Each moment we are faced with making a decision. Our decision determines the next course of action. If we chose to board the bus or train, a whole new train of events takes place. Then again we might decide to take the bus or train but miss it, as in the Tamil movie "12B" or the English movie "Sliding Doors" respectively. Here then a whole new series of events would take place. What makes us miss the moment of boarding? A hidden hand. In the first instance, we have executed our free will in making a choice. In the latter, fate intervenes and changes our decision. Karma had interfered in our decision resulting in us missing our bus or train. Or the divine hand might have had a thing to do with it. Although we all have free will to decide what is right for us, karma decides otherwise. But as we surrender to the Divine, the divine decides for us. He then makes the necessary changes for us not to live a life that we dreamed of but to live His dream. He takes hold of our lives and leads us on. From the moment of surrender, he is responsible for us. Could this then be true samadhi? Merging in thought with the creator. A merger of action with the source. Would I be right in mentioning that when I surrender my free will to make a decision I enter samadhi? Would I be right in saying that when I give up my right to make a choice I enter samadhi? Is this then "Summa Erupathu?" If that is true then only samadhi can end our karma. So is there an equation here? Surrender=Samadhi=Sitting Still (Summa Erupathu)=End to Karma. Mahin summarized the result beautifully, that "Our actions then will be in line with the Prapanjam". "பிரபஞ்சத்திற்கு தகுந்தாற்போல் நாம் செயல் இருக்கும்" He reminded me of Lord Murugan asking each of us standing before him whether we had surrendered again and again. Lord Murugan's words to Arunagirinathar make sense now. He was told to "sit still, stop speaking", சும்மா இரு சொல் அற. Going by our equation that would equate with the state of samadhi. Arunagirinathar was said to have sat still some 12 years. Coming out of it he then made a pilgrimage of all of Lord Murugan's temples singing the Lord's praise. These songs came to be compiled as the Thirupugazh. Could Ramalinga Adigal too have sat in samadhi several times before he finally announced that he was leaving and had his followers lock the door to his room from outside? Is samadhi then to be achieved while still living? Tavayogi explained the term as meaning one with the source. We could probably be one with the source in thought. We could be one with the source in deed. The Siddhas are known to place their bodies in a safe place before emerging in other places taking on another form The places where they sat and left their bodies came to be called Siddhar samadhi. Arunagirinathar is said to have taken the form of a parrot leaving his body in the temple towers of Arunachalam to fetch a rare flower to bring sight to the ruling king. If Arunagiri deed this feat for the king, makes me wonder who this king was who deserved Arunagirinathar's personal attention? He could not have done that out of fear or respect for the king. There must have been a special bond between the two souls. If karma dictated that the king become blind and the divine through Arunagirinathar came to heal him changing his fate. Could we equate this king with Kalpattu Aiya for whom Ramalinga Adigal came back after 25 years and put his soul that was yearning to be with his guru to rest? This is what Agathiyar wants us to seek too. To be with their congregation or திருக்ககூட்டம்.
I am trying to comprehend Agathiyar's move in bringing an end to the congregation that he brought together at Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) and Amudha Surabhi (AS) to carry out rituals and charity respectively in late 2019. I was thinking where would we be if Agathiyar had not made me dissolve these two groups? AVM was where we exchanged news about upcoming puja times etc while AS was where we posted schedules of our charity programs etc. I believe Agathiyar in foreseeing the current pandemic made the decision to dissolve both these groups in September of 2019, short of the discovery of the Coronavirus in December of 2019.
As the members became very much attached to these two groups, turning up for puja at AVM and carrying out their responsibility in serving the unfortunate, they would be in desperation and despair when forced to stop coming over for puja and forced to end the charity programs during the past year and a half of intermittent lockdowns and restrictions imposed in the country. I believe Agathiyar had well equipped his children well ahead of time with the tools to carry out puja in their own homes during these times of lockdown. I believe he had lifted the guilt of not being able to continue aid to the unfortunate during these trying times. Even in our absence, the necessary aid reaches them. Agathiyar has seen to it.
Here too we had a choice. If we had carried on where would AVM be today after a year and a half? Hibernating. In cold storage. What about AS? Defunct. Lifeless.
