Seer-King
                                                                                                   Veeraswamy Krishnaraj
There was once a king by name Vikaran (= விகாரன்). His kingdom was large with a population of a million people living in one city and many surrounding villages and forests. He used to go around town and villages incognito to see, learn, and reign his kingdom and people according to his observations and impressions. In the former life, he was an accomplished Yogi with siddhis (= சித்தி = Supernatural powers obtained by abstract meditation and exercised at one's will). These Siddhis continued to be his asset and became useful in his exploratory expeditions. His spouse, his court and the palace employees had no idea the king had supernatural powers. He would leave his body in a resting or sleeping position and enter the body of an animal or person. (Sometimes, the Seer-King could be at two or more places at one time -Omnipresence). This is Parakaya Pravesam (பரகாய பிரவேசம் = Transmigration). He could enter a person or an animal. This depended upon the role he took at that moment in time. He could change from a person to an animal and vice versa, if the occasion demands such a change. When he changed his forms, he always had his original mental capacity of the king and the mindset of the incognitos. This helped him because an incognito has to play his or its genuine role with the king's mindset in the background. Incognito dog should bark; a donkey should bray; a lion should roar; a beggar should wear ragged clothes, look and act pitiful... At the same time he should retain his native ability of the former self. Transfiguration and transmutation belong in this category. He had his own spies to observe, inform and educate him on the goings-on in his kingdom. kingdom.
 Foraging elephants
Once a herd of young elephants left the matriarch and invaded rice fields and destroyed them. This is very common even today. News reached the king. The king morphed into the matriarch and led the herd out of the green fields into the verdant forest. The herd knew the smell and peculiar movements of the matriarch. The incognito king played the authentic role in full measure.
Royal horseman and clothing fetish
The transmigrating incognito assumed the role of a Royal horseman (Arani) on a night patrol to see the seedy side of life in the city. The real horseman was drunk senseless that night and so could not go on his beat. Is it possible that the Seer-King arranged this? When the incognito reached the red-light district, the ladies of the night were accosting him for supine pleasures and pelvic passados. Each one of them was showing off her assets in a discreet manner and gave the horseman paritāṉam (= bribe for protection), which he gladly accepted. They called him Arani. One of the women led him into a room with freshly made bed. There were dimly lit scented oil lamps with pleasant aroma pervading the room. The bed was covered with rose petals. The woman smelled of sandalwood. The establishment was giving away its service free for the horseman, who could choose his woman for the night. The incognito, when the time came for a consortium, claimed he was out of sorts and left the premises. Everyone on the street bid him good-bye.
How was the king going to address the problem of the horseman? Taking of bribes and consorting with prostitutes were a no-no in his kingdom for the king's employees.
The Cavalry Officer in the meantime was investigating him for living beyond his means. The king's men raided his house and found cash stashed under his mattress and skimpy women's clothes were in a bag. He had a clothing fetish because he was wearing the undergarment of a woman. He stole their undergarments every time he visited with them. Obviously, when he walked out, he took the undergarments with him as mementos. He was charged with unaccounted wealth and theft of garments and was put in jail.
The king was a compassionate man and believed that people could be rehabilitated and made good citizens. The garments were returned to their owners, and the cash was used to feed poor people. The king mandated that he underwent retraining to care for the sick and the elderly in his kingdom. From that day onwards, the king employed women to police the red-light districts.

