From time to time, there are born in the sacred land of India, spiritual Masters surpassing all comparison. Swami Tapovan Maharaj was such a Master.
Early Years
Swami Tapovan Maharaj was born in 1886 in an aristocratic family. From a very tender age, he was not attracted to the materialistic life and expressed dissatisfaction with everything limited or conditioned. He was drawn in temperament naturally to a life of renunciation, austerity, and study.
His early days were vivid lessons of the essential requisites of a spiritual seeker: discrimination, detachment, and the burning desire for liberation.
Life of Renunciation
When his worldly commitments were fulfilled, Swamiji began his journey as a roaming monk, embracing the renunciate’s life. He lived in the secluded forests and higher elevations of the Himalayas in sacred Uttarkashi. There he lived a life of extreme tapas (austerity), spending his time in study, reflection, and meditation, observing the highest order of detachment and non-possession.
Swamiji had complete mastery of the Scriptures. Sages and serious students came to study in his austere Kutir. He was also an eminent Sanskrit scholar and poet, who loved to witness the canvas of Nature’s beauty unrolling itself on the canvas of the unfrequented peaks and valleys of the Himalayas.
Author, Composer, Traveller
He recorded his many breathtaking pilgrimages in hymns, commentaries, and books such as “Wandering in the Himalayas” and “Iswara Darshan” – spiritual travelogues of divine charm which reveal Swamiji’s remarkable spiritual daring and sense of adventure. These books give a glimpse of how a man of Divine Vision beholds Truth everywhere, playing in and through every form.
Swami Tapovan virtually accepted the sacred The Himalayas as his father and the holy Ganges as his mother. His total identification with his holy surroundings was such and the spiritual transformation that was brought about in him was so complete, that he was adored as the Himayat vibhuti – the glory of the Himalayas.
True Vedantin till His Last Breath
When ill health began to ravage Swamiji’s physical state, appeals by his disciples to obtain expert medical help were to no avail. Swamiji laughed and said, “So this is the Vedanta that you have studied in me? What is death? Death is only one of the experiences, which the Atman (the Self) illumines. We are not of that dying stuff. We are the Self.” The courage and mental poise of a man who can thus embrace death as a long-awaited guest cannot be had unless one has come to live the truths indicated in the Upanishads.
On the 16th of January 1957, Swamiji gained his Mahasamadhi. The particular form that the great Lord took in the name of Swami Tapovan dissolved and he went back to merge into his own nature. He has now become the Essence in each one of us. Whenever we find the glow of divine compassion, love, purity, and brilliance, there we see Swamiji with his smiling face.
A light, a fragrance, a glow – The Glory of the Himalayas
Today, to mention the name of Swami Tapovan in the solitude of the Himalayas is to awaken a deep reverence for the man who has come to be recognized as the embodiment of the ideal Sanyasa, with all the supreme renunciation, deep wisdom and divine dignity that is implied by such an ideal.
Swami Chinmayananda’s inspiration Without a thread there is no garland; without God, there is no universe. Without Swami Tapovan, there would not have been Swami Chinmayananda. Swami Tapovan was the master from whom Swami Chinmayananda acquired the wealth of knowledge on Vedanta.
When asked “But who was Swami Tapovan Maharaj?” Swami Chinmayananda replied:
“Masters cannot be comprehended by the intellect. They are deeper than that.
It was in the utter detachment that Swami Tapovanji Maharaj lived every moment and this is how we saw him from the outside. But that was not he, he was pure Brahman itself…at least to me, he was. How to explain to you all, that what I saw in him was what I saw in the Upanishads and in the Bhagavad Geeta!
The work of spreading the Geeta and the Upanishads was to unveil Him and His Glory, His vibhuti, Tapovan Mahima in the hearts of all. He lived a life of his own, chaste and pure, far and high. His gates were never closed though he never came out of them. A God without a temple, a Veda without a language was this. He lived for sixty-eight years, as a monumental expression of an ideal Vedantic teacher.
Swami Tapovan Maharaj was not a person. He was not just any historical entity, he was not a saint of the ordinary order, he was indeed a miracle and a great blessing for the society that he lived in our times. The glory of what the Chinmaya Mission is doing is all his glory. He sat down in the verandah of his hut for 45 –50 years, ever established in his own Self and expressing it in his every movement. Everything of his was a glorification and a reflection of the Infinite Self in him. It is this great master who is the grandsire to the Mission, a silent witness of what is going on here. We, his family of disciples, have a great responsibility to see that he finds ample space in our bosoms to express himself.
Swami Tapovanji Maharaj is a presence, a light, a fragrance, a glow. As such, it is impossible to communicate it. A light, a joy is something to be experienced. The only way to communicate about him is to say that you also study the Geeta and learn to live the righteous life and experience what Swami Tapovanam is. Invoke His grace, a very powerful one, to make you an Adhikari for the study of the Upanishads and for help in meditation. Make use of him – if you can.”
Source: Chinmayam, May 2003