At the very onset, Tavayogi broke me. He had stepped into my family home after accepting my invitation in 2005. He sang a couple of songs in praise of the Siddhas before our altar in the prayer room, after accepting my wife's request for him to carry out a small puja. He dined with my family and a handful of friends I had invited over. It was truly a blissful day, something out of this world. No Swamiji or holy man had ever stepped into my home until then. Sending him back to the Peedham in Batu Caves, which he had come to officiate, my nephews and I had hardly turned the corner when I poured out my gratitude to him for taking up our invitation and gracing our home. What do I get in return? He shoots me down, raining bullets, telling me that I was living in Maya or an illusion, thinking that he was Holy. He told me that he was a nobody. He asked me to worship Agathiyar instead of him. I was dumbfounded and stunned. The sting pierced my heart. I did not know what to make of the moment. I remained quiet the whole way, trying to digest what just took place. Although I did not comprehend back then, I frequented the Peedham to visit him until his departure back to his Kallar Ashram. Today I have to thank him for doing so, for he broke the hold on him even before it could germinate in me. He made me take the hand of Agathiyar, instead, which I did.
In wanting to have it made clear, after I visited him at his Kallar ashram shortly after his departure back home, he insisted that we visit several Swamijis, heads of establishments and temples, although given the choice, I opted to go on an adventure into the jungles and caves instead, which sounded exciting. Today I understand why he did that. He wanted to point out to me that Maya is clothed as a spiritual personality, too. In bringing me to an Ashram, he pointed out to me the infighting that was taking place to head the Ashram after the demise of its founder. In bringing me to a temple, he pointed out to me how the head of the temple was caught in its trappings. Finally, in bringing me to a Swamiji living alone and attended only by a devotee who comes by after work, he pointed me to a true Gnani or saint. I needed to know and distinguish the genuine and the false.
Then, while at his Ashram, Suresh from Tiruvannamalai, who had stayed back after the Pornami Puja, showed a Rudraksha seed to Tavayogi, asking his consent to wear it. Tavayogi gave him the green light. Later, turning to me, he said: "We do not need it". When I kept visiting the Peedham in Malaysia, which he came to officiate, after his departure, making courtesy calls, I was offered the post of secretary. I turned it down. Mentioning this to Tavayogi, he told me that I did the right thing, saying, “It was not necessary for us." He had me drop the nine gem-studded gold ring I wore on my finger and the mercury bead Rasamani that I wore on me, too, just by questioning, "What is this?" I was left naked, raw and original, to be filled by the Siddhas later. So did Lord Siva, in coming through a dream, have me drop all my questions, readings, temple visits, and puja, telling me to shelve my questions for another day. That day came some 14 years later in 2002, when I saw the Nadi. Agathiyar began to fill me in henceforth.
So did Thavathiru Rengarajah Desigar of Ongarakudil put across the point that blessed are those who take the feet of Agathiyar, though I did not understand back then in 2003. In wanting to know more about Siddha Puja, as I frequented his local affiliate branch in Dengkil, I was told to visit him on my upcoming trip to India. I took the advice. Sitting before him, he spoke to Deva, who chauffeured me around, asking about my trip, completely ignoring me. When I asked him to bless me, he seemed not to have heard. Upon repeatedly asking, finally, he said, "Coming here itself was a blessing!" What was I to make of this reply? Was I not supposed to be there, I asked myself? Had I mistakenly dropped in on him? Was I not worthy? As these questions reeled in my mind, I came away saddened. But I knew later the reason the visit had turned stale. I met my guru, Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai, a couple of days later. I am glad that it happened the way it did.
If, as a child, I would raise my arms and pray, turning towards my family home, for reasons unknown to me, today Lord Muruga tells me that indeed my home is a temple. If Agathiyar, in the very first Nadi reading itself in 2002, asked that I build him a temple, and although not a temple from the ground, I did approach existing temple committees to have his statue installed, but to no avail. In 2018, Lord Muruga brought this subject up again, asking one for him. As I had dumped the idea for good, he came again, telling me that he had tested me and that my home was his temple.
