When I came to scout around for more information after Agathiyar asked me to come to the worship of the Siddhas, I was puzzled. A group in the name of Agathiyar had moved on to the recitation of Ramalinga Adigal's Agaval and worshipped the flame of an oil lamp. Another was engrossed solely in doing charity. A head of another group who moved out of his ashram was seeking a conducive place to meditate!!! He also condemned my worship of Agathiyar's idol quoting Sivavakiyar's songs. Apparently, I came to know of many more groups existing in the name of Agathiyar that I never ventured to get to know. I wondered why did not they all come together in the name of Agathiyar and work towards a common goal rather than exist as different entities with different agendas. I decided to go solo.
Twenty years later having walked the path myself, I have begun to understand these reasons. They cannot possibly come under an umbrella. Though the core business is one those who initiated these groups want to be in charge. My wife hit the nail on the head when she said, like everything else, we get a "high" from doing rituals and charity too. We want to keep on doing it. We become addicted to it. But Agathiyar broke our addiction to it all. He stopped the puja and charity we did. Even after Agathiyar brought the shutter down many in the AVM family too could not accept. They requested to revive everything back to the "good old days" since the restrictions to contain the pandemic have been lifted.
Tavayogi broke my attachment to all the religious insignia and even to him. He told me that we do not need them. Though they gave us the tools needed at the appropriate time of our journeying on the path, they soon had us place them down and pick another and proceed on our walk. We never carried them with us physically though it was readily available to us when there was a need or use for it for we knew the know-how and the recipe and could source the ingredients as and when needed. Agathiyar stripped us naked of all our "possessions" during the past 2 1/2 years of the pandemic. Back then looking around us, we saw devotion as a weekly, seasonal and occasional thing. Agathiyar wanted us to pick up the tools and make it a daily affair in all our lives within the four walls of our homes. He tamed us. He quietened us. He broke our spiritual ego. He filled us and emptied us. Today we stand naked before him as we did the very first day.
We must learn to see divinity in all things. Then we shall be immersed in his thought all day long, even in the midst of doing our chores and carrying out our responsibilities. The saints took on a bigger responsibility. When Tavayogi's daughter cried out to Agathiyar for taking him away from the family, Agathiyar in the Nadi asked her if she wanted her father to be only a father to her siblings and her or to be a father to all.
This is how our role changes as we move on in life. This is the said evolution of the soul. Just as Agathiyar sees only our souls, we begin to see the souls in others and associate accordingly. Hence compassion arises for all souls. One then works towards uplifting another, as mentioned in Agathiyar's 5 tenets for mankind. The divine in return works through him to deliver his messages. He becomes a messenger of God. All saints were God's messengers.
But I guess God's formula does not work for all at the same time. Many come only to leave as Agathiyar and Tavayogi say they need to settle their worldly duties, realize their desires, and at times settle the score with others. As the soul travels on a different timeline engaging with others momentarily, make good use of the time we spend with them. Tavayogi was an old soul who was summoned to guide us in present times. Similarly, I always had a yearning thought that Ramalinga Adigal should have come now. He had come too soon and too early for his times. I believe there would be more takers if he was to preach his teachings now.
Only in 2008 did I come to know that Tavayogi had opened up his heart and home to accommodate seekers on the path of truth back in 1994 in his hometown of Tirupur hosting puja and worshiping Arutperunjothi, walking in the footsteps of Ramalinga Adigal. The same was said of me by Bala Chandran in his opening monologue during the release of our in-house Cd album "Agathiyar Geetham" in collaboration with Raagawave Production. Only then did I realize, as Bala mentioned, that I had unknowingly opened my heart and home to others in joining me and my family in the numerous puja. I guess that was the least I could do for my gurus, who send them over to my home. If the puja filled their hearts with bliss, my wife filled their tummies with delicious food and drinks. I guess we can rest in peace that we have done a small part in bringing the worship, teachings, rituals, practices, and lifestyles, of the Siddhas, to those who came seeking our home. Though we hardly know much about the boundless entity that we call God we can share that much that has been shown or taught to us to others and that is what we undertook to do. We shall together walk the path to knowing him eventually.
