[Chaturamnaya] His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Sacchidananda Sivabhinava Nrisimha Bharati - 17

[S Jayanarayanan]

 http://svbf.org/journal/vol8no1/2006_10_swamigal.pdf
 
 
Venerable Symbols of Worship
----------------------------
 
The hymns he composed in praise of his
guru are sincere outpourings of his heart. The first
thing he did after bath every morning was to take
the pair of sandals which had been used by his
guru in his life-time, clean them with the clothes
he had on, then place them on his own head,
uttering the prayer that his guru’s sandals were his
greatest refuge in life.
 
He would talk for hours on his guru’s
greatness: and he never spoke what did come from
the very depths of his heart. His attachment to
the several murtis of the deities in the Peetham was
as if they were living representatives of the gods
themselves. The idea never seemed to have entered
his mind that they were mere symbols; he carefully
looked into the milk and sugar before he offered
them to the gods, he examined the fresh flowers
brought by his attendants before placing them at
the feet of the gods, lest there should be withered
or otherwise unworthy ones. It was not merely to
set an example to the thousands who came to
witness the puja, but this feeling of reverence and
attachment was instinctive with him.
 
It was only those select few who were
admitted to the privacy of his intimate puja who
could understand the sincerity of his feelings of
devotion to the simple emblems of his worship,
when, late at night he would, at the close of the
worship, stand and dance in joy before his gods,
beating time with his hands to the melodious
songs of praise which flowed from his lips almost
unbidden.
 
His childlike trust in the symbols of
godhead coexisted with his capacity for abstract
meditation. For days together, he gave up the
external forms of worship and devoted himself to
contemplation. He used to spend a month almost
every year, at this time, on the hills not far from
Sringeri, known as Nrisimha-parvata.
 
Here he lived in a hermitage, a little
removed from the quarters of his attendants, and
spent forenoons in prayer and meditation. In the
evenings he would walk on the hills two or three
miles, alone; sannyasis and other who came to pay
their respects to him would stand a little aloof and
follow him a little distance behind, after their
prostrations. He did not speak to any one on these
occasions but communed with himself and nature.
Only, his bright smile irradiated the atmosphere
around him and brought peace of mind to those
who beheld him even from distance.
 
That famous poem of Sadasiva-Brahman,
Atma-vidya-vilasa, was his favorite work, which he
used to repeat to himself. Oftentimes, when he was
seated among his pupils, he would ask one of them
to sing the verses of this poem in a sweet voice.
For five or six minutes he would be listening; but
after that would forget himself in the rapture of
Self-communion induced by the poem; his head
would bend down and he would be in a trance.
This had been noticed several times.
 
Once he was seated in contemplation under
a tree on this hill; a wild hill-fly on his thigh and
sucked his blood. The blood streamed down; but
the Swami was not aware of it. The Agent, who
was standing by, dared not to disturb him. It was
only after he came to himself that he noticed a
feeling of cold in the thigh and saw the mischief
of the wild fly.
 
His self-forgetfulness in abstract meditation
was succeeded in his wakeful state by intense love
of God, induced by his veneration for such
outward symbols as the sandals of his guru, the
murti of his worship. It was a love born of no
earthly consideration, a love that seeks no return,
an intense and ethereal flame that baffles all
analysis, that glorifies in self-prompted and
unquestioning surrender. This avyaja-bhakti led to
the light and the vision beatific in which the God
in man and the God in the Universe are fused
into one. [That great psychic powers flowed of
their own accord f rom such divine love goes
without saying.]
 
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