Many masters whom I had either come across, read, or heard about have gone into oblivion. I wonder what happened to them. His Master's Voice is only heard if the disciple keeps his teachings alive and the flame burning. Just like civilizations that were buried or wiped off the face of the earth, they and their teachings go with them otherwise.
I had prayed at the temples and my family altar as a kid. Taking up prayers later as a bachelor, I had the liberty to pick the pictures and worship these Gods. There is a vast selection of deities that we could pray to. There is a myriad of paintings to choose from and frame and worship. The choice was entirely ours. I conducted worship with the guidance of a book on home worship written by Siva Sri Muthukumara Sivachariyar. Why did I start conducting puja? I do not know. I guess I had so much time on my hands that I turned to worship to occupy my time. I was in my twenties then. My aggressive engagement in an elaborate home puja twice a day at dawn and dusk for some 8 years came to an end abruptly when Lord Shiva came in a dream and asked me to pull the brakes on all the questions I carried in my head that clouded and confused me. I would have gone cuckoo if not for the timely intervention of the divine hand. Seeing reality and what I read and was told did not sync. I was confused and angry. Taking the cue from Lord Shiva, I dropped all reading, discussion, and worship. A 14-year period of hibernation followed. It was a cooling-off period.
A devotee friend asked recently what I did during those years. I replied that I got married. I raised a family. I attended to work and family. I had neither ideals nor ambitions. I turned a vegetarian overnight. Why did I drop taking meat? I do not know. It just happened.
Just as one breaks the fast, the period of abstinence was broken when my nephew came by passing me a mantra that came through his Paramaguru in Samadhi. He told me to recite it as it would prepare me to meet my guru. I came to know several years later that the message and the mantra were from Agathiyar. True to what he said I read the Nadi the following year and Agathiyar besides telling me that he was my Moola guru also hinted that I shall meet my guru in physical form when I least expect. Indeed I met Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai the following year on the pretext of charting the horoscope for my second daughter. Just as I was about to leave for the airport my wife requested that while I am in India I get her horoscope drawn. Agathiyar in her Nadi reading several years later told me that my second daughter was the reason I came to his path. My present family was at Papanasam in a former birth. My daughter would feed Agathiyar's granite statue at the temple with fruits as me and my wife were fruit peddlers then. So it looks like I came to both this path and the guru due to my daughter.
A year of reciting the Vasudeva mantra gave rise to the day of reckoning when I came to read the Nadi. Agathiyar spoke about karma. I understood why things had to happen. I understood that this was the moment Lord Shiva had asked that I wait to have my questions answered. Agathiyar took me into his arms. Since I had nothing on my hands and nothing to do, he gave me his picture and a booklet of names of Siddhas to recite and worship. I was back into carrying out worship and prayer adding on the Siddhas to my former list. The many books on Siddhas that I purchased and read saw me compile a compendium of songs in praise of the Siddhas for my home use. I began to blog moving away from hosting several websites. I shared my travels to India and the moments of meeting my gurus. I shared videos of the puja we carried out in our homes on YouTube. Agathiyar continued to speak through the Nadi on puja and yoga. With the coming of Tavayogi, I was officially initiated into both. Both Agathiyar and Tavayogi did not lay down any rules but gave me full freedom to express and execute both. I began to explore further. I adapted what was suitable for my puja and practice. Both Agathiyar and Tavayogi introduced me to rituals to go with the recitation of the names of the Siddhas, and charity and feeding that brought out compassion and love towards others in us besides helping clear the path of obstacles. We are told that giving alms and food and doing service to fellow humans and other beings is a great and noble act.
Wishing to see Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal and voicing this desire to Tavayogi, he asked me if that was what I wanted, making me realize that it was not the goal. Asking us what we wanted and thinking that serving him was the goal in this birth and other births to come, and voicing this desire to him, Agathiyar asked me if that was what I wanted, making me realize that it was not the goal. Thinking then that we should be asking for Gnanam as Tavayogi always says, voicing this desire to Agathiyar, he asked me if that was what I wanted, making me realize that it was not the goal. Anyway, he added that Gnanam was not something he gifted but that which we have to earn traveling the journey within the chakras and arriving at the crown chakra. He kept moving the goalpost with each step we took. Later it dawned on me that to sing the praise of the guru was the thing to desire. Agathiyar endorsed it. I felt contented that I was on the right track. During a rare moment of silence, it dawned on me that to gain admission into their Thurukootam or assembly was what we should seek. Ramalinga Adigal came to endorse it as true. There you have it. The path rather than laid out before us, charted beautifully to carry along, and for us to follow, apparently appears before us as we take each step. I guess this is true of horoscopes too. Rather than being a dead piece of notation, it is rather much alive. With our input, it changes constantly for the better with every act of goodwill and for the worse with bad deeds. Our destiny then is in our hands though we cannot do much about the fate that is written in stone. But if the Siddhas desire they can hurl the stone to the ground and break it into a thousand pieces and reassemble our lives anew. The experience of treading the path brings us to realize our oneness with the Siddhas. Ultimately the Siddhas are the Prapanjam too. The Prapanjam eventually embraces us.