The migrant Indians having arrived from the Indian subcontinent during the colonial era, settled in numerous places in then Malaya, keeping within to their communities. They were mostly based in tea estates and rubber plantations. A few other communities like my fathers came over to do business. Each community built a temple or shrine in all the places they settled in and prayed to their ancestral deities that were exclusive to their clan and community then. The temples were run community-based and were frequented by the particular community with an occasional outsider dropping by. These communities each contributed to the upkeep of their temples. It was a continuation of their worship that began in India and came with them to the countries they settled in. There were temples built by individuals too and managed by their families.
As the estates and plantations came to be bought over from the British by well-off individuals and became privately owned, the temples and the tradition continued to survive. But as these smallholders and their estates were taken over by larger corporations or taken over for the purpose of development and housing as in recent years, the workers were evacuated leaving the only place they knew that was home to them for generations. The temples were left standing though, welcoming the occasional devotee and the return of the workers and their families once a year to conduct its festivities. Nevertheless having moved out from the estates and plantations the tradition of erecting temples continued in their new places of residence.
What was a gala-time full of festivities associated with the temple celebrations has dwindled down to a formal form of worship these days in the absence of the local devotees who stood as pillars of support to these temples. These days attending worship at the temple has become more of a formality made on particular days of the week and other auspicious days. It is seen as a requirement to substantiate our identity and faith. These days it is held that if we lose the temples we lose our identity. So too is the driven need to speak the mother tongue in current times less it is lost in time.
So when Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal and Mataji Sarojini Ammaiyar come to Malaysia and began to preach the Siddha way, they hinted at the need to move away from Bakthi or devotion and move to Gnanam, I told them that temples were an identity of our existence in a multiracial and multicultural society like ours. Take it away and we lose our identity. So when Mataji spoke to me yesterday about the wild elephants running on a rampage through her ashram grounds and surroundings knocking down walls and damaging the property and added that the wise men who frequented the ashram had advised her to install the statue of Lord Vinayagar who shall then supposedly ward off the elephants, she asked me for my opinion. She feared that it might offend Tavayogi who had solely preached and upheld the worship of Agathiyar in his times. I told her to go ahead and have Lord Vinayagar installed for many reasons. Besides the wading off of the aforementioned threat by the elephants, the general public is very much attached to temple worship and the worship of the deities. The Siddha way is alien and a mystery to many. But temple worship comes easy has it has been the norm to many for generations. Let them circumambulate Lord Vinayagar and go back in peace. Next, whenever the Siddhas begin to compose their songs they all start off with a prayer to Lord Vinayagar. Even the most radical and right-winged Siddha Sivavakiyar who opposes idol worship starts his song with a prayer to Lord Vinayagar. Agathiyar who is said to reside at the Adhi Kumbeshwar temple in Kumbakonam surprisingly is in the form of Lord Vinayagar. When I mistook the date of Lord Vinayagar's Chaturthi celebrations and arrived a day later to purchase the Arugampul garland to place and decorate Agathiyar as Lord Vinayagar during my puja at AVM, the florist pointed out to me that I had come a day late as the Chaturthi was observed and the festivities were done the night before. But since he had some Arugampul garlands left over, I purchased them and went ahead with my puja and worship to Lord Vinayagar that evening. A few days later Agathiyar called me for a Nadi reading. He lauded my move to worship him as Lord Vinayagar and told me that was the truth too. Lord Vinayagar or Ganapathy Dasan as Agathiyar addressed him, took a brief moment in the same Nadi to state his appreciation.
In the years before coming to the worship of Siddha my devotion was passive in nature. It revolved around daily worship at home and at the occasional worship at the temples in town. Worship at home was over in a jiffy, bringing the palms together to the chest and saying a prayer mostly for the self. Prayer was often self-centered then and mainly a must just before our examinations. Bribes, gifts, and prasad were offered to the deity in return for good marks. It just goes to show our innocence then. Although we were religious in a sense keeping abreast with the festivals that surround the deities and did observe them in our homes too, it did not touch the spirit then. It was void of the love or bond or closeness between the self and the deity. It was more cosmetic in nature, making us look good in society, giving the impression that we were god-fearing and devoted. Neither did we extend our arms to be of service, attending to the care and needs of the temple that was a part of Sariyai, that I came to know in recent years, as there were appointed committees to oversee the running of the temple and take care of its needs. I did know though, that my father was contributing monthly to the upkeep of a particular temple in our hometown as it was run and managed by his community. Then we had another old man stop by our house to collect donations to upkeep the running of another temple in town.