Cattle-rustling king Pittan and King Vikaran
The king's cattle in thousands were led away by a petty king (pittaṉ) to his kingdom. Reports of cattle rustling came in rolling to the king's court from the herdsmen and the horsemen in charge of the cattle. It was stupid of him to do it, because he did not have enough pasture land. How was he going to feed these animals? King Vikaran sent an envoy to Pittan, who arrested the envoy and put him in jail. Words seeped through across the border from Pittan, the Rustler King, that he would keep half the cattle and send back the rest to king.
King Vikaran sent a palm-leaf notice with royal seal through a messenger he should return the envoy and all the cattle uninjured. King Pittan asked his men to flog him into shreds. Every time the floggers snapped the whips, they became cobras. The floggers dropped the cobras and ran. King Pittan wondered why the men ran away dropping the whips. They said they saw the whips turn into cobras. All the king's men around them saw no cobras and only fallen whips. Pittan thought the floggers were crazy.
He brought in the wrestlers to make a pulp out of the messenger. All the wrestlers ganged up on the messenger and tried to lift him. The messenger would not budge. They all felt he was at least one hundred times heavier than they were put together. Once they tried to fall on him from a height of four feet from his four sides. The messenger moved, and all broke through the wrestling platform and landed on the floor five feet below.
Angry Pittan brought in swordsmen and butchers to cut the messenger into half inch pieces. One raised the sword and brought it down in one flourish to sever his head from the body. The sword became a long feather, only the swordsman saw and no one else. Though he went through the movements, there was no severance of the head. The king dismissed them and put the messenger in the jail. The messenger told the envoy in the jail not to worry and assured him he would go home soon.
The jailers were having small talk among themselves. The messenger put his hand between the rails and took the keys from a jailer. The envoy was shocked to see that the messenger's hand extended at least twenty feet from the rails. The jailers came to the bars and tried to skewer the messenger with their spears. Their spears bent on themselves and broke. The messenger opened the jail gate and moved out with the envoy.
As they were exiting the jailhouse, the king's men caught them and put them back in prison. The messenger morphed into a million rats and invaded the palace. The court was in session with the king talking with the mousy ministers and advisors. There was an invasion of rats in the court; everybody scrambled and ran away. The king retired into his chamber. When he opened the door, a wall of rats jumped on him and pinned him down by their sheer weight. The rats left the queen alone because she was not a participant in cattle rustling. He could not understand all that was happening in his palace.
The cows never saw so many rats; the cattle and the horses ran because the rats were licking the hooves which the animals did not like. The rats drove the cattle back into Vikaran's green pastures, where they belonged.
The messenger and the envoy left for home on their own two stranded horses. King Pittan had his rat moment and would rustle no more cows. All these were illusions created by King Vikaran and experienced by others. They were real for all of them except for Vikaran. The only fact we know in this story is that Pittan stole the cows, the envoy was jailed and the messenger (King Vikaran) rescued the envoy and the cows.

Pilgrimage

The Monkeys Stop the Raid.

King Vikaran installed his son as the Prince Regent and went on a pilgrimage. He informed all the kings and queens across the continent about his peaceful intentions and his passage through their lands on a pilgrimage. He did not ask for any special privileges while he was passing through. The retinue comprised ministers, retainers, elephants, horses, troops, servants, carriers, supplies... The kings and queens of the lands on his way knew of his spotless reputation as a fair king. Usually a horseman would go one day in advance to inform the royal court of imminent passage of the king through their territory. Sometimes he would take the form of the horseman and visit the royal courts himself and convey to them King Vikaran's best wishes and give them gifts.
Once he was in the guise of a horseman visiting the court of a king (Appāvi). On his way, he saw a marauding gang of thieves in the forest. He befriended them and came to know of their intentions to raid the king's treasury. He felt uncomfortable that his visit to court would coincide with robbery. They were hardened criminals who lived in the thick jungles and were beyond the reach of the king. They never raided the king Appavi's treasury before. The raid was a surprise to the king. King Vikaran was wondering how he would stop this super-grand larceny. King Vikaran agreed he would join the raiding party as the horseman intending to sabotage their planned raid. The gang saw feral cats crossing their paths from right to left and then from left to right. He told the head honcho of the raid party of the inauspicious omen of crossing cats. He would not listen and said this was in their plan for a long time. The thieves offered prayers to Goddesses Kali and Durga asking them for success in their campaign. Vikaran offered prayers to the same deities and begged them to sabotage the raid.

The raid was set into motion the next morning throwing omens to the wind . Twenty members were in the team. One man went in advance to the area of the treasury to snoop around and report back. That chosen man was king Vikaran in the guise of a horseman. On the way, he collected bananas from the forest banana groves, recruited monkeys, fed them, and asked them to attack the thugs. The monkeys agreed.
 
The raid was on. The gang saw screeching monkeys on the way. They would jump on the thugs and then suddenly withdraw. They saw a few monkeys, later more moneys and soon there were a thousand monkeys with bananas in their hands. The gang numbered only to twenty persons facing a thousand monkeys. The gang reached the area of treasury. The screeching of the monkeys attracted the attention of palace and treasury guards. The thugs could not withdraw in time because the marauding monkeys corralled and pinned the thugs down within the compound walls. The thugs had swords, spears, knives... which clinched the suspicion of King Appavi's men. They were all arrested and put in jail.

