Jagadguru Sri Abhinava Vidyatheertha Mahaswamin

Chapter 10 - An Extraordinary Blessing

At a little past 4 pm on 5 December 1935, as His Holiness was about to set out for His meditation on the hilltop, the senior Jagadguru sent for Him. After asking His Holiness to sit down, the senior Jagadguru ascertained that His Holiness was proceeding for meditation. The Guru smiled and remained silent for a minute gazing fixedly at His Holiness’s face. Then, His Guru gave the permission to leave. When His Holiness prostrated, the senior Jagadguru placed both His hands on the disciple’s head and loudly uttered thrice the mantra ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. His Holiness felt a strong urge to meditate on Shiva.

Upon ascending the hill, His Holiness started His meditation by visualizing Shiva as associated with the divine Mother, as in the dhyana shloka of the mantra ‘Om Namah Shivaya’. As He focused on the form, He lost awareness of His body and surroundings and the mental chanting of the mantra also stopped. Suddenly, the form became extraordinarily vivid. After about one and a half hours, when He opened His eyes, He could distinctly behold the Lord in His heart-lotus. The Lord appeared to be emerging from within and expanding. A deep long sound of ‘Om’ was audible. He then unmistakably beheld Shiva in front of and facing Him.  He then heard the Lord pleasingly say, “vatsa, śvaḥprabhṛty-atra nirākāre pare tattve manaḥ samādhatsva. acireṇa brahmasaṁstho bhaviṣyasi”(‘O, child, from tomorrow, fix your mind here on the formless, Supreme Reality. You shall soon become established in Brahman.) After blessing Him by placing His hand on His Holiness’s head, Shiva disappeared.

Feeling the urge to meditate again, His Holiness meditated on the Lord as Dakshinamurthi. The meditation was deep with the form quite clear. When His Holiness regained consciousness of the body and opened His eyes, it was dark and He realized that a cobra had loosely coiled itself around His neck. Taking this as a sign of the Lord’s grace, His Holiness happily and gently stroked the cobra which went away after five minutes. That night in His dream, His Holiness beheld Lord Nataraja and the Divine mother, followed by Ardhanariswara, and later Dhakshinamurti seated at the base of a fig tree before Whom His Holiness lay prostrate. His Holiness merged into and became one with the Lord and the dream ended.