As a young boy, I followed my friends to read the Thevaram under an elderly teacher from Ceylon. I frequented the Wat Phodhiyaram Thai Buddhist Temple that was next door each Sunday to listen to the many stories told of the Buddha and have a free meal. I took a Bible correspondence course from a Church based in Singapore to know about Christianity. A love to know the divine blossomed within. This love was shown where as a child I painted a most famous scene depicting Saint Avvai's encounter with Lord Murugan on the wall of my home.
Avvaiyar, believing she had achieved everything that is to be achieved, was pondering her retirement from Tamil literary work while resting under a Naaval tree. She was then met by a disguised Murugan, who jousted with her wittily. He later revealed himself and made her realise that there was still a lot more to be done and learned. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avvaiyar)
Later in my teens, I would be invited to paint murals of Hindu Gods and Goddesses at the temples my brother-in-law help build wherever he was stationed, for the manual group from his public works department. When he helped build the temples in Simpang Empat, Semanggol, and Menglembu, Ipoh, he roped me in to paint its walls. After watching the movie on Sri Raghavendra he became an instant devotee of the saint and today runs the Jegathguru Sri Raghavendra Miruthiga Brindavanam Kinta, Ipoh.
During my college days, a gardener of Pakistan origin at the polytechnic I studied in, and who accompanied me on the hour-long bus drive into town each morning would share his blissful state in following his faith. Ending my college life and taking up a job saw me frequenting the temples in the coastal town of Lumut that I worked in. As I had much time on hand after office hours, I took up reading about religion and took to worship of the deities in my bachelor home. I got hooked and addicted to worship as I woke up at dawn to perform a simple puja learned from books. I would prepare the night before picking flowers in the garden for the early morning prayers. I did the same in the evenings too without fail. I had senior consultants in the engineering firm like Sethumathavan, Sivaraman, and Kandaih who were a constant inspiration to me with their sharing of views on religion besides their sharing of their vast experiences in engineering.
Then beginning in 1988 till 2001, there was a gap or void in my life where all worship, reading, discussions on religion came to a complete halt. All that was learned and practiced was put aside. It was just work and family. The equation that God was all-merciful, full of compassion, and kind did not balance in real life. Not that I was a victim of injustice but my friends and their families were really put to the test. I guess God thought that I needed a break or I shall harm myself. Hence he came in a dream and asked me to set my questions aside and for a later date. That later date came some 13 years later.
The years 2001 till now saw me turn to the path of the Siddhas after heeding Agathiyar's call, his second, through the Nadi in 2002. A year earlier he had come cloth in mystery and disguised calling me to take on the Vasudeva mantra and chant it. I did as told without questioning. The ride of a lifetime began. It has been an interesting journey of on-hands learning and experience as opposed to the years of reading and talking about religion. The Siddha path is not for the weak at heart I soon came to learn from the experiences shared and as seen in the life of my gurus Supramania Swami and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal. The third calling came through Agathiyar and Tavayogi, inviting me over to his ashram to witness the many activities he had laid out for the benefit of seekers and the general public. I took up the call and a bonus was thrown in where Tavayogi personally took me on a pilgrimage of Siddha sites and together with the grandmaster Agathiyar showed me numerous miracles.
With the coming of the guru in physical form, we engaged in rigorous and lengthy rituals at his ashram, in our homes, and at the temples that were Siddha friendly. Soon that was reduced to minutes and came to a halt bringing us to remain silent and go within. The Yoga practices that I picked up from the books in my early years of the search were strengthened by Tavayogi and Acharya Gurudasan.
The Siddhas break our ego, giving us blows not to hurt or injure us but to wake us up from our dreams. In wanting to thank Tavayogi for stepping into my home, though I got a scolding when he told me, "You are living in Maya. I am a nobody. Hold on to the energy that resides both in you and me. I call it Agathiyan", I got enlightened eventually to see through and beyond the veil that shrouded my sight and vision. I saw the truth that lay beyond all the glamour and limelight that enveloped and surrounded Godmen. In asking for a blessing from Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar, though I felt rejected and came away in disappointment when he told me "To step into Ongakarakudil was itself a blessing", I was enlightened eventually to realize the power, spirit, and nature of his Ashram which was a true dwelling of the Siddhas. Agathiyar made me realize that I needed to become a proper vessel first to receive their blessings and teachings.
