If Agathiyar had subtly initiated my move to retire early in 2016 at 56 and take up puja and charity full time at AVM, if AVM reached its zenith then with the arrival of Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal the same year to acknowledge that the seed he sowed on Malaysian soil had grown into the Agathiyar family, Agathiyar brought all these activities to an abrupt halt in 2019. Many could not comprehend the move to close the group that was the talk of the town. Many I suppose felt hurt when they were removed from the Whatsapp group and were questioning the move. But I knew the hidden hands of Agathiyar had driven me to close the group. To those few who truly understood Agathiyar he brought them to the next phase that of Yoga. Agathiyar had me teach the techniques that Tavayogi had taught me in 2008 to Mahin first and later had Mahin teach to the handful who kept coming back. As for me, he told me to engage in only the pranayama exercises which he said I will know. I guess it was to avoid any recurrence of my back pain. If I thought clearing my throat had tugged the sciatica nerve causing excruciating pain that radiated from my lower spine and buttocks down to my right leg, after bearing the pain for close to three years Agathiyar tells me that it was not so. The yoga asanas and pranayama that I had diligently put into practice learning them from Tavayogi had initiated many subtle movements of energy within that had brought an imbalance in the three Dosas and opened up the dormant and revived the sluggish chakras within to awake and move to higher regions.
Agathiyar also wanted me to go within giving me certain techniques to follow. Ramalinga Adigal too came along to monitor me. It was pretty apt and timely that the pandemic came on in the footsteps of the partial closure of AVM as I had more time with myself. Agathiyar who stopped all forms of worship, puja, and rituals at AVM also brought a stop to all our charitable activities telling us to let go. He told us that others would take up the responsibility. True enough he handed these to others who volunteered. The families who looked up to our donations and charity never went hungry for the deed continues till this day taken up by other charitable souls. Agathiyar told me not to leave the home except for the essentials. Two years passed by swiftly.
Sitting back and reminiscing the past I saw these two years as wasted, for there was no useful service nor activity either to the self or others that we did. When I thought I had wasted the past two years staying indoors, due to the frequent lockdowns in view of the pandemic, and also asked to do so by Agathiyar, Agathiyar came recently and cleared the air telling me it was not so. I could not understand how the isolation had benefitted me as I did not see any obvious results.
Sharing my lamentation and sadness with Mahin, he cleared the air implying that I see the whole episode from a different perspective. If we had been saddened that Agathiyar had brought an end to all the useful activities done in the past that bridged both our worlds through rituals and puja and opened up our hearts and soul to compassion towards the poor, hungry and unfortunate, Mahin implied that we see it as a journey of nonactivity and withdrawal. Indeed we had withdrawn within as we stayed indoors spending the time with Agathiyar sitting in silence and contemplating. We stayed indoors and carried out pranayama that worked silently and subtly within. As a result today on my 62 birthday I am bathed and drenched in Prana. If it needed the effort to bring in this vital energy within initially through the various breathing exercises, if it needed a concerted effort on my part to bring myself to wake up during the early hours of dawn to sit for my practice, now it nudges me to sit whenever it comes on. The prana is inhaled by the very pores of my skin filling the body with an enormous amount of air, prana, and vital energy. As Swami Muktananda his book ‘Secret of the Siddhas’, Siddha Yoga Publication, 1980, says, "It produced in me both inner heat and the coolness of joy", if during the early years of tapas and practice extreme heat said to by Tava Kanal arose within, these days its sheer coolness that pervades within and envelops the body too.
So it seems that after all the activities we are asked to withdraw and go within, paying attention to and follow the breath. Now I understand how Tavayogi's definition changed according to times or rather our understanding and the stage we stood on. If having taken us as a disciple, initiating us into Agathiyar's mantra, after I told him that Agathiyar in my Nadi wanted me to come to the Siddha path; we listened to him address those who came with the problems clarifying that their sufferings were due to Vinai or their past deeds or karma and showing them to the worship of the Siddhas by reciting their names; once we came to Agathiyar he showed him as God to us. As we took a strong hold of Agathiyar's feet he pointed out to us that the Vasi or breath was God.
Life starts with the very first breath breathe into us and ends when the last breath leaves us. It is said that man lives a lifespan equal to the number of breath assigned to him. So does all creation. The ideal way of the Siddha is to extend one's breath count by bringing in more prana within. When he connects with the Prapanjam and learns to tap into it, he is sustained by this prana. He then shall choose the time to leave rather then be robbed of his life abruptly as his count is exhausted or it's time out for him. This reminds us of the movie "In Time". In it, people buy, steal, transfer, or gift others time adding on years and youth.
In 2169, people are genetically engineered to stop aging on their 25th birthday, when a one-year countdown on their forearm begins. When it reaches zero, the person "times out" and dies instantly. Instead of using paper money, a new economic system uses time as currency, and each person has a clock on their arm that counts down how long they have to live. Time has thus become the universal currency, transferred directly between people or stored in "time capsules". Several major areas called Time Zones exist within Ohio. Dayton is the poorest, a manufacturing "ghetto" where people rarely have more than 24 hours on their clocks; in New Greenwich, people have enough time to be essentially immortal. (Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/)
The breath is of utmost importance especially in current times of the pandemic where many gasps for air, struggling to breathe in the overburdened intensive care units of the hospitals. As Katherine A. Mason wrote at https://www.sapiens.org/culture/covid-19-air-pollution/, besides a lifetime of breathing polluted air, now mankind is faced with suffocation as a result of the dreaded virus. Then we had the lockdowns that suffocate us further. I guess it is a lesson for us to cherish the birth and the breath too. If the human birth is said to be rare and the breath is vital in sustaining us, the vital breath or prana is vital in sustaining life or the Spirit within. When both Body and Spirit are sustained only then can we know our Soul or Atma.
My 4-year-old granddaughter today surprised me with a Birthday Greeting that she wrote and drew.
