10. अगजापतिभक्तिमान् Agajāpati-bhaktimān

One devoted to the consort of Pārvatī

In an exposition, His Holiness succinctly yet comprehensively explained the meaning of bhakti as follows: “People have a natural capacity to love. Affection requires an object and when that object is God, it gets the appellation ‘bhakti’ or devotion. Narada defines bhakti as extreme love of God.³⁸ He who attains such devotion no longer longs for anything and is ever fully satiated and happy. While attachment to wife, wealth, etc., causes bondage, attachment to God liberates. A sense object sometimes gives joy and sometimes sorrow. It is not always available and has several faults. On the other hand, God is ever captivating, constantly available and totally free from blemishes. Further, what or who can be as loveable as God who is the repository of all good qualities? So bewitching are His glories that even sages who have realized the Truth and have nothing to achieve go into raptures on thinking of Him.”³⁹

While His Holiness was described earlier as having praised Śiva (nāma 8), His devotion to Śiva is brought out here, by saying that He was bhaktimān, One with devotion, to agajā-pati, the consort of the daughter of the mountain, that is Pārvatī. Perhaps the reference to the steadfast, massive Himalayas suggests that His Holiness’s bhakti to Śiva had similar qualities. The Upaniṣad declares, “For the great one who has supreme devotion to God and similar devotion to the Guru, the teachings that are verbalized as well as those that are not, shine forth.”⁴⁰ This was the case with His Holiness, whose devotion was supreme, without motive and unswerving.

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His Holiness was exhausted when He retired for the night on 22^nd May 1931, the day He was initiated into saṁnyāsa. He was thirteen years of age at that time. As was usual, He fell asleep almost the moment He shut His eyes. That night He had a dream that He could vividly recall even decades later. In it, He found Himself on the amazingly scenic summit of a tall, ice-clad mountain. Though the mountain was icy, He felt no cold. In front of Him, at a distance of about twenty feet, He saw a huge, crystal Śivaliṅga. A torrent of water was falling on it in a column from above. He could not see the source of the water. He could hear the chanting in chorus of the Vedic Rudra-praśna (Śrī-rudra) but no chanter was visible. Suddenly, there was a great flash of light and from the liṅga, Lord Śiva manifested.

The Lord appeared as possessed of one face and two arms. He was extremely fair and radiant. His hair was matted and was tawny in hue. On beholding Śiva, His Holiness was so struck with awe that He stood unmoving. The Lord smilingly looked at His Holiness and raised His right hand in a gesture of blessing. His Holiness felt a great power entering into Him. Automatically, He began to chant ‘Om’ mentally. Śiva gestured to Him to sit down. A seat of deer skin with an ochre cloth spread on it appeared where His Holiness was standing. He did namaskāra and, strictly in obedience to the Lord’s wish, sat down even though Śiva was standing.

The Lord came near Him. A big tiger skin appeared on the ground and Śiva sat on it. He positioned His legs in the padmāsana and told His Holiness to do the same. While His Holiness knew even earlier how to adopt the padmāsana, Śiva’s approach was particularly graceful and His Holiness imitated it as best as He could. Then Śiva assumed the siddhāsana. In response to the Lord’s directive, His Holiness copied Him. With His hands, the Lord corrected His Holiness’s posture.

The Lord then demonstrated to His Holiness, on that night and the next six, continuing on each successive night from where He left the previous night, haṭha-yoga, consisting of prāṇāyāma, āsanas, kriyas and finally the khecarī-mudra and then nāda-anusandhāna. After demonstrating the latter, the Lord raised His right hand in a gesture of blessing and got up. His Holiness promptly prostrated before Him, placing His head on Śiva’s lotus feet. As His Holiness rose, the Lord walked towards the crystal liṅga from which He had manifested. A flash of light preceded His disappearance into that liṅga. At this point, His Holiness’s dream ended. The Lord had not left His seat at the close of the preceding six extraordinary dreams. Hence, when His Holiness woke up at His usual time, He knew that this was the last of this series of dreams.

After narrating the details of the first dream to a disciple more than four decades later, His Holiness said, “I had no words to express my gratitude to Bhagavān for having extraordinarily graced me in spite of my being so unworthy and that too on the very day of my new life. I did not have an iota of doubt that the Lord would ever take care of and guide me. All I needed to do was not give room to egoism.

