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Shri Vasudevanand Saraswati Tembe Swami Maharaj
A compact Biography.
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9. Divine encounters
The
universe, say the scriptures, was created by the Supreme Lord (Parameshwar)
from himself. That is to say the Lord is the maker as well as the stuff
of the Universe. This is one of the tenets of Shri Shankara’s non-dual
doctrine. Thus the Lord pervades the whole world. This is the basis of
the so-called pantheism the Hindus are often accused of. However, the
Hindus, even the least educated ones, are very clear in their minds about
the unity of all deities that they worship in the forms of Rivers, Mountains,
Trees, Snakes etc. They are well aware that all these subsidiary deities,
right up to the Trinity of the Creator, the Sustainer and the Destroyer
are ultimately rooted in the One and the Only Supreme Being. Further,
the belief in these deities, as most religious beliefs indeed are, is
engendered by the experiences of Saints and holy persons. Such humans
that have purified their minds by austerities, services and devotion to
the God in one of His multifarious forms, do encounter the all-pervading
Divinity in one form or the other. The lives of such people are full of
these encounters. We, the ordinary humans, find it difficult to believe
these. However, there are thousands of such instances in the recorded
history of mankind, that can be verified and display a remarkable consistency.
Thus the least we can do is to keep our minds open. If we are so lucky
as to have faith, we can even benefit from these.
To the person who has these experiences, these are a part of reality and
no cause for alarm or wonder. Shri Swami Maharaj was such a person. He
almost constantly came into contact with divine beings from his earliest
days. We have seen how at Wadi, he was admonished by Shri Narasinh Saraswati
for contravening the rule not to visit the temple after the Lord was put
to bed (Shejarati). There are many such instances. Let us recall here
a few representative ones
Rivers
Others