Tamil Yoga Siddha Research
Project:
The Basic Difficulties (Part 3)
by Dr. T. N. Ganapathy, Ph D
Director of the Tamil Siddha Yoga Research Project
The following article, the second
in a series, is excerpted from our forthcoming book, "The
Yoga of Tamil Siddha Boganathar" by Dr. T.N. Ganapathy In
the first article, the basic difficulty, the term "Siddha"
itself, was discussed. The present article discusses other difficulties
involved in studying the works of the Siddhas.
6. The philosophy of the human body
All the orthodox systems suspected
the Siddhas because they advocated the theory that one can attain
freedom or moksa with the body. According to the Tamil Siddhas
the aim of yoga sadhana is kayasiddhi or the perfection of the
body. Orthodox Saiva Siddhantins treated the Siddhas as religious
outcastes and had excluded the Siddha view from both their vast
cannonical corpus and socio-philosophic theories.67 It has also
been reported that the pandarams (ascetics) of the Saiva class
sought after copies of the Siddha poetry and destroyed them.68
There was a general opinion among scholars that most of the Siddhas
were plagiarists and impostors and eaters of opium and dwellers
in the land of dreams and they have been systematically stigmatized
as a deviation from the caste Hindu conformist model. The Siddha
doctrines and poems do not get the "official" sanction
from the "elite" and the "educated" though
their songs are popular among the masses in Tamilnadu.
Let us understand the Siddha
conception of the human body, which is unique and which is not
accepted by any system of Indian philosophy; it is an unacknowledged
postulate in Indian tradition. In Tamil Siddha philosophy the
human body has acquired an importance it had never before attained
in the spiritual history of India. According to the Siddhas, an
adept's experimental field is always himself and his body, which
contains in itself an immortal essence. The ordinary human body
can be and should be transformed into a divine body and must be
made an aid to liberation. The Siddha view of body as a moksa
sadhana is known as kaya sadhana. In Tirumantiram we come across
a number of verses praising the importance of the human body as
a ladder to mukti. In one celebrated verse Tirumular calls the
human body as the abode of God69. In Tamil Siddha literature the
temple is an image of both the macrocosm and the microcosm, the
cosmic man as well as the inner being of man. The various parts
of the structure of the temple are designed as features of the
human body70. The Tamil Siddhas understood the human body as a
threshold, a passage to the ultimate Reality. Sivavakkiyar is
fond of using the expression threshold, i.e., "vasal"
in Tamil and he calls the human body as a threshold where God
resides. The concept "threshold" is a mystical one and
the body is one such mystical threshold, the other threshold being
the guru. In Siddha literature the threshold is a mystical thing.
It is a boundary between two worlds, the ordinary, profane world
and the sacred world beyond. It is a point where we pass from
one mode of being to another, from one level of consciousness
to another. The term "vasal" used by the Tamil Siddhas
stand for the moment when we ourselves open up to new depths of
our being. They say that one need not go to places of pilgrimage
or study sastras when the threshold is in oneself71. The idea
of the body as a microcosm of Reality received a spiritual, mystical
denotation in the Tamil Siddhas as against the purely physical
denotation of it in the other traditions. The inter-relations
of man's body and the universe (that is Reality) have to be realized
by spiritual endeavour. Kaya sadhana is such an endeavour. Another
important aspect of the Siddha view of the human body is nyasa,
which consists of feeling the God or powers representing the Gods
in different parts of the body.
In Siddha literature we come
across the following types of bodies- the sthula-deha, the yoga-deha,
the siddha-deha, the pranava or mantra deha and the jnana or the
divya deha. Turning the sthula-deha into divya-deha is kaya sadhana.
Sivavakkiyar explains the transformation of the physical body
into a divine body on the analogy of a worm turning itself into
a butterfly72. Let us state briefly the various stages involved
in kaya sadhana. Sthula sarira is the unripe, ordinary, physical
body not disciplined by yoga. It is a "deceptive threshold",
and one has to "open" it , i.e., go beyond it to achieve
kaya siddhi. Sivavakkiyar says that people should protect, immortalize,
and preserve the body through the method of yoga just as they
would protect a beautiful lady of the house73. When the sthula
sarira is disciplined by yoga it becomes ripe or pakva. Pambatticcittar
uses the term "pudam" in Tamil which is the equivalent
of "making one ripe" pakva74. Agatiyar Pancacaram-37
speaks about removing the unwanted elements from the body through
the process of burning, (i.e., Kundalini agni).75 Once the deha
is hardened by yoga, the internal forces help the sadhaka to arouse
the kundalini in him, which passes through the six adharas. It
is a process of the acquirement of yogic powers, siddhis, leading
to a siddha deha, where the body can do and be anything at the
will of the sadhaka, since it does not have to adhere to the spatio-temporal
laws or the laws of space and time of the ordinary body. After
the attainment of the siddhis, the siddha deha is turned into
a mantra deha called pranava tanu. The pranava deha is a body
consisting of the sacred formula "AUM". It is the body
of nada or sound. This yogin's body is accompanied by certain
mystic sound vibrations in the form of mantra called "AUM
Namasivaya". The yogin's body at this stage is not different
from the mantra, that is, the body gets transformed into a sound-form,
mantra-form. This body is called pranava or mantra deha. We find
a description of this body, mantira meni(mantra deha) in Tirumantiram76.
