COURTESY: http://haridasgirigandhi.blogspot.com
The first memory of Gnanananda is of Him at ‘Narayana Bhavanam’ at Tapovanam, some time in the mid sixties.
The sage was giving darshan to members of a guided trip to His ashram. I was with my mother as part of a group.
Mother was worried about her growing hearing disability, but her affinity for the Sage was such that she wanted to communicate with Him then and there.
What she asked and the details of His reply are lost to me, but the details of the scene and that I acted as interpreter are in the memory.
Would the sage have known then that mother would cast off her physical burden at His feet, and that He would come personally to bade her good bye…something that saints who have given up all attachment rarely do.
``She has become one with the Nityasuris, ``(celestials who wait upon Sriman Narayana at Paramapada), the sage would say in appropriate Vaishnavite terminology to our family members.
The solicitude he showed to the bereaved, in particular to the youngest (that happened to be me), was extraordinary. He was a sanyasi and a sage, but was so caring. Every day he would call me to his presence and load me with fruits.
A few months later, the Sage would himself shuffle off that wonderful physical frame of His, that singular mien of compassion and affection….but how much love and lustre, hope and heavenliness he had radiated all around!
How can a broken sieve retain the placid ocean of ananda that the Sage was, is and will be?
Just a droplet perhaps of that ocean is enmeshed in the web of life and fragmentarily reflects the glorious sun of Gnanananda in the heart of its variegated existence.
Flitting images of the light of lights leading the Deepajothi at the break of dawn…
Of still afternoons when Thapovanam was in reverie, but the Sage was out instructing construction workers...
Of the Sage in whose Heart the thousand suns of the Vedas shines, quoting by heart long-winding verses from Thayumanar---Kandhuga madhakariyai vasamaai adakkalaam…
Strangely, it never occurred to me that this extraordinarily caring and human sage, was a human being like one of us…
He was, as the defining sloka so uncannily summed up…the Bhakta vaatsalya jaladhi …the ocean of affection to his devotees… Paramaananda vigrahaa…the very form of divine joy.
That such a sun of gnana walked through the alleys of our congested existence…
That the sea of love harboured at our shores with its endless waves of compassion..
That the heavenly bird which flits its mystical wings in the skies of satchitananda nested for a while in our dinghy hearts to intimate to us our heavenly destinies…That was our gift and our joy.
Birth after birth, if need be…
Century after century, if they coursed on…
Infinite if our steps in the winding trails of samsara..
His hand of help shall be our guide and protector....
The cool shade of His presence shall be the oases in the deserts of duality…
O Gnanananda …who wrote the poem of thine life?
What heavenly minstrel sang the lyric of thine presence?
``Make no mistake’’, my mother said of her guru. ``Swami is Krishna himself’’.
Whom should this vagrant vagabond soul thank for taking it to the groves of His presence?
Who else but Radha and her Consort!
The years that it in frolicked in the limpid waters of the Pennai that runs by Tapovanam and partook of Gnanananda’s prasad, are the most significant years of its life. The ‘Rosebud’ it cherishes forever.
The first memory of Gnanananda is of Him at ‘Narayana Bhavanam’ at Tapovanam, some time in the mid sixties.
The sage was giving darshan to members of a guided trip to His ashram. I was with my mother as part of a group.
Mother was worried about her growing hearing disability, but her affinity for the Sage was such that she wanted to communicate with Him then and there.
What she asked and the details of His reply are lost to me, but the details of the scene and that I acted as interpreter are in the memory.
Would the sage have known then that mother would cast off her physical burden at His feet, and that He would come personally to bade her good bye…something that saints who have given up all attachment rarely do.
``She has become one with the Nityasuris, ``(celestials who wait upon Sriman Narayana at Paramapada), the sage would say in appropriate Vaishnavite terminology to our family members.
The solicitude he showed to the bereaved, in particular to the youngest (that happened to be me), was extraordinary. He was a sanyasi and a sage, but was so caring. Every day he would call me to his presence and load me with fruits.
A few months later, the Sage would himself shuffle off that wonderful physical frame of His, that singular mien of compassion and affection….but how much love and lustre, hope and heavenliness he had radiated all around!
How can a broken sieve retain the placid ocean of ananda that the Sage was, is and will be?
Just a droplet perhaps of that ocean is enmeshed in the web of life and fragmentarily reflects the glorious sun of Gnanananda in the heart of its variegated existence.
Flitting images of the light of lights leading the Deepajothi at the break of dawn…
Of still afternoons when Thapovanam was in reverie, but the Sage was out instructing construction workers...
Of the Sage in whose Heart the thousand suns of the Vedas shines, quoting by heart long-winding verses from Thayumanar---Kandhuga madhakariyai vasamaai adakkalaam…
Strangely, it never occurred to me that this extraordinarily caring and human sage, was a human being like one of us…
He was, as the defining sloka so uncannily summed up…the Bhakta vaatsalya jaladhi …the ocean of affection to his devotees… Paramaananda vigrahaa…the very form of divine joy.
That such a sun of gnana walked through the alleys of our congested existence…
That the sea of love harboured at our shores with its endless waves of compassion..
That the heavenly bird which flits its mystical wings in the skies of satchitananda nested for a while in our dinghy hearts to intimate to us our heavenly destinies…That was our gift and our joy.
Birth after birth, if need be…
Century after century, if they coursed on…
Infinite if our steps in the winding trails of samsara..
His hand of help shall be our guide and protector....
The cool shade of His presence shall be the oases in the deserts of duality…
O Gnanananda …who wrote the poem of thine life?
What heavenly minstrel sang the lyric of thine presence?
``Make no mistake’’, my mother said of her guru. ``Swami is Krishna himself’’.
Whom should this vagrant vagabond soul thank for taking it to the groves of His presence?
Who else but Radha and her Consort!
The years that it in frolicked in the limpid waters of the Pennai that runs by Tapovanam and partook of Gnanananda’s prasad, are the most significant years of its life. The ‘Rosebud’ it cherishes forever.