer in Columbuturai was his guardian.
His early schooling was in a Tamil school in the neighbourhood, and records indicate that he finished his school studies at St. Patrick's College, reputed to be one of the leading schools in Ceylon. It was the general practice in those days that christian names were attached to pupils who studied in the christian missionary institutions like Ford Duraiswamy, and Mark Chelliah. Yoganathan too came to be called as Johnpillai in school.
His school days had been inconspicuous, except that he studied up to the 8th Standard or so, and felt no special attraction for book learning. In pursuance of the colonial policy of opening up the Dry Zone areas for the cultivation of paddy, and the persistent efforts of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan who represented the Tamil community in the Legislative Council of Colonial Ceylon, the Iranamadu Tank project was mooted out in the Kilinochi area in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
Yoganathan joined the Irrigation Department in Kilinochi about forty five miles from Jaffna. He worked as a storekeeper at the newly opened Iranaimadu Tank Scheme, under Engineer Mr. Browne, whom Swami described as an honest Englishman with a high sense of duty. He served in this capacity for about seven or eight years. Yoganathan spent most of his leisure in reading the Saiva Puranas, Sastras and Tirumurais, and found himself drawn more and more to the spiritual magnetism of Chellappa Swami, who lived ever so austerely at Nallur; he was known as one of the foremost though eccentric disciples of Kadai Swami. Swami would often recount the great spiritual experience of his Guru:
“Lo, with a silver rupee coin did Kadai Swami infuse his
grace on Chellappar! The world looked upon him as a
'madman.'
From his empyrean height, he stood aloof, far from the madding crowds' ignoble strife.”
At about this time, the triumphant return of Swami Vivekananda from the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago, created a stir in the hearts of the people enticed by alien culture, and his visit to Ceylon was accalaimed as a happy augury for the renewal of faith in Hinduism. The prophet of the New Age came to Yalpanam in 1897, and his elevating lectures at Hindu College, The Esplanade, and the Saiva Padasalai at Columbuturai made an undying impression on Swami.
It is reported that when Swami Vivekananda was ceremoniously brought in a carriage drawn by the leading Hindu citizens, to address the public at the present Hindu Maha Vidyalaya at Columbuturai, he got down from the carriage at the junction where stands the Illuppai tree and walked up to the school. In his lecture, he reported that he was impelled to get down from the carriage, as he felt he was treading on sanctified soil and called it prophetically an oasis. This was the Illuppai Tree under whose shade Swami had sat in sun and rain during his sadhana years. Columbuturai was singled out as an attractive oasis, when Swami in later years too hallowed this spot as his religious centre and asharam.
It is believed that at the beginning of this century, Swami experienced spells of spiritual insights and felt powerfully drawn to his Guru. During this time, a select coterie from Columbuturai including the Vidhane TirujnanaSambandar, Kadirithamby Vettivelu, Ponniah Upadiyayar, Sivagurunathar Thuraiappah and Thiagar Ponniah would visit Chellappar at Nallur quite frequently. Swami would join them whenever he came down from his sphere of work. He would at times recall how vigorously he used to walk all the forty-five miles from Kilinochi to Nallur to meet Chellappar, for so great was his urge to be in the living presence of his Guru.
We can see to this day, the mango tree that Swami planted at Kilinochi with its fruitful branches embracing the wide sky above, while its hardy roots are deeply rooted in the soil. This tree would have witnessed in silence his long hours of meditative communion with his Guru, till finally the call of Theradi proved irresistible.
“My Guru--My Peerless Chellappar--Him I saw at Nallur,
'neath the foot of the Chariot of Murugan. My wise Teacher,
He looked at me in grace.”
Ah! In Nallur, at the foot of the Chariot,
I saw Him and praised Him--What bliss was mine!”
Sage Chellappar was drawing Swami to commune with the light of Truth; and in this mood of detachment from worldy wants and cares, he found it increasingly irksome to discharge his duties faithfully, when at last he gave up his work at Kilinochi. He had enjoyed the favour of Mr. Browne who was extremely appreciative of his integrity and devotion to work, that he appointed his cousin in his place. Freed from the shackles of work, Yoganathan stayed with his aunt at Columbuturai, and revolved in the spiritual orbit of His Guru. He invokes the remembrance of his gracious love, in many a Natchintanai lyric:
“There at the ancient abode of Nallur,
I saw Him; bowed to Him. Lo! I entered into a trance.
