Some 12 years back today, Friday 1st January 2010, Agathiyar took the flight to Malaysia from Chennai. Varad Rajh offered to take up the job of making Agathiyar's statue in bronze as specified in my Nadi reading in 2008 and 2009.
Agathiyar arrived on our shores on 2nd January and graced my home puja on the next day, 3rd January 2010 which coincided with the Annual Vizha carried out by my guru Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal on his ashram grounds of his Sri Agathiyar Gnana Peedham in Kallar.
Though both Varad Rajh and I had not met he called me from India after receiving the email I had mailed to several Sthapadis or sculptors including him having sourced their contacts from searching the net. He agreed to do it after reading the conditions Agathiyar laid in the Nadi and that I had mentioned in the email. He did not mind traveling to Agasthiyampalli where he had an idea of how Agathiyar was made of granite and worshipped in the first temple built by King Kuberan at the dawn of the Kali Yuga.
He sent me those photos.
Agasthiyampalli. 17 February 2009. Courtesy of Varad Rajh
I was fortunate to be taken to this temple earlier in 2005 by Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal where Agathiyar performed the miracle of opening his left eye before me in this granite statue.
I met up with Varad Rajh when he visited Malaysia on business many years later after Agathiyar's statue was delivered. That was the first time I saw him in person. Prior to this our communication was through email and phone calls. He never asked for a cent till the day Agathiyar boarded the plane.
Agathiyar decided to perform the same feat and miracle that he did at Agasthiyampalli and shortly at his shrine at Papanasam, at Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) too. He opened both his eyes and saw the family and Jnana Jothiamma who was visiting us.
Agathiyar took to the covers of books, brochures, billboards, tv channels, videos and blogs, and websites too.
Agasthiyampalli. 18 January 2012. Photo Courtesy of Suren
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Suren
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Suren
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Suren
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Suren
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Jnana Jothiamma
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Jnana Jothiamma
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Jnana Jothiamma
Agasthiyampalli. Photo Courtesy of Varad Rajh
AVM Agathiyar on completion on 8 December 2009. Photo Courtesy of Varad Rajh
Agathiyar upon arrival at AVM on 2 January 2010
Jnana Jothiamma made a visit to Varad Rajh and updated me on his dream mission of making a majestically huge statue of Lord Nadarajah.
Thondu Seivom Bala Chandran too met up with Varad Rajh while in India on 23 April 2014.
Thondu Seivom Bala Chandran with Varad Rajh
That statue was completed recently and placed at the Golden Temple in Vellore. He sent me the link to his channel today.
https://www.youtube.com/@vardasvishvakarma4148
We are pleased to have Varad Rajh make the statue of Agathiyar for us.
Last night I saw the Hindi movie "Goodbye" with my family. It reminded us of the recent passing away of my mother on 28 November 2022. Harish (Amitabh Bachchan) comforts his last son who arrives late and after all the rites are over, telling him his mother went happily. He shares his story. He recalls that he is left as a kid in a school by his parents. He awaits for them to pick him up but hears that they are dead. Being a child he does not understand the concept of death. He is told by a teacher that though one is out of view it doesn't mean that he or she is not there, pointing out to a cyclist who turns the corner and disappears from their view.
Harish: "You know when my mother and father left me at school (Guru Arjandev Govt School) for the last time... then.. they turned right and never came back. Every day I stood there waiting for them."
He goes back to the past conversation.
Teacher: "What is it?"
Harish: "They are saying my parents are dead. What does that mean?"
Teacher: "Harish can you see that man on the cycle there. Can you see him now?" He has taken the right turn and you can't see him anymore. But that doesn't mean he is not there."
Harish comes back to the present moment: "Mom took a right turn as well. She moves on but we can't see her. And then one day it would be our turn to take that right turn. We won't be seen but we will still be moving on."
It reminded me of the words of Agathiyar too who had told me not to fear death as it was another door to another passage.
The priest who did the rites for my mother from day one too said the same. As we sat on the banks of the river that flowed by the small town of Tanjung Rambutan he described my mother as having become the water that rushed in the river; the cool morning breeze that brought on shivers to us brothers who had taken a dip in the icy cold waters; the earth bank that we stood one and the branches of the trees that bordered the banks which dipped into the waters as if taking a sip. He meant my mother was one with nature now. He asks that we see it and accept it too. It reminds me of Ramalinga Adigal's last words that he would be in all things henceforth.
Back to the movie, in another instance, the priest on the banks of the Ganges tells the daughter that what we have is memories and stories of her mother.
"Stories nourish the world. Stories are older than us and also the dinosaurs. It is older than the world. You hear a story and tell your children your version of it."
