Poigai, Bhutam and Pey alwars are known as the first three Alwars. There is a significant story attached to them that implies a mystic origin to the Naalayira Divya Prabhandham. The three Alvars who were contemporaries were on a pilgrimage worshiping Vishnu in different temples and they happened to meet in Tirukoilur. It was raining heavily and so they sought shelter in the front room of a house. It was a very small place and the first to come in was Poykai Alvar, who lay down. Presently Bhutattalvar entered and now there was enough space for both only to sit. There was no let-up in the rain and as they sat meditating, Pey Alvar came to the place seeking shelter. So the three of them stood there repeating the Lord's name. Just then it began to appear as if they were being pressed together by a fourth person. It was a feeling, a presence and yet quite palpable.
The mystic presence illumined in a flash the true nature of Reality to Poykai, Bhutan and Pey Alvars, The gnostic experience opened up the floodgates of sovereign devotional poesy for it was not inferential knowledge but direct perception that had brought the Alvars to the Divine. And what had they understood? Simply, that the whole creation is God and the devotee uses the world of phenomena to offer his thanksgiving to the Creator of this world.
So Poykai sang:
"With the world as bowl, the sea as ghee, The fiery sun as the kindled wick; I have strung a garland praise for His feet, For one who holds the red-flamed discus, So as to cross this sea of troubles."
There is a world within man which matches the external world and this too can be recognized clearly by intuition.
Bhutattalvar uses the inner countries of this mind for his adoration:
"Devotion as the bowl, aspiration as ghee, Meditative delight as the wick; Such the flaming lamp of knowledge I have lighted for Naaraayana Whom I have served through scriptural Tamil."
When the outer and the inner worlds thus move in rhythm, all contraries disappear. One sees the One unalterable Truth everywhere.
God appears then as Redemptive Grace, as recorded by the third aspirant at Tirukoilur, Pey Alvar:
"I have seen Lakshmi; the golden form of my Lord brilliant as the sun; The golden discus that veers ferocious In the battle-ground; also the conch In the hand of my sea-hued Lord"
The Vedic invocations to Sri are experiential realities to the Alwars and they transcend the human barriers effortlessly.
A new perception of the Reality happens, which is altogether different from what one perceives from the point of view of the world or the individual. The divinely possessed one perceives the world and all with the over-welling love that God has for his creation. It is no longer with human love that one loves God; but with God-love that one perceives the world and all. This is parama-bhakti, not merely transcendent, but superior verily to that also.
The three Alvars sang a hundred hymns each. These three hundred verses are the starting point of the Divya Prabandham canon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukoilur
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tirukoilur
https://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=Tirukoilur
The mystic presence illumined in a flash the true nature of Reality to Poykai, Bhutan and Pey Alvars, The gnostic experience opened up the floodgates of sovereign devotional poesy for it was not inferential knowledge but direct perception that had brought the Alvars to the Divine. And what had they understood? Simply, that the whole creation is God and the devotee uses the world of phenomena to offer his thanksgiving to the Creator of this world.
So Poykai sang:
"With the world as bowl, the sea as ghee, The fiery sun as the kindled wick; I have strung a garland praise for His feet, For one who holds the red-flamed discus, So as to cross this sea of troubles."
There is a world within man which matches the external world and this too can be recognized clearly by intuition.
Bhutattalvar uses the inner countries of this mind for his adoration:
"Devotion as the bowl, aspiration as ghee, Meditative delight as the wick; Such the flaming lamp of knowledge I have lighted for Naaraayana Whom I have served through scriptural Tamil."
When the outer and the inner worlds thus move in rhythm, all contraries disappear. One sees the One unalterable Truth everywhere.
God appears then as Redemptive Grace, as recorded by the third aspirant at Tirukoilur, Pey Alvar:
"I have seen Lakshmi; the golden form of my Lord brilliant as the sun; The golden discus that veers ferocious In the battle-ground; also the conch In the hand of my sea-hued Lord"
The Vedic invocations to Sri are experiential realities to the Alwars and they transcend the human barriers effortlessly.
A new perception of the Reality happens, which is altogether different from what one perceives from the point of view of the world or the individual. The divinely possessed one perceives the world and all with the over-welling love that God has for his creation. It is no longer with human love that one loves God; but with God-love that one perceives the world and all. This is parama-bhakti, not merely transcendent, but superior verily to that also.
The three Alvars sang a hundred hymns each. These three hundred verses are the starting point of the Divya Prabandham canon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukoilur
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tirukoilur
https://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=Tirukoilur
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