God lives as long as we live. The concept of God dies with us if we do not realize God while alive. What remains is the source of all creations and creation itself - the Prapanjam. As we are it and in it, every action of us triggers a ripple reaction. We contribute towards its being. It explains the reason Agathiyar asked us to do the Homam and later Lord Shiva and Mother Prapanjam herself in the wake of the pandemic that threatened us all. We are alive in it and it is alive in us.
If we realize God while alive he lives in us both in life and in death. This is Samadhi. We merge in the Prapanjam that does not have a face and a name but is given both when it takes form and name. Learning to realize him as the Atma within, which is known as Jeevaatma, reunites us with him, the Paramatma. We defeat "death" then. Though the body is left behind he lives on in the Prapanjam. When Dhanvantri told us about Tavayogi continuing to live with us as the Jothi and guiding us though we could not understand we accepted it. It could only mean that Tavayogi was still alive and around even after death. Tavayogi while alive would tell us that the Siddhas still live till today in the form of Jothi. Now I understand that he had joined their ranks too. When I asked Agathiyar recently where he, Tavayogi, Lord Shiva, and Lord Muruga were, Agathiyar who came through a devotee placed his hand on my chest. I understood that they were living in me. God lives in us as long as his thought lives on. We keep them alive. Now I understand pretty well what Supramania Swami meant back then. He surprised me by asking me to do tavam for only then could he live on, he said.
If I choose to see God in an image, a painting, or a statue he materializes in it. If I choose to see him in the temple he is there to give us darshan too. Stating this understanding to him, Agathiyar confided that that was the plain truth bringing on a further understanding that indeed we are God and in his image.
Watching James Cameron's "Avatar - The Way of the Water" and exchanging notes with Mahindren, he replied that "James Cameron really had some connection with Universal I guess, Anna."
In the opening scenes itself, the director introduces us to Prapanjam through the inhabitants of the world of Pandora. We are told that they have a string of beads each having a story to tell. "A bead for the first communion with Eywa" too. "The people say we live in Eywa and Eywa lives in us. The great mother holds all her children in her heart." At the end of the movie, we are reminded again that nothing is ever lost as Eywa takes everything back into her heart. "People say that all energy is only borrowed. And one day you have to give it back. Eywa holds all her children in her heart. Nothing is ever lost."
It is wonderful to be reminded in the movie again that "The way of water has no beginning and no end. The sea is around you and in you. The sea is your home before your birth and after your death. The sea gives and the sea takes. Water connects all things. Life to death. Darkness to light."
When my mother was laid to rest, her body was cremated and her ashes given back to the elements, the priests who did her last rites told us the same too that my mother was still "living" in the earth, air, water, fire, and space around us.
Further into the movie, the child Kiri, tells her dad, Jake Sully, "I feel her dad - Eywa. I hear her breathing. I hear her heartbeat. She is so close. She is just there like a word to be spoken."
These words indeed rang a bell in us too. As Mahindren pointed out just as they have the tools to connect to Eywa we have the breath that links us to the Prapanjam.
From https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Eywa we read further that, "Our Great Mother does not take sides, Jake... she protects only the balance of life."
"The Na'vi all share certain key values even across clans, including their belief in a globally distributed consciousness of Pandora known to them as Eywa. It is also believed that all creatures have two forms: a body, and a spiritual counterpart or soul (vitra). At the end of one's life, the Na'vi believe that the souls of the dead return to Pandora's consciousness before being reborn as living matter in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth. In this way, the Na'vi believe that all energy is temporary and only borrowed by each living creature and that one day, it will return to Eywa."
"The Na'vi view all living things as a single connected system to be respected and cared for. However, they revere certain trees and plants as especially sacred - as places where Eywa herself is believed to reside, such as the Tree of Souls."
Indeed as stated in the piece further that "It makes little sense for the Na'vi to use human terminology for their ancient deity" when confusion arose as to the words spirit and soul used interchangeably in present times I turned to Agathiyar for clarification. It came in the form of a memo that Mahindren took down and passed on to me. Agathiyar clarified several matters that I had posted earlier at https://agathiyarvanam.blogspot.com/2021/10/atma-gnanam.html