The International Conference on Citters will be held in Tamil Nadu for 3 days. This is the first international conference that addresses the Tamil Citter Tradition to the world – a unique confluence of philosophy, knowledge and dimensions of Yoga. The Citter Conference is distinctly different from the usually held conferences and seminars. This conference is devoted to the Citter Tradition that has emerged from the Tamil Heart Lands. The Conference will focus on topics, ideas, contents, interpretations as well as practices elaborated in the Tirumantiram and supporting texts of other Citters. The Citter Tradition is very vast as it has survived till date and practiced. Being the first in the series of Citter International Conferences, we will provide an intense discussion and understanding to our foreign participants as the texts are in Tamil, so that they have the opportunity to have an insight and experience of this tradition they can take back to ponder on.

Why?.... the Citter Tradition is neglected by foreigners which is unwarranted. The Tamil Citters are central to several prominent Tamil cultural themes, to Tamil sacred and historical geography, to poetic conventions, philosophical ideas, therapeutic practices, and religious interpretations. Many of their poems still resonate across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.

The Citter International Conference brings forth to everyone in the world the Citter Tradition and Citter Systems, it’s deep routed knowledge, expertise, practices to the world in order to balance the scholarly neglect and it’s true practices, so that this knowledge and tradition can be freely used by everyone to manage a lifestyle of good health physically and mentally also offering the journey of inquiry for all.

The conference will have workshops so that delegates can participate to have an opportunity to experience. The contributors will explore the tradition with first hand practical experiences, in the short time. It also gives an opportunity for people to come back to us to join our programmes and courses offered through the year at Chidambaram to enhance their practice and experience that will lay down the foundation to a lifestyle one can lead.

The conference dives into Tirumūlar’s Tirumantiram that explains that the greatest power is to realize that one’s individual consciousness is one with that of Lord Civa, and the one who has fully attained this realization is a Citter.

It is to be noted that Tamil Citters were the authors of texts on subjects not always directly related according to the modern division of subjects, including: medicine, botany, pharmacopoeia, diagnosis, treatment, yoga, astrology, spirituality, alchemy and iatrochemistry, philosophy, and so forth. “Tamil Citters” thus must be seen as a generic term depicting a heterogeneous group, including poets, philosophers, bards, mystics, tantrics, yogis, alchemists, scholars, and physicians; they belonged to various periods of time, not recorded by man, and are not easily reducible to a common denominator. Many of their subjects centre around the body and mind, and this, combined with the search by many of the Citters for elixirs and ways to prolong their lives, has resulted in the development of medical practices subsumed today under the name “Siddha Medicine.”

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In this first international conference on the Citters, we hope to present the Tamil Citter traditions as vibrant and complex as their practice and source material show them to be. For example, the yoga instructions as laid out by Citter Tirumūlar in his Tirumantiram, which lead the Citter on the path to, first prolonging their lives and preserving their bodies and, finally, to a transcendent state of enlightenment and immortality. Such, according to Tirumūlar, may be achieved when the vital energies of “breath” (prāṇayamam) can be retained within a practitioner’s body. This and other “practices for perfecting the body” will help to preserve it in an immortal state, as described by Tirumūlar who also prescribes various yogic techniques, including breathing exercises, body postures, sound energy and meditation, that leads to Kundalini awakening. While the immortal state resembles a deathlike state, it is however said to be the ultimate blissful state of living and the Citter’s ultimate merging with the Civa.

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Inadequate attention has hitherto been paid to the Ancient Citter Tradition and practices within and outside Tamil Nadu, India and outside India as a ‘Life Science,’ that the Citters have experienced, giving us their expertise, that they themselves have practiced and found results.

Over time the practices of the Citters have been a secret available to those who became ‘seekers.’

Today this practice and knowledge is being used as ‘Siddha Medicine’ which is a smaller practice of the greater experiences and teachings of the Citters.

It is time now to bring to the world as a whole this unknown system from Tamil Nadu, that many more people can have access to, and use such a system to better their lives with. To have the opportunity to practice and come to their ow conclusions on this grand road….a personal journey beyond one’s life time!