Surrender Is The Way Out
The yoga mārga must come naturally out of intense bhakti and internalized worship. The intensity of bhakti is developed on the kriyā mārga. The final remains of the ego are pulverized on the charyā mārga, where Sivathondu, selfless service, is performed unrelentingly with no thought of reward, but a hope that the puṇya, merit, will be beneficial in the long run. The āṇava mārga is easy to leave through total surrender to God, Gods and guru, along with seva, service to religious institutions. Surrender, prapatti, is the key. All the religions’ teachings teach surrender to the divine forces. Great suffering, the psychic surgery kind of suffering, great repentance, is experienced in the overlapping of the charyā mārga with the āṇava mārga. The beginning knowledge of Hindu temple worship, scripture, being dragged into it by some aggressive teacher, later a desire for reconciliation—all this leads to penance, prāyaśchitta, followed by serious sādhana. It is not without a great ordeal and effort, soul-searching and decision-making that one mārga bends into the other or bows before the other before it releases the consciousness to go on. One mārga must really bend before the other before one can be released. Before entering another mārga, it is a matter of giving up, which is painful, most especially for the āṇava mārga people, for whom suffering is no stranger.
How can someone on the āṇava mārga be convinced that there is a better way to live, think and act? The word here is pursuit. We are talking about pursuit. Āṇava people are always pursuing something, the fulfillment comes on the āṇava mārga, and there is fulfillment, but in a never-stopping pursuit of fulfillment. As soon as we stop the pursuit of fulfillment, we become unhappy, empty, feel unfulfilled and, I might even say, at times depressed. The āṇava mārga is the I-ness, me-ness, mine-ness; me, my, I. “I want, I give, I get, I collect.” I, me and mine are the key words here. The true āṇava mārgī is the owner, the getter, the consumer, not always the producer, vulnerable to the emotions of fear, who uses jealousy as an asset to obtain. Anger is the motivating power to fulfill desire, by stimulating fear in others. He is a master of deceit. The true āṇava mārgī, perfected in the art, has at his beck and call the eighty-four wiles of the lower emotions.
Why would someone begin to feel the need to change to a nicer way of life? The word why is the important word here. They are questioning, they are asking, they are intuiting another way of life. They have observed, obviously, others living a fuller life, fulfilled by the fulfillments of their pursuits, having left the āṇava mārga. Āṇava mārgīs have become aware of the existence of the charyā mārgīs and maybe a kriyā mārgī or two. It is the very force of the desire of pursuit that leads the purusha, the soul, to the charyā mārga into Śaiva Siddhānta. I see the whole thing like a tunnel—the karma mārga, the māyā mārga, the āṇava mārga, the charyā mārga, the kriyā mārga, yoga mārga—which the soul matures through as a child matures from a child to an adult. The problem is that it takes a little doing to define the pursuit. Therefore, the entrance of this tunnel, to be a good āṇava mārgī, is kind of crowded, and this is where the problem lies. To truly get on the āṇava mārga, to define the ego’s identity, one must have the goal of pursuit.
There are two mārgas before the āṇava mārga begins, within the realm of deep ignorance. Here reside the masses who live in confusion, the professional consumers who know the generosity of society, who will never in this lifetime manifest a desire, a goal, a thought for the future worthy enough to be accepted on the āṇava mārga. They are the slaves of the āṇava mārgīs, those whom, as slaves, they manipulate without conscience.