TRANSLATE PHILOSOPHY INTO LIFE

TRANSLATE PHILOSOPHY INTO LIFE

AND LIFE INTO PHILOSOPHY

(An Avatar is not simply a Manifestation of God,

But

God Manifested- God become incarnated

(Look at my eternal shining form and not at the picture. I can reside in any shape, in any body and in any dimension).

The origin-less originator and uncreated creator Sri Swami Samartha Sri Akkalkot Maharaj who declared:- "Every human being is an institution which needs to be reformed from the bottom to the top", settled at Akklkot, then a princely State in Maharashtra and left His mortal coil there, whose Samadhi and the Vat-Brikshya Math still draws thousands of Pilgrims all over the word for obtaining divine benedictions.

At all ages it is seen that a vast majority of mankind is spending time and energy in pursuing exclusively temporary self-soothing joys instead of focusing on permanent ever-increasing cascade of bliss, i.e. God. The priceless gift of human body is usually utilized for pleasurable sense satisfying excitements resulting in man's greed taking over the actual needs. Thereby the harmony in the divine system is, disturbed and when such continuous transgression against the Natural Laws crosses certain demarcated limits, the Divinity descends as an Incarnation to make man conscious about the uncontrollable ignorance and the eternal righteous principles.

The Incarnated God Who, normally, is the Energy of wave (Chaitanya) form and therefore is invisible, listens to the prayers of devotees that serve the process of observation and motivates the wave form of divinity, it adopts a material form (Sakar) usually in the visible garment of a human body to play the self ordained role and after fulfilling the particular role of the divine, the human form plunges back into the usual invisible wave (Chaitanya) form. While bound in the finite human embodiment, these Incarnations or Godmen are never devoid of their infinite divine potencies.

Identifying and contacting such Godmen, the Perfect Masters in the visible garmet of humanbody, is the crux of the problem of spiritual evolution of man, both collective and individual, specially in the present age when the mass media and fanfare have made it more of a craze than a serious purusit. Yet fortunately for the humanity, there is and was always a hope, a clear way opened, the devout study of life and mission of Godmen, the Mahapurushas, Sadgurus, Saints, Sages, Seers, Rishis and Yogis and the great opportunity of their contact, who possess and possessed great cosmic vision, superhuman powers, divine understanding, playing the plausible and placable role as Messengers.

Such messengers of God usually live on a plane of consciousness, entirely different from the people who live on an earthly plane whereas they live in a divine and transcendental state of consciousness. Behind their outer worldly life there is a vast and fathomless rich inner life which is beyond ordinary human comprehension. God with His sole purpose has created man as His own image, put him in the apex at the top rung of the ladder in the creation for utilizing the faculty of discrimination, so that he will try to evolve to the state of discovering his inner divinity:- the ultimate realisation that he is an aspect of God in essence and not to live only under the tyranny of his senses and mind with faulty understanding.

To deliver this descriptive realisation to humanity at large, Sri Swami Samartha Sri Akkalkot Maharaj appeared in the 19th century whose Birth place, Name Parentage, Origin is still a monumental mystery. He was a figure whose presence was not only uplifting but was regarded as Full-fledged Divine Incarnation,

a Manifestation of Sri Vishnu Himself, specifically revered by millions as Lord Sri Dattatreya through-out the world. The analysis of His towering spiritual stature and life challenges the intellect and over-rides the limits of reason that seek to unravel the secrets of the path of spirituality and divinity.

Though widely known as Sri Swami Samartha, He was reveared as "Sarba Devata Swarupa" and actually an incarnation of bliss. There was a hallow of lustre around His face and the emamating aura was an indication of divine splender. In even advance age of His life He was looking young whose looks were bright and fresh. He was tall more than six feet in height, shoulders and forehead, body was wheat coloured, wearing only a Kaupin (Cod piece), wore Tulsi and Rudrakhya malas, earing inset with gems, eye brown grey and with the omniscience lustrous eyes, He used to look as if He is probing one's inner most souls. His walk with (Ajana Bahus) was so fast that few could keep pace with Him and seen muttering mystic mantras or something which others could not understand, looked like a PURANA PURUSHA of the most ancient times whose spiritual presence was and is perennial.

