From Tiruvachakam additional notes -1
Surest path is through the way of Love.
The heart must melt in love to relish the supreme love.
Manikvachakar: To the fiery ones who know not the blessed path, I was groping till He showed me the way of Love.
It is not that we are ignorant of the underlying philosophy, but we are blind to the vision of love.
1. The only preparation necessary to lead one to this ladder is to relinquish all possessions, material and mental and seek nothing.
2. The degree of advancement towards the Beloved depends upon true knowledge and an intensely positive state of mind of the devotee.
Until conviction has become firm and well rooted, follow the injunctions of the scriptures and rituals.
3. Doubts. fears assail him.
Is it possible to merge himself entirely in Universal Love?
Is it all 'thou' or the impersonal 'that'?
Can there be a dual throb between him and the world of persons/ things?
Dying unto self...when he discerns 'this' body, instead of 'my' body.
4. Purging the mind of all grossness and baseness.
5. Suffering becomes most acute when perchance he forgets Him.
Consecrates his body, mind , spirit at His feet.
'I tender to thee, my all'.
6. Loneliness at his separate existence from the Beloved.
7. Devotee exhausted...prays for all embracing balm of divine love.
That shall steady him in his doubts.
'That I may not falter, look upon me with tender love.'
Then the veil of darkness begins to recede. The bard walks in the light of grace flowing from the Divine mount.
8. He realises his nearness to the unfolding of the bliss.
9. Halo of purity as he takes his stride with the holy companions.
10.The ecstasy of Bliss.
...........
The seeker of Truth having obtained the object of his search,
sees That alone,
hears That alone,
speaks of That alone
thinks of That alone.
...........
but first give me thy manna of grace.
A pure heart alone can worship Truth.
...........
I sink. I totter. Endure, I cannot.
The voice of Guru is heard in stillness, as he is comforted:
'Why despair? The remedy lies in your hands.'
...
The urgency for right understanding.
....
Is it all 'l' or all 'thou'?
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He is strengthened to receive the offerings of Love Divine.
..
Vanquished as he was by the insuperable power of the Divine Will.
He gave up his isolation and separateness.
It was then that he experienced His living presence within him.
At this juncture, he began his ascent on the mystic mount of Love.
Pang of separation from the Lord more intense than being burnt alive.
....
The grace of God impels the soul of man to turn God-ward.
He is initiated as a votary of Truth
.........
To abide by the way of Truth, the poet admonishes his soul to get rid of all impurities, within and without, step by step.
.........
The Truest of True lovers of God have attained the Bliss of Truth.
....
Fear and despondency are due to the lack of detachment (vairagya).
They are not the result of any separation from the gracious feet.
Actually, the seeming separation is no separation to one who can view the world in a spirit of non attachment.
The poet's magical power of expressing with the utmost poignancy man's spiritual weariness, his meancing perplexities and his immense difficulty to abandon the grip of the world,
are conveyed with a precise and clear apprehension of the human soul, and it's ultimate destiny.
'To be free from frailty, ignorance and fear.
To be free from conflict which makes him suffer so much.
To be free from cares, loneliness, despondency, sensual attachment.
To be free from wrong judgment, indiscrimination.
To be free from infidelity and insincerity.
To be free from the temptations of the flesh to err.
To be free to sing and adore.
To serve the master and his followers steadfastly.
To thirst after Him and hunger for his love.
To be liberated from all taints of humanity
And so attain the feet of Shiva.'
........
My dim sense of unreality wanes little by little,
as nearer and nearer I draw unto Thy Light.
In no objects are thou manifest.
Who ca know thee?
Ref: Shvetashwara Upanishad, mantras 16 and 20.
'Surely he is the guardian of All, hidden in every creature,
to whom the seers of bramha, powers divine are all conjoined.
Thus, knowing Him, one cuts the bond of death.
...
As ignorance wanes before the Light of God, the soul perceives the Pure Intelligence and there is no conscious differentiation of subject and object.
