Agathiyar and Lord Murugan are known to show their acceptance of the results of the tasks or practices given to us upon completion each time showering a name appropriate to the state achieved. For instance, when my home was just a family home and he moved in as a statue in 2010 and began to send many over to watch and participate in our Pornami Puja, for easy reference and location purposes we adopted the name of the site where Tavayogi was asked to set up camp after his years traveling as a mendicant throughout India. Tavayogi located the site at present-day Kallar where the Thuripaalam or bridge is. It was known by the name Agathiyar Vanam in the past. Tavayogi named his ashram Agathiyar Gnana Peedham. The name Agathiyar Vanam that we took on turned out to be appropriate after Agathiyar came to visit us often.
When we took to the rituals and Homam, and began to practice Yoga, Lord Murugan gave us a name too. It was Agathiyar Tapovanam. "Tapovan (Sanskrit) comes from the two root words tapas, meaning 'penance' and by extension 'religious mortification' and 'austerity', and more generally 'spiritual practice', and vana, meaning 'forest' or 'thicket'. Tapovan then translates as 'forest of austerities or spiritual practice'." (https://en.wikipedia.org/)
Soon Agathiyar used our home to sit and meditate turning our home into Gnanakottam.
Just as Tavayogi set his foot on our soil to introduce and preach the Siddha path officiating local affiliates of his Agathiyar Gnana Peedham, I guess in recognition of our work Lord Muruga recently asked us to branch out making each home Agathiyar Vanam too.
Although it brings joy to us knowing that the divine recognizes our work and acknowledges giving names or tags to it at the back of our minds we are reminded that everything in this world is temporary. The place where my journey started, the old and original site of Kallar Ashram is in ruins today. Many civilizations have been wiped out from the face of the earth. https://www.britannica.com/ lists several namely the Maya empire, the Khmer empire, the Indus or Harappan civilization, the Polynesian civilization, the Catalhoyuk civilization, and the agrarian civilization known as the Mississippians.
A mother wrote to the papers that the room was there, the wardrobe was there, and the clothes too, but her children were not there. They had grown up and left. Indeed what remains of the past are memories. Just yesterday I and my wife went for a walk in the park where I usually spend some quality time with my grandchildren. The swing, the slide, and the seesaw were there but the kids were missing as they had returned to their mother. The boulders that they imagined were their improvised home stood there too. A boulder was their bed. Another was mine. A third was the altar where they prayed. Another was the loo. But they were not there. The tiles were there too at the fountain park with their decorative patterns. But they were not there skipping and running along the laid-out pattern. Soon they would outgrow these imaginative games and find themselves in the company of new friends. They might not have time for us too.
So when Agathiyar personally groomed us into becoming Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia and had us close shop, I took it naturally though many were caught by surprise and ended up disappointed. I understood that for the next phase to begin we have to drop the earlier sheet of skin and walk out of it into the new. It is only when we step out of the old and move into the new that we have a clear view of our status and standing. This itself is a recognition of the spiritual progress that we have made. It is only when we do not pass the examination that we are held back and told to repeat it. I guess we had passed the examination set by the Siddhas. Hence they had Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia wind up as a place of congregation and instead sowed its seeds to germinate in other places too. At times I get the feeling that I am walking on the same track that Tavayogi did. Well, ain't that what a student should do, follow in the footsteps of the master?