Accounts of what happens when our dormant energies are awakened are flourishing on the net these days. Whether it is based on experience or reading and researching is another question. It is always best to be under the guidance of a teacher, master, or guru who has been there and has come back "alive" to teach.
The teachings of the Siddhas are pretty much "alive". These are not something written or transmitted in the past and left for us to interpret or assume. Agathiyar and Ramalinga Adigal in asking me to read and reread Tavayogi's "Andamum Pindamum" on the Tatwas told me that they shall come to clarify. Agathiyar too has told a devotee to read the original text of Manickavasagar and not to read the clarifications given by the authors. He told her that he would come to clarify. He had told me in the past to read Tirumoolar's "Tirumandhiram" and added that Tirumoolar would come to clarify.
Similarly, their practices are very much "alive" as they come to initiate a start and bring them to a halt later, dictating the do's and don'ts. It is not something taken from the past and carried out in the present following tradition rigidly. There would not be life in it. It would only be a ritual handed down and carried out through the ages. Speaking to Mahindren who came by last evening, we questioned why none of the temple priest who serve the Lord and perform pujas 6 times a day, do not cry in ecstasy and joy in conducting the rituals for the Lord. I guess it has become a profession to them that brings food to their dining table. We cannot but come to realize that most of the Siddha teachings and practices taken up by devotees become a profession for them eventually be it astrology, Siddha medicine, Nadi reading, and other sciences of the Siddhas.
But things are different with us for the Siddhas come to modify, enhance, improve, shorten, or lengthen, these rituals and practices. Contrary to the common belief that the path already exists, the path is laid each moment by laying a slab each moment and watching if we take a step, and in which direction. We chart our own future, taking baby steps. Eventually looking back on the path, we would come to know if we had kept to fate and what it had outlined for us or created a new destiny holding the hands of the Siddhas. I understand now why Lord Murugan in a Nadi reading in 2018 told me that he had changed my fate. A new path and slabs were laid the moment we began to take heed and listen to the Siddhas or the inner voice or soul, the Jeevatma which is a part of the larger soul Paramatma. Agathiyar is known to test our obedience as any guru would before leading us into the new frontier that awaits us on the path or rather paving a path to travel on to the desired destination. But the moment we stop to think or postpone or delay or ignore his directives, he lets fate take its course. He shall bless our desires and watch us go through the experiences that come along with them. Eventually, we come to stand before him for a solution to the mess we created or when lost for ideas and solutions or lost, injured or hurt.
What if Agathiyar came to you telling you that he was willing to give you three wishes as Genie told Alladin, what would you ask? We would either ask for more time to list all that we wanted and desired or ask for those things that are missing in our lives to make it complete in our eyes, right? So did Agathiyar ask a husband what he wanted seeing the couple's undeterred faith in him even as his wife lay bedridden after a traffic collision. When he spontaneously replied that he only wanted Agathiyar it put me to shame as I thought that he would have asked that his wife recover and start to walk and function as normal. Agathiyar came on his rounds asking each of us gathered before him sometime back. After the others asked for trivial things to be sorted or solved, I stood stunned as he asked me too. I was surprised that he asked me too knowing pretty well that I had nothing to ask and that my life was complete in every sense. I was contented doing his bidding. Only recently have we come to know that Agathiyar does test us much just as a goldsmith and trader in precious stones puts the gold and gems to the test. As he waited on me just as a waiter waits on the diners, my brain rushed to come up with something to ask. It did not occur to me to ask the same as the husband had asked, "Only him." After several minutes I figured that service to him was the only payback for all that he had given me. I put it to him that I would want to take numerous births and serve him just as I was doing then. He asked me "Is that what you want?" immediately reminding me of Tavayogi who would always say the same to everything I wanted or desired. I knew that that was not what was to be asked for. I thought that there must be something else that I was not aware of and hence I remained quiet. He moved on. Later discussing this with Mahindren over the phone we agreed that maybe we should ask for Gnanam which Tavayogi always speaks about as the ultimate state. Agathiyar must have eavesdropped on our telephone conversation for the next time he came he surprised me by saying that I desired Gnanam. I was stunned again. He went on to explain what Gnanam was and how it was to be attained by our efforts and not gifted as we had thought all this while. I also learned that of course he listens to all our conversations as he is Prapanjam and the Prapanjam is in him. We cannot hide from him nor anything from him.
