Yesterday my granddaughter who completed her first 5 years of existence and turned 6 surprised us by not wanting to cut a cake but to make her own dish - jelly topped with small chunks of mango fruit pieces. Both my wife and daughter guided her in making, garnishing, and freezing it. Then she asked her parents to take her for a bath at the waterfalls and a swim in the river, inviting us along too. We had a field day or is it a water-splashing day? Of course, children being children both she and her little sister did not want to come out of the freezing waters but we had to tell her that it becomes dark in the jungles fast. Anyway, we had to return home to prepare her birthday "cake" too. Only then did she give in. I thanked her for giving us a treat going into the Sungai Tekala Amenity Forest located in Sungai Lalang Reserved Lowland Dipterocarp Forest, on her birthday.
Just days ago my daughter had a booth selling her "Charmed Malaysia", a small collection of handmade jewelry at a fair in the city, where she met another seller having skincare and other herbal products that she learned to make. My daughter told me her newfound friend used to post about her personal life on instagram. I asked if one should do that? My daughter explained that people tend to want to know the person behind small-time businesses besides wanting to know the products. They are not too keen to know the success stories of big-time corporate companies that dish out branded products. This might be eyed by those who want to make it big in business though. People always have a heart for these small-timers just making a start and tend to come forward to support and encourage them by buying their products.
I guess this blog too has a good readership because readers delight in relating to the experiences shared on its pages. Siddha Heartbeat which was started on 28 July 2013 at https://agathiyarvanam.blogspot.com/ has an all-time total pageviews of 1,759,428 while Siddha Heartbeat 2.0 started on January 25 this year at https://gnanakottam.blogspot.com/ has 3,762. This blog is by an amateur written for fellow amateurs.
I was watching " The Shipping News" moments ago. Many moments in this movie caught my attention as we could relate to it. Stories told need to be people orientated. In the movie, a new news reporter is told what to do. "I need a reporter. And you'll do local car wrecks. Take the picture, and write the story. We run a front-page photo of a car wreck every week whether or not we actually have a car wreck. Car wrecks are a fact of life up here. Come winter, a drive into town'll be damn near impossible. It's wrecks like that that sells papers. If there's a dark patch on the ground it reads blood whether it's motor oil or Diet Coke. And you want something human, uh a child's mitten, a purse a baseball cap lying in the road. See, that's what makes it human. That's what makes the reader feel." He does as told and gets to write his own column..... The Shipping News, "a story about a different boat every week. Human stuff", that is the title of the movie too.
When he writes a lengthy piece on an accident that had just occurred, beginning with "The policeman ate breakfast at the Codcake Diner before he arrived at the accident scene", he is told off by his editor that "If I wanted War and Peace I would have hired William Bloody Shakespeare" who throws it into the paper bin. I had a good laugh myself because it reminded me of myself. I too had given a lengthy account of my travels to a couple of banks and the post office the day I lost my pass that permits me to enter my office. I was told to make a police report and I did. I began to write a lengthy piece when the policeman on duty asked me what I was doing? Keep it brief, make it short he told me and snatched the piece of paper from my hand and wrote "Pas Hilang" meaning "Pass Lost".
We are told to "find the center of your story... the beating heart of it... that's what makes a reporter. Sometimes there's a story behind the story." I believe this beat is felt in this blog. A journalist from Kerala wrote to me last night after reading my post at https://gnanakottam.blogspot.com/2022/07/agathiyar.html?m=1
Wanted to talk to you after reading this.... Wonderfully expressed Aiyya, I remember that in your Nadi siddha path was clearly mentioned. I hope u remember me asking some doubts abt DEHATHATHWAS ..And you appropriately directed me towards some of your posts etc. And you gave me master gurudasan. At that time, 2021 first months_ I tried to read abt panchabhoota tatwas , fundamental principles of siddha _ Ayurveda . I was reading but was not connecting. So I left it there. Then for two weeks I did pranayama basic as gurudasan ji instructed in the video. I learned to sit properly and understood how to place my hands (since a woman) etc... After 2 weeks I stopped it too. See , I couldn't follow anything. I've been chanting agathiyar's potri (20 mins max) for some months _ that's all I was doing. Nothing else. I could understand nothing in siddha marga _ it was the reality. Coz it's all words. Systems. Science. My brain found all of it as an effort. So naturally it refused. It's then, I think I started watching jiddu Krishnamurthy. I felt connected coz since I couldn't get instructions from agathiyar in his words, he always sent me good teachers etc. And this one I felt very close with agathiyar in a brainy way. I was encountering for the first time , some one 100 percentage in vichara marga. Or jnana marga. Jiddu gave me such a pleasure..can't describe in words. But , ofcourse as u know well, while hearing more, I found the connection between SIDDHA VEDA teachings and jiddu's. Then I started jumping from this beach to that ( jiddu and siddha veda) .
I guess we have to follow the heart rather than the brain and its thirst for logic.
I had a dream. I wanted to be an artist but good sense back then told me I would not make a living out of it in the 70s. I dropped the idea but began to appease my passion for art, culture, and music by drawing and painting these themes. When my brother took the helm of the Penang Indian Cultural Society he roped me in to illustrate their bulletins and magazines.
I received handwritten letters of appreciation from the late Comicscene Communications head of a local newspaper back then too for my participation in their weekly Saturday columns.
With the coming of Windows 95 and its graphical user interface (Gui) I took to learning the OS and its many supported applications. This helped me design the department's presentations and in-house magazines later in the 90s and in the later years. With the coming of Agathiyar and Tavayogi, I was inspired again to create visuals, create videos, and have Agathiyar and Tavayogi as my lead actors. My dream of becoming an artist and movie director was fulfilled to a certain extent, settling for being an illustrator and a vlogger. Blogging came as a surprise to me too. It started after I began documenting my maiden and second pilgrimage to India. With the encouragement given by Tavayogi and Agathiyar I am where I am today. I need to thank my readers and viewers of my YouTube channel too for their continuous support, readership, and viewership.
Speaking about Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal, the difference between him and other gurus is that while the others after learning the trade, started Peedhams and organizations and projected themselves, pushing their moola guru backstage, Tavayogi showed me Agathiyar instead. Never at any one instance did he place himself above Agathiyar. Ramalinga Adigal too came to ask us to stick to Agathiyar and hold him tight. This is why even though we miss him and realize that we really need him now, we can move on without his physical presence as he had shown us the way and given us the vehicle and the tools to travel with. If many followers are lost after the demise of their gurus, though we miss him and would love to have him around especially now when we are beginning to experience so many new things, we have learned to manage well thanks to him letting us explore the path freely right from the beginning without rules and regulations, codes and laws to conform and obey, dictates of the do's and dont's, etc. We were not made to take up oaths or abide by any conduct. We were encouraged to explore the path with the tools and methods and ways given. We have emerged from the web of dependency on the guru and the methods. My granddaughter too like me takes the methods and modifies them making them more beautiful, accessible, and to her liking. Her little sister observes and follows us.