How humble can a person be? Especially if he is a Guru?
After reading the personal account of Swami Vishnudevananda in MY YEARS WITH THE MASTER, at http://www. Shivanandaonline.org, about the extent of his Guru Swami Shivananda's humbleness, I was proud to be in a land where Swami Shivananda had once served as a doctor.
Swami Vishnudevananda writes on how he came to Shivananda, his first encounter with his master and how his life changed thereafter. Swami Shivananda's humbleness outshone in their very first encounter itself.
"As if by chance, I had found a piece of paper that intrigued me. One night when I was working late and was searching for a misplaced paper, I found a small pamphlet in the trash basket. It was called SADHANA TATTVA and was by Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh. As soon as I read it, my body began to shake. It began with, "An ounce of practice is worth tons of theory." Here was a teacher who was down-to-earth and practical. There was nothing mysterious about his teachings. I felt that I had to meet him for myself. I got a few days to leave from the army. It meant that I had to travel a day and night from my army base in Jullunder. I would have only a few hours at the Ashram - just to see the Master and then go right back."
"The first time I saw Swami Shivananda he was sitting with about 30 or 40 people around him. He looked like an ordinary man among them. The look on his face and manner of speech was simple and straightforward. Each word came from his heart. There was no kind of religious hypocrisy, no sitting on a tiger skin with ashes smeared all over his body. He had an extraordinary spiritual glow."
"The second time, I saw him Swami Shivananda was coming up the stairs in my direction. I did not want to bow my head to him. I was an arrogant boy on leave from the army. I was young and arrogant and never wanted to bow my head to anybody - Swami, God-realized soul or whoever, I did not care."
"Nevertheless, it is the tradition in India that you should bow your head to a holy man. To avoid the situation I just moved out of his path. The Master saw me and headed in my direction. He asked me who I was and where I was coming from. Then he bowed down and touched my feet!"
"My whole body began to shake violently. With all my heart, with all my life and love, I learned to bow without any type of reservation. He touched my heart not with miracles or shows of holiness, but with his perfect ego less nature."
"He didn't consider that I was just a stupid boy standing there, though I was just that. He touched my heart and broke the ego. That was my first lesson, and if I could attain one-millionth of the state of egolessness of the Master, it is His Grace."
"Before leaving, I went down the Ganga where it was the custom of the Ashram to do Arati (waving of lights) every evening. All the devotees and inmates of the Ashram assembled by the banks of the Ganga to watch Master perform this evening worship. I was skeptical. I was of scientific temperament and knew that a river is only water, H2O - imagine worshipping H2O!"
"But as I stood there and watched Master waving the lights, I saw the river become a mass of flowing lights. At that instant, the river assumed a divine flow, a manifestation of the Grace of the Lord. Master turned and looked at me and in my mind, I heard his message, "God pervades everything; this too is His Special Form" This entirely changed my outlook on life."
I saw the same humility and humbleness in both my Gurus, Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal of Kallar and Supramania Swami of Tiruvannamalai.
After I arrived at Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal's Ashram, the Sri Agathiyar Gnana Peedham, the first time, in 2005 on his invitation, Tavayogi invited me for an evening bath at the stream running close by. He brought along his dirty linen and started washing them. I volunteered to wash his clothes but he refused to part with them. I thought by doing so I could get some merit or punyam by washing a Guru's clothes. After having a bath in the stream, we prepared to leave, picking up our stuff. Just then Tavayogi had a change of mind and told me, "We shall take another way back to the Ashram." He turned to me and told me to stay while he brought over our sandals from the other bank of the stream. I forbade him from picking my sandals, saying I shall pick them up myself. But he, asking me to stay put, quickly waded across the stream, picked up my sandals too and brought them over to me. I was physically shaken up and close to tears. Here was a Guru of high standing, who everyone considers a Tavayogi, a head of an Ashram, and a great follower and disciple of Agathiyar and Chitramuthu Adigal of Panaikulam. I could not forgive myself for allowing him to do that.
Supramania Swami was my first Guru. I met him on the last leg of my maiden pilgrimage to India at his village home at Nachaanandhal, eight kilometers from Tiruvanamalai in 2003. I met Tavayogi Thangarasan Adigal in Malaysia in 2005. Later on my second pilgrimage to India in 2005, I spent some days with Supramania Swami at his kudil, near his Guru, Yogi Ramsuratkumar's Ashram.
As we had some time on our hands before Swami and I were to leave for the temples, I brought out the transcribe of my Nadi readings and read it out to Swami. I did not know how to break the ice to Swami that now I have another Guru (Tavayogi). Agathiyar had mentioned that I went in search of Supramania Swami while he (Agathiyar) sent me to Tavayogi. So I thought I should read the Nadi and let Agathiyar do the 'talking'.
As I read the transcribe, Swami listened with awe and at the end of the reading, asked me about Agathiyar. He was amazed that there was a Sidha of this extent who could reveal about a person's past, present and future. Swami even asked if he could get a Nadi reading.
Here I saw his humbleness. When I met him the very first time he too could tell me all about my future. I spent five beautiful hours with him on that day where he revealed so much about me, even about those mentioned by Agathiyar in the Nadi. I had not talked about the Nadi then to no one. But yet he told me the things that were already mentioned in my very first Nadi reading.
After breaking the news to Swami that I was going over to meet Tavayogi too, and as I was leaving his kudil, he passed me his blanket saying it would be very cold in Kallar, asking me to use them. He sent me off cheerfully to meet Tavayogi telling me that I was making this journey not for myself but for him (Supramania Swami). After I returned to his kudil from visiting Tavayogi, the first question he put to me as I alighted from the car was, "Did you see your Guru?" I cried out at the sheer humbleness of my Guru, Supramania Swami. It was an honor indeed to have met a Guru of such stature. I was blessed to be in his company between 2003 and 2007 when he went into samadhi.
Tavayogi too was kind to this soul many times. When he took me for his morning walk around Kallar, he passed me his shawl, saying it was too cold in the mornings. Later at Vedharanyam, he passed my shawl again to lay on the cement floor that had grease and grime all over it, minutes before the first-ever miracle I witnessed, took place - Agathiyar opened his left eye in his granite statue at Agasthiyampalli.
Again he laid his shawl on the terrain under the shade of the gigantic Nandhi at Breehadeeswarar Temple in Tanjore and invited me to share the 'bed'. We laid there gazing at the afternoon sky waiting for the main temple to open at 4 pm.
To be continued ...