I guess I had failed as a devotee, seeker, student, aspirant, and sadhaka in not asking for him whole stock and barrel. I realize now that in asking for him all things are accommodated. We do not need to list our individual wishes and desires for in attaining him everything under the sky and beyond is ours too. Ramalinga Adigal in attaining Godhead sings that God stood aside for a moment and let him run the show that of creating, sustaining, destroying, veiling, and showering grace. When Agathiyar tells us that he was the Prapanjam and that the Prapanjam was in him, just as Lord Krishna was of the Prapanjam and the entire Prapanjam was in him, I should have been moved to ask only him and nothing else. I came around eventually asking this and then he gave me another blow by having me read Ruzbeh N Bharucha's book, "The Fakir - The Journey Continues". Baba comes to hit the nail on the head as I read the final few pages of "The Fakir - The Journey Continues". Although the book was given to me by a devotee some time back and though I had initially read several pages and kept it aside for reasons I cannot remember, I guess there was a reason I read it then. Baba's words in this book were the last straw that broke the camel's back.
"One has to go beyond even the lure of the spirit world and keep moving towards the light. Yes, whoever one worshipped and was close to would be present to receive you, but eventually, each one of us has to move beyond the brilliance of the surroundings and know that there is only one reality to merge with the creator and to reunite with the source and to become the light. That is what the master wants and expects and demands out of each of us. We have to move beyond the illusion towards what is only real."
Just as Betty J Eadie recalls Christ had shown her around heaven as she came back from a coma to reveal in her book "Embraced by the Light", Baba shows Rudra paradise and almost instantaneously brings him to sit among the filth. He tells him, "So we sat in paradise and now we sit in the bowels of filth. If your focus is your master, then neither will matter."
Baba knocked some sense to me too as I too had chosen only the master - Agathiyar. In that case, we should learn to accept everything thrown at us and not be selective in what we want, be it trash or treasures, and be it joy or sorrow.
Baba reminds Rudra in the book and me too, that "If your priority is not your master and your spiritual growth, and you don't use your free will to move towards your master and the light then it will take eternity and beyond for you to ever move beyond the illusion and the weakness and merge with the light. It was all about your priority and using your free will. It was all about whether you loved your master more or yourself." He points out that though we love the master, we tend to love our weaknesses a little bit more, which is very true. At times we question ourselves if we are truly sincere in saying that we have surrendered and that we only want him in our lives.
I learned my lesson that day that in asking for him everything comes to us without asking. Baba in asking Rudra the earth-shattering question shamed me too. "All my devotees pray and want to be with me, beta. Do they really want to be with me? All my children want to spend their eternity with me knowing well that being with me means being in the most sublime place in the spirit world or merging with the light. Would my lovers and children and all my devotees and disciples want to spend their eternity with me if I decide to work in a place of foulness?" Baba gave me the shivers as I read these lines. Indeed, as he says, "I am everywhere", he is in paradise and sits in the bowels of filth too. So why do we distinguish between paradise and filth? Baba made Rudra realize that "nothing mattered but being with his master. It did not matter where he was, as long as his master was by his side." Rudra's heaven was Baba and being by his side. He didn't want heaven if that heaven didn't have Baba around.
I was truly surprised and taken back to see the husband and his children usher us into their home and bring us to his wife's bed where she embraced us with love and tenderness. I had wondered, being ardent and die-hard devotees of Agathiyar and Lord Shiva, what their state of mind was after the tragedy that took the life of his mother too. I had anticipated a different outcome thinking that they might curse God for the tragedy that had befallen them and turned atheists as I had seen several turn into in the past. But the husband's quest was truly genuine for when he replied that he only wanted Agathiyar, Agathiyar gave himself to them, calling on Bhogar to heal his wife and son who had a fractured leg. He and his other son and daughter escaped with light wounds and scars. As Baba says in giving ourselves completely to the divine we should accept paradise and filth, so did this couple and children accept their fate knowing that they had a better destiny waiting ahead that Agathiyar shall provide for. I have goosebumps as I type this piece and tears well in my eyes thinking of this exemplary family that places their entire faith and life in Agathiyar and Lord Shiva's hands.