Publisher’s Note to the First Printed Edition

We are gratefuḷ to His Holiness Sri Sannidhanam for conferring His śrīmukha to this book. He had earlier asked the author to pen a detailed account of the spiritual disciplines practiced by H.H. Mahasannidhanam and then expressed His appreciation of the material submitted to Him. Our namaskāra-s to His Holiness.

But for Sri G. Ramasubramanian, this book would not have appeared at all. He was the one who repeatedly pressed the author to allow the material that constitutes Part – II to be made available to the public as a book. With his efforts finally bearing fruit, he personally keyed in the portions in devanāgirī and those with diacritical marks. He contributed much to the proof correction and fully co-ordinated the publication. His has been a labour of love that is well consistent with his very deep devotion to Acharyal. We are highly thankful to him.

Sri H.N. Shankar scrutinized the manuscript and gave the author his scholarly comments and suggestions. Sri G. Raghavan generated the final print-out at his Anugraham Computer Services, while Sri N.Subramanian designed the cover and printed the book at his Sudarsan Graphics; both did so with personal involvement and deep dedication. Our thanks to all of them.

K. Narayanaswami

R. Krishnan

R. Easwaran

Chennai Trustees

January 3, 1999 Sri Vidyatheertha Foundation

PART I

श्रुतायां यदुक्तौ न हि श्राव्यशेषः सुरुपे च दृष्टे न दृष्यावशेषः । नतेऽङ्घ्रौ न कृत्यं दयाप्तौ न लभ्यं न माहात्म्यसीमा च येषां भजे तान् ॥ śrutāyāṁ yaduktau na hi śrāvyaśeṣaḥ
surupe ca dṛṣte na dṛśyāvaśeṣaḥ । nate’ṁghrau na krtyaṁ dayāptau na labhyaṁ
na māhātmyasīmā ca yeṣāṁ bhaje tān ॥ (I worship Him whose greatness has no limit, on hearing whose
words, nothing remains to be heard, on seeing whose graceful
form, nothing remains to be seen, on prostrating before whom,
nothing remains to be done and on obtaining whose grace, nothing
remains to be attained.)

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This book extensively deals with Acharyal’s spiritual practices right up to their culmination. As the events concerned span a period of less than five years of Acharyal’s life, a short account of Acharyal’s whole life is provided first. As they deeply involve the role of Paramacharyal as Acharyal’s Sadguru, a short account about Paramacharyal is also included here. The final chapter of this part is meant to present the spiritual prelude to Acharyal’s post-Sannyasa, spiritual practices.

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