His Holiness Jagadguru Śrī Abhinava Vidyātīrtha Mahāsvāmin

14th December, 1935. It was a cold winter night at Sringeri, a hamlet in Southern India. While the whole village was fast asleep, in His abode at Narasimhavana, on the banks of the gently flowing Tunga, a sage in His teens was seated motionless, engaged in deep meditation. His breathing was hardly perceptible. His very silence was radiating peace. He was radiant with tejas, like a yogin of yore. Hours lapsed but the sage was blissfully oblivious of the passage of time, absorbed as He was in the infinite Brahman, a state which the scriptures describe as nirvikalpa-samādhi, the acme of yoga. The intensity of His nirvikalpa-samādhis of the preceding days had been such that He was disinclined towards everything concerning the external world. That day, He was hardly aware of even partaking of food. By the evening, His mind was so intoxicated by the bliss of Brahman that even His religious rituals, which He normally performed with much focus, fared very badly. Before retiring to His room in the night, He skipped His food as He felt too disinclined to eat. There, the saint sat down and straightaway went into nirvikalpa-samādhi. The night was almost over and He showed no signs of waking up from His trance.

The saint would have continued to remain in that state, engrossed in Brahman, until His body would have fallen off on its own. However, divine design was different. Impelled by a preraṇā, a divine instruction, His Guru arrived at the scene before the night ended and chanted praṇava to awaken His disciple from samādhi. Slowly, the saint’s chest heaved to accept some air and His eyes opened. He became aware of His body and the presence of His Guru. As instructed by His Guru, He restrained His mind from again plunging into samādhi.

Next morning, the Guru again spoke to His young disciple, “I knew that Your mind was becoming more and more absorbed in nirvikalpa-samādhi. Last night, 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. You have transcended any need for samādhi as You are unswervingly established in Brahman. Regulate your samādhi and the introversion of mind.”

The Yoga-vāsiṣṭha describes the sixth and seventh planes of Knowledge thus: “In the sixth plane, one emerges from nirvikalpa-samādhi only when awakened by the persons nearby. Such a yogin is termed a brahmavid-varīyān (greater knower of Brahman)... The yogin who has reached the seventh plane called turīya never emerges from nirvikalpa-samādhi either by himself or in response to the efforts of another. Such a yogin is called a brahmavid-variṣṭha (the best knower of Brahman).”

The saint whose establishment in the Absolute was of such a high order was none other than His Holiness Śrī Abhinava Vidyātīrtha Mahāsvāmin, the 35th Jagadguru Shankaracharya of the Sringeri Sri Sharada Peetham. His Guru was Jagadguru Śrī Candraśekhara Bhāratī Mahāsvāmin, the 34th pontiff of the Peetham, who Himself was a thoroughly dispassionate saint and a renowned jīvanmukta.

His Holiness Jagadguru Śrī Abhinava Vidyātīrtha Mahāsvāmin was born in Bengaluru on 13th November, 1917. His upanayana was performed on 4th May, 1930. He renounced the world and embraced saṁnyāsa on 22nd May, 1931. With the direct guidance of God and His Guru, He intensely engaged in spiritual practices right from the day of His renunciation and these culminated in His enlightenment and establishment in the Supreme Brahman on 12th December, 1935. His Holiness adorned the Peetham as its Pontiff for 35 years (1954-1989). During this period, He extensively toured the country spreading dharma, expounding the philosophical Truth and gracing people in myriad ways. He was a visionary instrumental in the setting up of various religious and secular institutions to benefit the public. He attained mahāsamādhi on 21st September, 1989.

Jagadguru Śrī Abhinava Vidyātīrtha Mahāsvāmin’s flawless character, noble virtues, intense dispassion, deep devotion to God and His Guru, thorough grasp of Vedānta, profound meditation, direct realization of the Supreme and jīvanmukti made Him stand out as a living testimony to the scriptural statements about enlightened sages. Exceptionally kind and egoless, He was an accessible Guru par excellence who touched the hearts of the hundreds of thousands who came into contact with Him, mitigated unhappiness, conferred happiness and uplifted people, even to the extent of liberating them once and for all from the bondage of saṁsāra. His very life is a teaching for every one.

This publication, ‘From Sorrows to Bliss’, comprises the invaluable teachings of His Holiness Jagadguru Śrī Abhinava Vidyātīrtha Mahāsvāmin presented in four parts namely, Definitive Answers, Motivating Narratives, Scriptural Expositions and Incisive Essays.

Vidyashankar Krishnan K. Suresh Chandar

Dr. H. N. Shankar Dr. Meenakshi Lakshmanan

Trustees, Centre for Brahmavidya