A Unique Seer

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Namami Sankaraachaaryam, sarvalokaika Poojitham

 

With permission blessings and grace from HH Swamy Vijeyendra

Saraswathi garu of Shri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham Paramacharya and

miracles

 

A Unique Seer

Prabha Devi

At some time, some country witnesses the event of the birth of a

great soul. Our Guru Paramacharya, Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi

Swamigal is one such. On the occasion of the Centenary of His

Holiness I would like to pay my humble tribute.

We have had his darshan on many an occasion at his headquarters in

Kanchipuram but we remember with gratitude and awe to this day, His

Holiness's visit to Satara in Maharashtra. It was Pradosha day,

sacred to the Hindu devotees. A crowd of about two hundred had

gathered to witness with absolute attention and devotion the puja

performed by Paramacharya. the Rudraksha on His body as well as the

Bhilva-mala covering His head were fascinating and, as Paul Brunton

remarked on his first meeting with the Acharya, " such a face must

have belonged to one of the saints who graced the Christian Church in

the middle ages except that this one possesses the quality of

intellectuality. "

The puja was over, His Holiness offered to the devotees the holy

water. When my father briefly introduced himself, his work and family

and about the city of Bombay from where we came, the ever curious

Acharya shot a volley of questions about Indian shipbuilding

industry, government control on the same, the role of companies and

also about their managing directors. We were taken by surprise with

his penchant for the smallest details. He also enquired kindly the

quality of mangoes (that being mango season) we had offered as our

homage and offered His men to distribute them as prasad to the

devotees. We saw two foreigners, with utmost respect and devotion,

changing over to Hindu brahmin traditional attire, the dhoti and the

angavastra and then seeking the blessings of the Guru. We felt

ashamed of our own people feeling shy to do such a thing and adhering

to it as if out of compulsion.

On another occasion, when we paid our respects to the guru in

Kanchipuram, His Holiness, all of a sudden gesticulated to His

assistants to provide pen and paper for all the assembled devotees.

He ordered His men to recite a particular sloka to be written down by

the devotees who in turn should recite it and even circulate the same

to their friends. This was to enable the people to invoke the

blessings of God for good rain. When He understood that there were

some devotees from Bombay He jocularly remarked that there was no

need for them to recite the sloka as Bombay had that year received

heavy rains.