The human figure representing the pranava deha is called the mantirmeni
chakkaram in Tamil Siddha literature. In a Tamil work called Tirumantiramalai-300
we find a description of how the fifty- one letters of the alphabet
constitute the various parts of the body77.
According to the Tamil Siddhas
the man with the pranava deha is a jivan-mukta, "the man
liberated while living". In Tirumantiram we find a description
of the characteristrics of a jivan mukta78. In Siddha philosophy
there is no videha-mukti(post-mortem liberation) but only jivan
mukti; for videha mukti is, at best, only a hypothesis. A jivan
mukta does not possess a personal consciousness, but a witnessing
consciousness. Even though he acts in the world, he does not have
the sense of "I act". He sees all the usual things in
a miraculous new light as he has entered into the heart of reality.
The Bauls of Bengal call this state of jivan mukta as jiyanta-mora,
"being dead while yet alive". We find similar expressions
used by many Tamil Siddhas. As a Taoist thinker has said, "The
perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it
rejects nothing. It receives, but does not keep". In Siddha
philosophy a jivan mukta does not die to attain liberation, but
is transformed into the very mode of liberation, viz., the divya
deha. When the jivan mukta gets into divya deha he becomes one
with Eternity, a paramukta. The "either-or" category
of logic regarding his existence or non-existence does not arise
in the case of a Siddha who has attained the divya deha. Divya
deha is a situation in which one is participating in immortality
from now onward and from this present world; and immortality should
not be conceived as a survival, post mortam. The attainment of
divya deha is not videha mukti. There are standing examples against
videha mukti, such as Saint Nandanar, Saint Manikkavasagar, Sri
Andal(merging with the Lord at Srirangam), Sri Caitanya and Sri
Ramalinga Swamigal, who have attained divya deha. It is highly
interesting and instructive to note the process which the great
yoga master Sri Krsna adopted for transforming his material body
into a divya deha when he desired to leave the world. He, in concentration,
executed a yoga process termed "agneyi-yoga-dharma",
i.e., the process of radiating inner fire, by which he reduced
his body to a subtler form, and with that body he left the world.
This is mentioned in the Bhagavata.
The divya deha is called cinmaya,
"the body of light". It is a "body" of infinite
space, vettaveli, a vast expanse without any determination79.
At this stage the "body" glows with the fire of immortality.
It is called "the body of light", oli udambu in Tamil.
As Tirumular says figuratively even the "hairs" of this
transmuted body will shine80. When a Siddha attains divya deha,
he attains Sivahood. Hence divya deha is referred to as kailaya
deha81. In Siddha mysticism the liberation of the soul is not
conceived as a purusartha; rather we have the concept of jivan
mukti or liberation within the span of life in the form of the
attainment of immortality.
Without entering into the details
we may say that in Tamil Siddha literature we come across three
methods by which the human body can be transmuted into immortality.
First, there is the method of alchemic process (containing Siddha
medicine) which, instead of being performed in the laboratory,
takes place in the body and consciousness of the sadhaka. In Bogar
700, we find a reference to the method of preparation of the greatest
of medicines -muppu-by advocating which, the body will turn into
divya deha, an immortal golden body82. The second is the method
of kundalini yoga, which is the method adopted by all Tamil Siddhas.
A third method that is suggested is what is called ulta sadhana
"contrary practice" which states that the sex sentiment
properly cultivated may lead man back to the very heart of reality.
When sex energy is sublimated and transmuted the yogin rises aove
the sense of identity with the physical body. This state is technically
called urdhareta. Agastiyar Jnanam, Bogar's poems and Tirumantiram
speak of the third process and assure us that there is no death
for a man who adopts it perfectly83. Following the footsteps of
Bogar, this technique is taught, of converting sex energy into
spiritual energy in the Kriya Yoga centers around the world84.
The way to overcome physical evil is to accept the Siddha doctrine
of body. For, in acceptance there is transcendence.
Tamil
Siddha Research Project Part 4
Copyright. Babaji's Kriya Yoga and Publications. 2002
Return to Articles
Babaji's Kriya Yoga
Home Page
