Just as Vikram "Kumar" Gandhi, an American filmmaker, who wanting to expose mans' weakness to submit to anything religious and spiritual, purposely "transformed himself into 'Sri Kumaré', an enlightened guru from the fictional village of Aali'kash, India, created a spiritual philosophy centered around the ideas of illusion and self-empowerment and intentionally went out to get followers to follow him but soon lost himself in his own game and began to believe it and finally bringing up the courage to admit and unveiled himself to the members of his core group of followers, some who disagreed but most agreed with his message taking it in good faith and as an experience saying that he taught them to think, telling them often that he was not a teacher and that the teacher was within them, Tavayogi too taught me to seek God who he called Agathiyar, within me instead of looking for God in the inner folds of his safron robe. Like Kumar," who regarded religion as Maya too, Tavayogi denounced that I was living in the world of Maya, the very day I invited him over to my house. He did me the greatest favor a guru could do for a student. Unlike the many gurus whom Kumar met and none told him that he did not need them, Tavayogi expressly told me I did not need him and not to hang around him, but to seek Agathiyar and hold on to him. But Agathiyar, just as he had Tavayogi, who was ready to go into a state of Samadhi after returning from his last leg of wanderings in the Sathuragiri hills, pushed him to seek a place called Agathiyar Vanam, which apparently Tavayogi found to be in the small settlement of Kallar, and later instructed him to come over to Malaysia following the footsteps of his Paramaguru Jeganatha Swamigal and Guru Chitramuthu Adigal, wanted him to take me under his wings instead of leaving me unattended. Agathiyar then turned to me, asking me to go to Kallar after Tavayogi returns to his Ashram and spend a couple of days with him and learn from him. The morning after my arrival, Tavayogi revealed that Agathiyar had come and had asked him what he was giving me. When Tavayogi questioned him about what to give me, Agathiyar told him he would say it later. Apparently, it was the greatest heritage in the form of a series of Asanas and Pranayama techniques that came to me and several others when my nephew and I "schemed" to have him show us during his visit in 2007. I am grateful to have been given this precious gift that slowly transformed me both externally and internally. Even as I am penning these words, a stabbing pain is felt in the top of my head that pierces the inner ear. I am unable to bring my hand close to my head, much less stroke or comb my hair, or even touch my head. Even the running water from the showers hurts. It is as if it is intruding into a sacred space. The flowering in the crown is still going on, though, amidst the bodily pain, or rather in the nerves and Nadis, akin to wringing a wet cloth. Agathiyar, as previously, wants me to bear the pain, for he classifies pain as bliss too. I understand now why he told me not to let another touch my head. Astrologer and Siddha physician Dr. Krishnan had earlier told me not to let anyone "touch" me. I guess others might mess up the beautiful painting that is taking shape under the strokes of the brush held by the Siddhas in their hands. Real as it might seem to perceive, to touch, to smell, the world and all the stuffs that come from it, is but Maya, a dream, a painting. If Tavayogi pointed this out to me painfully at the very start of my journey, and if Lord Muruga cautioned me of the dangerous game and painful divine play at its height, Agathiyar, when cornered, finally, painfully admitted to it. Confucius once said that,
"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest. And third by experience, which is the bitterest."
I guess I had to learn the hard and painful way, for Agathiyar too had said that Gnanam was not gifted but was attained when one travels the Chakras.