Growing up in a family oriented towards temple worship, alongside the daily lighting of an oil lamp at our home altar in the sixties, I saw the magic hands of the divine at play in my life. When my parents lost two of my siblings to diarrhea earlier, and when I succumbed to it too, instead of bringing me to the hospital as they did for my infant siblings, they sought the help of the divine, rushing me to our Chinese neighbor, who prayed at his altar for me and saved me. Subsequently, I was taken care of by these Gods till I reached the age of thirteen, when a dog bit me, and I had to receive an injection at the hospital. I remember how the huge shirtless Chinese medium would hit himself with the blunt edge of a sword while in a trance, chanting verses in Chinese. He would write Chinese characters, using a brush dipped in red ink on a yellow rice paper, burn it, and let the ash settle in a glass of water. I was given this water to drink. I was cured all the time. I would visit the Buddhist temple in my neighborhood and sit in and listen to the many stories rendered about Buddha, and have the refreshments that they served to my heart's contentment. I remember the priests tying strings on my wrist for my safety and well-being. Similarly, I used to visit the mosques where I would accumulate further strings of varied colors, adorning them gladly. I took up a correspondence course where the course material would be sent by post from a Church in Singapore. I would read through the Bible and answer the questions before returning it by post.
Now in college in 1977, the Muslim college gardener of Pakistani origin who sat beside me on the 5.15 am bus that dropped us at an intersection from whence we would walk to college would share about his faith and practice with me.
When I landed a job after college in 1980, I continued the practices that I picked up at my family home, worshipping in my bachelor's home, and visiting the many temples in the vicinity of the coastal town I worked in. I read a lot back then and took up home worship twice a day at dawn and dusk, singing the praises of the numerous Hindu Gods and Goddesses to my heart's desire. I had no reason to please another, not even God. It felt good.
But looking at the lives of my friends and relatives, I was disturbed seeing them suffer and seeing loved ones die. If God were all compassionate, loving, and forgiving as the books I read described, I asked myself why he was punishing them. This enquiry, if left unchecked, would have made me go crazy and cuckoo. Lord Siva intervened through a dream in 1988 and asked that I keep all my questions for another date. I left all worship and reading, abandoning them for a family life and raising my kids, in addition to paying attention to my career.
The day that Lord Siva spoke about came in 2002, when I had my Nadi read to me. Agathiyar, in speaking about Karma, revealed my Karma. I understood why they suffered and died. Agathiyar spoke about atonement for one's sins and gave me remedies by way of rituals, prayers, and making pilgrimages. Besides that, he asked that I worship the Siddhas. I knew about temple worship and worship of the deities. But how was I to worship the Siddhas, I asked myself. In giving me a remedy called Naadikku Thanam or Gift in appreciation of the effort by the Siddhas in documenting my past, present, and future in the Nadi, Agathiyar pointed the way too. The Nadi reader conducted the worship of the Siddhas, and I picked it up from there after he passed me the small booklet from which he read out the numerous names of the Siddhas.
Wanting to know more about their worship, I looked up and visited every movement or organization run in the name of Agathiyar and knocked on the doors. To my disappointment, no one was doing worship to the Siddhas. Many were engaged in doing charity, while the rest were giving talks. This did not interest me, and I left. I took to visiting the book stores looking for books written on the Siddhas. I took to the net and began compiling and expanding the small booklet of names of the Siddhas that I had in my hands. That booklet and a leaflet given by the Nadi reader were to show me to Tavayogi when he arrived on our shores in 2005. Bringing the leftlet with me, I asked if it was his. He acknowledged that it was and that he was soliciting funds to build an ashram in Kallar. A wonderful relationship blossomed between a guru and a disciple.
When, after fulfilling the ritual of Naadikku Thanam and other rituals locally, as I began my maiden pilgrimage to India the following year in 2003, the temples drew me, and the gods and goddesses embraced me. On the last leg of my pilgrimage, after having performed Girivalam or circumbulation of the Holy Arunachala hill, I was drawn to my very first guru in physical form, Supramania Swami, in an unexpected way. Just as I left home for India, my wife asked me to chart my second daughter's horoscope in India. In my haste to board the taxi to the airport, I nodded and left. As I had completed Girivalam a day earlier than planned, I asked if Deva, my chaffeur knew an astrologer in Chennai where I was to board the plane back home. He told me that his uncle was an astrologer and that he was merely eight kilometers away from Tiruvanamalai town. To add further to these miracles that unfolded before my eyes, Deva tells me that one Raji was assigned to pick me up from Chennai airport and drive me to all my destinations, but he had come down with a fever, and Deva was roped in. What a wonder! To add to this mind-bogging series of events, a year before I read the Nadi, my nephew walked into my home with a mantra that came by way of his Paramaguru Gopal Pillai. I was told that by chanting it, it would pave the way for me to meet my guru. I came to know that this directive and mantra came from Agathiyar, only some time later. Amazing right?
With Agathiyar and the other Siddhas, coming regularly through the fifty-odd Aasi Nadi readings that I had later, and both my gurus, I began to walk their path with their guidance.