WALKING WITH AGATHIYAR

I was surprised to see a surge in readers from Singapore in the past week. I guess the reason Agathiyar has me write is to bring together his followers not physically but through this amazing tool that is made available to us in current times. The number of followers that this blog has is not because they know me personally but because they know Agathiyar and want to read my experiences and those of others in walking with him. Let us take a walk now. And as we walk we shall cherish the many moments Agathiyar came into our lives to lift us, care for us, heal us, calm us down, explain things, and many more. 

I guess people find solace and a balm to heal their souls in these words as many have informed me. They see solutions in these posts for their problems, they tell me. I am glad that I could help by bringing the words of the Siddhas and gurus, the wise and learned, the educated and also the simple folks to my readers. I surely have benefited from these writings as I go through them again and again and am amazed at the amount of understanding I come to gain. 

Mithu Storoni a Neuro Ophthalmologist who is interviewed by Dan Buettner in "Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zone" says of stress, "One of the ways in which stress is beneficial is if we overcome it by active coping. Today in our open world through social media, and news media we are brought all the problems of the whole world."

And we bring it to the dining table, into our living rooms, into our office, and social gatherings discussing them. I had relatives who arrive and walk up to us and draw a chair and instead of asking how everybody was doing mention a hot happening either in politics or around the world and start the conversation going. Often I am left out and I make my exit. If on the other hand, I find someone on the same frequency to whom I could talk about Agathiyar and the Siddhas and who knew Tavayogi I could hold them up for hours.

She continues, "These are problems you cannot physically control. But you can control how you treat your goat to make sure your flock is healthy. And this sense of active coping where you can resolve the problems that you are given is a very important part of mental health, cognitive longevity, and stress resilience."

We understand now why people in the past lived longer. They were practically cut off from others over the mountains and around the globe and had little to chew on as regards to happenings around them. They knew their neighbors and worked as a community and came to the aid of those in their community. 

It is saddening to read one of today's headlines: "Nearly a million people out of 14.8 million surveyed by the government in 2020 have never spoken to their neighbors." The online news quotes sociologist Shatar Sabran, in interpreting the census’s outcome. He said the concept of neighborliness appears to be losing importance, especially in large cities. Another academic, Nur Hafeeza Ahmad Pazil of Universiti Sains Malaysia, said the disconnect between neighbors might be more apparent in apartment and condominium buildings in large cities. “Kampung folk have more time to interact with neighbors, as they bump into them at an eatery, mosque, or during gotong-royong,” she said.

But Dan Buettner comes to find out from Chan Heng Chee that Singapore gives out incentives like giving out the Proximity Housing Grant to families which encourages them to live either stay under the same roof with their old and aging family members or stay close by hence encouraging the families to remain intact. It is a way of getting children to look after their parents and take care of them, she says. Dan agrees that nations should follow and emulate such policies of this small island republic.