Can a family home become a temple? I suppose it could, for the Siddhas seem to point to my home as a temple. In the beginning, Agathiyar wanted me to build a temple for him the very day he called me for a Nadi reading in 2002. Many years later, in 2018, Lord Muruga wanted one too. As I did not move after my initial eagerness to carry out their directive died down, after temple committees I approached, asking for a spot for Agathiyar in their temple grounds, turned me down. Then Lord Muruga tells me that he had tested me and that my home was his temple!
After taking up the call to come to the worship of Siddhas in 2002 in my home, seeking out guidelines as to their worship, and failing to find any from existing movements in the name of Agathiyar, Agathiyar sent Tavayogi of Kallar Ashram and several other Upagurus to guide me. Then he sent devotees immediately after their respective Nadi readings to my home to witness and participate in our home Pujas. In the aftermath of the pandemic, he has them take up yoga, too. These days, he sends new arrivals immediately into his room to sit in meditation.
If I had named my home Agathiyar Vanam Malaysia (AVM) in 2013, taking after the place Agathiyar asked Tavayogi to look up and set up an ashram upon ending his life as a traveling mendicant, Lord Muruga gave the name Agathiyar Tapovanam in the Nadi in 2018, and Agathiyar named it Gnanakottam, names that aptly fit the many transformations my home took on.
My home has become a playground for the Siddhas and the deities, just as Lord Muruga would play tricks with Krishnaveni Amma at Kalyana Theertam. There were days when Agathiyar would come by only for a brief moment before leaving for Kailash or Pothigai. Then he came for two consecutive days and sat with us at the dining table, dining with us and pouring his heart out about how his devotees had let him down. This outpouring was shared by Tavayogi too when he visited us last in 2016.
Once, when Agathiyar summoned Bhogar to stand to his right and Tirumoolar to his left, I stepped away, but he hauled me into the circle. I am truly blessed to be given the privilege to stand in their presence and their midst.
If he had me sit by him and listen whenever he spoke to others, telling me that I needed to know too, there were times when he would ask me to vacate the area so he could have some privacy with them.
So what is in this room that Agathiyar seems to send seekers within? I recall a veterinarian from Ooty who, following Tavayogi to Malaysia, narrated an incident that he witnessed in the home of an elderly couple in India. When he entered their prayer room, he saw Agathiyar, who was lying on the floor, just as we have seen the paintings and statues of Lord Vishnu, pick himself up and disappear into thin air. This was the first-ever such story that I heard of a "sighting". Soon, I got to hear visitors to my home narrate similar "sightings". When Jnana Jothiamma came to visit us in 2013, she saw Siddhas come and go, opening doors and shutting them in the middle of the night as she lay sleeping on the sofa in the living room for the night. Finally, she saw Agathiyar come out of my prayer room and walk out too. A Chinese lady from Australia, who was driven to the airport to catch her plane back home by a friend and devotee who frequented my home, dropped by after the subject of Siddhas came up during their drive. She came out of the prayer room in tears and narrated that she saw Agathiyar standing at ceiling height. How do we account for all this?
So why do only some have such encounters? As the Siddhas say, "Man says let it happen, and I shall believe, but the Siddhas say believe, and it shall happen", I guess faith and belief sure do deliver.
What is the reason for taking birth? Our past Karma, both the good and bad. The sins we did and the good too that we did bring forth a birth where we are punished or rewarded respectively. Then the Siddhas also push us into situations that cause us to sin, so that we gain those experiences too. Then others might drag us with them into taking another birth so that past scores are settled or worked out amicably or to please or reward another. Finally, the soul has a purpose too in taking birth. We are told to seek this purpose and settle in it fully, coming to see it through. Only then is there any way we are going back to our homeland, merging with Siva.
A devotee had a dream after Tavayogi's demise. She dreamt that Tavayogi was taken with several others across an expanse of water with Lord Siva paddling the oars. Later, Agathiyar tells us that Tavayogi was doing his work in their plane after having fulfilled his purpose here. We are glad that Tavayogi came by. Otherwise, to whom could we have turned in our days of search?
Yogi Ramsuratkumar told his followers at his deathbed that he could do a better job and do more work in the subtle form in the subtle plane rather than being bogged down by the physical body in this physical world. The late Jeeva Nadi reader of Chennai, Hanumathdasan, according to Agathiyar, spent days after he departed his mortal frame in meditation at Pothigai. Death is not the end, as Agathiyar tells us. The journey continues. So, rather than brood on the reason for our birth, let us find out the purpose of this birth and act accordingly. Rather than fulfill our desires, let us find out what the divine wants of us and live accordingly.
I guess if Tavayogi was an ascetic and started an Ashram to preach the path on the directive of Agathiyar, they settled for this householder to do the same, minus taking on the life of a Turavi, as Agathiyar told me in the past, there was no Ashram life for me in this birth. I have come to know my purpose! I have come to know my purpose here, that of providing the venue and access to people to come and worship Agathiyar and meditate. That was the reason he came as a bronze statue. That is the reason Lobama came later too. My family home is an Ashram where he brings souls to work on and get them elevated. I am only to provide access to them at my home. Agathiyar does the rest. I am but a witness to all these. I am only to report and document his Lila. We are blessed indeed.