From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard J. Williams Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 6:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Lutes' account of MMY's early days
You need to get some smarts, Rick. Guru Dev was in full sight of the general public for close to sixty years, at probabbly every single Kumbha Mela and Ardha Khumba Mela, in front of millions of people. This is not true. He was a recluse all his life and didn't become Shankaracharya until his early 70's - 72 I think. Until then, he was unknown to the general public. His photographic image was probably on the alter of Uncle Raj Varma for years in the family living room. And when Uncle Raj Varma was painting all those images of Guru Dev I guess you think that Marshy was totally blind. Go figure. He didn't paint those images until after GD became Shankaracharya. As MMY told the story, when he first met GD, the latter hadn't become Shankarcharya yet, so he wasn't in processions and wasn't well-known. As we know, GD told MMY to finish college. By the time he finished, GD had become Shankaracharya. That being the case MMY's parents were more supportive of MMY joining GD's ashram full-time than they might have been had he been a relative unknown. I can't vouch for the veracity of these points. I'm just relating them as I heard MMY tell them when he told the story of meeting GD.
