When I was called to come to the worship of the Siddhas in 2002, I had no idea what I was getting into or what to do. But I took it up. Armed with a painting of Agathiyar and a booklet carrying the names of the Siddhas, which Sivabalan and Senthilkumar, the former having brought the latter from Avinashi in India, gave me respectively. I was brought to revive my home puja that had been on hold for some 14 years after Lord Siva came in a dream and asked me to put on hold all my questions as to why people around me suffered, and doubts about whether God was truly loving and compassionate. To know further about their worship, I knocked on the doors of institutions, centers, peedhams, and ashrams carrying the name of Agathiyar. I met fellow seekers on the path in these places. But I was not captivated nor pulled to frequent these places as they did.
Going on my maiden pilgrimage, I was brought to knock on the door of Supramania Swami on the pretence of having a horoscope reading for my daughter. It was divine intervention that was timely, too. Why should my wife mention about charting the horoscope just as I was about to leave my house and board the cab that took me to the airport for my flight to India? Why Rajji, who was assigned to bring me places by the tour agent, had to fall sick, and why Deva had to replace him? Deva turns out to be Supramania Swami's brother-in-law. Telling him my wife's desire to have the horoscope charted in India, Deva tells me that his brother-in-law was an astrologer and brings me over to meet him. And so I met my very first guru in the physical form, a guru who showed me piety and humbleness, love and care, and most importantly, how to behave and carry oneself before one's guru. He showed me Guru Bakti that until then I had only read in books. He had five gurus, namely his father, Jayaraman Pillai, Pundi Mahan or Atru Swami of Tiruvannamalai, Sathanandha Swami of Salem, Kollimalai Swami, and Yogi Ramsuratkumar or Visiri Samy. Now I had all these great souls looking upon me.
But as I was to take up the worship of the Siddhas, Agathiyar sent Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar Ashram to Malaysia on the pretext of officiating an affiliate Peedham in Batu Caves. Why should I have kept the leaflet announcing the intent to build a temple for Agathiyar in Kallar by a Thaai Veedu Thangarasan M.A., for whom Nadi reader Sentilkumar had solicited funds, after the Nadi reading? Why should my neighbor, Augustine, pass me extra copies of the Tamil newspaper that he delivered during this period of Tavayogi's arrival in Malaysia? These Tamil dailies carried news of the opening of the above-mentioned peedham, which saw me call up the number and make an appointment to see Tavayogi. Thus began a bond between a guru and a disciple. The bond went beyond Tavayogi, just as with Supramania Swami, to include Tavayogi's guru Chitramuthu Adigal, his guru Jeganatha Swamigal, his guru Ramalinga Adigal, his guru Agathiyar, his guru Lord Muruga, and his guru Lord Dhaksanamurthy.
So was it fate or destiny that brought me this far? I believe that the Siddhas erased my fate and charted a new destiny for me. The Gods and the Siddhas tinker with our fate when we seek them out of devotion and love. I was fated to die as a child, but the Chinese Gods saved me after asking my parents to give them in adoption. Coming to read my Nadi, Agathiyar charts my horoscope anew, completely different from what I had followed in all those years. Going back to seeking advice from Dr.Krishnan, who charted my horoscope and was the very first person who revealed about the Siddhas to me, he works on Agathiyar's chart for me and arrives at my time of birth as at 9.25am on Tuesday. But my birth certificate mentions I was born at 3.53am, and my mother tells me the same, that I was born in the early hours of dawn when it was still dark. Puzzling right? So which do I adopt then? Dr.Krishnan tells me to follow the Siddhas. And so we got to know why his predictions and those of an earlier astrologer, A.M. Doraisamy, who drafted my horoscope in the seventies, never materialized for me. If that is puzzling, wait till you read the following.
Going through each Nadi from a stack, I came across a Nadi that carried my parents' names, the number of siblings, my career, and my assets. Then the jolt came. My wife's name was mentioned as Manohari, which was not her name. One might doubt that she might have another name. But while my mother was named Annalaksmi, my father, after their marriage, switched it to Valliammai. If this was picked up and mentioned by Agathiyar in the Nadi, he would have mentioned my wife's name too, which he did not. And so we took it as not mine and moved on to another Nadi. I finally found my Nadi on another visit.
Then, in 2018, Lord Muruga, in a Nadi reading, told me that my fate was changed that moment. And so the Siddhas decided to erase my fate again and chart a new destiny from that moment on. So it is true that we are puppets in their hands, and this is a lila or game that they play.
This brings me to recount the times I stood either sick or in pain before the Chinese deities who came in a trance, chanting in Chinese. He would dip a brush in red ink and write on yellow rice paper Chinese characters and burn it, collecting its ashes in a glass of water, and have me drink it. Most recently, Agathiyar told a family to place all their problems into the burning fire of the Homam that he had them lit in my home, and never look back.
And so too have the Siddhas, after having given us the tools and methods to carry out Kriya and practice and techniques of Yoga, wiped clean the slate and left me blank and empty and at peace with myself and everything around me. They have brought me to the state of acceptance, fulfilment, and completeness. They let me write my own destiny now. I can pick up any task, and they shall endorse it, says Agathiyar. So it is pretty obvious that one can change one's fate and draw up a new destiny, taking the hand of the Siddhas. The Siddhas empower us, never wanting us to be dependent on another for our spiritual evolution forever. They raise us to the state of a guru and eventually a Siddha too. They never possess us but instead show us the way up the ladder. They rejoice in seeing souls return home.