Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, The Living Shiva of Varanasi

From time immemorial India has been known to the rest of the world as a land of sages. According to Swami Vivekananda, all sincere seekers of God must take birth here in order to attain their final destination in life. Again, in his opinion, this is the land where humanity has attained its highest towards such higher values of life as gentleness, generosity, purity, calmness, chastity, liberal mentality, and so on. India is the land of renunciation, spirituality, meditation. Her geographical position, temperate climate, and above all, her great regard and sympathy for spiritual life naturally draw the soul within. The snow-clad Himalayas in the north, the Sahyadri range in the west, and the Vindhya and other ranges in the south; the rivers coming out of the mountain ranges with musical sounds and reaching the roaring seas of the south, east and west; the deep forest range with its flora and faunaall these will raise one's mind to a high level automatically. Standing in the wilderness one will start asking oneself in the same tune with the Upanishadic sage`To which deity shall my offering go?'¹

Nowhere else in the world is renunciation held in such high esteem as in India. It is but natural. We owe our allegiance to our ancestors who were not kings or barons but renouncing sages. This is our heritage. When people in other parts of the globe were engaged in looting and ransacking each other just to continue the principle of `survival of the fittest', India went on producing sages with positive outlook, sublime thoughts. Such spiritual gems of India silently contributed to the well-being of the whole world. They did not do it with war trumpets; they simply lived their authentic lives. They can be likened to the `gentle dew that falls unheard and unseen at night, and brings into blossom the fairest of roses' according to Swami Vivekananda.² He threw down the gauntlet saying, `I challenge anybody to show one single period of her national life when India was lacking in spiritual giants.'³

We shall discuss in this article one such authentic life that was dedicated to the well-being of one and all.

It was the first decade of the seventeenth century. Vijayanagaram is a renowned city in Andhra Pradesh. There was a small village named Holiya in the territory of Vijayanagaram. Narasimha Rao, an honest and pious landlord of Holiya, lived there with his wife Vidyavati, who was also a highly devout aspirant of God. Both of them lived according to scriptural injunctions. As they did not see the face of a child long after their marriage, Narasimha became worried about the continuity of the family line and married a second time. From now on, Vidyavati started spending most of her time in worshipping their family deity Shiva and praying to Him for a son.

At last the Lord was pleased, and in the year 1607 Vidyavati gave birth to a son. He was born out of Shiva's graceso he was named Shivaram. This is the way a child is born in Indianot as a result of lust, but as the effect of long term prayer which brings down God's grace. According to the Hindu law-giver Manu, a child who is born of lust is not an Aryan. The child, whose very conception and whose birth is according to the rules of the Vedas, alone is an Aryan.⁴ In fact the birth history of all the great souls of India corroborate this truth.

Let us take up the thread again. A few years later, the second wife of Narasimha Rao also gave birth to a son and he was named Sreedhar. This child was born as if to fulfil Narasimha's desire of perpetuating the family lineage. He was born with worldly propensities.

When great souls take human birth, they give at times a glimpse of their supernatural powers to their parents or intimate ones. Sometimes such miraculous powers come out spontaneously in spite of themselves. Sri Krishna playfully displayed the whole universe within his mouth to mother Yashoda; Jesus Christ's parents were awe-struck to see the flash of light falling from a star upon their beloved son and to hear the divine voice hailing the new-born babe as the King of mankind; Sri Ramakrishna also gave many such evidences as a new-born babe to his devout parents to show that a great power had descended on earth.

This is one aspect of the divine play of great ones. In our scriptures such superhuman or divine qualities are known as bhagas, which are broadly classified into six items. These are: 1) the splendour of supernatural power, 2) piety, 3) fame, 4) prosperity, 5) dispassion, 6) liberation at will. The verse runs as follows:

Aishvaryasya samagrasya
dharmasya yashasah shriyah
vairagyasyatha mokshasya
shannam bhaga itirana

All divine incarnations are seen to evince one or the other, or all these qualities at different times of their life. Here also a similar event took place. Such events unmistakably pointed to the fact that the new-born was no ordinary being. Mother Vidyavati one day saw that a huge stream of light came out of the Shiva-linga and merged in her sleeping child. And in this case also, like all other earthly mothers, Vidyavati was fraught with fear and left the place in a hurry with her child in her arms.

The little Shivaram grew up as a quiet-natured, otherworldly boy full of love, sympathy and dispassion. He inherited these qualities from his pious and devout mother who took the role of his first teacher in spiritual life.

