Just as there are moments of satisfaction in achieving one's goal or on completing a task, be it building a bridge as with engineers, discovering a vaccine as with a scientist, saving a life as with doctors, completing an art piece as with an artist, or watching the final cut of one's movie make it to the theaters for film directors, one on the spiritual path reaches this same moment of satisfaction in discovering the truth. He then settles in the knowing. He is at peace with himself and everything else. He settles in bliss. This is indeed the state of Sat Chit Ananda.
If there is a profession that we still address as 'teacher' and not by name, even in our adulthood after many years, it is that of a teacher. I came across the following proverb in an online news article. " 一日為師，終身為父 / yī rì wéi shī, zhōng shēn wèi fù, which means, “A teacher for one day is a father for a lifetime.” The spiritual guru too comes to be a father for all. Agathiyar asked Tavayogi's daughter, who was saddened that her father wanted to leave the family to become a mendicant, if she wanted him to be only a father to her or to all.
And so Agathiyar and my gurus in physical form came as spiritual teachers, and when beyond their roles as teachers, walking us along the path that they had taken, helping us cross the rapids, and giving us a hand when the world and its sorrows swallowed us. They became the beacon and the light that led us to where we stand today, amongst them. But at times, just as a teacher, they do take the cane to discipline us, too. But know that it is for our own good and that it is because they love us. Agathiyar too did the same, for he did not want all the time and effort he put into me to go to waste.
The spiritual guru is not a walking library as many make out to be. They are empty and tap into the Prapanjam as and when required. I have noticed that after he emptied me over the years, I cannot retain much of what I have come to understand. It is good that I made a note of the many understandings he gave me, right from simple things, such as a conversation, to abstract understandings that dawned from beyond, and shared them on my blog, for it is no longer retained as a store of knowledge in me anymore. Agathiyar too told me to connect to Prapanjam from whence all the answers are made available. And so he and Ramalinga Adigal came to help us reach out to her, after Tavayogi had previously "plugged" us into her, giving us the Pranayama techniques that connected us to the Prana in her. Agathiyar came later to lift the door at Svadishtana and have her energy that was awakened in Muladhara, but soon began to stagnate and pond, race up the other chakras and take on a reverse path, or a return journey, moving inwards, from the body towards the soul. In having me know that we are one, he asked that I know the soul or JeevAtma or Pasu and the greater soul, or source or Sivam or ParamAtma or Pati, which I came to know too, through a friend and Siva Thondan.