Yesterday was New Year’s Eve in Tamil Nadu, the province in India where I have been staying for the past two weeks. I went with my friends Ganga, Tara, Sanjay, Lavania, and Swami to see a great Siddha (Aka “medicine person” in Shamanic language. You could also call him a saint or sage in other traditions). His name is Mahananda Siddha, and here is his story:
About ten years ago, he was a normal man in his seventies living in Bangalore. He had made his fortune by exporting turmeric, and then became the CEO of several software companies. Needless to say, he was a VERY wealthy man, even by American standards. He was also very spiritual, and donated large portions of his fortune to restoring and renovating temples and feeding hungry devotees and sadhus (wandering ascetic pilgrims).
Then, one night, Shiva appeared to him in his bedroom. Shiva told him to give up everything – all his companies, his wealth, his wife and kids, and go meditate on a specific mountain in Tamil Nadu, called Mahadeva Malai (Great Lord Mountain). So he followed Shiva’s request, giving up everything and going to this mountain. When he arrived there, Shiva gave him very specific instructions. He told him to never cut his hair again, to only take a bath once a year, and to only wear one piece of cloth all year and change it when he takes his bath. The catch is that Shiva also told him to never eat food or drink water again, that he should instead lie directly on a fire every morning and absorb his energy that way. These days, Mahananda Siddha calls the food we eat “dummy food.” He says “You get your energy 2nd or 3rd hand, from plants or animals; I get my energy 1st hand directly from the sun, the fire.” There is only one exception to this routine, which is that he doesn’t lie in the fire if it is raining because that stops the rain, and he says the farmers need the rain.
Yesterday was quite a blessing, to say the least. It is common for Hindu devotees to perform the ritual of abhishek, which involves pouring water or milk over a Shiva lingam (a phallic-shaped stone representing Shiva). All over India, Hindu priests have been performing this ceremony for thousands of years. Yesterday, we performed abhishek to Mahananda Siddha, pouring water and milk all over his head. He says this is energetically equivalent to doing abhishek on 30 million Shiva lingams simultaneously.
On our way home, our friend Swami showed us a holy place where a great yogi is entombed. They call these places “Samadhis”, where great yogis have since dropped the body, but their spirit continues to remain in that place and nourish the spiritual life of the people. It is very common in India. There are probably 50 Samadhis in Tamil Nadu alone. This yogi is known as the river yogi, because about 30 years ago, the local people found him buried in the mud under the river, deep in meditation, when they were digging up some mud for building their houses. Then he opened his eyes and looked at them. They instantly realized he was not dead, but in Samadhi (a state of deep meditation and absorption with the Divine), so they brought him to their village, called Poondi. He is now known as Poondi Mahan, the saint of Poondi, and people can come to visit him and feel his darshan (blessings). The energy of his Samadhi was blissful, loving, and pure. Wow, what a day!
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