[Chaturamnaya] Life and Teachings of His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Abhinava Vidyateertha Mahaswamigal - 18

[S Jayanarayanan]

(Continued from previous post)





http://svbf.org/journal/vol4no3-4/teachings.pdf





Importance of Gratitude





One of the things that we learn from the Acharya’s life is the importance of gratitude.
The Paramacharya had engaged the scholar Sri Ramachandra Sastry to teach Tarka to our Guru.
The studies were completed during the Paramacharya’s time itself. After the Acharya’s coronation
as the pontiff, he could have treated Sri Ramachandra Sastry as a mere Asthana Vidvan, though of
a very high caliber. This, however, he did not choose to do. In his own hand he wrote letters
to Sastry and even addressed the latter as his Upadhyaya or teacher.




The Acharya would reveal his perfection even in mundane matters. He used to have a handkerchief
with him, which he would use during the course of the day. As such, it would naturally be a crumpled
piece of clothe after a while.




When giving darshan, for example, he would sometimes be seen folding this handkerchief. At the end
of the exercise the folded piece of cloth would look as if it had been ironed—the edges of the
cloth would coincide so perfectly that it would be hard for a person who had not noticed him folding
it to believe that it had been done merely with the hands.




It was not that he did it with conscious intent but quite casually like anybody else folding a
crumpled piece of cloth. Only in his case the result would always be perfect.




While peeling an apple, the Acharya would invariably do so in such a way that not even a thinnest
slice of the flesh was peeled away. The skin alone would be neatly peeled off, and all this done
in a most casual way.
 


 
Sometimes the Acharya would cut an apple and distribute the pieces among his attendants. All the
pieces would be symmetrically cut, of the same size.




The Acharya never believed in keeping to himself what he had learnt. Hence he had trained many in
Tarka. He was even more keen on expounding the Vedantic texts. He would welcome doubts and would not
hesitate to send for numerous reference texts. He would permit interested people to attend his
classes for he held that “even the mere hearing of the Sastras is beneficial. Thus, supposing 20
persons came for the lessons, maybe atleast one or two would listen intently and interestedly and
thereby derive special benefit from hearing the Sastras.”





(To be continued)

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