The priest goes on to ask her "What would you like to remember about (her mother) Mrs. Gayathri.
"You will remember all the little things she said or did. Listen Mrs. Gayathri has been here many times. But in this lifetime she left you those stories those memories."
Similarly, we have many stories of our parents and grandparents to share with our children and grandchildren.
My mother came in a dream some days ago but just as my father too came in a dream after his demise I could not remember the conversation.
On a related note, a relative who attended the wake shared her story. Being a teacher who loved teaching the kids, she was stressed out with the administrative work that came with it, asked me why I opted for an early pension if all things were good at my office. I replied that I did not want to die in office. I wanted some time to be with myself and my family. I wanted to leave when things were good to be true.
Another relative with dementia and depression can't leave her husband out of sight even for a moment and won't leave her home. This made me pray again that the dear Lord take me when I am in the prime and peak of my life where all my bodily functions are at their peak and I am hale and healthy. This is what the saints too prayed for if we follow the songs that they have handed over to us.
During my walk around a park, a Chinese man caught up with me and walked alongside me. Seeing me help a senior citizen who tripped and fell earlier, he started a conversation with me. He told me the greatest treasure was good health and not being dependent on another or becoming a burden to them. Another Chinese neighbor stopped by my home during her walk when I had my grandson on my lap taking in a breather and told me exactly the same too.
Our greatest asset is this body and mind. Take care of these assets well.
Agathiyar has been in my home for 12 years now coming in the form of a bronze statue made to specific instructions given by him in my Nadi in 2008.
We are truly gifted and blessed for Agathiyar having come first in the Nadi reading in 2002 and later come over to my home as the bronze statue in 2010 purportedly as a transit before going over to the Jegathguru Shree Raghavendra Swamigal Miruthiga Brindavanam Kinta, Perak. But for some reason, he decided to stay and had another devotee place another statue at the Brindavanam. Staying with us we became aware of his majestic greatness as foretold by the Siddhas and Gods and Goddesses. For those who came up to me and my wife asked what did we gain by coming to worship him, he came as a guru and later a companion in our struggles to beat the lure of Maya and its creations. Today he stands as one in our family. What else could one ask for?
The first mention of his coming as a statue was on 8 December 2008.
The following year on 8 January 2009, he briefed me on how and where he was to be made.
He guided me in subsequent Nadi readings until the moment he reached our shores on 2 January 2010. We celebrated his arrival and guru puja the next day with a handful of friends and family. Agathiyar reached out to many through their Nadi readings and had them come by my home. My home took a name then. It became known as Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM). He initiated puja in temples and charity. With the coming of the pandemic he had us go within carrying out yoga and meditation. When it was safe to gather he began to visit the homes of some selected souls.
Watch these magical moments from his arrival to the present day on my channel at https://www.youtube.com/@ShanmugamAvadaiyappa/videos
The number 12 has several significances.
In https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/ we learn that "Purna Kumbh- mela is celebrated every 12 years. It is also believed that spiritual progress happens in practitioners in the cycle of 12 years i.e., it takes 12 years of disciplined practice to change a habit. Mantras, Japas and Pranayamas are practiced in multiples of 12. It takes 12 years for Guru (Brihaspati, Guru of Devas) aka Jupiter to complete its 1 year (one revolution around the sun). Just as humans celebrate birthdays every 1 human year, so we celebrate divine festivals like Kumbh-mela every 1 Bruhaspati-year. From Mahabharata Vana Parva chapter 134, Ashtavakra says the importance of each number. In regards to twelve, "Ashtavakra said, Twelve months compose the year; twelve letters go to the composition of a foot of the metre called Jagati; twelve are the minor sacrifices; and twelve, according to the learned, is the number of the Adityas. The secret of 12 is the 12 Adityas. These are 12 forms of Sun/Surya Narayana. These are also called as the 12 purushas pertaining to the 12 lunar months of the year. These 12 also rule the 12 houses of the horoscope of every individual."
From https://mysticalnumbers.com/ we learn further that,
"Time is measured in two groups of 12 hours." Agathiyar mentions the duration of any given practice in terms of a Nazhigai that is equivalent to 24 minutes. 12 would be half a Nazhigai.
