It has been some twenty-four years now since I came to know Agathiyar, although he tells me that we have known each other for crores of years. He remembers, but I have forgotten. My wife had a dream many years back in which she saw a set of footprints appear alongside in the sand with each step I took, as if someone invisible was walking beside me. Who else could it be but the Siddhas?
Agathiyar, having me take up the call to come to the path, and having revealed the fruits of my efforts in traveling the path and the journey through numerous Nadis, finally summed it all up and had me take notes and share them with a handful of invitees during the Guru Purnima of 2024. He made it known to others the experiences one would encounter on the path to Light.
Along the way, I have come to realize that the Siddhas test us either by luring us with gifts or by having us take up work and shoulder responsibilities that bring on position, authority, and fame that eventually inflates our ego and corrupts us. Then they test us too, to see if we are willing to step down or drop all these and break the bond and attachment that comes along with it. While many fall for it, very few see through this game and are caught for life. I am glad we saw through his game, and my wife and I escaped from the web.
Agathiyar wanted me to build a temple for him. Later, Lord Muruga joined the bandwagon, asking for one too. He wanted to gift me the Jeeva Nadi for my reference and for others' use too. I did not move to carry out the former request and refused the latter. Agathiyar then instead turned my home into his Garden or Vanam, and Lord Muruga bestowed the name Agathiyar TapoVanam on it later. Agathiyar then bestowed the name Gnana Kottam too. Lord Muruga came later and told me that my home was a temple itself and revealed that they had tested me.
Agathiyar then sent youths over to my home after their Nadi readings to watch and participate in our home Puja. Later he had us bring the Puja into the temples too. He had us carry out charity too. And so Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) and its charity wing Amudha Surabhi came to be.
After having wished to give me the privilege of building a temple and gifting me his Nadi, and having my home become the epicenter of rituals and charity, he had me dissolve it all with a touch of the keypad on my smartphone. All that came into being from 2013 until 2019 dissolved into thin air, just as Thanos in "Avengers: Infinity War" used the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half of all life in the universe with a single snap. Agathiyar, then telling me that he was moving home, asked me to bring his bronze statue into the home of a devotee. I did as he wished without any reservation.
He had tested me to see if I was hooked on the attention and respect that comes with position and authority, and were hooked on and got high in serving others, in the former, and also if we were attached to his form and image in the latter. He explained that though he left my home, he remained as the Prapanjam in my home, hence getting us to see him as beyond form, image, and name.
Later, he asked if he should make me a Guru but immediately retracted the offer and instead told me he would bring me into his fold or ThiruKuttam and make me a Siddha instead.
He then asked that I drop my attachment to him too, asking, "How else could we become one?" He brought me from Dvaita to Advaita.
Finally, he asked me to know the Atma and also Sivam (ParamAtma).
Then there is Maya that veils our five senses, bringing us to believe the mirage, the dream, and the fake as is seen and heard, felt and experienced, and held on to as real. If Tavayogi, on the very day he stepped into my home, trashed me for regarding him as someone holy and special, going by his name and attire, saying I was living in Maya, I am glad that the Siddhas and the deities were on hand to save me from stepping into the quicksand or plunging into the pit further when Lord Muruga exposed the play or Lila of Lord Siva, Agathiyar and Indran.
I am grateful to my gurus and the Siddhas for taking my hand and walking with me. Unlike these days, where, sadly, everything, including spiritualism, has a price tag attached to it, I never paid a single fee to come to know the Siddhas and their teachings. Sadly, in current times, aspirants pay to gain access to this knowledge, teachings, and practice that were given freely to those keen to know by the Siddhas in the past. The saints of the past, too, never copyrighted their works as people do these days. Imagine if the saints had copyrighted their works; we would not be singing their songs in public.
Was all this fated and destined?
Picking up Annie Besant's "Avatara-s", The Theosophical Publishing House, 2002, I read the following: "There are no accidents in a universe of law."
Moments later, picking up Neale Donald Walsch's book "The Wisdom of the Universe", I read the same: that "There is no coincidence and nothing happens by accident." We are told further that "Each event and adventure is called to your Self by your Self in order that you might create and experience who you really are. All true masters know this."
So apparently we are no "Accidental Tourist" in coming here.
How can I repay their love, kindness, and compassion, for they have kept me alive and running until now? I am still standing by their grace.