The vast expanse of the Prapanjam has been brought into a tiny 8ft x 9ft x 9ft room at AVM through home worship and rituals. This is how temples came about too. Similarly, the very body has become a host for the Prapanjam too. Constant chanting of mantras and carrying out of homams and other rituals purify these spaces. The Prapanjam is pure in essence. Bringing the room and the body and mind to that state is akin to the Prapanjam residing there. Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal coming as gurus brought the change.
What came to be known Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) or Agathiyar's Garden, a name that I picked to help identify my home to the devotees who Agathiyar sent over in 2013, taking the name from the site on which was perched Tavayogi's old ashram Agathiyar Gnana Peedham in Kallar. From a garden that he visited often, Agathiyar gave it the name Gnana Kottam after he made it his resting place, often meditating here. Lord Murugan came in the Nadi in 2018 at the peak of the charitable activities and puja to give it the name Agathiyar Tapovanam. Agathiyar in telling us that his statue would leave for another devotee's home, told me to ensure the room was closed at all times except when someone comes to meditate. Most recently Ramalinga Adigal came and told us that he shall henceforth speak here, giving the place yet another name, Gnana Peedham which is also the name of Tavayogi's ashram. Besides the soul evolving the place of residence too takes on many names. And to think how simple it was. Through the practice of worship and rituals, the bridge was built linking both worlds of man and the divine. The rooms became conducive to the divine energies to reside. Sacrificing a portion of our space and devoting time to puja brought these energies both into the room and into us. When the home and our body is a temple why do we need to look outside?
When a veterinarian Dr. Nanjan, from Ooty, followed Tavayogi to Malaysia, he related his experience of seeing Agathiyar in the home of a couple who were worshipping Agathiyar. With their permission, when the doctor entered their prayer room he was shocked to see Agathiyar lying on the floor taking a nap. Agathiyar immediately sat, tied his long tresses and got up, and disappeared before his eyes. It was news to me then. Soon it happened at AVM too. The first instant of a similar incident took place when Jnana Jothiamma was visiting us in 2013. She chose to sleep with Agathiyar's bronze statue in our prayer room rather than sleep in my daughter's room upstairs. The next morning she asked me what was all the commotion and walking around in the middle of the night. We were equally puzzled. The next night she chose to sleep on the sofa in the living room. That is when she saw Siddhas walking in and out through the main entrance and into our prayer room, closing the door behind them each time they made an entry and exit into the spaces as in the movie "The Others". Eventually, the grand master himself appeared from my prayer room and stood to gaze at Jnana Jothiamma before leaving the home. As a bonus for Jnana Jothiamma and all of us too, Agathiyar opened his eyes in his bronze statue while libation or abhisegam was going on later that day. This miracle was captured on camera by my daughter. It was only apparent when she viewed the photos later and rushed down to show us all.
The next miracle was shown to an Australian of Chinese origin. She was in Malaysia giving a talk when N.S.Shan who frequents AVM asked me permission to bring her over on the way to the airport. Having picked her up Shan made an acquaintance with her. They shared the same story - that of the Siddhas. Upon arrival, I invited her into my prayer room. She was in it for a long time. Once she came out she was in a state of daze and disbelief as Agathiyar had given her his vision or darshan standing at ceiling height.
Though Agathiyar tried to show us visions too in this tiny room we never could see them with our naked eyes. It was akin to Tavayogi desperately showing me Agathiyar opening and closing his eyes in the granite statue at Agasthiyampalli back in 2005 while on our travels in India. I could not see it then either. I guess it needs several more births and much more practice to get a glimpse of them. But nevertheless, Agathiyar chose to come as breath and touch, dropping his attempt in trying to show himself to us as a vision. If I had once told Tavayogi that I only wanted one thing - that to see Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal, he replied that they shall come and threw a bomb - "Is that what I wanted?" That made me realize that this was not what we should seek. Indeed today we sense his presence both around us and within us as the Prapanjam, as the wind and breeze, as the sunlight, as the chill of the night, as the aroma and taste, and as the heat in us, as our breath, as the swirling in the crown of the head and its subsequent drenching. I guess this is what Tavayogi meant then and took the trouble taking me places where we could connect with the Prapanjam without hindrance.
God who stood before saints became to be depicted as paintings and statues in these forms to the masses who wanted to know what God looked like. Our ancestors, parents, and we are trained to see them this way all this while. But Agathiyar and Tavayogi broke that perception of God telling us that he was beyond form and name and man can never contain and quantify him in form and name. God was this very expanse that creates and holds everything together, that sustains and veils it too, and finally stands as grace before destroying its very creations.
What is this Prapanjam then? Looking up the dictionary or the internet we are told that it is the universe. But science says that there are several universes - "different universes within the multiverse, a "patchwork quilt of separate universes: "parallel universes", "other universes", "alternate universes", or "many worlds" all bound by the same laws of physics"1. Even Marvel speaks of Multiverse. That would lead us back to square one, that of many rather than the ONE source. Prapanjam is the source where everything began. It has been in existence since - who knows when. It shall exist in the future too. Prapanjam is partly what we see, hear, touch, feel, and smell around us with our organs of senses. It goes beyond the reaches of this physical body into the inner realms of the other bodies and its tattvas. It is indeed a mystery. The only way to know it is to become it. But once we are it we cannot possibly speak, narrate, describe, or show it to others. That is how I saw it as an expanse for a very brief moment not knowing what it was that I experienced then. Agathiyar came to endorse later that what I experienced was indeed a moment in Prapanjam. He asked me to envision how it would be to be fully immersed in it forever? A guru who recently gave his last sermon before his samadhi raised a pertinent point asking his followers to ponder where had all the saints gone or stepped into? That space can never be spoken about since we have stepped and merged into it then. We are one with it. But both Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal at times chose to step out of this realm and come within devotees to express their state to us in the hope that we too follow.
Just as they keep us alive, it is we who keep the gurus and God alive. If in the former they keep us alive through the breath that flows continuously, which keeps all other organs alive and pumping and working, as a result keeping us alive, in the latter, remove their thought and both guru and god do not exist. But the irony is that this thought has to come from them first though whether to sustain or erase it is entirely in our hands. Faith and belief and the subsequent yearning are the cornerstones of all religions.
We are already as it is, a part of Prapanjam. It is just that we do not realize this. We need to drop or draw aside the veil to see through it, to see and know the truth. This comes by way of the guru who teaches us the means and the ways and eradicates fear and instead enhances devotion and bakthi. Emancipation finally comes by God's grace. What then is our role? To worship him and cry out hearts out to him. He shall listen and come running to us to clear all the obstacles and purify us to merge with Prapanjam.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/