Thank you, readers, for a grand following. The past week saw this blog reach 55,800 viewers.
Once Agathiyar told me to check out the viewership for a video I uploaded on my YouTube channel, for it had garnered a high number of views, he said. Agathiyar seems to keep a tab of all our conversations, checking if we carry out our practices diligently, and now also these statistics. He is fun to have around. If initially, he came as words in the Nadi, post-pandemic, he began to come through devotees as the Nadi readers made their way home to India. If initially he stayed only for brief moments, telling us he had to leave for Kailash or Pothigai, soon he spent more time dispensing and teaching us, revealing further understanding, and occasionally dropping a secret or two. Then he came for two consecutive days and spent hours sharing his feelings and his expectations of his devotees. It was all amazing and unbelievable.
Suren asked me, as we sat at a park after our meal, a couple of days back, if I saw Agathiyar the same as I did when I came to him as a freshman. I replied and explained how Agathiyar has grown out of the outfit that we gave him, or rather, how I have dropped placing limitations about his existence, form, and dropped seeing him the way many still see him. During one of the many Jeeva Nadi readings at a temple where Agathiyar would instruct the late Hanumathdasan Aiya beforehand to visit and read the Nadi, Agathiyar refuted the figurine of his image in cement above the door to his temple, saying that he was wrongly portrayed. This story was shared in Velayudham Karthikeyan Aiya's blog "Siththan Arul".
We tend to capture a moment in the lives of Siddhas and deities and worship these images for the rest of our existence. Besides that, we pass it on to the generations just as our forefathers did. Episodes in the lives of, for instance, Karupanasamy, considered a village deity, have been captured as forms and images and imprinted in us too. He has a devotee through whom he regularly comes, narrates his story, and clears the air surrounding his myth once and for all. He was Kusa, the son of Sri Rama. He came south for a purpose and, upon its accomplishment, returned to being his true self, but we have retained the form he took to battle the Asuras and Evil. I guess this is what happened with all the other deities, too, who literally took up many "arms," as in limbs and weapons in battle against the dark forces. I guess this is the reason Agathiyar told me that we have not truly and wholly understood the Puranas.
I am glad that Tavayogi pointed me to the source rather than have me worship him, the very first day he took up my invitation and stepped into my home. He pointed out that I was living in Maya, both in illusion and in a delusion, and that he was a nobody. Instead, he asked that I worship Agathiyar. If many still would argue about his existence and time, and his physical form, some saying he was a dwarf, a midget, and a pygmy, as commonly believed to be, Tavayogi had a fiber statue of him made and placed at his Kallar ashram, telling me that he was a six-footer. He should know, for Agathiyar had come to him, dropping in on him regularly. There were moments when Agathiyar came to him as Light as when he appeared in the hills behind his ashram. Tavayogi had a granite statue installed at this spot that my family and I had the privilege to pray to on our visit in 2013. But the first time he came to him was when he was a young adult. He came as a voice that stopped him from jumping onto the railway tracks in disappointment that he had not regained his eyesight after a year of going blind suddenly. Tavayogi told me that he had lived in the times of Agathiyar and had disobeyed him by testing a mantra given, on a horse that burnt it to ash, hence offending him. Hence, he paid a big price, losing his eyesight back then. The remnants of his action were carried into this birth to be exhausted, he added.
Agathiyar came to us too, surprisingly as a lady in all the temples where we stopped by when several others and I from the AVM family traveled to Kallar to participate in the inauguration of the new temple complex in 2016. When Balachandran sought blessings from Karupanasamy, who came through a devotee regularly, the latter told him to look out for Agathiyar at the very first temple we stepped into. We had planned to pay our respects to Lord Ganesa, Uchi Pilaiyar, at the Rock Fort temple upon arriving at Trichy airport. But as the mid-morning weather was extremely hot, our chauffeur suggested that we visit Sri Rangam first and come to Rock Fort in the evening when the sun is down. This change happened for a reason, for we recognised Agathiyar who stood in the temple corridors waiting for us. He was a lady in a green-blue hue saree. Balachandran handed the cash contribution and donation that Karupanasamy had asked to collect back in Malaysia to be given to Agathiyar. Soon after that, we spotted him as a lady dressed in the same peacock-hued saree in every temple we went to, including Palamuthircolai. He, or rather she, took a ride on the coracle or parisal across the river Kaveri with us as we returned to the bank of the river after praying at Nattadreeswarar Temple. Returning home, Karupanasamy asked Balachandran if we had the Darshan of Agathiyar, and understanding our surprise in seeing him come as a lady, asked, "What you thought Agathiyar was a male?" "He is a female," he replied.
After my initial attempt at trying to at least place his statue, at any temple, as Agathiyar had asked me in my very first Nadi reading, in 2002, instead of building one, failed as I did not get the approval of its committee, so I left it as it is. When in 2018, Lord Muruga came in the Nadi asking for one too, saying he would get me the land, money and gather people around to help me, reading my mind, he told me that though he had numerous temples to his credit, I would do it differently. I wondered how differently could we portray Lord Muruga, who had taken abode in six forms in his six homes, Aaru Padai Veedu?