Agathiyar, in having me commission and bring over his bronze statue in 2010, sent youths over to watch, participate, and learn Pornami Puja rituals. In having us conduct the Homam, he had us bridge both worlds, that of ours and the Siddhas. In having us do charity, he had us reach out to the poor and unfortunate, bringing on compassion and love within us. Then he brought the shutters down in the wake of the pandemic in 2019. It was all enough, he said. He let the others go their way, taking the tools and methods with them. As for me, he had me go within. Post-pandemic, Agathiyar told me that he was leaving my home for another, having me let go of my hold on his statue. But as always, it was a game that he played to test me, for he eventually came back home, having picked up Lobama also in the form of a statue, not wanting to leave anymore.
If Tavayogi helped me walk through the maze of Maya, Lord Muruga too came to caution me a year back about the Maya that comes in disguise as what we assume as religious and spiritual interventions. He told me to watch out for the game that Lord Siva and Agathiyar were playing with Lord Indra at the helm. Later, Agathiyar, in exposing his own game, asked me to carefully sieve through whatever we come accross, acknowledging that I would fall for anything and everything that carried his name and label, which was indeed true. I had a weakness for Agathiyar. I go weak in my knees at the mention of Agathiyar.
Asking to be born again and again to serve him when cornered by him to answer what I wanted, Agathiyar, in asking me if that was what I wanted, had me drop that desire too. Wondering later if one should ask for Gnanam, though not knowing what it was, as Tavayogi would always ask us to come out of Bakthi or devotion to Gnanam, Agathiyar tells me that it was not gifted by him, but one had to take up Yoga and work their way up the chakras, reaching the Sahasrara, where again contrary to the common understanding that Gnanam shall dawn, one shall only then come to know what it was. It was to become a start of another journey and not an end to it.
If the Yoga practice that Tavayogi gave me in 2007 activated the Muladhara that caused intense pain in my lower back crippling me for some 2 1/2 years beginning in 2010, and came on later in 2016 and 2018, with their monitoring and supervision, finally Agathiyar came to break the bund that had the energy pond and stagnate at Svadishtana in 2022, momentarily bringing me to witness death as I lay crippled on bed. Agathiyar allayed the fear of death, telling me that death was not the end of the journey but the beginning of yet another journey. Yogi Ramsuratkumar, at his deathbed, would console his followers, telling them that it was not the end and that he could do more in the subtle form. True enough, he came knocking on Supramania Swami's door of his village home, one late night, and passed him a painting of him after going into Samadhi. If Supramania Swami brought his guru, Yogi Ramsuratkumar, from his Samadhi to sit and sing with us at his kudil, the Yogi, on his part, coming through a devotee at my home during the Sivarathri of 2024, brought Supramania Swami along from his Samadhi. Dhanvantri, shortly after Tavayogi's Samadhi, told us that he had become Jothi or Light. Later, Agathiyar told us that he had to replace Tavayogi in guiding us now, as Tavayogi was doing his work in the realm of the Siddhas.
If Tavayogi told me to hold to Agathiyar, Agathiyar told me to even let go of him, asking how else would we be one. He brought me to Advaita from Dvaita. Knowing him, now he asks that we know the Atma or soul, the JeevAtma. Then one has to know the ParamAtma or the source and origin that is Sivam.
I learned to tread with caution on the path, just as we are told that the spiritual path is akin to walking on a double-edged sword. Today, I understand that even the spiritual world is not spared from its illusions and delusions, trials and tribulations, and tests. Though I am a broken man now, left naked in the desert, I have won each test that they had me go through. I have turned out to be a winner. I am very much obliged to have them play their lilas in my life, for now I have a story to tell. The journey shall continue.