But on the other hand such burning example of dispassion did not go unnoticed by his father who now became anxious to find a suitable bride for his son. Otherwise how could the family line be kept unbroken? However, with all his sincerity of purpose Narasimha failed to convince his son about the indispensability of a worldly life. What is more, his devout wife also supported her beloved son in preferring a life of renunciation and austerity. Who has ever grown in religious life without a blessing from the mother? The scripture says that the mother is even superior to everything else on earth and in heaven`janani janmabhumishcha svargadapi gariyasi.'

So when the mother clearly expressed her opinion and gave her consent for her son's leading a spiritual life, Narasimha Rao did not press him any more.

Narasimha Rao passed away when Shivaram was not more than forty. Twelve years after that, mother Vidyavati too passed away, thus cutting the last vestige of all family entanglements for Shivaram. He gave away all his inherited earthly properties
to his stepbrother Sreedhar and embarked upon an unknown and new spiritual adventure. In his village he built a small hermitage on the bank of a river at the edge of a cremation ground and dived headlong into the quest of God.

At last, at the will of Providence, there came his much-awaited spiritual master. He was Swami Bhagirathananda Saraswati of the Punjab province. At his behest Shivaram left his native village Holiya for ever. After travelling to many holy places of pilgrimage in India both master and disciple reached Pushkar. Here Shivaram was dedicated to the lifelong vow of monasticism known as sannyasa. His guru named him Ganapati Saraswati. But as he hailed from the Telengana province (now Andhra Pradesh) he became more popular by the sobriquet `Telenga Swami' (or Trailanga Swami). By this time he was about 78.

Little is known of his life of sadhana, which was carried out totally behind human gaze. This much only can be said that he specialised in the difficult practices of Hathayoga and Rajayoga disciplines under the able guidance of his guru. Ten years of rigorous spiritual practice transformed him into an illumined great soul. Thereafter his guru passed away handing over his great legacy to the disciple. Having attained perfection in Hathayoga, Telenga Swami, even at the age of 88, looked like a young man full of vigour and devoid of even a wrinkle on the skin.

The great swami, by dint of his attaining perfection in Hathayoga, became the master of tremendous supernatural powers called `spiritual glories' (aishvarya). These became natural and spontaneous in him like breathing. But he rarely made use of these and would move about incognito wishing the welfare of the whole world in general. He even gave up his loin cloth, the last sign of his worldly possession, and moved about stark naked with the simplicity and purity of a five-year-old. His face glowed like one rich with all divine traits. In the Viveka-chudamani of Shankaracharya we come across a beautiful verse depicting the nature of such an enlightened soul, who is called `liberated in this very life'. There it is said that the man of realisation moves about ever happy with supreme bliss, sometimes like a fool, or a sage; now possessed of regal splendour, next moment lying motionless like a python; here he wanders like one who has lost his way in wilderness, again he appears with a benign look; sometimes honoured, sometimes insulted, yet at other times unrecognised in this world.⁵ The case was literally so with Telenga Swami. One day at Rameswar, the sight of the bereaving relatives of a poor, young Brahmin boy who met with sudden immature death touched him to the quick; he took a little water in his hand from the water-pot, uttered some mystic syllables, and sprinkled the water over the dead body. At once the dead corpse came to life. The relatives, after overcoming their first spell of surprise, turned to see who the stranger was. But lo; they could not trace him. The life-giver had disappeared into thin air!

In Patanjali's Yoga aphorisms it is mentioned that if one has perfect mastery over the quality of harmlessness to other beings (ahimsa), even wild animals forget their ferocity in his company (ahimsa-pratish-thayam tat-sannidhau vairatyagah).⁶ Once the swami was practising penance in the deep woods of Nepal. One day the king of Nepal came to that place on a hunting spree. Noticing a tiger he shot at it four times, but every time the bullet missed the target. The king became more stubborn and chased the tiger into deep forest. Suddenly he stood aghast before an unexpected sight. He could not believe his eyes. He saw a great Yogi sitting under a tree and the runaway tiger lying prostrate before him, roaring and wailing in a spirit of surrender. The great Yogi, Telenga Swami, was moving his hand up and down the tiger's body as if to console and alleviate the latter's pain. The king remained pivoted to the place in mute wonder, when the Yogi beckoned him and said, `My son, remove the thought of hating others from your mind, and this tiger will do no harm to you. All of us are God's creation. You give him love and he will also love you.' He uttered these words with such a deep feeling that the king was overwhelmed. He went back to his kingdom and told this story to one and all so much so that people started flocking round the swami. At last the swami, just to avoid this unwanted disturbance by people, again left for an unknown destination.

