I had wanted to make movies as a school-going kid. I would head for the theatres and watch Tamil movies. I picked up learning the Tamil language in the Pupil's Own Language (POL) classes in school and strengthened my command of it by reading movie magazines like the Indian Movie News and Pesumpadam. But one fine day I dropped that desire figuring it would be difficult to summon the actors and crew together and have to wait for the right lighting and weather. You have to understand that those were the days when even my college lecturer in our engineering school lectured us about the dangers of putting up buildings and structures on ex-mining areas, along riverbanks and railway tracks. With technology and its advancements, all these are history and myth now. Anything is possible these days.
But I guess Agathiyar seeing the seed of my desire still in me, introduced me to my gurus around whom I began to make videos, hence exhausting it. I guess that I must have carried a desire to build a temple too, something that my father's clan the Chettiars are fond of doing, for he and Lord Murugan asked me to put one up telling me that I shall do it differently. I finally came to find out that the temple they mentioned was my home Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) that housed them since 2002. Taking notes on my maiden journey to India and returning home I posted my adventure on several websites that I created back then in 2003. Later traveling with Tavayogi in 2005, watching me note the day's events as we drove to our next destination he enquired and appreciated what I did. He became my star and hero in all my videos until his passing away and still continues to be. Since I too like Agathiyar and Tavayogi desired to pass on whatever little I understood to other seekers and onlookers and as I'm camera shy and have stage fright, I opted to write as Agathiyar asked of me. Agathiyar came to give my writings a boost by giving me the subject, the words, and the sentences to write too. I guess I must have carried this desire too, that of writing, for Dr. Krishnan told me it was in my horoscope. My wife candidly tells me that I am currently living out my desire as she has been away looking after her aged and ill parents for the past few months.
With all these expectations from me, I think I have failed my bosses. If the virtual readership numbers say otherwise, the actual following on the ground is not inspiring or impressive. I guess this is the reason sensing my sadness Lord Muruga told me to leave that to him and again reminded me there was nothing else for me waiting to be done. Surely Lord Muruga, like Agathiyar, Ramalinga Adigal, and Tavayogi has a huge task in convincing and bringing these seekers to the fold. I remember the day some years back when he had to lure us, just as we lure children telling them that we have a surprise for them, telling us exactly the same that he has something in his hands to give us and that all he asks of us is total surrender.
The setback with people is that while they will beat the traffic and face the parking woes to reach the temple to pray, seekers cannot bring themselves to sit in the comfort of their homes and conduct rituals on their own. Neither can they sit to try and meditate. They always give the reason that they have no time. It only shows that other things have taken importance and priority above and beyond allocating some 24 minutes in singing the praise of the Siddhas or sitting alone with one's thoughts. Or everything for them has to be done in the company of fellow seekers and followers. They fail to realize that it is in these moments of sitting alone that solutions dawn from within us. Instead, we chose to go searching for gurus and masters to tell us what to do regarding our personal lives. How can we expect a solution from someone who has broken all ties with work and family? Arriving at their door, the battering we receive in our everyday life would in fact prompt us to take up the robes just like these gurus.
What is your closest and most precious possession? Is it your bike, car, house, or family? It is this body. What is even closer is this breath. But yet we take this breath for granted. We do not give it its due attention until the moment we feel difficulty breathing and gasping for air. Once we get medical attention, we go back to ignoring it. Tavayogi showed us Agathiyar with a form, that is a 6 feet-talk fiber statue, giving us a mantra, Aum Agatheesaya Nama, that could summon him, and later equated him to Lord Siva, and finally pointing out to us that God was breath, equated the breath to God. We are as long as the breath moves in us. Even as the house crumbles, the breath lives on until the lungs fail us or rather the breath chooses to stay out upon our last exhale. If we could retain this last breath within that would be the state of Samadhi. We are to build this fortress strong and let it go too eventually. The Siddhas who experimented with life and the many possibilities in extending it, are willing to share and teach us but are there any takers or listeners out there?
If Lord Siva came in a dream asking me to keep my doubts and questions regarding the sufferings of others, to a later date and had me drop my visits to the temples, have me drop all my readings, thoughts, and questions, after some 14 years of staying away, Agathiyar called me in for a Nadi reading that explained it all. I stepped into existing Peedhams and organizations seeking to learn the worship of the Siddhas. But was disappointed. Upon letting go of my personal search and desires, Agathiyar had me take on his task. After pursuing the path, taking up prayers and rituals, learning and practicing Yoga, and conducting charity, for some 17 years, Agathiyar had me drop it all and he had us leave those too behind and do nothing. Just as I had all the pounding going on in my head seeking answers back then in the eighties, and Lord Siva brought instant relief from this torture, Lord Muruga and Agathiyar came along to have me just sit doing nothing productive as I learn is part of the Dutch culture called Niksen.
