> > 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. > > Rick Archer wrote: > This is not true. > According to the Official Biography of Guru Dev, he was initiated by his guru, Swami Krishnananda Saraswati, at the Kumbha Mela at Allahabad. It would be very difficult to be invisible with millions of people standing around, would it not? He may have been unknown to the larger general public, but Uncle Raj Varma knew about Guru Dev when Guru Dev was staying at Jabalpur.
> > 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. > > > He didn't paint those images until after GD became > Shankaracharya. > Maybe so, but there are numerous photographs of Guru Dev taken by Uncle Raj before Guru Dev became the Shankaracharya, according to Uncle Raj, writing in 'Strange Facts About a Great Saint'. > 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. > You may be mistaken here: according to Marshy, he served at the feet of Guru Dev for thirteen years, so Marshy would have been with Guru Dev for a couple of years before Guru Dev became the Shankaracharya, since Guru Dev passed in 1953. According to Paul Mason, Marshy's biographer, Marshy may have been a Guru Dev devotee up to nineteen years before Guru Dev became the Shankaracharya. > 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. > Maybe so, but that doesn't explain how the Varma family came to know all about Guru Dev, if he was a relative unknown. It may be true that Guru Dev was a unknown to the general public but apparently he was very famous among sadhaks and devotees. According to Raj Varma, Guru Dev caused quite a stir in Jabalpur when he came to visit. Raj says that there were numerous people who came to take darshan of Guru Dev. Apparently Guru Dev was almost famous in some circles, otherwise, how would a committee of pundits down in Kashi have come with his name in order to nominate him for the Shankarcharyaship? Bottom line is that Charles Lutes doesn't say anyhting about an Aunt being in the Upper Kashi with Marshy, asking him to take her down to South India. Lutes doesn't say anything about any 'flashing car lights on a veranda' either. Lutes does say that another sadhu suggested to Marshy that he go to South India, just as I have previously posted. All I'm saying is that Guru Dev was very much known in some circles and that Marshy may have met him years before Marshy became a brahmacharaya. There may or may not have been flashing car lights, and it may be that it was on a veranda, not in upstairs room, however, Guru Dev did make quite an impression on the Varma family, Mahesh included.