"There are twelve signs in the Zodiac." The Chinese Zodiac has 12 animal signs for each year. More significance in the world's religions of the number 12 is given at https://mysticalnumbers.com/
During the last rite in the early morning hours of 13 December as we gathered on the banks of a river to complete the 16 days of mourning for our mother, the priests who saw through all the rites from day one led us on prayer to see our mother in all of nature, in the chill and cool air at the break of dawn, in the gusts of breeze and wind that brushed our faces and made us shiver as we sat in wet cloths, in the ice cold waters of the river that was full to its brim and rushing by us in an apparent hurry, the morning mists that shrouded the place bringing visibility to mere meters, the rain clouds that awaited to pour down, the trees and their branches that occasionally took a dip in the rushing waters too, and the ground that we stood on. This was exactly what Ramalinga Adigal told the handful of his faithful followers moments before he disappeared into a locked room in Sithivalagam in Methukuppam in 1874. He would merge with nature and all of us. My brother in a piece dedicated to my mother at https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2022/12/10/when-we-die-do-we-really-die/ quoted a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye that goes as follows:
“Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow, I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain, I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush, I am in the graceful rush.
Of beautiful birds in circling flight, I am the star shine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom, I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing, I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft I am not there. I have not left.”
Come Monday 12 December it would be 16 days since the passing of my mother. If traditionally we are told not to light lamps and visit temples during this period a devotee reminded me of the full moon and Karthigai Deepam festival a day before and asked if I was conducting puja. Seeing her keeness I considered carrying out abhisegam and homam. Lord Murugan came to address us that day breaking all the rules just as we did. Another devotee was astonished to hear that both Agathiyar and Lord Shiva came and presided over the last rites carried out for my mother. How can we explain the Lords lila or play? Speaking to Shankaran Aiya who cares for and serves Agathiyar at the Adhi Kumbeshwar Temple in Kumbakonam he tells me that love for him breaks all man-made barriers and walls.
My brother who is a journalist wrote a piece on the passing of our mother at https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2022/12/10/when-we-die-do-we-really-die/
Meanwhile as I sat waiting on my dying mother at the hospital the swirling in the crown of my head went on. It came on during the funeral. It has come to stay for good in all matters of affair.
If we thought that we the siblings were in charge and carried out the last rites for our mother, I realized that we were wrong. It was Agathiyar coming as the eldest who saw through the whole rites. I saw his hand in every moment, how he charted the course, swept the unnecessary meddling and interferences, rituals and customs aside to precisely carry out God's will.
When I received the news on Sunday that my mother was admitted to a private hospital on Saturday night, 26 November 2022, my wife and I headed for Ipoh some 206 km away. Our children joined us later. Upon arrival, my brother who was a Medical Assistant briefed us on the updates. That night my mother spoke to each of us who came by and stood at her bedside in the ICU. She told us that she wants to sleep. I knew that she had meant that she wanted to sleep and never awake. I told her, "So be it."
The next morning at 6am as she was not responding we were all summoned to the hospital. My brother wanted her to pass away at home but the eldest was still considering having her monitored at the hospital. That is when Agathiyar came and told him not to delay the process as another birth was awaiting my mother. Only then he moved to have my mother move to my sister's home with whom she was staying. As arrangements for an ambulance and the relevant papers were readied for her discharge my mother passed away. We now arranged to have her body taken home to be cremated. As my mother wished that she should be cremated, the undertakers told us that the two crematoriums in the vicinity were booked to the brim and suggested that we cremate her body the traditional way using logs. This was god sent. It was akin to cremating in Kasi.
The undertakers engaged a priest from the transgender community to carry out the last rites at home, at the funeral pyre, and at the riverside. This was god sent too. We saw her as Ardhnarishwar. She carried out the rituals to our heart's content till the end explaining all the finer details as to the purpose, reason, etc of doing them. She carried out many radical changes to the usual norm that others would adopt, dropping many rituals, or setting others straight and returning to tradition. The moment she began to sing the Tiruvasagam Agathiyar came and announced the arrival of Shiva and asked all gathered to abstain from talking. Agathiyar turned to my mother and announced to all gathered that she was his mother. I knew then that in worshipping the Siddhas, besides coming as a deity, and god, and a guru, and later as a companion, they stand as a family member among us. He was there to do his last rites for his mother, the body that housed her soul or Atma. Later at the cemetery the priest told us that he would not want to place the logs on my mother and instead poured ghee on her. This was an act of the divine too. This reminded me of how Pattinathar knowing that his mother's body was to be cremated rushed to her side and had them remove the wood and instead have them place banana plants and light the flame singing hymns. We saw her cremated in full view which otherwise would not be possible if it was done at a crematorium.
My participation was deemed sufficient as the priest released us to attend our daughter's convocation the next day.
We lost our mother at 12.27 noon last Monday 28 November 2022. She was 95. She complained of stomach pain and was quickly brought to the hospital on Saturday night. Tests were done and she was given antibiotics and medicine to relieve the pain. The night before she passed away she told each of us standing around her bed that she wanted to sleep. I knew that she had meant falling asleep and never waking up.