In speechless silence, He bade me relish who I am.
Distinctions fade. I embibe His Grace and instantly,
I gain the clarity of wisdom and become immersed in joy.”
Thiagar Ponniah, aged ninety two years and father-in-law of Sri Somasundara Udayar related that he was an associate neighbour of Yoganathan at Columbuturai and was also a devotee of Chellappa Swami. One day, in the company of Ponniah Upadiyayar, he witnessed Chellappar greeting Yoganathan under the shade of the Vilvam tree near the Theradi, with the significant words:
“Come, Come! Thine be Lankapuri. I give, I give,
The crown of Kingship to Thee, to Thee,
As long as the universe endures
And the waters of the oceans perish not.”
Can it be that this auspicious day might have been the second Monday of March 1910? Who can know? Did this great event synchronise with the propitious Pankuni Thinkal celebrated at the Pandathalachy Amman temple at Madduvil, when Chellappar and Swami commingled in the luminosity of the Tiruvadi Dikshai? We do not know? It was all so accomplished in beginningless time. That the second Monday in the month of Pankuni had been observed by Swami as the day of his initiation--Tiruvadi Dikshai--is itself an irrefutable evidence for this holy day to be observed as a significant day by his devotees in the years to come. Truly it marked the descent of divine grace on Swami, and the ascent of Kundalini to the Sahasrara in a glorious consummation of oneness!
St. Manicavasagar under the Kuruntha tree had experienced a similar wondrous transformation. 'He made me His own--even me,' were the words of the author of Tiruvacagam, while Swami gave expression to his profound illumination at Theradi in some of the moving odes in Natchintanai:
“At Theradi, I saw Him, the crescent jewel of grace.”
“He made me His own
And showed me the way of bliss.”
St. Tirumular too depicts the upsurge of the consciousness of Oneness in the section on the Light of Grace in the seventh canto of Tirumantram:
“The great lover of my soul wooed me, courted me,
And came to dwell in the core of my heart.”
Subsequently by about the middle of 1910, Swami left on a solitary sojourn by foot along the Island's coastal belt eastward, and met many ascetics on the way. He moved freely with certain muslim Sufi saints, Buddhist monks, and Veddha chiefs. He communed with Murugan in Kathirgamam, the Holy of Holies skirted by the Manica Ganga, and the seven hills around this sylvan sanctuary would have replenished his aspiration for Truth, and accentuated his solitary musings with the cosmic consciousness. He came back to his old haunts by 1911 or so and was recognised as a Raja Rishi by the people.
They began to revere him as a King of Yogis, and called him YogaSwamigal. Meanwhile Chellappa Swami was preparing to shed his mortal coils. St. Chellappar developed cold and consequent inflammation of the joints, and his relatives treated him with herbal baths. Swami went to see his ailing Guru. “What have you come to see from outside?” was the response of Chellappar. Thus did he sternly admonish Swami to Seek Within. Swami would musingly recount that the farewell on the external plane was only a drawing up of the veil in the interior chambers of his heart, in a supreme ectasy of realisation.
'It is what It is'
Thou in me and I in Thee
Chant Aum TAT SAT
When all distinctions of duality ceased to oppress the soul, the bliss of luminous awareness, the peace perfect peace of Sivam shall fill to the brim, the illumined Anma! So testified Swami.
The inexplicable Maha Rishi, Sage Chellappa Swami who successfully eluded the world of delusion by his cloak of madness, steeped as he was in a perennial trance of Reality, for three score years and ten, so they say, attained Maha Samadhi on the waxing lunar asterism of Aswini, in the month of March, 1915.
From 1915 onwards, Swami led the life of a renounced recluse; he would be seen frequenting the Illuppai Tree at the School junction in Columbuturai, the Nallur Theradi, the Arialai hermitage, the Thundi Crematorium, the Esplanade and the byways of Grand Bazaar. These were the years of gestation and Samadhi experiences. It was in December 1934 that he chose to reveal to the world at large, his Tiruvadijnanam--Guru--illumination, when he started the religious journal called SivaThondan, and continued to radiate his effulgence far and wide, till the very end of his earthly sojourn on March 24th, 1964. He stayed for the most part at the ashram in the compound of Sri Tirunavukarasu, whose mother was instrumental in establishing Swami's abode there, and looking after his bodily needs, with meticulous and adorable devotion.