After Sri Sirpad-Sri-Vallabha, the first Incarnation of Lord Sri Dattatreya during the Kaliyuga, Sri Narasimha Saraswati came as Datta guru (Ref. Sri Guru Charitra), who left Gangapur, one of the most important Datta-khetras of our country, reached Sri Shailam, where from He moved to the Himalays and said to have entered into deep Samadhi. It is believed that He continued in that state for more than Three Hundred years and a huge 'Ant-Hill' grew around the corporal body of Sri Narasimha Saraswati. No one knew as to what happened to Him afterwards. Many years later, a wood-cutter's axe accidentally fell on some bushes on the Ant-Hill and the cutter was aghast to find the axe's blade stained with blood. Curiosity led the wood-cutter to demolish the ant-hill and to his surprise he found a Yogi absorbed in penance, who opened His eyes and rose from the Samadhi, When the wood-cutter was trembling with fear and nervousness. But to his utter surprise, the Yogi who emerged from the ant-hill was not Sri Narasimha Saraswati but His Re-incarnation, who was later known as the Immortal Sri Swami Samartha Sri Akkalkot Maharaj who made His presence felt wherever he went by His majestic looks, arresting personality and above all magnified by His divine power.

Before leaving for the planes, Sri Swami Samartha extensively moved in the Interior parts of the Himalayas and many fantastic stories are told about Sri Swami Samartha that gave the ordained opportunity for the powerful Yogis who came out from their caves to revere Him with great respect, where astounding miracles so very spontaneously revealed, dazzled the Yogis and saints continuing their silent penance in their own ways. One of the Yogis who had been performing severe penance with the Quest of God-realisation was chanting a Special Seed Mantra for Thirty Six years with the prayer to have the physical darshan of Lord Sri Dattatreya. At that time Sri Swami Samartha was staying in a nearby place very near to the cave and in that area many more Yogis were meditating for several years for their spiritual fulfilment. One night Lord Dattatreya appeared in dream of the Yogi and directed him to visit the place where Sri Swami Samartha was temporarily present. Reaching the spot along with the other Yogis they saw two ferocious tigers along with Sri Swami Samartha, who assured them not to fear but revealed them the resplendent TRINITY FORM of Lord Sri Dattatreya with all the divine Icons, Mace, Chakra, Conch, Kamadhenu and the Four Dogs-the Four Symbols of Vedas. Being overwhelmed with ecstasy, torrents of tears flooded their eyes and Sri Swami Samartha advised all of them to continue their divine march on the Samadhi path and graced them with the assurance to reach the Formless Brahman.

This incident is only one of the innumerable spontaneous and natural manifestation of miracles, which are nothing but incomprehensible, incredible, incontestably incontrovertible and immeasurable while Sri Swami Samartha was in visible form. Even after relinquishing His visible form, several thousands of healing of physical and pyschic ailments, mitigation of personal and property problems and family squabbles are being accomplished in its subtle ways through His leelas and such leelas and His words even now reverberate with profound spiritual and practical significance, but one is to dive deep to capture the divine pearls of wisdom from the ocean of His inconceivable operation.

Spirituality always dawns on a person with a magnetic touch of mystics and Sri Swami Samartha, the perennial source of spiritualism was revered as an incarnation of Lord Sri Dattatreya, a born Avadhuta, self realised wandering sage, a figure of great mystery, whose miraculous appearance at different areas and places was actually beyand property problems and family squabbles are being accomplished in its subtle ways through His leelas and such leelas and His words even now reverberate with profound spiritual and practical significance, but one is to dive deep to capture the divine pearls of wisdom from the ocean of His inconceivable operation.

Intellectual scholarship, material wealth, physical beauty, these were all powerless before Sri Swami Samartha. Learned pundits, men of wealth, kingly power and many Sadhus all came to test and tempt Him but were humbled. He was supremely dispassionate : 'A' 'Mahavairagi' untouched by temptations of the world like the lotus leaf is unwetted by water in which it grows. He was concerned about all, not merely His devotees but had equal solicitousness and concern for the prodigal children and even more about the latter though one may be the most heinous sinner. Swami Samartha, the merciful and compassionate Lord, was open to every body, Whose heart was an infinite ocean of mercy, giving peace to one and all irrespective of nationality, race, religion, sex, intellectual or social status. He never approved caste distinctions as all were alike in the eyes of God. When serving food whether it is to a person of a high caste or low, all were served as serving Sri Narayan and He used to say that service was no charity but should be deemed as a privilege granted by Narayan Himself. The shining rays of His limitless love, teachings and philosophy inspire and motivated the people to live with confidence in perfect divine bliss, while excelling in the imperfect world. Though His face was full of compassion, kindness and love, His expressions appeared always changing and occasionally looked like a fierce Narasimha, abusing the visitors but those abuses in fact were blessings in disguise.

