The Siddha path cannot be taught. It has to be walked and experienced. As so there is no manual to it. It is not academic. An academic approach doesn't make us a Siddha. I guess that is the reason Tavayogi took me to the grounds rather than hold classes, be it in person or online. The Siddhas do not train the flock but attend to each individual in their own way and at their own pace. If Sariyai, as in temple worship, attracts the masses, because it is passive in nature, Kriyai, which is taught by the Siddhas, needs active participation, continuity, and most importantly, discipline, which we lack most. Yogam that comes next is not academic in nature, either, but needs a practical approach and our involvement and discipline, too. If in Sariyai, our parents guide us in external worship, at home and at temples, and in Kriyai, the guru comes in a physical form to start us off on rituals; similarly, the guru comes personally to start us off on Yoga. The final phase of Gnanam, contrary to its association with knowledge read from books, is where the Atma or soul in us comes as the guru within and guides us.
What we share at AVM is our individual experiences. There are no teaching or classes held. If my family and I were singing the praises of the Siddhas, Agathiyar chose to send several youths from Thondu Seivom after their Nadi reading to our home AVM to actively participate in the Pornami Puja or prayers conducted during the full moon. We then brought these Puja into the temples, which invited us or accommodated our wishes. We then went on the ground to help the poor and hungry through our charity programs under the banner Amutha Surabhi, an offshoot of AVM, working with Pothihai Dharma Chakram.
Agathiyar then halted all these and asked those who had yet to take up Yoga to do so, bringing Mahindren to show them the techniques. As for me, he had me go within.
While many asked for petty things, things that seemed of utmost importance at that moment in their lives, some asked to prolong the life span of their loved ones, cure their illnesses, bring them out of their sufferings, etc and others asked for Mukti, as I had nothing to ask, but yet Agathiyar waited on me for an answer, I finally thought that serving him as I did now would be the right thing to ask for. But it was not to be "The Thing to Ask For". Then I thought asking for Gnanam was the thing to ask for. That too was not to be "The Thing to Ask For". Agathiyar told us that Gnanam unfolds from within when one has taken up Kriyai and worship of the Siddhas, bridging both the worlds, creating a lifelong pact with them, taking to doing Yoga and working on the first two energy centers, or Chakras, then leaving it all in the hands of the Siddhas to guide the Kundalini energy piercing all the energy centers until it reaches and settles at the Sahasrara, where the opening of the 1000 petals takes place, blomming and flowering as Gnanam. Finally, Agathiyar acknowledged my asking to come into their fold, that of a Siddha, as "The Thing to Ask For". How true and appropriate. We can only ask for what the Siddhas are and have in their possession, right?
So, in coming to the worship of the Siddhas, we ask that they accompany us in our lives, looking towards our day-to-day needs and fulfilling our desires. As further interest in wanting to know them is fueled from within, we then begin journeys to their abodes, trying to reach out to them. Soon, the yearning to become a Siddha is sown in us. As it dawns in us, it is strengthened by the Atma or soul. Leading us further, bringing us to gurus in physical forms, having us take up Yoga practices shown by these gurus, we begin to prepare our body to become perfected vehicles to contain and sustain the dormant creative energies within each of us, the Jeeva that is to be awakened. Once perfected, the body that has been cleansed by the rising of these energies, then begins to receive the energies from the Param too, causing a merger and explosion of energies both from within and above, resulting in the cosmic dance of Lord Siva and Parvathi. He then settles down living as a Jeevan Mukta.
Hence, Tavayogi, Agathiyar, and the Siddhas took the practical approach that, instead of filling us with bookish knowledge, led us to walk and transcend each phase, gaining the experiences, sweet and bitter, making us now more than a man, a divine man. With the unfolding of Gnanam from within, he shall become a Jeeva Mukta and one with the Siddhas.