July 26, 2012
Speech of HH Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji after Narahari Teertha Swami Aradhana – July 26, 2012 - Mysore
Jaya Guru Datta
Om Namo Hanumate Namaha
Victory to Sri Narahari Teertha Swami and Victory to Sri Jayalakshmi Mata!
Sri Narahari Teertha Medical Institution Trust has been formed for doing some welfare projects such as providing education to the needy, drinking water where the water has been polluted with Flouride, a marriage hall and a hospital with free medical services. There are many that are in poverty in the villages where Sri Narahari Teertha Swami used to live. My heart is drawn towards that region but my trip to Jayalakshmipuram got cancelled. It is your good fortune that I am here to remember my father on this anniversary of the day he merged with the Supreme Soul. I have always treated him as a friend. He was always teaching me how to conduct myself. He would tell me that I should not hurt even an ant because it is a sin to inflict pain. If an ant bit me, he would say that it was a punishment given to me for hurting an ant in the past. I have always done everything in my power to make him comfortable. He wanted a hut built for him to stay here at the ashram. I provided him that. He did not like it here. He wanted a small house in Bommeparti. I provided that also. But after some time he came back. I never refused him anything. All of a sudden he was afflicted with a skin condition that he transferred upon himself by choice to save another soul. I could have relieved him from it in five minutes, but it would have required taking another birth to exhaust the karma. He chose to suffer it in this lifetime itself. He wanted to renounce all and become a sanyasi. I arranged for that also. He received initiation from Sri Kalyanananda Teertha from the Sringeri Math, an aged ascetic who performed penance in a forest, in spite of being blind. He said that wherever Swamiji is, is where the highest plane Goloka is. He wanted to remain always close to me. One day he became very angry and demanded a storage box of a specific size, color and shape. I got it for him. He spent hours on end chanting mantras. He would come carrying a bag to visit me when I was amidst a large gathering. He would announce loudly that he had given me 300,000 in his last visit and this time he had come to offer another 300,000. The crowd would assume that it was money that he was offering to me. He would refuse to part with his gift in public. He would follow me into a private room and making sure that just the two of us remained, would open his bag, take out a bottle of water and chanting a Sankalpa would offer me the merit of his chanting of mantra for a few hundred thousand times. He would leave the bag behind and leave at once, giving all onlookers a wrong impression.
His Kanakabhisheka was celebrated when he became a great grandfather at the age of 84. He did not like receiving too much attention at the ashrama. He did not want the respects offered by the Andhra devotees, who would also pester him to pass on to me their pleas for grace. He wanted to spend his last years with his daughter Varalakshmi, of whom he was very fond. I told him that as a sanyasi, he should not live in a householder’s residence. He was insistent. So I arranged for him to have his own separate living quarters there. He never took any medicines. He himself was a physician. He preferred to endure pain rather than take medication.
In his dream he saw me wearing a crown. Soon thereafter, Jaganmohan Rao offered me the first crown made with precious materials. Swamiji would wear it only occasionally. It is to be safely preserved for future generations. Father insisted that Subrahmanyam had to marry his daughter Saraswati.
This is the 21st anniversary of his breathing his last. We are recollecting episodes from his life. You are all very lucky. We had a special puja. Even Swamiji calls him Thatha. Thatha is the name given to the Father of all fathers, Lord Brahma. During this auspicious time of Sri Bala Swamiji’s Chaturmasya, Ramayana discourses, this event is taking place.
I appreciate this service being rendered by the devotees from Akiveedu, who have taken a commitment to perform this event in a grand manner every year. Wherever Bala Swamiji spends his Chaturmasya, you have to go there to perform this event, whether it is in Kashi, Kashmir, or even at Manasarovar.
Sri Guru Datta