Shree Swami Samarth Maharaj

A Short Biography of Shree Swami Samarth 27
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Meeting Parents
One day early in the morning Sriguru 60 reached Korangnagar in Akola District,
Maharashtra and unexpectedly stood in the courtyard of his home. His parents always
remembered their son Narhari since he had left home, but they were not able to
recognise the ascetic Sriguru who came and stood in their courtyard. However, when
they did recognise him, everyone from the house came for his blessings and
worshipped him. Word spread around and the villagers started to come in for the
blessings of Sriguru.
From within this crowd, his sister Ratna appeared and stood before him. She was
seeing her brother for the first time. Sriguru realized that she desired to talk to him.
Ratna laid herself down at his feet and said, “I would also like to do penance and get
myself deeply involved in devotion”. Sriguru answered,“Offering service to one’s
husband is the prime sacred duty for a woman. That itself is the real path to salvation”.
Ratna asked him, “What are all the happenings that would take place in my life?”
Sriguru then replied, “In your past birth, you severely beat up a cow and created
quarrels in your family by slandering. Hence now your husband would quarrel with you
in this life and become an ascetic. You will suffer from white leprosy marks on your
body, which would give you a lot of pain. But going through all these sufferings will
wash away all your sins. You will then get my Divine blessings when you meet me in
Ganagapur 61 ”.
A number of people from the village invited Sriguru to their homes for accepting
alms. Sriguru did not want to turn anyone down for it might hurt their feelings.
Therefore, he accepted everyone’s invitation. He then visited everyone’s home at the
same time, as promised, in different forms and accepted their worship and alms. When
people realized the fact that Sriguru was present in all their houses at the same instant,
they were all simply shocked with this miracle.
Ascetic Madhavaranya
Next day, Sriguru bid farewell to everyone and left his home. From Karanja, he
went to Tryambakeshwar (Nashik District) and eventually went to Nashik
(Maharashtra). After spending a night in Nashik, he went to Manjarika village located on
the banks of River Godavari. An ascetic named Madhavaranya stayed in Manjarika. He
was a great devotee of Sriguru Narasinha Saraswati. He was entirely absorbed in
meditation and singing hymns praising his tutelary deity 62 , Narasinha Saraswati. Lord
Narasinha Saraswati had blessed him with Divine Vision in his meditation. Very often he
would see him in the form of a Divine ascetic, but Madhavaranya wanted to see him
manifested in the form of a deity with attributes. The day when Sriguru reached
Manjarika village, Madhavaranya had the Divine sight of Lord Narasinha Saraswati in his
meditation. Madhavaranya was confused with these two forms. However, his confusion
was resolved very soon when he saw his deity Narasinha Saraswati getting merged into
the form of the Divine ascetic. At that very moment, Sriguru manifested himself in his
presence and announced “Sriguru Devdatta” in a continuous deep sounding chant.
60 Sriguru: (Lord) Sri Narasinha Saraswati
61 Ganagapur: In Gulbarga, Karnatak State.
62 Tutelary Deity: A tutelary spirit is a god, who serves as the guardian or watcher over a particular site, person, or nation.
Copyright © 2006 Shree Vitthalrao Joshi Charities Trust