Agathiyar, whom, as a kid, I saw portrayed short in height in movies and paintings, later appeared the same in all the temples I visited. But when he began to show himself to his devotees, he seemed to be ceiling height. An Australian lady of Chinese origin who attended a seminar in Malaysia was brought to AVM by a devotee who was an e-hailing driver after they began to chat about the Siddhas on their way to the airport. She came out of my puja room in tears, telling me that he had given her this Darshan. Jnana Jothiamma, who was born in Kerala, studied in Chennai and migrated to the USA, visited us in 2013 and again in 2014. Agathiyar and the other Siddhas appeared to be coming and going when she insisted on sleeping on the sofa in my living room. Similarly, when a veterinarian, Dr Nanjan from Ooty, visited the home of a couple who worshipped Agathiyar, in India, and was invited to enter the prayer room, upon opening the door, he witnessed Agathiyar get up immediately from the Anantasayana position, similar to how Lord Vishnu lies down, ties his hair into a loc, and disappears. The doctor shared with me this story when he accompanied Tavayogi to Malaysia. I was told another story, that of the mother of a devotee of Agathiyar, who was usually alone by herself as her son worked long hours in a hotel. Agathiyar seems to keep her company during these moments. She used to tell her son that Agathiyar would massage her aching feet. When she had a fall in their home, as she called out for Agathiyar, he appeared, questioning her why she was not more careful, lifted her up, and brought her a few steps to his painting hanging in the hall before disappearing into it.
Lobama, too, is known to have come to Tavayogi's old ashram. Claiming to have taken a bus ride from a town in Andhra, she spent hours chatting with him, posed for the camera before a bunting of Agathiyar, before leaving, walking, and disappearing into the woods behind the ashram.
Agathiyar told me that just as we sit around and talk about them, they, too, sit around the campfire, I guess, speak about us. If we go on pilgrimages to their temples and abodes, visiting them, they too tend to visit us in return. Their world is truly amazing and mind-boggling. I understand now why Agathiyar, in coming to receive his child Acharya Gurudasan, whom we lovingly address as Master Gowri, at AVM several days back, told me that there is much to see and hear further. We never tire of witnessing their lilas or play.
Holding our parents' hands, in walking the phase of Sariyai, we are brought to see Agathiyar in the statues and images, paintings, and pictures based on visions that others have handed over to us. Holding the hands of our guru, and walking the phase of Kriyai, we get to bring them from their realm into our homes and hearts and serve them closer to our homes and hearts. Learning Yoga from our gurus and traveling within, now we get to see and feel Agathiyar as an energy and vibration that is beyond form and description. Traveling the chakras and reaching Sahasrara, we begin to connect with Agathiyar in and as the Prapanjam. Both guru and student evolve in this magnificent journey. Both parties gain from this pact and alliance.
The divine that is believed to be out of reach of us, in the skies and out of sight, and that is later brought into the corridors and shrines and statues in temples, and soon brought into individual homes, was all along residing in the caves in our hearts. Once our hearts open up to reveal him, we begin to see him in everything. But to arrive there is pretty difficult because of our upbringing, teachings, and what society has rubbed on us. No wonder those who saw through this game could never remain in society. They shun society and stay away, apart and afar from people, doing their magic and bringing changes in subtle ways rather than through conflict and confrontations. They never choose to step into the limelight. Agathiyar wants me to do the same, telling me he would not expose me to the world. People will only know me through his writings on this blog. Agathiya,r who came to me as the words in the Nadi, is now gracing these posts. Agathiyar, who came to me as the words in the Nadi, then came as the songs of praise to Siddhas, as a painting, and later as a bronze statue in the image of his granite replica at Agasthiyampalli. If we are often told the hierarchy goes as follows: Matha, Pitha, Guru, and eventually Deivam, here it is the reverse. From seeing him as god and guru, and mentor, he became a father, mother, and then turned into a companion and buddy. He became a child coming as Balambigai. He came as the Prana. He came as the Prapanjam. Today, he asked that I let him go too. He asked that I see him as one with me. We need to lose our individuality, he says, for we then shall become one, Yegan.
I am glad I did not take up the offer to build them a temple, for when someone walks up to me and asks if either Lord Muruga or Agathiyar looks like what I portray in the image that is installed in their temple, what could I say? If I say yes, I would lock their image and tag them, not providing an avenue for the divine to take any other form or even stay and remain formless. I would be carrying with me and professing something that I know will not hold water forever. Though Tavayogi installed Agathiyar's statue, he also built a six-tier Athara peedham with an oil lamp at its summit, a structure to denote and map the journey through the chakras, a path that shall earn us Gnanam and attain light eventually.