“The Lord had, by His blessing, initiated the mental chanting of the Praṇava (Om) and given me an understanding of how natural, uninterrupted and delightful it can be. I felt that the Lord intended that I should practise such chanting to the extent of it becoming effortless. Accordingly, I began to engage voluntarily in mental Praṇava-japa within a minute of my awakening. By Bhagavān’s grace, within a year, such japa became as effortless and uninterrupted as in the special dream. It continued even in dreams and while I conversed.”

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[The following is excerpted from the reminiscences of His Holiness of the thrilling happenings of 5^th December, 1935. Having sat down in the siddhāsana at His usual place of meditation on the hilltop that evening, His Holiness commenced meditation and went into savikalpa-samādhi on Śiva in consonance with Pārvati (vide nāma 17 for details).]

“After about one and a half hours, as I discerned later but what then seemed to me to be just a moment, I became lightly aware of the body. I opened my eyes. I could see the sun close to the horizon and feel a gentle breeze. I could, at the same time, clearly apprehend the Lord associated with Ambā (Divine Mother) in my heart-lotus. The Lord appeared to be emerging from within and expanding. A deep long sound of Om was audible. I then definitely beheld Śiva in front of and facing me. Oh, what a glorious sight that was!

“Tears of joy flowed from my eyes and my hairs stood on end. The Lord’s lips moved and I heard His very sweet voice. His words were: ‘vatsa śvaḥ-

saṁstho bhaviṣyasi | (O child, from tomorrow, fix your mind on the Formless, Supreme Reality here. You will soon become established in Brahman).’

“Then Śiva blessed Me by placing His hand on my head. Having done so, He disappeared. How compassionate He is to grace in such abundance one so insignificant and lacking in devotion as I! No sooner had He vanished than there was a drizzle. In a matter of seconds, the sun set; simultaneously, the light rain stopped. The sky had been quite clear when I sat for meditation. Even when the sun set, clouds were not apparent. The sun having been quite visible when it rained there, to me it appeared that the Lord was blessing me with a light bath in the Gaṅgā.”

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After having thus received the special grace and instruction of Śiva, His Holiness commenced nirguṇa-dhyāna the next evening. Cogitating and meditating on the Supreme Reality (as described under nāmas 59, 67 and 72), He attained enlightenment and establishment in the Supreme. It was only years later, that His Guru formally taught Him Vedānta, and those teachings only served to confirm to Him what He already knew as a matter of experience. Such was the excellence of His Holiness’s devotion to Īśvara and the Guru, that He knew the true import of the passages of the Upaniṣad and Smṛti without being explicitly taught.

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Once His Holiness attained establishment in Brahman on 12^th December 1935, His mind kept plunging into nirvikalpa-samādhi on the 13^th, and the mind became so intoxicated with bliss that He found it difficult to do His routine activities on the 14^th. On the night of the 14^th He did not feel like partaking of anything before retiring to His room, and no sooner had He sat down there than He again went into nirvikalpa-samādhi. He descended from samādhi on becoming vaguely aware of the intonation of the Praṇava by His Guru. When His Holiness opened His eyes, He found the senior Jagadguru seated next to Him and gently stroking His disciple’s head with His hand.

As per His Guru’s instructions, His Holiness eschewed samādhi, had His bath, finished His āhnika (religious rites), and went to His Guru’s presence. Once He offered namaskāras, the senior Jagadguru directed Him to sit down and then said, “I knew that your mind was becoming more and more absorbed in nirvikalpa-samādhi. Though you have transcended any need for samādhi, I did not interfere. Last night, however, the Lord made it clear to me that your samādhi had become so intense that you would not emerge from it on your own. Unless aroused from samādhi, you would remain in it till physical death. As impelled by Him, I came to your room before the night ended. Telling your attendant to remain outside, I entered alone. The Maṭha staff have been under the impression that you have been unwell since yesterday. So the attendant assumed that I had come to check on your condition. I found you seated motionless, deep in samādhi. With great difficulty, I succeeded in awakening you.

“Regulate your samādhi and the introversion of the mind. Else, today itself, your nirvikalpa-samādhi will become such that you cannot be aroused from it at all by anybody. Do not leave me by entering irreversible samādhi and discarding your human form. There is so much to be done by you for me, for others and for the Maṭha.”

Śiva had taught His Holiness haṭha-yoga in a series of dreams, had specially graced Him by appearing before Him, placing His hand on His head and directing Him to perform nirguṇa-dhyāna, and had now directed His Guru to rouse Him from nirvikalpa-samādhi before it could become irreversible. All this bears testimony to His Holiness’s great devotion to Śiva.

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