In the meantime, the armed men took custody of the man on the horse. King Vikaran in disguise showed the papers from the king and the gift meant for king Appavi. He was released and sent back to his camp.
Could it be possible that King Vikaran morphed into a thousand monkeys and sabotaged the raid?

The Ants Stop the Thugs.

The king and his retinue moved on. Other pilgrims not belonging to the king's retinue and going to the same destination saw the extravagance of the retinue and wanted to join them. They were promptly but politely rebuffed.
The thugs gained the confidence of the travelers, robbed them and then killed them. The king's camp pitched their tents for the night and rested. The king's tent was always in the center surrounded by other tents some distance away. There were lights and night guardsmen on alert. There were thugs in the neighborhood. They knew a rich potentate was traveling. It was time to steal, kill and scoot in the moonless night.

They were getting ready to rob the king and his party. One thug fell down screaming; a little while later, a second one fell; all of them fell down screaming and clutching their ears. What could cause such a sudden malady that strikes down men in an instant? The answer was obvious but very unusual. The thugs were sleeping near an anthill and the ants got on their clothes and were just meandering aimlessly. They were attracted by the wax in their ears and going after it. They bit them in the ear canals; the ants were too far into the ear canals. They could do nothing but just fall screaming and clutching the ears. The royal camp woke up. A man came up and saw the victim clutching the ear and crying in pain with ants on his clothes. The diagnosis was obvious. He asked a thug to instill oil into the ears, so the breathing tubes of the ant plug up with oil and the ant would die from lack of air. The royal party carried oil pots with them for cooking.
 The thugs received punishment for entertaining the thought of robbing the royal party. Could it be that the Seer King induced the ants to bite them in their ear canals?

The Seer-King (Yogi) was communicating with animals.


Plants, animals, man, and True Yogi
True Yogis communicate with animals. He knows his immediate (and our) ancestors were Huminoids. His genome (and ours) has the memory of behavior patterns of all the animals that led to the descent (or ascent) of man from animals such as Gibbon, Chimp, Gorilla, Orangutan... 
We separated from Gibbon 20 million years ago and yet retain their behavior and those of their ancestors, which remain hidden in the atavistic recess of our mind. 
Encephalization and speech made us human and yet we retain animal behavior. Our females do not show genital swelling as seen in monkeys during estrus. Humans have year-round fertility and do not show or signal the monthly fertility period.
We still have the atrophic attenuated tail, whose remnants sometimes shows up in some newborns. 
The true Yogi has shed all his animal behavior, though he can communicate with the animals from his repository of atavism (the reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some remote ancestor that have been absent in intervening generations). We the people have three levels of consciousness: Awake state, Dream Sleep state and Deep Sleep state. True Yogis, just as man has encephalization and speech, have what ordinary man does not have: Turiya consciousness and Turiyatita. With these two states of consciousness, the Yogi communicates with Universal Consciousness (UC or God). He is closer to UC than most of us are. 
We have speech; animals don't; but the ants and animals can foretell earthquakes. 
Eighty percent of cow's genomes are shared with humans. Does that mean we are 80% cow and 20% human? That twenty percent makes us look different from the cows. Are we Cannibals first and last since we eat the cows and the rest? (I am a Lacto-vegetarian.) We share genes with plant kingdom. Eating plants to sustain life is permitted in Hinduism. What is the remedy or atonement for cutting an apple and eating it? This belongs to obligate or necessary evil to sustain life; atonement is vaiccuvatEvam (வைச்சுவதேவம்), which entails making an offering to Visvadeva (விசுவதேவர்) before taking the main meal of the day. Visuvadevar (Visvadeva = all-gods) is an Aggregate of all gods, known and unknown.
We are tailed monkeys first, later tailless apes (non-human tailless huminoids), and then human. Could that be the reason we have some atavistic behavior patterns of our non-human ancestors? 
We share 25% of our genes with the banana. Could that be the reason we go bananas (crazy, angry and emotional) sometimes? We are 25% of the time sweet in our disposition and 75% of the time bitter. 
Man has all the genes that a mouse has; we have only 300 genes that are special to human beings: Genetically speaking, we are mouse first and human later. Could that be the reason we are timid sometimes and fondle the tailed or tailless mouse while posting on Facebook? Even worse is that we share genes with round worm. 
We share 96% of genes with chimps. Chimps and humans share a common ancestor. Since we share our genes with animals and plants, why do religions say that animals and plants do not have souls? Since we share genes with plants and animals, we would share their DNA behavior patterns too and vice versa.
Postal pigeons save the day and the queen.
They had Postal Pigeons. That is the way the king kept in touch with his son, the Regent. The pigeons use the stars, the sun, the moon, magnetism... for navigation. A note is sent, tied around the foot of the bird. They flew 500 miles easily in a day. There were bird stations on the way if the bird was tired or sick. The stations were relay stations manned by king's bird experts.
One day the pigeon was caught by a trapper, who saw the paper attached to the foot of the bird. He did not read the contents and surmised it must be for the Regent. Being a good subject of the king, he took it to the palace and left it with the palace guards. The message was in code. No one knew how to interpret the message. It reached the Regent. The note said that his mother was ill with a fever, and the royal physician wanted the Ayurvedic medicine sent right away through the pigeon. This would be a day's flight back and forth. The king's men planted feeding stations and relay stations on the way with seeds and water, so the pigeons knew their route well. They received medication on time from the Regent son. Later, the king's men could find the Ayurvedic medicine locally. The queen recovered from her illness, thanks to the pigeons.