In this connection, Swami would relate amidst peals of laughter the disconcerting action of Nanni, a pious devotee of Chellappa Swami. He had a boutique in the very compound on which his ashram was to be located later. Oneday, when Chellappar passed his boutique, Nanni managed to get hold of the Master forcibly, and tied him to a pole in front of his shop. He got Chellappar's head shaved and with a burning zeal offered lighted camphor in a frenzy of devotion, imploring thereby the Master's grace! Chellappar shouted and appealed to be extricated and when set free, he fled from the place. Swami alluded to this incident of the camphor offering by Nanni, as having ignited holy vibrations whereby Chellappar had bound him (Swami) to this spot in response to Nanni's behest. Ever after, it has remained the consecrated abode of Swami where his devotees in turn perpetuated the act of oblation by lightintg camphor before the Guru! This continuous offering of lighted camphor had been enkindled by Nanni! Inscrutable is the dynamic power of Grace that emanates from a Guru!
For about ninety two years, Swami was like a luminous ray reflecting the radiance of the Saiva Saints down the ages. The Jaffna community in whose midst he lived and moved had grown imperceptibly to accept his presence as naturally as the beneficent sunlight, so that his Maha Samadhi on March 24th 1964 created an unusual stir and sorrow among all ranks of people who had basked in his lustre from generation to generation. Swami was venerated as an illumined seer of the twentieth century, one who was God's witness on earth--a Saint in whom the sacred was secret; he was like the Triveni, a confluence where met the streams of past, present and future. He seemed to have held the whole world in the kinship of the Supreme Will of Siva. The Master Sivathondan blazoned the trail of service and renunciation, by his universal gospel of Sivathondu--Service unto Siva. To live every split second as servitors of Siva was his clarion call to the modern Man:
“We'll wear the badge of service in humility,
And shall never forget the Feet of the SatGuru.
The Law of the land shall we not violate,
Nor will we waste our moments idly......”
--Natchintanai. 255.
Swami's effulgent face, penetrating eyes, the white flowing beard, and the spreading forehead with the gleaming holy ash, his waist cloth of white cotton, and the hair knot on the crown of his regal head, altogether struck awe and majesty in the hearts of those who approached him with infinite reverence and humility. People of all faiths, men and women from different walks of life, Seekers from all parts of the globe, east and west, north and south, the rich and poor, old and young thronged to him for succour, for they realised that they were in the presence of a great Master in whom conflicts and contradictions did not exist, and who radiated an abiding inward Peace--Santam Upasantam.
Swami lived in the midst of the common people of Jaffna in an Satraordinarily simple manner, without assuming the garb of a exnnyasin. He evaded the lime-light till but three years before his final Samadhi, when on 22nd February 1961, he met with an accident in the cow shed of his abode at Columbuturai. The accident which incapacitated his left leg coincided with the peak period of the Satyagraha movement by the Tamils of the Jaffna District; they were campaigning against the Sinhalese major community for their fundamental rights by staging non-violent demonstrations against the recognised administrative machinery. As did Bhishmacharya, the renowned preceptor of the Kurus and Pandavas in the epoch of the Maha Bharata War, so did Swami reconcile to lie in his bed of thorns, and vindicate the everlasting supremacy of love and dharma over the invincible forces of aggression and evil.
It was during this period that he became accessible to all, being confined to his ashram. Devotees sought him in large numbers and with infinite patience and love, he meted out inconspicuously his sanctifying grace. he extended his healing touch in his own peculiar technique of hot and cold compresses, and took upon himself the still sad music of humanity. He generated a force that never was on sea or land, and electrified all those who for one reason or other flocked to him, by his soul-stirring Natchintanai songs and homely discourses. Thus his accident was looked upon by his devotees as an outlet for the outpouring of God's grace. In the last phase of his earthly life, Swami taught the supreme sovereignty of the Lord's Will. “His Will prevails within and without. Abide in His Will,” was his insistent plea.
