If many chase their dreams, we choose to chase the dream of meeting our creator. What is the prize we pay? We have become misfits in society, community, and family. When many talk for hours and give opinions and views on politics and current affairs, their profession, and the wares they sell, we who know nothing but the divine find it difficult to fit in with this mainstream talk. If we cannot possibly step back into the mainstream talk, we cannot equally hide in the forest for we have become accustomed to the modern world and what it offers. We would not survive even a day in the wild. So we practically have no place to call home. I guess this is the reason monasteries, ashrams, peedhams, and institutions came to be. To provide a secluded and safe environment for these seekers to continue their work in peace.
It is tough treading this path in current times and in this environment. But one has to learn to overcome all these to stay aloft and afloat at all times says Ramalinga Adigal. Hence Agathiyar brought on the din and noise the very next moment he instructed me to go within in 2019. It has been 5 years now and I am still struggling. He has intensified these disturbances too. The thing is Agathiyar owns up to his doing and is not hiding behind the bush. He told a devotee that he had pushed him in his home as he refused to listen to him asking not to go out. He had him stay indoors forcefully. To add salt to the wound, he pushed him another time at his temple. If we go off track he turns the tables on us. Agathiyar can be compassionate and loving at times and at other times pretty scary. The gurus are not spared too as I came to know. He tells us that henceforth he shall be the guru he is and only occasionally be the father we once knew. It is scary, right?
He tells me that he threw in these disturbances as a practice for me to overcome or rather rise above them. He tells me that the going shall be tough henceforth. He tells me how else is he going to shape me into a guru? He is going to grill and toast me and others at AVM I believe. Now I understand Tavayogi's statement that we had it easy while he had to suffer at the hands of Agathiyar. Just as a diamond is cut and polished to bring out its shine and stand apart from other rocks and gems, a guru has to stand out in public and stand up for his cause, never shrinking away in fear. The famed Nadi reader Hanumathdasan and friends who rushed indoors when it began to shower were asked later by Agathiyar in the Nadi how are they to become Siddhas if they were to run from the rain.
Can I withstand the onslaught? Now is the test of wits and strength I believe where the disciple is tested by the guru. The pampering has stopped. The honeymoon years are over. Agathiyar means business. It is the final leg of the race and he does not want us to drop out of the race when the cherished prize is only a stone's throw away. He reminds me not to do anything that would sabotage his efforts in pruning and shaping us. If in the years after coming to know my Nadi and its revelation of my past Karma, Agathiyar had asked that I walk with caution, taking heed and knowing what would bring on Karma, both good and bad, now he wants me to tread the final leg of the journey with extra caution. He wants me to do nothing. I needed no additional practice. He tells me the things that I shall face would itself be a practice. He wants me to remain quiet and calm and never blow my top for he says that it would bring all his efforts to waste. The energies in my crown would fall back to their respective chakras and undermine the mission. The best bet in these times of test is to be with oneself. If he had me go into partial solitude, in the wake of the pandemic, allowing me to carry out my duties and responsibilities and only to leave my home to attend to matters of importance, this time around it shall be forced solitude I believe.
If I had accumulated bookish knowledge on spiritualism back then in the 80s, Agathiyar decided to give me hands-on practical experiences, in getting us to carry out rituals that I thought were the turf of the temple priests, carrying out charity, and practicing Yoga. Rather than fill me will theory he gave me the much-needed experiences that would soon mold us into their form and stature. Tavayogi often says, "I don't know what else he is going to do, son". I am going through this phase now. So did Tavayogi give us faith and strength in the face of adversities telling us, "Leave it son, Agathiyar is there (to take care of them)". I am telling others this too after seeing his magic hand and magic wand do miracles. There are many other things he said that I can relate to these days. I guess we too shall see many more difficulties on the path as Tavayogi mentioned as the path becomes steeper and more dangerous. But just as he told AVM family members who hiked up to his shrine on Pothigai Hill that he was there to hold on to them when they slipped, we can take the plunge knowing that he is the safety net. If previously I used to quote him as having said them, now going through the phases, I speak with experience, I have started to repeat the words of Tavayogi to others now, after having the experiences.
As for the internal experiences, if I had felt the cool water wash me down too as I performed the libation to Agathiyar's bronze statue back then, today as I watered the plants in the heat of the day, I felt cool and refreshed as if I had a bath. If someone is massaged before me I tend to burb out air. The food I take in my mouth, chew, and taste, I believe is shared with others these days as I get great satisfaction in eating right till the cells. Though the going is tough on the external with things happening beyond my control, what is taking place within is total bliss.