The Enlightened – Trailinga Swami – Part 2
Life on earth is an opportunity for us to develop our potential and rise to the greatest heights possible. Divinity gives us multiple opportunities and conducive circumstances to develop ourselves and reveal the divinity within us in full, so that we become one with the Blazing Light. When we work towards that goal, our lives are full of peace, bliss and divine grace. The life of Trailinga Swami teaches us this great truth.
After completing his long exhaustive sadhana and attaining self realisation and multiple siddhis, Ganapatiswami settled down in Benaras or Varanasi which is the centre of Hinduism. He lived there for more than 150 years. He came to be known as Trailinga Swami. Trailinga Swami was firmly established in Divine Consciousness and had wholly lost his body consciousness. He moved around fully naked. The heat of the sun or the cold of the winters had no effect on him. The heat in Benaras is intense during summer and it is difficult to walk bare feet on the hot river sands. He was often found meditating on the blistering sands of the Manikarnika Ghat of Ganges for hours together without any ill effects on his body. He rarely ate food or drank anything but had a huge body and a barrel like stomach. He weighed about 300 pounds, a pound for each year of his life. He used to levitate in a sitting posture and meditate on the waters of the Ganga for days together. At times, he would disappear under water for many days and then resurface without suffering any harm. Such amazing feats were possible for him as he had mastery over the five elements of earth, water, fire, wind and space.
Trailinga Swami was seen to drink deadly poison without any negative effects. He had many admirers and also many who hated him as they did not understand him. In one instance, a skeptic wanted to expose him as a fraud. Trailinga Swami used to break his long fasts with buckets of clabbered milk. The skeptic waited for such an occasion and brought him a bucket of calcium lime mixture. This mixture is used for whitewashing walls and appears white and creamy. It also burns and eats into human tissue. Trailinga Swami accepted the bucket of lime mix and drank the entire bucket with no ill effect. But the skeptic fell down on the ground screaming in agony. The normally silent Trailinga Swami spoke out to explain to him about karma , of cause and effect. Nothing happened to Trailinga Swami as he lived in awareness of Divinity vibrating in every cell of his body. The poison should have normally killed him except for his knowledge and awareness that God was present in his stomach and protected him. The law of justice or karma operated immediately and the skeptic was hit back. When we do good, we get good. When we do bad we definitely get bad in return. Those who try to harm an enlightened being will get hit back with multiplied force. Divine Masters are compassionate and do not hit back anyone. The skeptic was healed by the vibration of Trailinga Swami’s presence and went away quietly.
Trailinga Swami lived in complete union with God at all times. The love, compassion and power of God was present in its fullest in him. On several instances, he had given life to the dead. Once, a young man was bitten by a snake and died. His body could not be cremated because as per Hindu tradition, in such deaths, the body is thrown into the river. The young wife was weeping bitterly as the relatives prepared the body for the final rites. All of a sudden, Trailinga Swami appeared and took some mud from the ground and rubbed it on the spot where the man had been bitten and massaged it a little. Then he jumped into the water. In a short time, the dead man opened his eyes and looked around in bewilderment. He asked all why he was brought there.
Death is powerful and terrifying to all of us. The power of God is definitely more greater than death. Great masters like Trailinga Swami break the laws of birth and death to teach us that anything is possible when we are One with God. The goal of human life is to reach back home to God again. Let us do the SitaRam mantra, meditation and following the teachings of the Guru sincerely and attain this great goal.