The Siddhas break our hold and attachment on all things be it in the material world or the spiritual too. And so he ended the years of our attachment to the small humble group that we went by the name Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia, that was conferred the name Agathiyar Tapovanam Malaysia by Lord Murugan and later took on the name Gnana Kottam.
Taking on the blows, if we stay long enough on the path they shall give us all the necessary experiences that shall make us shed the veil that we have falsely covered ourselves with; the veil that is forcefully placed over us; and the veil that surrounds us and suffocates us.
The priestly clan is seen to pass on their sole means of livelihood that revolved around conducting rituals at temples to their children as do many others from other professions train their children to continue their profession. If in the traditional art forms or businesses, the parents seek to see their children pursue and continue the tradition or see their wishes come true in engaging a study and a career or take over their businesses and take the trouble to educate and pass on their horned skills to their children, should not we see to it that apart from the material gains that came with a good education, job or business, the inborn spark, and spirit in our children is fanned up by personally tutoring our children and grandchildren in religious and spiritual matters?
I sat with my family to watch Disney's animated movie "Soul" last night. What a marvelous depiction of two souls getting to know the difference between one's purpose in life and finding the spark in life. I could relate the movie to what we have gone through. In giving us the 5 tenets in life at the Tamil Sangam of years gone by, Agathiyar clearly listed the five purposes for which each human is born. This was only made known to us recently through Vashisht Vaid blog at https://holysageagathiyar.com/ and only after we had physically fulfilled them. In having fulfilled the call of the purpose in taking birth, Agathiyar then comes a-calling again, the fourth time, knocking on our individual doors now, bringing us to find the spark in each individual's life. As we are told in the movie fulfilling dreams and desires does not change life significantly; and that it is the experience that gives us the spark, Agathiyar exposed us to a flood of experiences, physical, emotional and subtle in nature. At times it was personal experiences. At other times it was retold by others who went through it.
Recently it did dawn on me as to who is going to guide our children and grandchildren who were a gift from the Siddhas, on the path of the Siddhas, as we had been instructed to refrain from all forms of rituals and charity and go within. Agathiyar told us that others will take over from where we left in both sectors. Come September 2021 it will be two years since we abstained from rituals and charity keeping to his word. I want these children to cherish the blissful moments that we had in invoking, and singing the praises to the Lord and the Siddhas. We cannot possibly send them to another, though in the path of the Siddha, to groom them for there are too many variations and a vast difference to their approach, ideology, etc amidst them. These children will return confused. We had come a long way in bringing drastic changes to the mindset and practice of Siddha Neri as vouched by Lord Murugan. Our next ideal would be to bring the divinity within us. We have managed to bring the Siddhas to reside in our minds, hearts, and our homes where they have taken residence permanently with constant puja, rituals, recitation, and chanting. We are currently engaged in connecting with and bringing the divine energy from the Prapanjam or cosmos within too with the blessings and guidance of the Siddhas. This is the spark that we have to sow and nurture in our children and grandchildren. We have to prepare the field and provide a conducive surrounding for the seed to germinate and grow into Siddhas. The stage shall then be set for them for similar divine experiences to create the spark of divinity within them too. When divinity comes within man becomes a saint. Just as the Siddhas always come and ask us to kindle the physical flame that we light in our homes to burn brightly, they come within to fan the flame that burns within to burn brightly with the aid of our breath enhanced by the breathing techniques that they show us.
Just as Joe Gardner brings hope to an otherwise "soul 22 who feels hopeless and broken about her purpose, and Joe rides with her as far as he can as 22 finally enters Earth," (https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Soul) we are dutifully bound and have a responsibility towards these souls who the Siddhas chose to send to us as children and grandchildren to be tutored and nurtured in the way of the Siddhas. We cannot possibly let them struggle given the myriad of options and distractions out there. Hence I mooted the idea of reviving Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) recently to Mahindren for the sake of these children who are growing up fast and furious. He volunteered to spearhead the movement. Once the pandemic comes to settle we shall see a gathering of children singing the praises of the Siddhas as did the youths come together in 2013. This time around the gatherings will be entirely for the children and focus on their spiritual development. May Agathiyar bless all our endeavors.