Agathiyar. What can I say about the man who turned my life around. I see his hand in every moment of my life. Seeing my intense hunger for knowledge on religious practices, customs and traditions from reading and putting into practice the home rituals and Yoga exercises learned from books, he had me drop them. After 14 years in which time, I got married and started a family of my own, all the doubts and questions regarding his lack of assistance in times of need in his devotees lives came to be cleared, as I came to know about Karma that Agathiyar spoke about in my very first Nadi reading.
He had Dr.Krishnan tell me that if one was cursed the predictions as foretold in his astrological chart would not come true. The Dr. opened up the subject of the existence of the Nadi that could reveal these matters. Agathiyar had me sought his Nadi after some 6 years when a colleague spoke about his experience in reading it. He had me worship the Siddhas besides the other deities whom we had worshipped since young following in the path of Bhakti and temple worship that came with tradition. He introduced me to my first guru Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai who showed me by example Guru Bakthi that I read about in Yogananda Paramahamsa's "Autobiography of a Yogi" some 9 years back.
He introduced me to Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram too. Both he and Agathiyar had me include rituals in our home puja, the former lighting the Homam and the latter coming as a bronze statue. He officially taught me Yoga through Tavayogi, polishing that which I had picked up from books earlier. He had us bring our home puja into the temples. If he had me compile the numerous songs of praise to Siddhas that were spread across numerous books, Agathiyar had us write, sing and produce an audio album "Agathiyar Geetham" too. Then the D-day came just two months before the coming of the pandemic. He had us bring the shutters down on Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) that germinated with the coming of many souls brought to our home by Agathiyar after their Nadi readings. He brought a halt to puja and charity and had us go within. In the 2 1/2 years that followed he had us let go. I realized that he had walked us through Patanjali's Yoga Sutra over the years. Today he is rewarding us for all our effort and work. It is the Award Night.
Learning how to use the computer and Windows 2.1 in 1988, lead to blogging and video editing many years on. The parting words of a colleague and the prized book "Autobiography of a Yogi" and a rare painting of Lord Shiva in 1994 changed me making me accept unrelated tasks just as a book I read in my college library in 1977 made me learn to say No. While at work I ventured into making presentations for my department, moving away from my core business in engineering. I learned creating presentations besides learning to create websites as the Ministry had a very well-equipped library. It very much came in handy in my later years as I embarked on sharing my maiden pilgrimage to India and the subsequent meetings with my gurus' in online websites and blog. The knowledge, practices and work ethics that I picked up during the course of my career like 5S, the Japanese workplace organization methodology and learning to think out of the box as taught in NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, was continued as I began to entertain the devotees whom Agathiyar brought over to my home in later years. It opened me up to new ways of thinking and doing things, often radical and moving away from the orthodox. Being a part of the many secretariats at the office would one day lead to managing events at AVM. Just as the cook tells his Captain in the movie "Pearl Harbor", Agathiyar had prepared me well.