Swami had been illuminated by the illustrious Chellappa Swami, of whom the Saivites of Jaffna knew very little, except that he was a 'madman,' who haunted the famous chariot tower of Murugan at Nallur. His Guru had admonished him to veil his divinity even as he had done it, so as to excape deification by the masses. 'Nothing gained, nothing lost. Be still,' was the MahaGuru's injunction. Yet it became increasingly difficult for our gracious Gurunathan to hide his divinity and to withold his benign grace. His denuding love swept over insuperable barriers, and released the floodgates of compassion. His stirring call to serve Siva by serving man has been enshrined in his immortal Natchintanai, The Testament of Truth. It was indeed his dedicatory work of oblation unto his God-Guru. It was Swami who enhanced the Atma Sâksâtkâra of Sri Chellappa Swami by his moving songs of adoration on his Guru.
Swami attracted a great number of people from all walks of life and to each one, he revealed according to his own measure of understanding, the fringe of his destiny. He was not an occultist nor a clairvoyant siddha who could prophecy a man's future; Neither was he a supramental being who lived in the solitude of his powers. He was a man of God whose yogic wisdom made him touch some hidden chord in each one, so that he wielded a wondrous power to change people's inner nature by bringing up the secret chambers of their hearts to the surface, and exposing to their gaze, the bewildering reactions and hidden motives underlying their actions.
This was perhaps the reason why many people would shiver inwardly in his presence, or keep away from his penetrative eyes. They were afraid of exposure. Yet so irresistible was his humanity that even his scorching onslaughts would act like the monsoonal showers of grace, and devotees would seek him in hours of tribulation and tensions. In countless ways he alleviated their aches and pains, so that the faith of the multitude of people who sat at his Feet towered as high as Mount Kailas, from where he brought forth the healing waters of the Grace of Siva. Truly it was the descent of the divine Ganga!
Whenever Swami was approached by his close devotees to unravel something of his early life, he would often prove most elusive. He would convey by means of the songs he would so tunefully sing at that time, that he had little to remember of his childhood days. His consciousness was never associated with the temporary body. He would often infer that before he came to this earth, he was the same. As a little boy too, he was the same. He grew into manhood but still he was the same. “In front of you now, I am the same. Even though the dance of creation changes around me in the hall of eternity, ever afterwards too, I shall be the same.” A poignant verse in his Natchintanai conveys the import of this image of Swami:
Salutations to AUM, undifferentiated Brahman and yet primal and blissful Cause, the transcendental Consciousness! The One undifferentiated Brahman signified by AUM polarises as Sat-Chit-Ananda, manifesting as Parasakti--Divine Mother, who in Her crystal purity displays the variegated phenomena which gyrate in equipoise within her. Neutral Brahmam and the polarised Brahmam are thus interchangeable. The idea of the transcendental Consciousness shining as shafts of light in this wonderful universe implies non-separateness of the object from the subject.
That expanse of Grace radiating from Sivam, here is incarnate as our Guru, Siva Yoga Swamigal, endearingly called by all as Swami. The Guru being Siva is Grace incarnate, and requires no incentive to show grace. He is ParaSivam and has no attributes whatsoever, as extolled by St. Tayumanavar:
“If one knows and realises the divine Grace in the heart,
He will understand the seat of the Guru.”
--Auvaikural.
“The Guru's grace gained, one has attained all,” was my father's edict of faith. He would cite the authority of St. Auvaiyar:
The sanctified prasad from Swami, be it a pomagranate, a plantain or a flower, signified to our father the vista-visin of then glory of divine Grace. He would affectionately address his children as his Guru's gifts of grace--Prasadam, and in the even tenor of his life, joy and sorrow, vicissitudes and fulfilment were all considered as sacrificial Yagjnas. He would make his children commit to memory the songs of Natchintanai written by Swami. It was only in later years, that these acts of oblation unveiled their mystery to us. He made us read the lives of the sixty three Saiva Saints, immortalised in the Epic of Saivism called Periya Puranam, and thereby nurtured devotion to the God-Guru.
When Ma accosted her Guru in early childhood, she found him to be an ocean of mystery and mercy. Learning from him what had to be known, she thought she could cross the ocean of doubts after boarding the boat of his teachings. This was one of her very first impressions of the Guru. Then her mind registered many other responses. Can anyone immersed in the Guru's benign grace ever be afflicted by sorrows even if destiny so decree? Freed from desires that throng the avenues of the senses, let that desire to remain in unbroken contact with his holy Feet take root. These were also some of the earliest memories on Gurunathan:
The meaning of St. Manicavasagar's famous plea,
“Thou gavest Thyself to me, and takest myself to Thee
Oh Sankara, who hast gained more?”
