Agathiyar had me learn lessons by calling me to his path. He exposed the effect of Karma on our lives and as the reason for taking numerous births. He also pointed out that desires that arise in the present or Vasanas or unfulfilled desires we brought with us have to germinate, bloom and flower. These could be pleasant or unpleasant. He also pointed out that just as past Karma, Vasanas, and new desires bring forth another birth, merits gained and earned through bhakti or devotion, our service, and interaction with humanity or at least a part of it that is the immediate family, relatives, friends, colleagues, strangers on the street, community, society, and nation all merit another birth too. I understand now why my first guru Supramania Swami told me that he had to leave the merits earned in his 40 years of tavam or carrying out austerities behind. He passed it to me.
Agathiyar held a one-hour class on anger management in the Nadi and came several times in later years finally asking for his staff or Vaasikol as would a discipline master brandish his cane, all just to have me drop my anger.
In sending Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal to our shores, he had me drop my attachment to all things material telling me "We don't need them, son". Both my gurus were an exemplar of humbleness.
In coming as the bronze statue in 2010 and leaving for another devotee's home in 2023, he had me drop even my attachment to his form. But he is now back in my home after I came to terms with the truth of the matter. Recently in appreciating my willingness to part with his statue, he told me that now I have to even drop my attachment towards him. How could I do that? He is my world now. He has come to replace everything in my life. I only know him. I cannot have a conversation without bringing him into the conversation. My mind dwells around him and his greatness. My body, breath, and soul are filled with gratitude for him. So when I put forth the question as to how was I supposed to forget him he replied coolly "Aren't we one".
Indeed when we are one where does Shanmugam Avadaiyappa come into the picture? Where does he come into the story? Where does he reside? What action is his? Shanmugam Avadaiyappa fades away from existence. Only Agathiyar exists. Only Agathiyar Is.
I understood that he was not speaking about Shanmugam Avadaiyappa as being Agathiyar but that our souls just like everyone who has realized him will deem to come to know, are one. We are one in the manner of the soul. The JeevAtma that initiated the formation of a solid mass from the act of conceiving, that became the embryo and fetus, and an infant and child later that grew into a toddler and kid, a teen and a young adult and full grown adult and finally ages is one with the ParamAtma. Though in returning home upon death, we return to him, but if one could realize him while alive that would be the state of Samadhi, going back to the source. As we learn from the documentary "Samadhi" - Part 1 - "Maya, the Illusion of the Self" that "To realize Samadhi is to learn to die before you die", it echoes Ramalinga Adigal's and the rest of the Siddhas words about the need to learn the art or Kalai of Dying without Dying in the real sense or Saagaamal Saagum Kalai.