So my day is filled with wake-up calls that come not from the alarm clock or phone but from within that stir me to wake up in the early hours of dawn at times at 2am, 3am, 4am, or 5am. If I wake up with a subject I begin to write a new piece or if I wake up with more information, I work on my existing draft. After the morning shower, I head for one of the six regular parks that I had earmarked and feel comfortable walking. I have my breakfast in the shops, as my wife is away caring for her elderly parents. I return home to catch up on my writing or develop further the updates or notes I took in the event ideas, words, and sentences had come to me during my walks. Having done that I watch anything of interest to me. I return to the fields and outdoors in the evening again or take a brief walk around my neighborhood. During my evening walk at the park yesterday, two girls I presume to be 4 and 3 were in the playground with their grandpa. Whenever I walked by them, the younger child would jump onto my path smiling and gesturing with both her hands as if blocking my way. When I bowed and asked to give way she would step aside laughing. This went on for some time until they were taken home. But before she left she walked up to me and touched me with her finger as if curious to know what stuff I was made of. A youth who carried a tiny toddler walked by me during my evening walk in the neighborhood last evening. Although he did not give eye contact the child did. When I raised my hand and waved at her she did the same. When I pointed to her she pointed back to me. When I did the high 5 hand gesture she copied that too. I had written in an earlier post of how a young boy walked up to me and touched my beard as if wondering what it was. Children are innocent and full of curiosity. Children just want to connect with things and people around them. It is adults who prejudge and choose not to interact with fellow humans. What we have of the past is only memories. But we are in control of the present. We make the present and future, though the latter might not always be entirely up to our expectations. We leave our footprints on the net, which keeps track of all our moves. Thinking no one knows, we leave our tracks on this face of the earth, which comes to haunt us later in life or in the next birth. I have made numerous blunders in life but the most compassionate father stomached them and let it be for the sake of my needing to acquire experiences, knowing that one fine day in one of the many births I shall learn and atone from it and find reprieve and solace. The recent Tamil movie Meiyazhagan is one such story of learning to forgive another.
Some time back Agathiyar dropped a bombshell that caused immense distraught, and confusion. Lord Murugan came to forewarn me of impending danger by way of a Leela or game played by the threesome Lord Siva, Agathiyar, and Lord Indra. It was just like in the Puranas and movies. Later they revealed that all that we have read, seen, heard, listened to, touched, smelled, and felt was coated in Maya, that I need to sieve through carefully, a term I heard Tavayogi say to me on his very first visit to my home back in 2005 that I could not understand back then and am learning to comprehend now. Tavayogi the very first instance he stepped into my home and upon leaving shortly after, told me I was living in Maya. The scriptures speak about it. Buddha had personal encounters with it. Anything that changes is Maya. All of duality is Maya. For instance, why is it that if time is running out for one, another finds it hard to kill time? Time and space and life which hangs from it are indeed subjective and relative. We only know something or someone to be short if another is long. We know daybreak if there was night. We know sorrow after being in a state of happiness. We know we are sick after staying healthy. Though all these seem all too real and true, it is only so in a relative world. How can it be the ultimate truth then?
If Lord Siva by coming through a dream in 1988, had made me stop questioning the happenings around me between the years 1980 and 1988, where seeing people suffer, I was confused if God really was compassionate and loving, he wiped out all the data that I had come to gather and store on customs, traditions, and religion that I had gathered in those years, in the 14 years that followed.
Agathiyar in bringing me to the worship of Siddhas in 2002, Tavayogi in bringing my wife and family to it later in 2005, and Agathiyar bringing several youths to my home in 2013, to engage in numerous activities, puja, rituals, and charity, in late 2019, had me close shop and bring the shutters down, clearing all these data too during the next 2 1/2 years. Just as he cleared the data on my schooling from 1966 to 1976, college life from 1977 to 1979, and my office from 1980 to 2016, he did the same with the AVM family.
Agathiyar in dropping the bombshell that none of these is real, brought down the very establishment and hold we had on him too. Agathiyar wiped the slate clean. So what is real then? The Oneness with the One or Yegan, the state before creation, that is, was and will be in existence. When is each man and woman going to transform himself or herself into a divine person, a divine being, into a godman or woman, and reach this state? When I told a man who worshipped the deity Karupanasamy that Karupanasamy told someone else to offer just a tender coconut instead of meat, liquor, and tobacco, and asked him to follow suit, he replied that he would turn vegetarian the day Karupanasamy asked him for vegetarian offerings instead of meat. But it doesn't work that way, does it? Agathiyar has told many to take up Yoga. How many do it? We keep giving reasons to postpone good things. When disaster strikes as a result of our negligence and postponement, we turn to him to save us. Should he give a damn then? It seems now that we deserve all that takes place in our lives, either because we have desired them through our wishes and likes or if we had ignored the warnings of the impending dangers. We cannot claim ignorance for we are educated and knowledgeable. It hurts to see fellow souls drown. But what can we do if they do not set aside their ego and begin to listen and follow the Lord's way? Is there even a spark of the divine light in us? If yes it should have turned into a burning furnace by the coming of the Siddhas in their lives. For many the fire died down. I sympathize with the Siddhas. I understand how Jesus, Ramalinga Adigal, and Agathiyar feel about humanity and the blunders they make knowingly. They only want to deliver us from the hands of Maya who reaches out and envelops us often drowning us. The hold of Maya is so strong that it even latches onto religious and spiritual icons and drags them into the mud.
