Let us always keep in mind that all religions and philosophies are based on
postulates. These are posited to make the philosophic reasoning stand. God, soul
and the world are the three main postulates of any religious philosophy
including siddhanta.

We can verify the world by simply opening our eyes and seeing the world out
there. It is Real. We can prove it. It is mind and matter, albeit of temporary
existence, arrangements of protons, and the neurological firings that asssesses
information and passes it on to the consciousness. The mind is a tool of the
consciousness of the soul.

We are aware of our soul as our consciousness, and we all accept it as a reality
although we cannot prove it. It is a given.

We posit God as a reality, although it cannot be proven.

What we have is philosophies built on these three, two of which posits cannot be
proved, because they are non-matter. What we have is rational reductionist
philosophies that are non-falsifiable, therefore cannot be deconstructed. Give
us a philosophy that can be falsified and we shall falsify it.

What we do have are the countless testimonies of sages who have experienced the
other two posits - god and soul, whose 'experience' bypassed and circumvented
their sense organs and therefore not received by their sense organs and mind,
and therefore remains inexplicable. It is inexplicable because our consciousness
requires tools to express the experience, but the sense organs and mind that we
have are inadequate for this task.

Eventualy we fall back on and rely on their testimonies, and the only way to
prove it is to trod the path and experience it ourselves, then leave a testimony
for others to peruse.

The issue here is 'why did god create the soul'. And the answer is that
'obviously because the souls were already infested with malam and therefore God
in His Infinite Love and Grace refashioned existing primordial matter for the
souls to experience, evolve and divest itself from the malam and gain unity with
God'.

The new question is, where did the primordial matter come from?

The next question is, is the malam integral to the soul? If not, how did it
become infested with malam in the first place? Why was this question not dealt
with?

Obviously the malam is not integral to the soul simply because God eventually
unfetters the soul from it. If it is integral, it cannot be divested of it.

So when did the soul become infested with the malam which is not integral to it?

This is the question to the Meykandar siddhantists.

If the answer is 'we don't know', then why not accept in the first place that
'we don't know why, and how, God created the world, and how God and the soul is
one'. Why try and explain this first 'we don't know' with the theory of
non-creation of the three pre-existing entities, to end up again with the second
'we don't know'?

The first time we hit a brick wall on logic, that is when our questions on
causation must necessarily cease. If not its a never ending chicken and egg
situation of which came first.

After deconstructing the other philosophies, then establishing siddhanta by
reductionism as a viable and non falsifiable alternate, in my opinion, Meykandar
should have stopped right there and not go further on the question of creation
or non creation of souls. He had already established everything he needed to
establish.

If the subject is not approached, it is already a given assumption, another
posit, that God, souls and world are in unison (somehow) as a one entity,
eternal and beginningless. Such a postulate is entirely in accordance with the
overwhelming majority of testimonies in the agamas and vedas.

Next we then have to deal with the question of God's Veiling Grace. Just what
exactly is He veiling when the soul is supposedly already infested, veiled,
fettered and bonded hopelessly by the malam to the point of total ignorance and
helplessness? Is there a need to veil it further?

Taking a seed, which is already perfect and untainted, and putting it in the
ground and covering it with earth, is veiling it, so that the right conditions
are available for the already perfect untainted seed to sprout, blossom and grow
into a vast tree. This is done, so that the seed 'realises' its vast and full
potential, that it is indeed a towering tree and not just a mere seed. This
analogy serves the purpose of explaining His Veiling Grace and Revealing Grace.

Souls, like seeds, were at all times perfect and untainted. They just needed the
world (pasam) to mature, into His likeness. The seeds transforming into trees,
is movement from one perfection to another perfection, and this is echoed in the
hymn 'purnamadah, purnamidam..'

And where did the untainted seed come from? From that (tat) Big Tree of course.
No further reductionism than this or it leads to another chicken and egg
situation.

Life is a ceaseless text; from the Big Bang which exploded out the whole world
of matter and planets, from the stars shining and emanating light, heat,
magnetism and gravity, to lifeforms dividing, from animals laying eggs to giving
birth, to death and atropy where one changes into another - all these are
examples of one coming out from another, or one changing into another. It is
always an unending loop of 'form change' and transformation only. We do not have
a single instance of one manifesting from nothing, or something transforming
into nothing. There is always a pre-existence but in another form.

So why did the Big Tree create seeds? Its the nature of trees to produce seeds
and propagate itself. Its the nature of the sun to shine, to emanate, and Gods
to create, as Brahma and Vishnu too asked that first question. In that Hindu
myth, referred to many times by Tirumular, we have a testimony that two gods and
an unknown linga of light 'sprang forth from The Nothingness', but there is no
mention of souls or the primordial matter in that primordial time as it was not
there differentiated in those primordial times, has not sprung forth yet we have
to assume. That (tat) Nothingness obviously is not 'empty' or void, as it
emanated three entities. Now if it can emanate three great gods, what is the big
problem with emanating souls and worlds!

Afterall emanation is what we see everyday in our lives in everything. We
produce many kids who came from 'nowhere'. Physically we emanate or discharge,
mentally we emanate or generate ideas and visions, psychically we emanate love
or emotions. Emanation is a flow, and the way to go.

And if the two primordial gods could not figure out how the linga of light
emerged from the Nothingness right before their very eyes even in 'realtime', we
are implicitly told not to proceed further with this line of questioning and
reduction, but stop right there.

Notice that we have not departed at all from saying that the soul and world is
also eternal and beginningless. The seed was already existing as an imprint in
the dna of the Big Tree, as a potentiality waiting to manifest. It was already
enjoying a nondual relationship with the Big Tree.

But the question of 'beginningless' does not apply really until the advent of
the time-space continuum. It does not apply during the interim period after
mahapralaya and before re-creation during which time there is no time-space.
Therefore we cannot say these three entities were 'pre-existing'. What we can
say is that 'they were neither existent nor non existent, neither differentiated
nor non differentiated'.

Regards.

Pathma


PS
I just thought its time to stoke the fires on this lazy sunday morning as I had
nothing better to do. I am not casting doubt on Meykandar; on the contrary as
you already know, I accept it (almost) fully, except that I am stopping just
short of the issue on creation and dissolution, and not proceeding further, as
it is not necessary.

I would agree with Nammalvar that upon mukti souls have the privilege of either
retaining their separate existence, or merging fully and not retaining their
individual identity. There are many such souls who chose to maintain their
separate identity, some of whom are worshipped to this day by Hindus, as gods.