The Lord and Atma exist in this state of everlasting union and bliss where the Pure Intelligence Sat has drawn the Sat-asat impure intelligence into it's own.
making it shed off it's impurity that has been because of it; separation, of differentiation.
If one fixes God inn the Light engendered in himself,
by concentration of the attention inwards,
and adores Him in that condition,
and then desires His grace,
The Lord will grant his desires,
Being in himself.
......
Lord, I have nothing to give you.
Thou art my all.
My comfort thou.
My trepidation thou.
None other have I here.
The nature of the purifying process is to annihilate self-hood and the adamantine ego hood of man.
Myself, mine I know no more.
Day and night's recurrence I know not.
In this thorough purging, the soul is in the throes of desolation and cries out, that it is abandoned by the Lord.
I'll yearn as a cow yearns for her calf.
Let my pining souls melt in love.
Underneath thy resounding feet.
Then we pass on to the true goal of the bhakta's quest.
It is union with the Lord.
His soul is immersed in supreme understanding, wisdom and eternal peace.
..
The soul self naughted becomes pure, plunged in ineffable bliss.
..
Wave after wave of spiritual yearning follows one another in rapid succession.
..
He who is not intelligible to many, but understood only by those who are poor in spirit.
I was considered an eccentric man by the world.
When a man does not make himself a fitting receptacle of Love, but depends superficially on the Lord's gracious munificence,
he is sure to feel abandoned and suffer disappointment.
Ask and it shall be given.
.............part 1 ends ..............
The journey to God must be undertaken in a true spirit of detachment and contemplation.
In the company of tested and truthful devotees.
Those who pursue the goal steadfastly, should not falter at any stage of the journey, nor halt because of their weakness.
'In Him lies our strength.
The self realises the Self'.
True bhaktas:
They are self possessed with no ties binding them.
Guided by their own Inner Light, they are their own master.
They ask, 'Who are we? What is ours?
Away with desires.
All is an illusion.
Vanquishing the ego..
Realise that in His Will, lies the true goal of life.
Relinquishing all that is false and unreal.
Be ready to follow the light that gleams from Hari's feet.
.............
He is dear who annihilates the ego and tunes his will to His Love.
Desire and indignation completely abandoned, ...get ready for there is not much time left on earth.
Adorable are those men of God who surrender their will to His will,
in peace.
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Apprehends the truth of oneness.
He is all that is.
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If a man batters at the door of Love ceaselessly, crying for liberation and union, the Lord cannot hide Himself.
....
Ever since the Lord pierced him with the arrow of realisation, and awakened his Inner Eye, Manikvachakar was able to realise that the divine grace was the greatest panacea against the miseries of life.
Stages:
The soul gets diffused by the light of the Lord.
The soul is set free from the influence of the threefold bonds,
through the gift of the divine grace.
Attains illumination to live eternally in the conscious and full enjoyment of Shiva's presence,
in everlasting bliss.
The saint chases all the deluding joys and misguided duties that cross the path of man,
awakens him from his stupor,
so that he will be in readiness to receive Grace.
Only then shall man liberate himself forever from the weariness of existence.
...
The finite cannot perceive the Infinite.
Hence, maya is viewed as a bond because it limits the soul's vision.
Anava, maya, karma 3 bonds to get rid of.
.......
The dawn of true wisdom breaks the shackles of the 5 senses.
...
The fruit of meditation is release from pashubhava, the state of bondage.
In looking upon the Lord as other than the Self, the soul has necessarily to be thought of as limited,
Hence, one has to meditate on oneself as free from these trammels,
and as identical with the glorious, independent and blissful Shiva.
The lustrous light of Grace pierces the murky clouds of Maya,
And bestows True wisdom.
.....
If man realises that all the insentient and sentient creatures in the Universe, are really the activities of God, then he stands one with God.
His body, mental apparatus will be transformed as they become instruments of God.
..............................................end.........................................................
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