If someone were to ask me if I knew the others running the establishments in the name of Agathiyar in Malaysia, I would reply "Yes" and that I had been there but I chose to walk alone. In the days of my initial thirst and search to know about the worship of the Siddhas they let me down. I decided to pick up from whatever little I already had in my hands and whatever I read and moved on with my solo journey. But 11 years on in 2013 Agathiyar decided to bring seekers of his Nadi to my home to participate in my family puja. Then followed years of active hosting and participation of rituals both in homes and temples, and carrying out charity programs in old folks' homes and orphanages, for the homeless in the streets, and those who had a roof over them but found it a struggle to stay alive. Agathiyar then brought everything including the Puja, charity, and Satsang to a standstill in 2019 when it was at its peak, telling us that it was enough. My wife said we were high on it just as one is in the case of acute alcohol intoxication. Affirming that the journey was solo henceforth, Agathiyar said that the path was narrow and only one could travel at a time. We all went our separate ways. Since then, except for the daily upkeep of my health, I have been idling around doing practically nothing. Not sure if it was to be this way, as we are always used to doing something either for ourselves, others, or in the name of our gurus and God, I asked Agathiyar if there was anything else that I needed to do. "None" he answered.
When Tavayogi invited me to his ashram after we met for the very first time in Malaysia in 2005, and when Agathiyar in the Nadi reading I had, practically at the same time, requested that I visit Tavayogi's ashram and spent a couple of days, I left a month after his departure back to India. Upon arrival and staying with him, I was surprised that he too was whiling his time in silence, occasionally saying something to me that I did not comprehend until I walked the path too and came to experience them. Someone might drop by and bring him out or invite him to a function. Although that was about that, he volunteered to bring me to the places Agathiyar stipulated in my Nadi. He walked the extra mile for me showing proof of the existence of Siddhas though I never did comprehend them until I walked the path too and came to experience them.
Supramania Swami too having had an exciting time in his life carrying out 40 years of austerities or tavam, and doing Siddhis during this time, took to solitude in later years, visited only by those who wanted to know their horoscope or for some amulet or advice. That is when I was brought to him arriving at his village home after completing the last leg of my pilgrimage in 2003 as dictated by Agathiyar in the Nadi. He was to be my first guru. Spending some 5 magical hours with him on my first visit I later visited him in 2005 and stayed with him, now in his kudil that we helped build adjacent to his guru Ramsuratkumar's samadhi temple in Tiruvannamalai. I saw the simplicity in their lives. I saw the humbleness in them. I saw their faith in the divine. I saw their surrender to the Almighty. They never preached about God nor spoke about their achievements or experiences. I watched and learned. Just as Agathiyar is still a mystery, both my gurus too are a mystery. Except for the little information I gathered from Supramania Swami's family, and the little that Tavayogi shared as we traveled together, I hardly knew both my gurus.
When Agathiyar told me to come to the worship of the Siddhas in my first Nadi reading, I began to knock on doors seeking more guidance. But somehow the path and the worship were kept a secret by our pioneers then. Even the numerous books on Siddhas that I purchased from every bookshop that I came across and carried were repetitive. They were not personal accounts and experiences as in autobiographies or biographies but material put together from reading and research. They were too academic and mostly based on myths and legends, and Puranas. After I started my home puja I began to compile the songs in praise of the Siddhas for my own use. After my maiden pilgrimage to India in 2003 I began to write about my experiences. All these were in response to the existing gap and void and lack of personal accounts walking the path of the Siddhas. Then comes along Tavayogi who had actually walked the path. He gave us not theories and stories but had us put into practice the rituals and yoga asanas, taking us on a journey of exploration away from the favorite pilgrimage spots into the jungles and to the caves where the Siddhas are said to have roamed. My writings then revolved around him.
Soon with the coming of devotees to my home to participate in the puja, the rituals and songs that accompanied them were carried by them back into their homes too. These songs echoed in the halls of the temples where we conducted rituals too. Soon Agathiyar in 2022, giving me internal experiences that came about through the activation of the chakras and its energies traversing the body, asked me to share them with readers of this blog. Since then there was no stopping me. I happily shared them with co-seekers wanting to know. I asked them to share their experiences too and some did. This blog is a compilation of stories of mine and other devotees and their experiences. It is not academic. You will not find methods, teachings, practices, history, myth and legend. Neither am I a guru. We are all traveling together each experimenting with a thing or another and reporting back its results. We do not have codes of practices, codes to adhere to, rigid do's and don'ts, rules to upkeep, diet and menu to follow, etc. This path is one of discovery and learning from individual experiences. It is broad and expansive. As Tavayogi says one cannot possibly cage the soul, the soul should be free to explore the good, the bad, and the ugly. The soul should be allowed to explore and live out its desires and wants. For want of fulfillment of his desires, he had engaged with the world at large.
After walking numerous paths and arriving on the Siddha path and walking it too, one finally comes to a point where he sees the foolishness in pursuing further thinking there is more beyond the hills and the dales. He stops his search, and retires in solitude, resting his aching limbs and heart. It then dawns on him that true joy and happiness, bliss and fulfillment, was in him all this while. He settles within, making peace with himself, forgiving himself, and abiding in his Self. As Agathiyar told me that there was nothing more to do, he settles down keeping himself company. He is his own world. The external world and its affairs do not affect him henceforth. He is complete.
Our lives is a book that we write in. Do not stop at Chapter 1. Do not let your life end with just a Chapter. Begin to take a step forward and write the next chapter. Let each Chapter be another story. Let each Chapter be another phase of our lives. Keep on writing and it might turn out to be a Novel or an Autobiography.
"You asked who I am. I am magic. You are magic. Because we are a part of magic that may not be definable but is unmistakably there. What is magic to me? It is the feeling that my own heartbeat, my own breathing, is as a response to and in parallel with a heartbeat and a breath that is already there." - Harry Owen
"You are the sum total of the experiences you have worked out. I thought to become a hermit was the ideal spiritual situation to be in. But I realized that that is not the answer. Time has taught me that you can't live as an island. You need your fellowmen. You see yourself as a reflection of your fellowmen. And you learn from your fellowmen good things and bad things. And then you realize that all the material things you have gathered, there is no fulfillment of spirit and life. It is what you have acquired. The soul is the true wealth. I do not have an answer to why I am here. I think maybe to work at this." - Johann Moolman
"We feel lost, we feel alone as a species. And we are feeling that because we have systematically set ourselves out on a journey of separating ourselves. But we are absolutely a part and parcel of this. I just wish that everybody could feel what is there for us because you would not experience one moment of loneliness ever again. There is extraordinary wisdom around us. It's an evolved wisdom, a wisdom that has evolved over time. We just need to listen to those who are older and wiser and who have worked out how to live well and wisely. And those are the species that have been around longer than us. They are the trees. They are the animals. They are the microbes. If we could just take the intelligence we have and tamper it with wisdom..." - Sue Swain.