Balamurugan, who frequented my home and often spoke over the phone, had asked me, "What are you searching for further? You are there already. Why do you need to become another Agathiyar? Why do you need to become another Ramalinga Adigal?" he asked. A few days later, I saw someone on the path of the guru walk barefoot in the current hot spell on the tar road, seeking alms. I thought to myself, "The master is gone, but yet his followers hold on to him, living and dressing up like him." I felt sad. It reminded me of Balamurugan telling me to remain as Shanmugam Avadaiyappa. He told me to make something distinctive of myself. I gathered that he was implying that I had to be myself and have my own brand and wares to sell rather than lean on the lineage before me. And so I have seen many promote themselves to the effect that they had erased their gurus and spiritual lineages from the picture. Should I do the same? Would not that be a betrayal to one's guru?
Then, in going back to my earlier conversations with Agathiyar, I came across the following that took place on 16.12.2024.
Agathiyar had asked me to recall Bhogar's answers to him as to what Bhogar knew. In having all the Siddhas sit before him and asking each one what they knew, each Siddha replied that they had researched and experimented and made many discoveries in the many areas of trades and sciences. When it came to Bhogar's turn to answer, he replied that he knew nothing. Agathiyar questioned him: "How was that, when everyone had learned something and excelled in it, you say you know nothing?" Bhogar replied that he only knew Agathiyar. That was the degree of humbleness and humility in Bhogar, a full-fledged Siddha who mastered many arts and sciences before his guru.
I recounted the humility of Agathiyar too, when he and the other Rishis concluded their learning sitting at the feet of Lord Siva. Lord Siva then asked them each for a Guru Dakshana. When everyone was figuring out what to give as a token of appreciation to the Guru, Agathiyar placed all that he had learned at the feet of his guru. The other Rishis followed him.
It reminded me of Supramania Swami, who handed me all the merits of his 40 years of Tavam, or austerities, telling me one shall never bring anything along with him at his deathbed.
Agathiyar revealed that I, too, needed to drop the Ego that I had become identified with in coming here. He asked me how long I wanted to remain as Shanmugam Avadaiyappa. I needed to drop this identity that was holding me back, causing a separateness between me and others and everything else. He revealed that he was in this Oneness too. I then remembered what he had told me in the past. Agathiyar told me that although the 18 Siddhas were distinct in many ways, it was only because there was a purpose in them taking those forms. In fact, they were all one. They were him. I understood that this is the work of Maya or Lila of the Gods, that even the Siddhas have a role in it. Similarly, does man bring on the distinction, and divides and rules. The divine was, is, and shall ever be one.
Just as Agathiyar, in asking me to come out of my days of solitude, asked me to engage and look around at the world and the doings of others and laugh it off, we shall then stand apart from the world of Maya, or creation, and brush it off as a dream or a divine play staged by them.
In leading me through the travels and journey on the path of the Siddhas, he had me let go of all the rituals, charity, the group and association, the practices, and Yoga that he once initiated and tasked me to do, and had me even let go of his statue. Finally, he told me that I had to even let go of him, asking me, "How else shall we become one?" He brought me from Dvaita to Advaita. He brought me to know myself as one who, identified on paper as Shanmugam Avadaiyappa, having come to know the self, the JeevAtma, and having attained Jeeva Mukti, and hence becoming a Jeeva Muktan, and waiting anxiously to merge with Sivam, thus eventually attaining the state of Videha Mukti.