No amount of religious knowledge would make one religious. Similarly, no amount of spiritual knowledge will make another spiritual. It is akin to watching our money grow in the bank and not using it. What is learned has to be practiced and later shared and handed over. That is what our ancestors did, passing on the beliefs, traditions, and customs that continue to this day. That is why, besides telling us stories and narratives and praying at our home altars, our parents took us to temples.
While some I came to know later, having headed out for big names, masters, and gurus who have made a name in the "religious" and "spiritual" industry and have a large following and big venues, hoping to be accepted, initiated and gain discipleship, came by and knocked on my door and poured their hearts out, sharing their failures and disappointments in searching for the right path and the right guru, I was shown two gurus Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram, whom I chose to settle down with, ending my search. Tavayogi too said that he was surprised that we had come to Agathiyar without much struggle, unlike what he and others had to endure. Was I lucky? I guess the grace of the guru helped me sail through the rapids, or rather, diverted me onto a river that was clear of rapids.
Both my gurus, Supramania Swami and Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal, were a gift from God. Both these gurus showed me the way to God rather than portraying themselves as God. Both my gurus practiced to attain this state. In wanting us to travel the path too, they and Agathiyar handed us numerous practices to carry out too. But when we attained perfection in each of these practices, they had us leave it, halt it, or drop it. The tool and the method, the way and the practice had served their purpose. They had us move up the spiritual ladder until the last rung and had us do nothing further after that. All our efforts too came to an end. It was the End Game. It was now fully and truly their game. They charted the next course. From being mere tools in their hands, we were made to just lie back and watch unless prompted to do something by the divine will.
Looking at Supramania Swami’s life in brief, we see the pattern of events evolving and making him what he was, a Gnani.
I was brought to Supramania Swami on the pretext of charting the horoscope for my daughter in 2003. When I was with him the second time around in 2005, I asked Swami to narrate his life history because the first time I met him in 2003, I had only spent five hours in his company, where he was only talking about me. Swami narrated his story briefly, aided by his wife.
Swami was born on Monday, 17th July 1943, on a ‘Kritigai’ day, an auspicious day for Lord Murugan, in the Tirutani Murugan temple grounds. His mother was doing penance by taking a ‘kavadi’ when she had labor pains and delivered Swami. Muthyalamma was his clan's deity or Kuladevata or Kula Deivam, and the village goddess or Gramadevata. Swami was named Supramanian. His grandfather, Thuraisamy Pillai, was a Vaisnavite from Aadi Peedham, Ladavaram near Tiruvanamalai. He was an accountant at Tiruvanamalai Arunachaleswarar temple. His father, Jayaram Pillai, was teaching in Reddi Kuppam, Anaikoyil. His uncles were teachers too. At one juncture, his father left his mother, another son, and him in Andipalam and came to Tiruvanamalai. Later, in the absence of his father, who was in Tiruvanamalai at that moment, a priest admitted Supramanian to a school in Andipalam. Supramanian’s brother, who joined the military, contacted high fever and passed away at the age of 24.
Supramanian used to follow his father to the woods to chop ‘Kalli’ trees. That’s when the sap of the tree blinded him. The partially blind Supramanian traveled to Madras alone, hoping to receive treatment at the Government hospital. A policeman, seeing him struggling on the streets of Madras, called an ambulance that took him to the hospital. There, the doctors told him that he had to be operated on to remove his eyes. There was no other way to do it, as any delay would otherwise lead to the poison eventually reaching his brain. One of the doctors, however, sent for a visiting American doctor to get a second opinion. The American doctor said he could save Supramanian’s eyesight, and he subsequently performed six operations on Supramanian, which cost Rs 950,000. Supramanian was blessed to have the politician, Mr. MU Karunanidhi, who was undergoing treatment at the hospital, take up the cost of the operation.
After Supramanian’s father, who worshipped Lord Vengadasalapathy, gave him ‘teecha’ on Lord Murugan, he meditated for seventeen years in the hills surrounding Tiruvanamalai. Attired in a banana tree bark, he began to perform miracles or Siddhu. He would grab a handful of sand, which would turn into the sacred ash Vibhuti, vermilion or Kumkum, or Panjamirtham. This he gave to the people, which cured their illnesses and sufferings. During this time, a Siddha indicated to the locals the site of a ‘Vel’ that was buried by him by entering Supramanian's body. Swami kept possession of this Vel.
Supramanian Swami had no memory of what transpired during that period. He only heard about his antics after gaining his memory back, which surprisingly came back to him after consuming food given by a woman who was a stranger. Supramanian pulled the temple chariot for seven consecutive years, walking on sandals with nails on them, when he moved to Tiruchendoor, selling flower garlands. His back carried the scars of hooks driven into his skin attached to the temple chariot. On festive days, he would put on the garb resembling Lord Murugan and take part in plays or dramas held at the temple grounds. Supramanian was married at the age of 31. His ability to perform miracles by changing sand and earth to sacred ash stopped on its own after he had his second daughter.
Though I did not know much about Supramania Swami in the four years where I only met him twice, as distance had separated us, the rest of the time we would snail mail, and occasionally he would talk from STD booths when he came into Thiruvannamalai town. After I passed him a cellphone on my second visit, we spoke regularly.
I went along to help him realize his dream of building a temple for Lord Murugan, which, to both our surprise, was halted by a vagabond who was a stranger, asking him with authority, why, being a Gnani, he was taking a step back into Bakti.
As he was fragile and weak, as a result of the 40 years of undertaking austerities taking a toll on him, we were not permitted to travel far or to take any journey together except to the temples in the vicinity. But I have the blessings of his lineage of gurus beginning with his father, Jayaram Pillai, Satananda Swami, Pundi Mahaan, Kollimalai Swami, and Visiri Swami, or Yogi Ramsuratkumar. Swami surprised me by giving me the full merits of his forty years of Tapas or austerities, telling me that even that too should be left behind. I did not realize then that he was teaching me non-attachment to all things, even the benefits of our practice.
Supramania Swami went into Samadhi at his Kudil in Tiruvannamalai at 10.20 am, on Wednesday, 7 February 2007, four days after I spoke to him, over the phone, where he told me that he had seen the Jothi. He was 65. He left behind three daughters, a son, and a few grandchildren in 2007.
Three years on, after meeting him, I was brought to Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram in 2005, on the pretext of seeking verification if a leaflet I had been passed on by the Nadi reader who read my Nadi the very first time in 2002, was that of Tavayogi's. Tavayogi took me in as his student, brought me places, gave me rituals to carry out, and taught me Yoga. My discipleship under him ran concurrently with that under Supramania Swami until the latter went into Samadhi.
TK Thangarajan had a Master's in Tamil Literature from Annamalai University, Madras, and was a prominent businessman in Tirupor, manufacturing singlets, and having produced two movies, namely 'Eni Oru Suthanthiram' and 'Ethaiya Thamarai', and conducted 'Pattimandram' throughout India. He used to host Puja and Annadhanam in his home and came to be known as 'Thai Veedu' Thangarasan after meeting his guru, Chitramuthu Adigal. At fifty, he gave it all up to become a traveling mendicant or 'Turavi'. He visited the temples in India and meditated in caves and Samadhis of the Siddhas, finally settling at Agathiyar Vanam at Toripaalam, Kallaru, Coimbatore, at the 9th km Metupalaiyam - Conoor/Ooty route. He started the Sri Agathiyar Gnana Peedham and initiated the public into Siddha worship.