The king who played a clown.
 On the path of his pilgrimage, there was a kingdom, whose king (Suran = சூரன்) and queen (சூரி= Suri) had five children ranging from three to ten years of age. King Vikaran wanted to entertain the children as a clown. The kingdom knew that Vikaran's court had an excellent clown. Vikaran rode his horse to the palace in the form of the famous clown with his bag of tricks.
The clown was received by the king and arranged for his acts in a circus tent in the palace. The clown put on a trouser and a shirt, patchwork of rainbow colors. He had the tail like that of a langur monkey, the ears of an elephant and the gait of a waddling duck. That made the children laugh. He pulled out an egg from his pocket, put it back again in his pocket and by magic transferred it into the pocket of the ten-year-old boy. The clown asked the boy to check his pocket for the egg, which the boy found in his pocket to the surprise of all and esp. the boy. More surprising was that a chirping chick poked the shell and emerged out of the egg. Everybody was surprised.
The clown drank a gallon of water, which poured out of the ears like a fountain. He put a rope on the floor in a serpentine manner and tried walking on it like a drunk. Children thought they could do better. Then a tight wire was put in place. He put a clay pot on his head and one pot on each hand. Previously, he broke one pot to show that they were real clay pots. He waked on the high wire slipping and sliding with pots precariously perched upon his head and hands; the pots wobbled often to the point of falling. Many Ahs and Oohs came from the crowd, as the pots wobbled. He finished the tightrope walk with no pot falling down.
He showed an empty cage; he drew a curtain and opened it; there it was, a tiger. He received permission from the royal couple to show the tiger and his tricks to the children. He whispered something in its ears, and put his hands and head in its mouth. That caused a consternation among the adults; the children enjoyed the act. He made the tiger to sit on a wooden block, jump through fiery hoops, walk on its hind legs... He was flashing the whip and making sound without hurting the tiger. Every time he did that, the tiger raised and pawed the right front leg.
He brought in two monkeys, which drew applause from the children. The two monkeys rode on the back of the tiger with no fear. One monkey played the drum; another one danced to the beat. After that, the monkeys jumped through fiery hoops, hung by their tails from horizontal bars, made several somersaults and swung on the bars. The clown gave peanuts to the monkeys as a reward for their performance. He asked the children to look into their pockets. They found peanuts in their pockets. Everybody was surprised.
The children and adults had fun. The clown took leave after the king and the children expressed their appreciation.

Going into the temple and receiving Dharsan
They reached the temple late in the day. Next morning, the Royals had special Dharsan of the Lingam. They prayed for themselves and their subjects. After the Dharsan was over, they retraced their steps back to the palace with no problems.
To be continued.