--The Temple Lyric
dawned on us faintly, as we saw our parents revolve in the orbit of the Guru's light. It was in the early Thirties that at our father's bidding, we took to the serious study of Tiruvacagam, which in turn served to illuminate the profound significance of the God-Guru in our spiritual quest.
In all these early associations, Swami continued to be a distant star in the firmament of our lives, till the last week of May 1939, when he blazoned a shaft of immense magnitude. Our father stumbled over a stone heap at the gate of his newly built house--'Chelliam Pathi'--and had a fall, but escaped any serious injury, except a sprain and strain of the ankle which confined him indoors during the month of April, 1939. After the observance of the Chitra-Puranami fast, he developed fever with slight digestive upsets and after a fortnight, his condition remained static. It did not improve nor deteriorate.
Late in the evening of the 28th May, our father called for mother and all his children, and asked us to switch on all the electric lights, and spread a white cloth on the chair near his bed, and bade us sing. He also indicated that we should worship Him who shall come, by prostrating at His Feet. We did not understand the subject of his discourse. Though it seemed so enigmatic we obeyed his injunction mechanically and awaited.
At the Sandhya hour, with the waxing moon of Vaikasi shedding its transluent light, He came with his umbrella tucked under his arm pit, and opened the garden gate. Swami's voice reverberated as he called out my father's pet name--Sinna Thamby, and walked right up to his bedroom, ignoring midway my mother's prostrations amidst tears. Then was enacted a tuneful communion too sacred for communication. At the sight of Swami, my father tried to rise up from his bed, but the Guru took both his frail yet cooped hands and held them against his chest and sang. It was a song that conveyed the bliss which awaits the bondsment of Siva! His voice resounded from time to eternity. Then he took the holy ash out of the conch shell on the bed-table and placed it tenderly on my father's forehead. We saw our father's face gleaming in sweet communion.
It was not a parting. It was a promise fulfilled, an assurance of the certitude of Siva's beatific bliss! He arose and left us bewildered. It seemed to us passing strange that Swami had not offered a word of comfort to any of the distressed inmates. It was his way. “Oru Pollappumillai!” It was his will that we simply be--Summa Iru. We were merely spectators in this magnificent spectacle of the play of Guru's Grace! My father attained Samadhi on the night of 30th May 1939 at the auspicious hour of the ascendancy of the Vaikasi Chaturtursi merging into the full moon of Wesak.
Tirumantram describes the Anma's wondrous experience of Siva's Grace at the crucial moment of dying unto self, in the blessedness of supreme surrender, in a stanza that tugs at our heart strings:
In the state of perfect surrender, when the zest for realising Truth becomes intense, the light of Siva's Grace manifests as the Guru. He comes and cleanses the soul of all external dross and pangs of duality. He illumines it in the pathway of wisdom, what is known as the gift of the Holy Feet--and extinguishes the potency of the Ego. Thus freed from the fetters of deluding forces, desire, and sinister actions, the Anma attains the bliss of Siva.”
Here was an introduction to increase our faith and clear all wavering doubts in the Guru, whose Siva Jnanam--God-illumination--was a source of mystery as well as perennial attraction. It was the beginning of a new phase when little by little, we learnt to draw from the Guru's Bank of Grace. All resistance faded away. The magnet proved irresistible; and the realisation dawned on us that the Guru art all, after the agonising parting from a priceless treasure in our lives! How exquisitely has St. Tayumanavar delineated the supreme surrender of a soul brought to bay!
The hound of heaven pants and flees, till at last it halts and offers itself before the Pursuer:
“Nought is mine for I am Thine.
Lo, I give myself, my all to Thee.”
The consecration was irrevocable; The bond of the bondsman was in the custody of the Guru.
It was a long journey from the citadel of youthful aspirations and rejections to the domain of the Guru's kingdom of Grace. How many way side halts and dubious cross roads had ma to overcome? Lessons learnt would soon be forgotten. Desire and fears assailed her at every turn. Prayers to the Guru were only selfish in the beginning, yet they not only fulfilled one's desires, but also purified the mind; so that as devotion to the Guru grew in intensity, accentuated by the example of Thiru, her life partner, the devotee desired nothing more than His Tiruvadi.
