CONVERSATIONS WITH AGATHIYAR - A NEW JOURNEY BEGINS

When we left the hotel in Trichy where we had stayed for the night, Tavayogi turned around to me and said, "Only now the true journey begins!". The year was 2005. We were to head for Agasthiyampalli and on the way back to Kallar stopover at Kutralam, Tanjavur, Papanasam, Palani. I wondered why he said that? I had come to Agathiyar after a Nadi reading in 2002. I picked up ways to worship the Siddhas from numerous sources. Why was a journey taken with Tavayogi be different? 

In the film Shaolin, the abbot of the monastery asks his cook which is of value, gold or mud? The cook replies Gold. The master then tells him that "For the seed its the mud!" So it seems that everything has a purpose and use. There were many more brief but enlightening moments between the abbot and the cook. When in the presence of the Shaolin students who excelled, the cook saw himself only capable of cooking, the abbot tells him that cooking itself was a form of meditation. As feuding warlords fight to expand their power and territories, the cook is asked to lead the civilians to safety. Watching from afar a young boy laments that the monastery has been destroyed. The cook tells him, "It lives in you!" Although the structures have been brought down the teachings live in the hearts of students. He and the young students were the seed that was to spread Shaolin to others. So too it is with AVM. Although the group has been dissolved the teachings live in the hearts of a handful. 

As Suren and I talked about all that transpired over the past few months at AVM, he recalled the very first time he stepped into AVM. Only a handful of seekers of Agathiyar gathered then. Over the years it grew to quite a large group that we found difficult to accommodate in the small home of mine. Then as I struck the demolition lever on my smartphone and removed each name from the group, hence dissolving the group, Agathiyar comes to claim that it was all his doing, showing us the impermanence of things be they good or bad. But although the group does not exist we are still friends and devotees of Agathiyar and can still keep in touch over the phone. When Agathiyar indicated that we needed to go within now, I thought I should close the doors to my home too. But he has asked that I keep it open, for there are seekers yet to come. To those who come he tells me to bring them into meditation instead.

This made Suren and me realize that the earlier journey upon his arrival at AVM was one of an external journey. We took up the worship of the Siddhas at AVM that included performing rituals like lighting the Homa, bathing the deities, singing their praise, etc; bringing these rituals from my home at AVM into the homes of fellow devotees too; and extending them to the numerous temples that sanctioned and allowed us to conduct the Siddha puja in their premises. Many made regular pilgrimages to India and found themselves at the sites of worship of Agathiyar elsewhere too like in Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, etc. Then the termination day came. The group was closed. But the handful who still frequent AVM has now taken on another journey, that of going within. We have come back one full circle and find ourselves at the starting point again, only this time, it is a journey of going within. He has got me to come one full circle too, bringing me to chant the very first initiation mantra received from Tavayogi but under different circumstances now and doing the Pranayama exercises he taught me in the early years of apprenticeship, bringing a new meaning to them now. This reminds me of Siddha Vaidyar Bhani who addressed us back then when I frequented other establishments linked with Agathiyar. He had quoted a song by Avvai and told us how its meaning differed to different people in different stages of evolution. As a child, he was told to stand before Lord Ganapathy and sing this song of praise to get his blessings. When he took up the study of Siddha medicine, his guru told him that the song had hidden references to numerous herbs and the means of preparation of a particular Siddha medicine. Coming to his spiritual guru now, Yogi Ramaiah, his guru told him that the song was entirely one that depicted Jnana in its highest state.

When I ask Agathiyar that I should take birth upon birth to serve him, he puts a question back to me, "Is that your desire?" I sensed immediately that it was not what we should ask for. He reminded me of Tavayogi too. When I told Tavayogi that I had a wish, that I should see both Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal, he replied casually that they would come but asks me if that is what I wanted? What mooted me to asks for more births to serve him was that I had no particular wishes or desires. Since each time he comes he asks what is it that we want, what would one then ask for? All the garlanding, the praises sung, the food laid before him, were all in the very first place given by him. We only source them from his entire creation. What is it that "I" have to give him, that I can proudly say was my creation from dust? Nothing. I am no creator. I have nothing to my credit. Even claiming that Body (Udal), Possesions (Porul), Spirit (Aaavi) was his, was a misnomer, for they too are given by him and he can snatch them from us anytime. Then I thought the only thing that I could safely say was mine was the choice to make an effort, for another can turn away and leave others to carry it out. So I told him I wanted to be forever in his service or Seva. But it seems that it was not "the thing" to asks for. Then I told him that it was only in taking birth that we could be of service to him and asked if there was another means to serving him without taking birth in this world? He remained quiet. I then told him if he was satisfied with the service I did to him in this birth, let it all come to an end. He told me he had to leave as his disciple had summoned him and left abruptly without answering. I suppose he chose not to answer that too, at least for now.

When devotees, seekers, and the public would sit before him and asks to read the Jeeva Nadi for a solution to their problems, Tavayogi chose to see them as mere issues, considered minute and petty, that can be solved by them if only they used their thought faculties or arivu sensibly. He would lament that no one came seeking for Jnana and the means and ways to achieve it. Talking over the phone with Mahin, similarly, I lamented just as Tavayogi did that no one asks for Jnana but were more concerned with day to day matters that they could figure out themselves and work a solution or seek professional help. I told Mahin that maybe we should asks for Jnana too as Tavayogi says, not knowing the least what Jnana meant or what we were asking for. The next time Agathiyar came he told me that "You had asked for Jnana", surprising me for how did he know about something I spoke to Mahin over the phone? He then surprised me further. Jnana was not something he could give but instead I had to work for it and work towards it. Agathiyar, Ma and Aiya had explained to us on their earlier visits that the Siddha path was one of gaining lessons, learning lessons through the many events and its related circumstances that provide a myriad of experiences and that till we learn lessons from these experiences we shall come back to relive again and again the same experiences. I have had the answer to my desired question, "So I told him I wanted to be forever in his service or Seva. I then told him if he was satisfied with the service I did to him in this birth, let it all come to an end" in the palm of my hands but never realized it till this moment where I am penning these words. Now I understand why he took off without answering then, for now, I understand that that act of serving him was completed, having gained the experience and lessons from it, we need not repeat that. We need new ventures and new experiences now. The abbot of the monastery in the movie Shaolin too tells his cook that life is all about gaining experiences. Once reluctant to leave the monastery to see the world, the cook is forced to leave, taking the young students and the villagers to safety now carried the seed across the troubled land to new frontiers.

The next time he came I was prepared, not caught off guard as the first time he posed the question as to what we wanted. I told him it was rather difficult since we sincerely do not know what to asks for fearing that the thing we ask for would be the wrong thing. I went on to asks him then to know the purpose of my taking birth and my journey. Although Agathiyar has spoken and revealed in his 5 tenets to taking a human birth at the Tamil Sangam, the purpose in all humans taking birth, I wanted to know what was my explicit reason and mission. He did not reveal it but asked me to find out for myself. He said that as we go within moving from one chakra to another, standing at the final seventh chakra it shall all dawn on us, the reason we took birth and our mission. I understood that whatever we do, prior to arriving there, is merely materialistic and of impermanence in nature. As Tavayogi told me "Only now the true journey begins!", our true mission shall then be revealed.