🧵02/10 of our Mini-series on account of 73rd Vardhanti Mahotsava(Birth anniversary) of #Jagadguru #Shankaracharya Sri Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahasannidhanam

"In the past ten years I have had many occasions to visit the Sringeri Peetham. One can only admire the constancy of the continuous line of succession or Parampara, which has been kept up ever since Adi Shankara founded the Peetham. During Darshan, though the whole setting is informal and personal with a lot of laughter and plainly much happiness all around, yet it is also clear that nothing - really nothing - escapes the sharp and watchful eye of HH. His power of observation is clearly very great and penetrating. Everything is weighed and valued. Every time the blessing of Darshan of Jagadguru #SriSri Bharathi Tirtha is special because even in a split second he seems to fathom one's presence and his penetrating glance acts like a laser-beam of purifying light. In his presence, discriminating between right and wrong 'Viveka', becomes a practical proposal. courtesy aham brahmaasmi. org
Since the first visit in the year 2000, I had many subsequent occasions to revisit Sringeri and have Darshan of His Holiness. He also saw me personally from time to time: a rare blessing. I had also received blessings for translating Vivekachoodamani and Bhagavad Gita into Dutch. I vividly remember, however, how I arrived in the year 2006 or 2007 and entered into the new audience hall (Guru Nivas) & sat somewhere near the middle of the hall and prostrated when His Holiness entered into the hall. As usual, His Holiness sat on the little dais and started to look around. From the far distance he noticed my presence and greeted me with a hardly noticeable nod of his head. I looked straight at His Holiness and suddenly I was aware of the presence of the complete guru Parampara of Sringeri with its 36 Jagadgurus. But what was even more special was that behind the presence of His Holiness, as he was seated in that hail, there appeared a majestic and far larger-than-life-size figure which was obviously Adi Shankaracharya Bhagavatpada himself. It happened all of a sudden and lasted only for a moment or two. But it took a long time for me to really appreciate what I had seen. It happened so quickly in the first place and at the same time, it had the quality of utter simplicity and also as if it were self-evident. It was then that I realised how special this place is and how blessed we are to have the direct benefit of the complete guru Parampara through the agency of His Holiness Sri Bharati Tirtha."
- Mr. Paul G. van Oyen, Netherlands

#SanatanaDharma #hinduism #Swamiji #Mahaswamigal #Saints #Rishis #Vivekachudamani #bhagavadgita