There are instances of many such Indian Yogis with miraculous supernatural powers. But all of them do not necessarily apply their powers to the well-being of mankind. Here lies the difference between an ordinary soul and a realised soul. Telenga Swami used his inherent powers only as an expression of his infinite compassion for all beings, and not to gain name and fame.

After leaving Nepal the swami visited Tibet, Manasarovar, the Himalayan range, and the Uttarakhand. Then he came to Markandeya ashrama on the bank of Narmada. Here he spent eight long years in spiritual practice and then left for Prayag. From Prayag he went to Varanasi in 1844. His advent raised a great stir in the minds of the public there. He would move about stark naked, totally indifferent to temporal life. It was here that the expressions of his yogic powers assumed the peak form. His heart bled for the afflicted, and whoever would take the name of Shiva in straitened circumstances would get the swami by his side immediately. It was here that people started calling him as the `moving Viswanath'.

Strange was his way of conveying sublime messages. Once the king of Ujjain came to Varanasi. He happened to meet Telenga Swami in a boat on the Jahnavi river. The swami was then observing the vow of silence. With a childish curiosity he looked at the sword hanging from the king's waist, took it in his hand, and the next moment threw it in the river. This displeased the king beyond measure. But the next moment the swami stretched out his hand into the water and took out not one but two exactly identical swords. Then he asked the king to choose his own sword that he loved so much. But the king failed to recognise his sword. At this the swami said, `How do you claim that as yours when you cannot single it out? Remember, man possesses only that which accompanies him even after death. How can you own a thing that does not endure hereafter? Does it become of you to give vent to your anger on such a trifling issue?' And the swami threw away the fake sword in the water keeping the actual one in front of the awe-struck king and disappeared in the wavy waters. Such was his typical way of teaching mankind.

Only a great soul can recognise another great soul in right estimation. And a true knower of God knows another knower merely by a glance. This happened when Sri Ramakrishna came to Varanasi on a pilgrimage tour with Mathuranath and a big entourage in the year 1868. Immediately after paying a visit to Lord Viswanath, Sri Ramakrishna went to see the great swami who was under a vow of silence at that time. The swami's joy knew no bounds and as a token of his mute recognition he presented a small snuff box to Sri Ramakrishna. The latter, on examining the swami, found signs of a perfect yogi in his bearing and expressed his opinion that in Telenga Swami all the marks of a Paramahamsa were present. Both of them met a number of times and Sri Ramakrishna asked a number of questions about higher truths. He asked whether God is one or many. To this the swami showed by sign that when experienced in Samadhi God is one; otherwise, so long as there is the sense of this world and its manifestations, He seems to be of many forms.

Sri Ramakrishna one day fed the swami with a huge quantity of highly thickened milk with his own hand. He got it prepared by a special cook under the supervision of Mathuranath and felt immense satisfaction after feeding a great yogi like Telenga Swami with the whole quantity (about 18-19 kgs.)

Thus, like many other great souls of India, this living embodiment of goodness and benevolence spent his long span of life (280 years) on this earth doing and thinking only of the well-being of others. He would convey his spiritual message mostly in silence but those who came to his holy presence would have their doubts dispelled. This is graphically expressed in the famous Dakshinamurthy stotram: `gurostu maunam vyakhyanam shishyastu chhinnasamshayah'.

He did not create any sect or monastery. He just gave his message spontaneously, out of the fullness of his heart. People in
his presence used to feel that the Lord of Varanasi had really assumed a human body out of deep compassion for mankind. Blessed were those who came to his close proximity!

One day, the swami suddenly expressed to his admirers and devotees his readiness to leave the mortal body. It came like a bolt from the blue to all the devotees present there. But he knew it to be a divine dispensation and consoled all his children. At last, at their importunity, he agreed to the proposal of building a stone image of himself in his own presence. Accordingly a sculptor was called in, and the same was made. One day the swami, out of his own whim, carried single-handed, from the bank of the Ganga, a huge stone with signs of a Shiva-linga, that could not be lifted by a dozen strong men together. This is still kept at Varanasi along with the other mementoes of the swami.

He chose the auspicious day of shukla ekadashi in the month of Poush in the year 1887 (December) as his day of final departure. At his instance a sandalwood coffin box was made, which was to be consigned to the waters of the holy Ganga after the age-old tradition. On that appointed day the great Yogi gave up his body through yoga.

1. Rig Veda 10:121.
2. CW 3:274.
3. CW 4:315.
4. Manusmriti 2:16.
5. Vivekachudamani 542.
6. Patanjali's Yoga aphorisms, 2.31.