When I was transferred from a coastal town to the city in 1988, I had no choice but to frequent a food stall opposite my office building for my vegetarian meals. A group comprising of people from all walks of life would gather daily to review the stories carried in the local daily, often passing negative remarks. Five years later, after I returned from another posting, they were still at it. I walked up to them and asked if they had not changed in those years and if they had nothing better to talk about. They remained silent. Some time back, an elderly man walked up to my car following the foreman who came over to look at it. He continued his adverse remarks and tried to get me to show support for his negative views on it. I stopped him from talking further and asked him to talk about his family instead. He had nothing to say. Weeks ago, as I sent my car for a wash, a 48-year-old man who sent his car for a wash too walks up to me and opens up about things being not right, spoiling my beautiful morning. I stopped him in his tracks. I told him to change, and the world would change. He left. If things were truly bad and in shambles, we would not have nationalities from Myanmar, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Middle East and Nepal take up personal loans or mortgage their properties to buy their way and arrive to work on our shores. Then, some pensioners are disappointed with the occasional small pay hikes. They fail to understand that pensions are a gift to them for life. Be grateful.
Everybody seems to paint a bleak picture of their world when, in truth, it all lies in our individual perception. You can choose to enjoy the rain and sun or complain. So is it with life. Malaysians have to learn to love, cherish, and be grateful for what we have in our hands. It is a beautiful nation full of resources and opportunity. Agathiyar calls it Sukra Bumi, the land of milk and honey overflowing with wealth and prosperity.
For a change, stop complaining but instead begin to talk about the good things that life has given us. Nature and life are not obligated to give us treasures. But when opportunities arise, seize them and make some good of it. Learn to look at the little gifts and promises that come our way.
I have had a very good life till now as I step into my 66th year this September. Born into a family of nine children, my parents lost two boys when they were a toddler and infant respectively. When I had the same signs of diarrhea and purging that took their lives away, they brought me to a Chinese medium who was then our neighbor. I survived after he asked that they give me in adoption to the gods. I had come to understand that I had come under the shadows of Bhogar and the Siddhas back then. I sought him for the next 13 years before I was forced to go to the hospital for a jab when a dog bit me.
My father, from the Chettiar clan, was born in Kilselvalpatti, Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu. He and his brother came over to then Malaya. While my father continued the family business of money lending, his younger brother started a driving school in Taiping, Perak. My mother was born and raised here. They married, and she took on the role of a housewife. My parents sent me and all my siblings to school. Life was simple and peaceful. People took care of each other. The neighbor kept an eye on other children. We spent most of our time outdoors, with traditional games that were seasonal to keep us amused for hours. We flew kites, played marbles, and played top and football. Those were fun days for us kids, though our parents struggled to keep the boat afloat. Soon, my elder siblings began to help out with the home expenditures when they each got a job.
I remember the time my schoolmate and I, both 16 years old, who went jogging, were forcefully lifted off the ground onto a Land Rover, and kicked off the aerodrome field for intruding onto the runway and apparently preventing it a Caribou plane laden with cargo from landing.
If I had been kicked out of the airfield back then, I never imagined that I would return to help build the facilities for the arm forces later. Neither did I know that I would be hitching a ride on a CN transport aircraft, a helicopter, and a war ship after my career kickstarted as a civilian with the military.
The doors opened up, facilitating and fulfilling all my needs. As I was a Government scholar back then in college, I got a job in the public sector in 1980 that I stayed on for some 36 lovely years before I opted for early retirement in 2016. I enjoyed my career. I was looked after very well. People had always been good to me. Though my core business was civil engineering, I am grateful to the department for providing access to Information Technology when it was in its infancy, where I picked up the skill to do presentations, which has helped me today to blog and upload videos on my channel.
My guess that my wife was chosen for me when some fifteen girls rejected me, was right when Agathiyar in the Nadi reading for my daughter tells us that my children and wife had been a family in previous births too, and my daughter had asked for this relationship to continue in this birth too. He also added that she was the reason I came to his path. In 2005, Agathiyar sent Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram to our shores, where I met up with him after learning that he was the one who had solicited funds to build a temple for Agathiyar in a pamphlet passed on to me by the Nadi reader in 2002.
Before that, Agathiyar sent me to Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai on the pretext of casting my daughter's horoscope which was sugested by my wife as I was ready to get into the cab that was waiting for me to send me to the airport to catch my maiden flight to India to fulfil the remedies that Agathiyar listed out in my Nadi.
I had these two wonderful gurus who carved and molded me. Like people, Agathiyar, the Siddhas, and all the gods, goddesses, and deities in the Hindu pantheon of Gods were always there in my times of need. What else can a man want further? My life was, is, and shall be in their good hands in the days to come too.
Our home too that fell into my lap, turned out to become Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) in the years to come. Now, as I am kept indoors, often alone and asked to observe silence, what accompanies me are these wonderful memories. Then the skies turn grey, and I shudder with fear as I recount the many mistakes I made that could have jeopardised or turned my life around. Miraculously I was saved in all those crucial moments by a divine hand. Agathiyar later told me that as I had needed those experiences too, he threw them into my path and had me trip and fall into the labyrinth. I am who I am today because the divine looked over my shoulder throughout my life. I am deeply grateful to both people and the divine for looking after me. How can I thank them all? I guess by listening to them and following their dictates. And so did Agathiyar asked me to write about my experiences in my blog, first the external journeys and later the internal transformation. Now, he wants each devotee to share their experiences as well each time we gather. This is where he shows me those who comply and those who choose to defend their stand in not sharing. Finally, he too let it be. I, too, shall take heed and let it be, stepping aside from my previously purposed role as a Spiritual Catalyst - one who does not aim to become a leader but who wishes to cause others to question and find answers within themselves.