The pageant of life thus kept on constantly changing in the Forties. What fruits have been reaped as the result of these changes have not been so easy to decipher. Since there has been no abiding satisfaction in the gains, it is not worth pondering over the past. Everywhere she saw the bondage of man; having gained one purpose, why should one look for another? The feeling of a need to yoke oneself to work, to love, to serve in order to enjoy happiness was also found to be a cause of misery.
The Guru returned from a pilgrimage to the sacred shrines of India including Kasi and Thillai, and taught the unitive experience that Kasi and Thillai were within one's self. She sought the symphony of his Grace and learnt to sit in quietude at his Feet. Something clicked. All doubts and desires had a way of drifting away from the centre. Deep within the dark chambers of the heart penetrated the faint flicker of his light. By a slow, very slow process of opening out the chinks was transformed the inner nature--The density of I-ness was subjected to vivisection. The fragrance of Santam wafted by the Guru's discourses, songs, and dharsan was imprinted in the core of her heart:
“The Guru's sight leads to insight.
What beatitude! Prostration to His Feet!”
--Natchintanai.
The call for dedicated service was sounded by the Master Sivathondan in the early Fifties. Study and inquiry, Yoga and Dhyana, Work and Worship unfolded new pages in the book of Knowledge of the Self. the challenge of Arul Aham for the women was held out by the Guru, and his knocking at the Moon Door never ceased. The Siva Guru is the goal and the way--Commander in chief and the servant, the Awakener of the forces of Shakti--Eternal Vigilance in quest of Anma-Lapa. What heightened joy it was to behold the Guru's pageant of grace and the consummation of his revelations to us in the Sixties, culminating in our global Pilgrimage! At his bidding did the Five commence an East-West dialogue on April 29th, 1963. We set sail on the SS. Chusan to the United Kindom and Malaysia to meet 'His Friends, and share the noble thoughts on Saiva Siddhanta.' The panorama of the Divine Child, His christening of Ma, the Pada Yatrais, Yagams and community farming at Chenkalady, with the interminable readings from the Upanishads, Bagavad Gita, Devi Bhagavatam and the Kandapuranam, and the penetrating explorations into the Saiva Tirumurais and Sastras, opened out ever expanding avenues of divine consciousness. It was all His infinite Leila!
“The almighty Siva and Guru art One.
No more birth and no more death!
He's endowed me with grace sublime.”
--Natchintanai. 346.
We learnt to see with his lens of Grace that Intrinsic Evil there is not, and that misery is not absence of happiness, but limited happiness in a world of duality and impermanence. Sivathondu implied devotional practices and yagjnas, pilgrimages and worship which were all essential disciplines in the spiritual quest of discovering the God within us. Swami's sacrificial illness from 1961 to 1964 lit an unquenchable flame of devotion amongst his devotees, whence came the realisation that even Bhakti could be just as imperfect as Karma or Dhyana. We learnt to be silent in his presence and awaited the manna that fell from his lips. Day was indistinguishable from night, and the play of opposites preyed less and less on our captive minds, released to enjoy serene peace.
Swami would take us backwards and forwards. He would recall many illuminating reminiscenses of Chellappa Swami, his peerless Gurunathan. Sage Chellappar was completely free from any sense of obligation to act and its disastrous results. He would laugh at the ways of the world, 'a madman' who walked unconcerned up the road of the domain of Truth like a majestic elephant. Devotees would often find him at the Theradi in Nallur engaged in a monologue, blissful in the realisation of the Eternal Self, in the perfection of Truth Absolute.
The resonant voice of the Guru became softened with love in his last days on earth. He would call upon the Divine Mother, Devi Thyalnayaki, and avow that She abides in the conscious core of each one's heart, and would therefore know each one's pain and pleasure intimately, and would swiftly respond to the call of Her unswerving children. He would make us sing the four lines on Thyalnayaki for hours together. Was She no other than the Beloved Guru, the Healer of all life's ills and forebodings? Can it be the Supreme Identity hailed by the sacred Scriptures?
“It is the divine panacea for all earthly ills......
He nutured me and He doth abide in me.”
--Natchintanai. 343.