It is truly suffocating to live in present times. The noise and air pollution on the one hand. The tons of trash dumped on the face of the earth, in the rivers and seas, and in space too. None of the five elements is spared. Then there is the trash that goes into our body and blood turning it toxic and killing it before its time is up. Then we have the trash that fills our minds through the sensory organs that give rise to further dreadful Asuric thoughts. Love and compassion have taken a back seat with the demonic nature in us behind the wheels. Anger and hatred are eating us up and plunging the earth into darkness respectively. When previously the Gods took the reins now it is demons and Asuras. Where would they take us if not to plunge into darkness further? I understand from the deity Karupanasamy's life why Agathiyar has been reminding me not to lose my temper since day one, especially now as the energies are dwelling in the crown Chakra, for anger will bring its downfall falling back into the lower regions again. As for Karupanasamy who had to take on the Asuras creating havoc in the south, he had to transform into one of them to defeat them and return to his original state. But we took on the form taken for the mission and began to worship him in this state till this day. Just as there is so much trash in the material and physical world and in space, there is much trash in the spiritual world too, left behind by fraud gurus. I can understand the state of the Siddhas now, desperately looking for a soul to nurture, groom, and deliver salvation. Are you one of these souls? Then sign up with the Siddhas today to deliver you. Take up reciting their names. They shall hear you and shall bridge both worlds coming to you in the least expected ways and leading you on.
The Siddha Marga is comprehensive. You have astrology. What astrology cannot reveal the Siddhas' Nadi reveals. What the Nadi doesn't reveal the Siddha comes in person through men, be they ordinary devotees or gurus. They bring us to understand birth and the reasons why one enjoys life while another suffers. These are tools of communication for the layman on the path of Sariyai. To those keen to pursue the course and know more about the Siddhas they are given rituals and worship to take up as in Kriyai. The Siddhas come to guide them similarly. One begins to connect with them, their thoughts, teachings, paths, ways, methods, and means. Soon they send someone to teach them Yoga moving them to know Pranayama, their breath or Uyir, the Satvic diet for their body or Udal, and practices that build internal heat or Tava Kanal needed to raise the Kundalini lying dormant within. Once it has arisen our efforts end. We live the rest of our lives as a Siddha, not as in giving magical performances and exhibiting magical capabilities as in doing Siddhi, or healing, etc that are much publicized, but going within, working on the Self or Atman, and exploring and coming to get to know it. Gnanam dawns from beyond once when we start going within and the Chakras open up and simultaneously dawns when we recognize the Self or Soul or Atma. A Gnani is born.
Even after Agathiyar personally took up promoting my appearance, stroking my hair, and pointing out to the rest that it was turning black, many were amused by it but stopped there. All the years of carrying out Siddha puja with seekers who turned up at the door of our home that became AVM sadly did not moot them to do the same and invite new seekers to join them in worship in their homes. Agathiyar and Tavayogi wanted each home to become AVM. It was their dream. Everybody coming to the path stops short of speaking about the greatness of the Siddhas. Nobody wants to become one of them. Mahindren, Rajah, and my daughter took the lead and were the first to take up the call and conduct puja with family and friends.
Agathiyar who called me to the path asked that I include the worship of the Siddhas besides the other deities. After some 20 years in 2022, he told me enough of speaking and singing their praise and instead share the transformation and changes taking place within. If I had carried stories of my pilgrimages and worship in websites, blogs, and YouTube earlier, he had me share the transformation taking place within with those keen to follow and transform themselves too. Sadly none came forward except for Mahindran. But as he was raising a young family, Agathiyar had him pull the brakes. Only recently did Agathiyar ask that he continue Yoga which was put on hold. His home has become the new AVM. As for me, I am given nothing to do. There is nothing to accomplish. Nowhere to go. If back then the singing of the praises to Siddhas and devotional hymns stopped on its own, now the breathing exercises stop, getting me to pause my breath automatically after each move.
God comes as a statue in general to those who come to believe it. He then comes as a guru in physical form for those fated to move up the ladder. For those who put in the effort and practice what is taught, he comes as the awakening of the subtle form of the creative energy within, Kundalini. He then awakens from within as the Atma within, the moment we let go of our ego. We and he are then one. The JeevAtma merges back into the larger ParamAtma, just as the river reaches the sea. But sadly like streams that begin to pond, many stall on this journey and never make it to the ocean. I am glad that Agathiyar broke the bunds and released the stagnated waters in me helping these energies to reach the ocean.
If Swami Sivananda fell at the feet of the seeker who would become Swami Vishnudevananda later, as the latter's ego did not permit him to do so, and broke it, Tavayogi did not even allow ideas to manifest and common beliefs to take hold in me, shattering my joy at receiving him to pieces on his very first visit to my home. Agathiyar on the other hand had me engage in several facets of life and its activities and before it became an empire tore the house down and broke all ties with it, leaving me lonely. Lord Muruga told me there was nothing to do further. So should I continue writing? But seeing the all-time readership figures I do not want to let them down.