From an article on https://www.britannica.com/science/human-body/Basic-form-and-development, we learn that "In vitro experiments indicate that the body’s cells are programmed to undergo a finite number of divisions, after which time they lose their reproductive capacity. Thus, the potential longevity of the human body—about 100 years—seems to be encoded within the very cells of the body."
The Yogis tell us that we come with a certain number of breaths that we exhale during the course of our lives engaging in various activities. Once it is exhausted and the breath that is expelled never returns death befalls. The Yogis though knew the secret to extend their breath - by just sitting still hence prolonging their lifespan. Swami Satprakashananda in his book "Meditation - Its Process, Practice, and Culmination, published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, says "Through this very life, by regulating this mortal life he can reach the immortal.”
My mother prayed till her last days. She was thankful for her limbs, often speaking to her hands and feet, thanking them. She was thankful for life itself. She was a strong lady. Thus I used to send others who had lost their spirit to battle their illness, pain, and suffering to her. She would raise their spirits with her presence and talk. She would always bless us "God Bless You My Child/Son/Daughter". She never spoke about her pain if ever she had it. She had no further desires having exhausted all. She even saved for the cost of the funeral rites not wanting to trouble her children. Hence though we were sad that she would not be around us in physical form, we sent her off happily. As my wife said, "It was a celebration of LIFE."
She wanted to be cremated. But as the only two crematoriums nearby were unable to accommodate another death, the funeral care provider suggested that we cremate her at a funeral pyre the traditional way using logs. We saw it as equal to being cremated at Kasi.
Though the Siddhas had told us that the Sivapuranam was to be read/sung to uplift the Atma while alive and not after death befalls us and fire and earth consume us, why did they allow the song to go on? Then it dawned on me that the former was a message specific to those on his path. As for the general public who never knew what the Sivapuranam was or never read/sang it here was an opportunity for them to know and perhaps follow the song at funeral parlors. But as all things lose their true meanings and intentions over time, a fellow student stopped my daughter from listening to the Sivapuranam in her hostel room telling her that it was to be played only at funeral houses. She picked up from her mother who forbids playing the song in their homes. People think it is a song to be recited only during funeral rites. This reminds me of how Agathiyar changed our perspective too sometime back in 2016. As Agathiyar in the form of the bronze statue at AVM, Tavayogi and Mataji were making their rounds to the homes of devotees who invited them over for puja one of the host began to sing poet Vairamuthu's "Jenmam Niraintathu" that has been popularized at funerals. A shock came over our faces as here we were gathered for a Siddha Puja. Later that weekend Agathiyar coming in Tavayogi's Jeevanadi reading praised her for the song!
Lord Shiva came with Agathiyar and graced my mother's funeral upon singing the Sivapuranam. I was surprised that they arrived at a funeral house but later realized the reason. As we know during the many moments in communication with them that they only saw the Atma or soul and never the physical body, they had come to pay their last respect to the physical body that was an abode of the Atma. A day before Agathiyar came at the wards and informed us that another birth was waiting for her.
Srinatha Raghavan posted the following enlightening conversation on Fb some time back,
In Banares, I happened to meet a young Aghori, or a Tantrik, on the ghats of Manikarnika. As I was just staring into the pyre of death, He came and sat beside me and struck up a seamless conversation.
He: Death is as temporary as Life?
Me: Yes.
He: Do you know why Death (Yama) & Time (Kala) are so feared?
Me: No.
He: Because they are least understood?
Me: True. How to understand Death?
He: By experiencing it, even when alive.
Me: And how do we do that?
He: Under the guidance of a Guru, you can experience Death.
Me: What is Death?
He: There is nothing called Death?
Me: What?
He: Death as we know it, is just physical cessation of the Body and its functions.
Me: Yes.
He: But what made the Body once tick, the spark of life, lives on, and just like a drop of Water that has turned into Vapour, it goes back to become one with the whole.
Me: Interesting.
He: What is more interesting is what happens after that?
Me: What would that be?
He: It's the way the whole game once again when the droplet separates itself from the whole to become an individual again.
Me: That's true.
He: Thus the play of life and death continues, till the drop has finally lived its share of desires to assume a form and lives happily as a part of the formless whole.
Then giving me some Bhasma and a Rudraksha, as a parting gift, He said, "May this Bhasma ever remind you of the impermanence of life and death and the Rudraksha of the latent Divinity that lay hidden within you, which is nothing less than Shivahood?"
From www.lionsroar.com we read that "In Buddhism generally, death isn’t death - it’s a staging area for further life."
Death is another doorway to another journey says Agathiyar. If I had thought that Agathiyar was educating me on death just some weeks ago, I understood that he was preparing me for the moment. One who faces death boldly is indeed a Siddha he says.
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