As a bachelor, I prayed at dawn and dusk and visited the temples in my vicinity daily. With much time on my hands, I read much about our customs and traditions back then in the 80s. If the Gods and Goddesses were portrayed as being loving and compassionate, it did not tally with the sufferings of relatives and friends I saw and knew. Watching my friend's pregnant wife suffer right under the eyes of the Goddess whom they adored and helped out at the temple, and learning about my relative dying on the spot after a car hit her right before the eyes of the Goddess whom she had visited just moments ago, made me question God. In the midst of much confusion, Lord Siva came in a dream, asking me to keep all my questions to a later date. I turned my attention to my marriage, family, and career for the next 13 years. There was no home puja. No temple visits. No readings and discussions.
I am glad Lord Siva came and stopped me from turning cuckoo over all the questions I had that led to anger, and my possible and likely exit for good, becoming an atheist. I had to see and hear about all these unfortunate events to bring me to question God. As I was an empty vessel then, the calling came. Following his call to come to the worship of the Siddhas, in the Nadi reading in 2002, Agathiyar filled me in. I am glad Agathiyar came to reveal the reasons for each individual's sufferings and dilemmas by explaining my Karma. I came to a state of acceptance. I could accept why others suffered too. Since then, I have not questioned God and his divine laws. If I am in a state of bliss and contentment these days, it is because I followed all the dictates of the divine without question after that.
I am glad that Thavathiru Rengaraja Desigar of Ongarakudil refused to bless me as I sat before him after being coaxed by his followers back in Malaysia to pay him a visit when I left for India to carry out my Parigaram or remedies for my past Karma in 2003. I met my very first guru, Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai, the very next day, as foretold by Agathiyar in the Nadi that I would meet my guru. But for that event to take place, I had to recite the Vasudeva mantra, which came to me in a mysterious way some two years earlier in 2001. My nephew, who was a disciple of Annamalai Swami during his university days, was directed to pass a message to me by his Paramaguru, Gopal Pillai, who had passed on. When my nephew came over to my home to deliver it, during that brief moment, a transmission of this mantra took place through him. I was told that it would pave the way for me to meet my guru. Many years later, he tells me that it was from Agathiyar. I understood later that Rengarajah Desigar had to reject me, for me to come under the wings of Supramania Swami. Agathiyar told me later that I went looking for Supramania Swami while he sent me Tavayogi.
Just as I stepped into the cab taking me to the airport, my wife told me to look up my second daughter's horoscope while in India. I found myself standing before Supramania Swami for a reading. But for that event to take place, Raji, who was supposed to pick me up at Chennai airport, had to fall ill. Deventhiran replaced him. Mentioning my wife's wish to him, he brought me to his uncle, Supramania Swami, who was an astrologer too. With so many coming to him for a reading, I wonder why he brought up his desire to build a temple for Lord Muruga to me when my nephew visited him later. I gathered enough funds for him to purchase a piece of land and put up a dwelling or kudil some distance from his guru Yogi Ramsuratkumar's ashram. But strangely, the temple construction was stopped even before it could take off by a stranger who questioned him why he was taking a step back from Gnanam to Bakti.
When Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram was invited by Appana Nagappan in 2005 to officiate his new Peedham in Batu Caves, a small advert appeared in the local Tamil daily, daily. His name seemed familiar. I called up the contact number in the advert and fixed an appointment to meet him. I looked through my belongings for a leaflet that I had stashed away, which I received from the Nadi reader after my first Nadi reading. It carried a notice of one Thaiveedu Thangarasan's desire to build a temple for Agathiyar in Kallar. True enough, Tavayogi confirmed that it was his leaflet. I met my second guru, one on the Siddha path, that day. For this meeting to take place, the Nadi reader had to pass me the leaflet soliciting funds to build the ashram. I had to keep the leaflet with me for some three years instead of throwing it away. As I never subscribed to any newspapers back then, my neighbor Augustine, who delivered papers, would pass me an unsold copy each day during this period. And so I came to read the advert.
So too did I meet my wife after either the 15 girls rejected me or the charts were not compatible. In my second daughter's reading, Agathiyar reveals that we were all together at Papanasam in an earlier birth and that she had requested that we be her parents again this time around, too.
So many things have to happen for something else to take place. So many people have to come into our lives for these things to take place. This reminds us of Neale Donald Walsch's conversations with God. God says that since the souls had a wish to experience emotions, they took birth. Neale, who wrote a children's parable titled "The Little Soul and the Sun", adapted from his book 1 in the series "Conversations with God" (CWG), brings the essence and the message of life before birth to the kids, in simple terms, which serves us equally well too. A story is narrated of a young soul who knew he was light but wanted to experience it. So he is given a choice to pick the desired action that he would like to do, from a list of many, once he is on earth. He chooses the act of forgiving. Another soul immediately steps up to join the soul in fulfilling its wish by being the perpetrator so that the young soul can then forgive him. They both come down to earth to live out their desire.
As Neale wrote, knowing who we are was not enough; we needed to become "it". This desire triggers a chain of events, a learning process takes place, and several experiences are recorded, whereby the soul becomes enriched through these experiences. We, being light in essence, for want of experiencing it, had darkness and all opposites created for us. As all the souls are perfect, many wanted and volunteered to come down to help us gain the experience. Thus, we had all known each other earlier. We had planned to be together here. Those who needed a particular experience chose to come early, while others remained behind to join later. So it looks like we have to thank our enemies too and hug them for being there for us.
So do you truly think that everything is your doing? For those who despise the word Karma, do the butterfly effect, domino, and ripple effects then come to mind? It seems at times that we are all players in his lila or divine play, each taking on a role. Just as my daughter, who completed playing the game "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33," tells me that there were several alternative endings to the game, our lives could similarly end up in multiple ways according to our moves and actions. Could inaction then keep us safe and not cause the boat to rock and cause further ripples in the sea?
When the Nadi reader and I jointly went through sieving each Nadi leaf carefully for any hint to me, my family, career, or anything else that would qualify to say that it was mine, and read further, after three stacks of leaves, there was one that carried everything about me but the name of my wife was mentioned as Manohari which it wasn't. This made me wonder if there could be another Shanmugam Avadaiyappa walking the earth, but married to another lady? Exhausted, we both called it a day, and I went back after two weeks. There it was in the very first stack after several leaves, waiting to be read.
Agathiyar made my day. Agathiyar made plans for me. He executed them, too. I was just a pawn in his hands. I was just a tool. And I still am. I was a sponge that was quick to soak up all the learning, lessons, and experiences I gained from them. I went with the flow. I never for a moment let my thoughts and mind question, doubt, analyze, or dictate to me. Instead, I listened attentively and practiced diligently whatever was given to me. He tells me that we have known each other for several crores of years. He remembers. I have forgotten. He says that he has plans for me, but now wants me to do absolutely nothing except write this blog.