In these manifold ways would Swami put everyone in the proper perspective, and guide them in the knowledge of the Self. 'Proper deliberation and discrimination, truthfulness in thought, word and deed', were his simple exercises, and he set no home-work for his devotees. “Adore the God within you and sing His Praise”, was his bidding at all times during his last phase. Natchintanai Songs and the refrain of Thyalnayaki resounded day and night in his ashram:
“Oh Mother Thyalnayaki in renowned Vannai,
Source of gnosis and divine grace, SivaKami
Who bestowed the gift of Kandasamy.
This is the right moment, Mother Mine.”
It became significantly clear that his words carried profound meanings, and were like the pole star, a pointer to expose oneself to his Grace. The Guru's boat was fast approaching the haven--sunset and evening star and after that--who can know? “I have not left anyone of my loved ones by the wayside. I prepare to go, having done what could be done--to each according to his needs”, was the Master's affirmation on the eve of his great illumination.
The Saiva Puranas recount that in the Hall of Thillai, Siva materialised the sea of milk and fed the child Upamanyu with the compassion of a Mother. He sang the song with this allusion.
“Indweller in the hearts of lovers,
Oh, luminous insight 'neath the seeing eye!
Thou did'st conjure up the sea of milk
And pervadeth both heaven and earth.”
--Natchintanai. 119.
He punctuated it with the query as to when the devotee seated before him would eliminate the shroud of gloom. Silently was relayed the reply to the guru, that both the battle with the unseen forces and the act of surrender to his Will were the accomplished acts of long ago. She sang,
“In homage meek, thy hallowed ones implore thy Grace, AUM.”
--146.
It was her indomitable faith that the elimination of weakness depended on his Grace! Did not Siva as Neelakantan quaff the poison first, so that His devotees could sip the nectar of bliss without fear of the deadly poison of the triple malas? Was not the Guru a Neelakantan? She took up the melody of Swami's favourite Natchintanai,
“Thine are we, Oh Siva Aum!
Thy faithful devotees are we who seek thy solace.”
--145.
to ward off the fear of frailty. The elixir of servitude--Sivathondu, which He had fully enjoyed and communicated in the Natchintanai psalms was the antidote--Guru marunthu, against life's pollution. The Physician chimes,
“The tonic that makes mortals immortal,
Have you tasted It and rejoiced?
--Natchintanai. 140.
It was given by Swami for the last time on the night of the 24th March, 1964 to the sorrowful Ma's choking query, whither Swami? His healing balm was enshrined in the code of Ellaam Sari--His last utterance--“All's right with God's Grace--In His Will lies the harmony of Perfection.” “Ellaam Sari is the resonance of Muluthum Unmai--God Is.” The Mantra connotes God as the undisputed, unchallengeable Reality of Everything in the microcosm and macrocosm; It instills unshakable faith in His Perfection and in His manifestations. It conveys the idea of complete surrender to God, since He pervades every fibre of my being and all beings. The Mantra communicates the quintessence of a life of perfect dedication, and reflects the beauty of God-Realisation.
It is the testimony of the Eternal Vedas:
“Purnam adah, purnam idam, purnat purnam udacyate
purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavasisyate.
That is full; this is full. The full comes out of the full.
Taking the full from the full, the full itself remains.
Aum peace, peace, peace.”
--Isa Upanishad--Invocation.
Ellaam Sari marked the close of the Swami--Ma dialogue on this temporal plane of relativity. In the divine harmony of voiceless Silence, it continues to vibrate and ever shall reverberate.
“He moved amidst us as Sivam--all pervasive,
He beheld every thing as the Divine will of Siva.
He gauged the true nature of time and space,
And is One with the Supreme in serene Santam.
--Tirumantram. Upadesh 15.
Who can measure the infinite glory of the Jnana-Guru? The hymn of Self-realisation, Nirvanashatka by Sri Sankaracharya unfolds the noblest conception of the Guru as the Way and the Goal.
“I am not made of breath, or of the five-fold moving wind,
Nor of the seven biles, nor of the five sheaths;
Speech is not me, nor hands nor feet am I;
For I am Bliss-Consciousness,
Siva is in me and I am Siva.
I know no hatred, nor love;
I covet not, nor does illusion shroud my eyes;
I have no pride, nor the touch of anger;
I belong neither to Dharma nor to wealth;
I am Bliss-Consciousness,
Siva is in me and I am Siva.”