My mother-in-law was diagnosed as having a heart-related problem for seven years by a private medical practitioner in her small town many years ago. But as there was no significant improvement we brought her to a medical center. The doctor there immediately told her that it had nothing to do with her heart and asked her to stop all the previous medications. Later visiting a Siddha physician he told us by just seeing her external facial hairs that she was going through menopause tremors. She still has those palpitations. We realized that she had to endure and go through her karma before there was a relief for her. We believe it was lightened though. When she fell recently and fractured her hip the lesser deity Aiya came to tell us that she was saved from a bigger fate. The elderly couple had their granddaughter stay with them in a very timely manner during this period that facilitated her hospitalization. Even in an untoward incident the divine cushions the fall.
Similarly, when a devotee hit the back of a lorry that came to a sudden stop at a traffic light and fell, his fall was cushioned by Agathiyar. The irony is that he was returning home from a Nadi reading, but Agathiyar chose to remain quiet and not forewarn him. Instead, he came in a later Nadi reading and told him that he was on hand to hold him before he hit the tarmac. The guru is always watching over his disciples.
When my daughter was hit by a car and broke her leg, Agathiyar came to bring her out of her trauma and boosted her spirit. As we are very much tied down and bonded with the physical form the soul takes a hit too besides the physical injuries. The doctors can treat the outside, but the Prapanjam does the healing. The spirit within is boosted by the divine. The soul that bears witness takes on the experiences. The divine intervened in the decision-making process as the doctors opted for other ways to make her walk. It was indeed a miracle.
My wife was said to have gastric and was treated for it at clinics in the vicinity each time the pain came on. Eventually, a doctor who was doing locum at a clinic in her hometown told us it could not be gastric but most possibly gall bladder stones. The doctor knew because he was in the surgical department in a nearby hospital. It turned out to be true when finally she was operated on and her gall bladder removed at a hospital. We were worried that she was going to lose an organ, but Agathiyar gave the go-ahead in the Nadi. I guess she too had to endure and go through her karma before she found relief. But we believe it was lightened by the guru.
Another devotee fell as she came down the steps and injured her knee. The consolation in this incident is that she fell at her workplace, the hospital, and was immediately attended to by her fellow nurses and doctors. She has recovered since then.
In these times where newlyweds are divorced within a year, when there are so many questions asked as to why they had to separate, I guess there was a bond from the past that continued till this birth and had to be severed now. Both parties have to move on with their lives. When a lady came with her relative to seek a solution for her troubled married life I thought that Supramania Swami might talk her into being patient and assure her that all shall turn out well. But Swami surprised me when he told her raising his voice to leave her husband. She broke into tears and cried out in joy. She left happy. I guess she had decided the same but did not have the courage to do so. It needed Swami to say it. Swami lightened the load she had been carrying.
When many questioned how Tavayogi too was not spared when he was hit many years before by a passing bus as he rode a motorbike into town and when he succumbed to complications after heart surgery and passed away recently, I knew that he had taken on our karma and relieved us of it. The guru out of love for his disciples takes on their karma.
Tragedies and sufferings take place. Death too is an everyday thing. We cannot run away from them. As Buddha send a woman to ask for grains with the condition that that household should not have seen the passing away of a family member, she came back to him fully realized that death takes place in every household. She found solace in the subtle teaching of Buddha and could accept the death of her child.
With devotion and bhakti to the deities and gurus, it brings an inner strength in us to go through the ordeal. One needs to be under the shadows of a guru to understand the greatness of a guru. Today after the passing away of both gurus, we see how Agathiyar takes care of us. We can never repay his kindness and compassion. I guess the only way to do that is to become them in all ways. That is what he wants of us to, to join their ranks, that of a Siddha.
The guru leads us to the truth and brings on the light into an otherwise empty and dark world. A true guru would not have us worship him instead he would show us the path to the source of the light. Tavayogi stepped aside and watched us walk the path after the initial introduction bringing us to their worship, bringing us to their abodes in the caves and jungles and showing us the rituals that reach out to their realms and brings them to reside with us. He gave the blueprint but the effort was ours. The blueprint too was not static but alive and changed with each and every move we made towards the goal.
The guru is a candle that lights up other candles. From an external adventure, he brings us to know the soul that resides within. When we have dropped all physical and external activities; when we have dropped all mental thought and mental activities; when we have stopped our senses in their track, what remains is the awareness of the breath. The sign of life is breath. We are alive as long as the breath runs through us. Just as the breath is the link between the physical body and the Prapanjam, the breath is the link to the soul too. The breath that leaves the body continuously when is brought to a halt and rerouted within, the soul surfaces. It is said to leave the body to address some while to others it addresses from within. When we drop the many sheaths of "clothes" that we put on and that veils our soul, what remains is the naked soul that is exposed. We are exposed to our very existence. Pure Existence. We realize that we existed then, now and later. This is the gist of all spiritual teachings.
The guru can be cruel too at times. Agathiyar if he saved the earlier devotee from a fall, this time around admitted to pushing another devotee down. The devotee had to go treat his injured shoulder when he fell while taking a step in his home. Agathiyar had to make him stay put as he did not listen to his earlier advice to go within. I too was made to stay home and attend to my tavam. Lord Murugan eventually came to reveal that he had caused the pain in my lower back that I bore for several years to recur after six years, bringing a stop to all my external activities. It was a timely move as I had retired then. There are blessings to be seen in every move of the divine. In asking me to stay indoors and meditate and sleep in the prayer room they bring a noisy neighbour to live alongside us, telling us that it was their doing too and that I needed to overcome the inconveniences by shutting all my senses. As we are told that the guru at https://www.ic.org/in-the-shadow-of-the-guru/ taught his disciples to live in the midst of chaos and find our center, I guess that is what they are trying to make me do too. If I could deal with my neighbors or rather learn to ignore the din and noise and the other stuff that irritates me, I guess I could deal with anyone in any situation. As the author of this piece, Geoffrey Huckabay writes that experience shapes us, follow his story of the discovery of the good, the bad, and the ugly, after engaging in various experiences some uplifting while others were hurtful, and finally see him stand on his own feet.