It is interesting when we look back at how each journey of ours evolves. So did mine. I was hibernating taking it easy back then in the years between 1988 and 2001. I was asked to take a break from all the questions and doubts that came to my mind then. I was aggressively praying in my bachelor home both at dawn and dusk to all the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon and followed up with my regular daily visits to the temples in the vicinity of the small fishing village of Lumut in the eighties where I was posted. As I had lots of time on my hand I read a lot about religion and culture too. But I realized what was written and what happened did not tally. I began to have doubts and questioned the nature of God. If he was most compassionate why were people suffering? The last straw that broke the camel's back was when Goddess Ma told a devout devotee that his wife's sufferings were caused by her sister, another form of the Goddess. I just could not believe that the divine who is supposed to protect us could harm us. That is when Lord Shiva comes to save me from further anguish trying to figure out and reason God's play. He came in a dream and told me to keep aside all my questions for a later date. I did just that and more. I stopped all forms of worship. It was rather timely that I was posted back to my HQ in Kuala Lumpur. The change in the environment did make me forget all that I had read and learned from experience. I started a family. My life revolved around my family and work. The switch that came by way of a transfer did some good for me. The mystical hand of Lord Shiva did wonders. I dread to think what would have happened if Shiva did not interfere.
After a long breather of 14 years, I guess Lord Shiva decided to call me to his path again. My nephew turned up at my home one Saturday afternoon on 6 October 2001 and told me he had a message to relay and asked me not to question its source. He passed me the Vasudeva Mantra and asked me to chant it. Over the next few days, he gave me some pointers to observe during the Navarathri puja that was around the corner. He gave me a painting of Lord Dhakshanamurthy telling me to worship him in preparation to meet my guru. I did as told without questioning. I went with the flow.
The following year my colleague opens up to me his experience in reading the Nadi. I was kindled. I was told about the Nadi in the nineties when I used to patronize the late Dr. Krishnan, who was a Siddha physician and medical astrologer. Although his predictions came true for all, they did not for me. When I asked if his prediction could go wrong he said yes if we had been cursed! I asked him to look into my charts and tell me if I was cursed. He told me it was not possible and that only the Nadi could reveal it. The subject ended then.
In reading the Nadi, Agathiyar talked about the curses and my past karma confirming what the dear Dr had told me earlier. But the most compassionate father did not desert me being a fool and a sinner. He extended a calling to me to the worship of the Siddhas and his path too. Here too I had a choice. I am glad I took up the calling. Agathiyar also revealed the planetary positions at my time of birth. It was opposed to what I was made to understand and believe all these years. Referring this to the Dr. he told me to adopt what Agathiyar has revealed henceforth. The blog Siththanarul carried the answers to this mystery recently.
When I answered the call from Agathiyar in the Nadi to worship the Siddhas in 2002, I received a booklet containing the names of the Siddhas from the Nadi Nool Aasan Sentilkumar. He led me on the recitation of these names when I went back to carry out the small offering to the Siddhas known as Naadikku Dhaanam, to pay homage and thank the Siddhas for recording my life story in the Nadi way back in the past and revealing it to me in the present. As the Nadi readers were custodians of these ancient scripts, Agathiyar directed me in the Nadi to give a token in cash to them too. I began my worship of the Siddhas that day. What if I had not followed up on Agathiyar's directives? Where would I be today?
Eager to know more about the Siddhas I embarked on a search. There were so many twists and turns and turn of events in this journey. A movement came to my mind for I had seen them collecting donations in the streets to feed the hungry. I headed out to the Agathiyar Sanmarga Sangam in Dengkil. I was met by a very pleasant devotee Anbarasan who explained to me about their parent movement Ongaraakudil in Turaiyur, India, and its many activities that were followed closely by his movement here. I began to drop in on them where I purchased literature on the Siddhas and VCD's of talks and speeches given by their patron Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar. It was an eye-opener coming to know that another aspect of worship and practice that was lesser-known, existed, running parallel to the popular mainstream devotion as in temples. As this movement was very much focused on feeding the hungry, and as I thirst to learn about puja or worship I began to look elsewhere too. Searching for movements carrying Agathiyar's names, I went to the Agathiyar Gurukulam in Kampong Laksamana in Batu Caves next. But they had shifted to the worship of Ramalinga Adigal and were engrossed in following his doctrines. So did I drop in on many other smaller establishments but none quenched my thirst to know about the worship of the Siddhas.
In 2003 I made my maiden pilgrimage to India bringing the list of temples that Agathiyar specified in my Nadi along. Apart from the many temples stated by Agathiyar, I wanted very much to go to Ongarakudil and meet Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar having heard much about him from his followers in Dengkil Ashram. The late Thiru Nadarajah welcomed me and made arrangements for me to see Swami one to one. But I returned disappointed that he did not bless me. When I asked him to bless me several times, he finally told me that "Coming to Ongaraakudil was itself a blessing!" I was not happy at all. This bugged me for a long time. The question as to why he did not bless me was answered by Agathiyar a couple of years later in the Nadi. But I was not happy with Agathiyar's answer too. He asked me to go again and told me that I shall receive his blessings then. But I never went. Today I pretty well understand the reason why my wish was not granted. I was destined to meet my guru Supramania Swami a couple of days later in Tiruvannamalai. As Yogi Ramsuratkumar told his aid the reason for not blessing a devotee who had arrived before the Yogi having visited another saint in Kerala, that he did not want to disturb the energy transfers that he had received from the saint, maybe Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar had foreseen my meeting my guru and did not want to come in the way. If he had blessed me that day I would have devoted myself to him and his movement. But a switch was necessary then for I had to fulfill Supramania Swami's wishes.
