14. Butter within the milk

 Verse 14

நாலுவேதம் ஓதுவீர், ஞானபாதம் அறிகிலீர்

பாலுள்நெய் கலந்தவாறு பாவிகாள், அறிகிலீர்!

ஆலம் உண்ட கண்டனார் அகத்துளே இருக்கவே

காலன் என்று சொல்லுவீர், கனவிலும் அஃதில்லையே

Translation:

You will recite the four Vedas but will not know the part, wisdom.

You do not know that It remains like clarified butter within milk,

When the Lord with the neck through which poison was consumed remains within,

You will say there is Lord of Death.  It does not exist even in dream.

Commentary:

            Carya pādam (outer discipline), kriya pādam (inner discipline), yoga pādam (methods for union) and jñāṉa pādam (realization) are the four parts of Divine Experience.  Civavākkiyar refers to the fourth part here.  Civavākkiyar says that people recite the four Vedas, Rg, Yajur, Sāma and Atharvaṇa but will not know the fourth part, jñāṉa pādam.  The Divine actually remains within the limited soul like clarified butter within milk.  Its presence is not obvious but through proper practice, it becomes visible like the butter which becomes visible upon churning.  Like butter that is spread in every milk particle, the Divine is present in every cell.  It is all pervading.

Civavākkiyar says that once the presence of the Divine within is recognized, there is no death for the aspirant.  He says that death does not exist even in such a person’s dreams.  This idea is explained in the story of Markandeya. The Ultimate Reality manifested as  Śiva  and rescued him from the clutches of Yama, the God of Death. 

The Ultimate Reality is referred to as ‘the one with neck that consumed poison’ or ‘vidamuṇda kaṇdan’.  In Siddha parlance, this refers to a supreme state of yoga.  Through kundalini practice, the aspirant changes the direction of flow of his seminal fluid and raises it upwards.  This process is called ‘madai māṛṛal’ or ulta sādhana.  The sexual fluid that flows down is the poison that submerges a person in worldly life.  The same fluid, when it moves upwards, grants liberation.  This is indicated by Śiva’s blue neck and the story that he consumed the poison that emerged from churning the milky ocean.  Churning of the milky ocean corresponds to breath control and rising of kundalini śakti through the suṣumna nādi, a process that confers extraordinary powers to the practitioner. Tirumular laments that none knows this significance of the “blackened neck” and they simply say that Śiva swallowed poison.  They are ignorant about the real significance (mandiram 521).