Saturday 29 July 2023

A STAR IS BORN

Just as the book "An Autobiography of a Yogi" given as a gift to me by a parting friend and colleague at the office had opened up a whole new world for me, my website (now defunct) opened up a whole new world for Mrs. Molly Menon who was to become Jnana Jothiamma in later years. 

If the above-mentioned book by a master and guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, revealed the existence of the divine, whom we only knew as statues and paintings, as real people in the flesh, my website "Indian Heartbeat" had sort of triggered a series of events in the life of a married woman from Kerala, India who was then residing in the United States. 

On July 3, 2011, she writes to me for the very first time seeking to know about Agathiyar and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal’s ashram at Kallar.

Hello Mr. Shanmugam, I am Meena Menon form U.S.A. We had been communicating about Guruji Tavayogi. I am also known as Molly Menon/ Mrs.Menon.

I guess what she read on my website had made such a great impression that she left for Kallar. Upon reaching India, she e-mails me on Thursday, October 20, 2011. At Kallar, Agathiyar through Tavayogi magically and mysteriously initiated her. Jnana Jyothiamma had planned to spend six months at Tavayogi’s Ashram but Tavayogi sent her away after her initiation asking her to return to the U.S.A. She left reluctantly after a couple of weeks, missing the Annual Guru Puja and Jayanthi celebrations. 

Back in the USA now she writes to me,

"It started thus .... it started with a call ... instructions from the Divine ..... and I was in India before even I knew what was going on ... only to get back after two weeks to the United States ... and then again get back to India after five months. ..... as the highest power in the universe ‘wanted an audience with me at Kallar’. Will anybody believe what I'm saying? They think me stark mad .. totally screwed up ... beyond the point of no return". 

"Hmm .. dunno what to say ... choked up ... really .. all kinds of feelings sweeping through me ... too many memories ... two weeks ... an experience of a Yuga ... that's all I can say."

Indeed how else would you put it if you are told things that are beyond our knowledge? If Tavayogi in his meditation, came to know that he was an old soul having taken birth again to uplift us, Jnana Jothiamma was told the same too through a subsequent Jeeva Nadi reading at Kallar before she left. She sets upon to do the maths and emails me her discovery.

"If Valmiki Ramayan .. history of Rama was written 18,444 million years ago, then his father King Dasaratha would be well before that and Vashishta was his father's guru (also his) ..... that means according to Agathiyar I was there with all these Mahans long before 18,444 million years. No wonder Karuppetta (her favorite deity Karupanasamy) termed it as Jenmandram Connection and Agathiyar also mentioned likewise... I am glazed out totally ... After getting to know all this from the Source .... anybody would renounce the world."

"The Mysterious part is .... my Jeeva Nadi reading went missing, from my study table ...After I returned back to the United States after getting my Dhiksha, I placed it on my study table immediately upon reaching home. I used to gaze at it every day. It was more than a precious ornament to/for me ... something so very precious .. especially as Agathiyan had mentioned to me in that Nadi that there will not be any more Nadi Reading for me. It was right on the same spot I placed for two months ... Then disappeared suddenly ..."

"I could not understand at all, what happened to me at Kallar that day of my Initiation. I used to gaze at my Jeeva Nadi reading book and recollect all the incidents that happened at the Ashram right from the day, I entered it. The peacock that entered the Ashram mysteriously and also left mysteriously. Every night it used to knock at my door. I used to feed it too... I took a number of pics of that peacock. All of them disappeared too from my mobile...Neither did I go to the Ashram for getting Dhiksha nor for getting my Nadi read. Both the above-mentioned terms, I have not heard before and I did not know the meaning of either of the two."

"All I knew and was aware of was, that something ... some strong force was taking me there. Secondly, when for the first time in my life, I saw Agathiyan's pic in Sadhguru Venkatraman's site, I felt that I knew this Sage ... or can I say ... some sort of intense longing I suddenly had to see Him somewhere, and somehow. I did not know where ... but I had a deep yearning that I needed to see Agasthya Maharishi .... There was an enormous yearning within me. It was at this time, around July 2011, the Divine showed me a wonderful Athma ..... an Athma who was very dear to Agathiyan and I stumbled across his site .. INDIAN HEARTBEAT .... and what I read there, left me breathless. Here I find a person, who, along with an Enlightened Master seems to have gone to all the places the Noble Sage had trod. Thus started a beautiful relationship with you Shan... with Tavayogi and not to forget my dearest sister Mataji Sarojini. My heartful thanks to all her family members, including Mataji and Tavayogi, who took care of me while I was there, and my humble prostrations to my Swamiji Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal, for having shared with me some of his Divine experiences with Agathiyan and also some advice. At the holy feet of our Father Agathiyan, I submit myself for having accepted me, protected me, guided me, and is still protecting and guiding me. What can I give back to our Father for all that HE has given me? My utmost devotion to His holy paadham."

She stood by Agathiyar till her last breath. That is how she gave back to him for all that he gave her. Obedience and total surrender are the keys to salvation. She was a perfect example.