Though I practically grew up running around the grounds of a Buddhist temple next to our rented family home in Taiping, sitting in the weekly classes listening to stories from Buddha's life and having food for thought at the young age and food for the stomach too, and though I attended Thevaram classes where the teacher of Sri Lankan origin taught us the songs and filled us in on the stories from the lives of the Nayanmars, and though I had come to learn about Christ and read the Bible through mail correspondence from a church in Singapore in my teens, and though I came to know about Islam from a college gardener of Pakistani roots traveling on the same bus to college, I never read about Guru Nanak although I had Punjabi friends. I came across his story portrayed in the film "Nanak Shah Fakir" which I am watching now. We learn something beautiful "This arrogance, this lust for wealth and power are all temporary, like tenants will come and go."
On another note, there was so much hype about Ramalinga Adigal coming on 30 January 2024. The day has come to pass and everything is quiet out there. Even as Ramalinga Adigal came and told me to announce his arrival through my writings, I shuddered to even think of posting the news for we are only too familiar with all sorts of claims on the net. I remained silent as he raised the matter again. But Agathiyar stepped in and told him it was not necessary. Yet Ramalinga Adigal who declared openly his state in all his songs persisted in wanting to guide the world again. Agathiyar told him he could do it in the confines of this home. Later Agathiyar tells us that Lord Shiva had held him back at least for another year. Where has he gone to make a comeback like Arnold Schwarzenegger says "I'll be back" in "Terminator"? His last words were that he was in all of creation and in all the cells. He is very much in us and among us. All the saints never left us but are living with us and in us. Agathiyar in asking a devotee to drop rituals after having satisfied the need, asked him if he wanted to live with him or live in him? All the saints and masters are in the subtle, living with us and in us, as the breath, as the soul, and in the gross too. They are living in the teachings. As Carl Sagan says, "What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." (Carl Sagan, Excerpt from the 11th episode of his legendary 1980s Cosmos series, titled “The Persistence of Memory”), Agathiyar tells us to read the original texts and the Siddhas will come to fill in its meanings and essence.
They are living in the practices. No amount of speaking and talking and Satsang shall bring us to the realization of the Self. Only practice pays off. In worship, we chose to see them in the gross world as in temples, statues, yantras, and paintings. In coming to perform rituals, we bring to memory the names of the Siddhas and their mantras, that emanate vibrations and touch subtle frequencies, and recite them, hence bridging both worlds. In Yoga, we come to know and unite with their subtle form as breaths and energies that traverse through us and beyond. In all of these, practice brings on perfection and completeness. If only we took them up, we would realize them. We are but a faint reminder of them before their enlightenment. Rather than waiting for them to reappear in physical form, should not we take up their teaching and become them in all manner of speaking? We are always looking up to another or looking towards worshipping another. It ends there. We never attempt to become a Siddha, another Agathiyar, or Ramalinga Adigal?
Hence the reason Agathiyar has asked that we practice. In sending seekers over to watch our Pornami Puja he wanted them to bring it back into their homes so that the path and the way would reach a wider expanse of seekers. In giving them the techniques and practice of Yoga, it was to have them learn and put it into practice and upon gaining its benefits to introduce it to others. In encouraging one on her path to marry another from another path he wanted the path to expand further to others. Except for a few who kept it alive, it never happened with others. Then again the Siddha path has become a cult kept closely guarded by some with selfish intentions. The Siddha way is a way of life that encompasses every facet and factor of living a healthy life keeping in tandem with nature and nature's laws. It is living by simple means. It is about allocating an equal share of time and resources to building relationships with others and with oneself or the Atma. It is about allocating an equal share of time and resources to learning and practice. The path and its practice are for all irrespective of gender, race, religion, belief, and faith.