At the end of the two-week pilgrimage, I met my very first guru Supramania Swami in Tiruvannamalai by accident. Or was it predestined and arranged? Asking to bring me to an astrologer to chart my second daughter's horoscope, my driver Deventhiran of Chennai brought me to his uncle in a small village some 8 kilometers away from Tiruvannamalai. Supramania Swami revealed about me without drawing up my horoscope. He revealed the contents of the Nadi without me telling him. Sitting with his eyes closed, opening them once in a while, he could look into my future. I sat before him mesmerized and tears draining from my eyes for a solid 5 hours. It was tears of gratitude. I bid farewell to him as the sun set on the small village of Nachaananthaal. Even when he gave me a Theecha Mantra and send me off, I did not know the significance of the moment. I had not identified him as the guru whom I shall meet that Agathiyar had mentioned in the Nadi reading until I reached my hotel. Only then I sat down to make some sense of all that had taken place. A wonderful relationship was cemented that day between a guru and a disciple. We started to build a temple that was a long-standing desire of Supramania Swami but the divine came to stop it while it was in its infant stage asking Swami who was a Gnani, why he was stepping back into Bakthi? I had to fulfill his last wish to feed a thousand people in Tiruvannamalai upon the completion of his silent fast too before he went into samadhi in 2007. I did it with assistance from Deva and Jnana Jothiamma in 2013.
Returning home I was shuttling between work and worshipping the Siddhas. I was blessed that my family joined me in the worship of the Siddhas too, reciting their names in front of a painting of Agathiyar given to me by Sivabalan who housed Sentilkumar in his home. I would call up or drop in at Dengkil ashram for updates and to purchase more books and VCDs. I kept in touch with Supramania Swami initially by snail mail and STD calls and by phone later.
In 2005, seeing an advert in the Tamil daily on the visit of Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram to officiate an affiliate branch of his in Batu Caves I made an appointment with the host to meet him. I asked Tavayogi if he was the same Thaai Veedu Thangarsan M.A. mentioned in a leaflet that Senthilkumar had passed me in 2002. He replied "Yes" and that it was true that he wanted to build a temple for Agathiyar at Kallar. When I told him Agathiyar had asked me to come to the worship of the Siddhas he pointed me to the local affiliate and asked me to frequent it. When I told him that it was high time I saw the Nadi again as Agathiyar had mentioned me to come in for a reading again when I was 45 years of age, Tavayogi pointed me to Nadi Nool Aasan T.Ramesh who was in town then. Agathiyar in that Nadi pointed me to the local chapter too. But I guess Agathiyar had a change of mind. He erased the Nadi reading and rewrote it switching my route and my life. Instead of patronizing the local chapter of Tavayogi's Peedham, Agathiyar asked me to go over to Kallar Ashram and spend some days with Tavayogi. I came under the direct tutelage of Tavayogi. I am grateful to Agathiyar for making that switch. Tavayogi brought my family and friends into the worship too. Thus began a wonderful relationship between a guru and his student.
In 2010 Agathiyar had me commission his statue in Swamimalai and worship him in my home. My home was initially meant to be a transit point while waiting for the Jegathguru Sri Raghavendra Mritiga Brindavanam Kinta to be completed. But Agahiyar who was meant to go there opted to stay put with us. He had another devotee sponsor another statue of his at the Brindavanam. Agathiyar since then moved in permanently with us. Agathiyar in remaining behind with us elevated my home to that of his Vanam. Lord Murugan later called it Tapovanam. With the arrival of the Siddhas it has become Gnana Kottam. We are blessed. It all happened for the sole reason that I went with the flow, never questioning the change.
Even as I landed in India on my maiden journey in 2003 Raji who was assigned to pick me up from Chennai airport fell ill and Deva turned up. If the switch did not take place, I would not have met Deva's uncle Supramania Swami then.
It was because Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar did not bless me that I became aligned to Supramania Swami and Tavayogi.
If Agathiyar had not intervened and erased my earlier Nadi reading that asked that I align with the local chapter of Tavayogi's Peedham, and rerouted me to Tavayogi directly in another reading, my destiny would be otherwise.
I continued to grow with Tavayogi after Supramania Swami went into samadhi in 2007. He gave me total freedom to experiment, change, and modify the rituals to suit our multiracial society. We used to call each other on the phone. He made subsequent visits to Malaysia in 2007, 2008, 2010, and finally in 2016 before he went into samadhi in 2018.