Sri Swami Samartha's language and messages have been mostly cryptic yet full of practical as well as spiritual wisdom. His divine lustrous personality and His rustic incisive style of communication was not only appealing to the masses but the common people could easily correlate and grasp the significance of His utterances. While stressing devotional adoration of God to the majority of people with emotional bent, He bathed the select few with logical and razor sharp intellect in "you are that divinity- Tat Twam Asi" philosophy. His apparently casual remarks "SWAMI TO AKKALKOT ME HAI" "Akkalse Khuda Pehchano", Swami is in the fort of your intellect and use intellect to realise God, have profound philosophical significance. To be able to use intellect for spiritual progress, He says it must be razor sharp. To have a razor sharp intellect, one must transcend the Three qualities of human nature, Sattwa or purity, Rajas or activity and tamas, the inertia . To go beyond purity, action and inertia one needs to be the master of six inner impediments of ego, lust, anger, greed, envy and attachment and to tame these one must do the right Sadhana, which shall automatically come to one when he surrenders to the Sadguru that finally leads to self purification and sharpening of the intellect.

As the sun illuminates the moon, stars and all the planets to shine, as one light do light-up many other lights, Swami Samartha, the monarch of the infinite number of galaxies of Saints illuminated many souls to leave a legacy of many spiritual luminaries in shaping their spiritual lives, granting them the key to perpetual ever-increasing divine joy through His four pillar Dikshas i.e. Sparsha-diksha, drik-diksha,ved-diksha and shabda-diksha, that inducted spiritual power and brought out a brigade of Sadgurus in our country like Sri Rangoli Maharaj, Sri Krishna Saraswati, Sri Pitale maharaj, Sri Jangli Maharaj, Sri Gholap Swami, Sri Mayurananda Saraswati, Sri Omkar maharaj, Sri Sachchidananda Swami, Das Gopal Krishna Swami, Sri Sripati Baba Maharaj, Sri Anandanath Maharaj, Sri Brahmanishtha Waman Bua Brahmachari, Sri Gondavalekar Maharaj, Sri Kal Bua Brahmachari, Sri Ananda Bharati, Sri Bidkar Maharaj, Sri Sitaram Maharaj, Sri Tat Maharaj and Sri Narasimha Saraswati Swami Maharaj who were metamorphosed and transformed to astounding spiritual status and stature. Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi and Sri Gajanan Maharaj of Shegaon came into His contact at their early period of Avataric Mission.

Sri Swami Samartha used to say, as water seeks its own level and destination, man is given by God the urge to engage himself in the adventure for realising the inner essence which is the ever increasing actual bliss. However, because of the diverse luminosity and enamouring potency of God's illusion power (Maya), man is enticed by the materialistic world, unwittingly entrapped in the whirlwind of illusion. Like the clouds moving all over only to pour down water on the parched land, Sri Swami Samartha's main mission was to teach the humanity this basic fundamental role and purpose of life through His sermons, so that it is released from the bondage of ignorance and move to the stage of realisation.

Burning the negative Karma of devotees was a very usual feature in Sri Swami Samartha's avataric leelas which are still performed and carried out by the Karmic time bomb for their instant protection. His famous remarks "Fear not, I am always with you, cultivate the field and harvest the crop, "Real Yoga is not mastery on the body but mastery of the self, Work is worship, Patience is the greatest virtue, Self help is the best help. Heel the sick people, Do not hanker after any Siddhi, Constant communion with God. Atmospheric purification, Social reformation were aimed at to serve as a walking cane enabling the humanity to navigate the dark pits of passions, temptations and attractive, attenuate attractions.

Sri Swami Samartha who has saved thousands from the clutches of death seated in Padmasana (Lotus) posture wound up His earthly Sojourn in the year 1878 A.D. on Tuesday at 4.00P.M. at Akkalkot and the spiritual sun set, the curtain fell on a glorious spiritual era. But while plunging into Mahasamadhi, He said "I am not going anywhere as I am eternally alive, I shall be present at all places and shall respond to every call of the devotee, look at me with full concentration, Test me, Surrender unto me and experience my blessings and grace with the call to translate "Life into philosophy and Philosophy into life".

Even today, Sri Swami Samartha grants visions to devotees.He appears in dreams in His physical form, He answers the prayers, fulfils the desires, saves from calamity, averts dangers and continues to guide many on the spiritual march. To those who have full, faithful devotion and have surrendered themselves to Him, He responds readily providing His perpetual protection, succour and grace.