It was a lovely moonlit night at Mr. Bhattacharya's on the Beach side; the Swamiji was just then in the best of his moods. His face was literally shining as if subdued rays of light proceeded from his beaming countenance and made a halo round him. He was singing just a little before that soul stirring song—"तेरि गति लखि न पडे"—which was freely translated by himself as: "Oh Lord thy ways are inscrutable." It was a great song of complete self-surrender and submission to the will of the Divine Mother. With rapture he translated sentence after sentence of the song and the whole party that had assembled in that memorable evening, were kept spell-bound till he finished his singing. There was a lull and the silence that continued after Swamiji stopped his singing was awe-inspiring and it was only broken when Swamiji again opened his mouth and began to explain how at times a power or spiritual influence took possession of him and how he felt as if transformed from within and was able to mould the lives of any one that would come in contact with him, and how he felt that energy flowing through every part of his body to the surrounding objects and influencing them. If any one at that time was touched by the Swamiji he would experience Samadhi and understand its mysteries, and would then give up the attachment to the world more quickly than thousand years of Sadhana. As he just finished talking, one of the audience, the late Mr. P. Singaravelu Mudaliar, then Professor of Physics in the Madras Christian College,—known later as 'Kidi', a pet name given by Swamiji—a great soul who was an embodiment of sincerity and who always translated his convictions into actions without fear of the consequences that may result therefrom—suddenly rushed to the Swami and caught hold of his feet and the Swamiji laid his hands upon him and blessed him, and said, "Oh, what have you done? Why have you taken this rash step! Whatever the consequences but you cannot avoid them." Just then, we all marked on the face of Mr. Singaravelu a look of supreme contentment, and what he felt exactly at the time no one knows as he could not be coaxed to give expression to it, but this much was evident that from that day, he was a different man: He renounced the world, his wife and children and all, gave up his professorship and began to work for the cause of Swamiji alone. Those who knew him, can very well remember, how till to the very end he lived as a Sannyasin spending hours and hours in various Sadhana and meditation. Swamiji, soon after he touched Singaravelu and blessed him, suddenly cooled down, so to speak, and began to talk and joke in a lighter vein and looked his former self again.On another occasion when the talk turned upon that evening's incident and the influence it had upon the life of 'Kidi,' he explained that everything was the result of Grace of God and it was wonderful how that Grace took hold of a person unawares and transformed him altogether and gave him all powers or Siddhis such as thought-reading, getting into Samadhi and making others get into Samadhi, reading of one's own past births and healing the sick by touch, and so on. "Whosoever," he further added, "will practice unbroken Brahmacharya for twelve years and meditate on God in solitude will certainly render himself fit for such inflow of God's Grace, and this is not impossible." Afterwards Swamiji was asked if he had any knowledge of persons who possessed such powers or seen any exhibitions of the same, and he then recounted what he saw performed by a respectable Brahmin while at Hyderabad. It so happened that when he paid a visit to Hyderabad he was told that there was a Brahmin who could produce numbers of things, from where nobody knew. Swamij went to see the Brahmin and found him suffering from fever. As soon as the Brahmin saw Swamiji he prostrated before him and begged him to place his hands on him that his fever might leave him. Swamiji did as desired and he became actually well. The next day he went over to the place where Swamiji was staying to show him his feats. There were a number of other gentlemen present at the time, one of whom was a friend of mine, who corroborated everything Swamiji had said. The Brahmin first stripped himself naked leaving only his Kowpinam. Swamiji had a white blanket and he begged Swamiji for it. He then wrapped himself with the blanket and sat in a corner. All these gentlemen were looking at him. He said suddenly "Gentlemen, write down whatever you want" and they wrote down accordingly the names of fruits that never grew in that country, such as, bunches of grapes, oranges, and so on; and one gentleman, that friend of mine, wrote down cooked Kesari rice. And what was their surprise when the Brahmin brought out from underneath the blanket, bushels of grapes, oranges and other fruits and on the top of all hot steaming Kesari bhath. He asked all to eat them but Swamiji objected saying that it was all hypnotism, but the man himself ate some and made all others eat. "Finally," said Swamiji, "he ended by producing a quantity of freshly cut roses. Each flower was perfect with dew drops on the petals and not one crushed, and not one injured and what a lot of them."
- DR. M. C. NANJUNDA ROW
(Vedanta Kesari - Oct 1914)
Celebrating 50 Glorious Years of the Vivekananda Rock Memorial : विवेकानन्द शिला स्मारक - एक भारत विजयी भारत : www.vrmvk.in
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