I was in a dilemma recently. When the floodwaters rose and families and friends were caught by surprise, all I could do then was to call them up and enquire first about their safety and later about the current condition. If I list all the reasons for not going to the ground, readers will condemn me for shirking from my duties as a fellow human. But my hands were tied. Agathiyar had me imprisoned since September of 2019 having me stay indoors. He had me dissolve the WhatsApp group AVM that updated members of the pujas at AVM and the Amudha Surabhi group that looked into the charity programs. Regarding the former, he expected his followers to continue the puja in their own homes henceforth, meanwhile preparing me to go on another journey that of going within, giving me space to go into isolation. As for the latter charity programs he told us that others will come to continue, assuring us that those whom we had served in our capacity would not go hungry. True to his words another group picked up from where we left. Similarly a couple of friends and devotees extended aid to others as they both owned 4 wheel drive pickups, even as their own homes were inundated in the recent floods. The former traveled some 81 km with another friend to help out too. The latter hired a boat too to help the victims out. My daughter, son-in-law and their friends went to the ground too to pass the victims essential items after the floods subsided. My brother and his son too lent a hand in cleaning up the victims homes.
As for us at AVM the focus now was shifted to picking up from where we left in Yoga. Agathiyar asked me to teach the asanas and pranayama techniques that Tavayogi showed me and a small group of curious onlookers back then in 2008 to Mahindren. Mahindren was tasked to teach it to the remaining comrades who stood by. I was relieved of my duty further. Thus Agathiyar relieved me of all my activities, duties, and responsibilities so that I could focus on what I had to do.
As I look back on my journey of discovery of the path of the Siddhas, I am truly indebted and humbled by the love and care, and their compassion, in bringing me along on their walk. Tavayogi literally took me on many walks: around his ashram, around his neighborhood, to the caves in the jungles, and to the Siddha abodes and temples. All these seem like an adventure in a dream. Maybe it is a dream.
Tracing my earliest thoughts and actions that served as stepping stones on this journey, I can only go as far as my childhood home, the last of many that my family had rented and stayed in, in Taiping. I remember painting the scene from saint Avvai's life as a mural on the wall plank in our living area. The scene depicted the discourse Avvai has with Lord Muruga where she answers all his questions.
Later when my brother-in-law built temples or renovated them in places he had served with the public works department, I drew murals of deities on its walls. During my life as a bachelor in a coastal town, as there was not much activity, nor happenings taking place back then in the eighties, I took up to worship the deities in my bachelor home besides frequenting the temples in the vicinity. After some 8 years of carrying it out in the early hours of dawn and late at dusk, this came to an end too after Lord Shiva appeared in a dream and asked me to pipe down as I had so many questions left unanswered. I was angry with God for not being kind to others. Just about then, I was transferred back to the hustle and bustle of city life, Kuala Lumpur in 1988. My puja too died down as sharing a tiny room in the city with a fellow Muslim colleague did not make it feasible for me to carry on with my rituals. I got married the same year. But the puja was amiss except for an occasional visit to the temples for the sake of my daughter. The fire had subsided. As I took a long break of some 10 years, with the coming of my second child somehow I and my wife who was carrying her then frequented a new temple in our neighborhood that saw its consecration or kumbhabhisegam and the 48 days of puja that followed. Three years on Agathiyar came to redeem me to their fold without my knowledge. I took up puja to Lord Vasudeva, Lord Dhakshanamurthi, and Goddess Ma that came on in a mysterious way through my nephew from his lineage of gurus. A year later I took up puja to Lord Shiva, Lord Ganapathy, Agathiyar, and the Siddhas when Agathiyar instructed me to do so in the Nadi. The following year Agathiyar arranges for me to meet my first guru in physical form, Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram some three years later. When I surrendered to my gurus then, they dictated everything that came by. I followed their word taking it as the Gospel. I stepped from Sariyai that was introduced by my parents, to pick up rituals and charity in coming to Kriyai. Tavayogi officially introduced me to Yoga which I had picked up from books in my bachelor days. Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal led us on to Gnana.
To enter Gnana one has to lose his attachments to the outside world and enter within himself. In entering within he has to lose his last hold or possession or give up his last stronghold, his body, and its senses. This is frightening. It brings on an unknown fear. It was easy to let go of all previous attachments to all our external possessions but to let go that which is so close to us, that we ride on, the body that is a vehicle, is frightening. But the Siddhas want us to pursue. Here again we need to surrender to them and take the plunge into the beyond.