Sree Narayana Guru - by Nitya Chaitanya Yati (23) Did Narayana Guru believe in supernatural powers? The Guru did not make a dichotomy of the natural and supernatural. He looked at the phenomenal world as an indivisible whole showing characteristics of inertia and knowledge. The relation between the two can be grave or minimal. His concept of nature was neither static nor merely perceptual. There are countless aspects of nature which elude the powers of summary perception. Man himself, while being part of nature, can transcend many seemingly physical( and therefore natural) laws. Employing the concepts of the super-natural to explain certain para-measurable data of observable events only shows our short sightedness and incapacity to include all relevant data in the study of a chosen field or event. Many actions of the Guru were thought of as miraculous. But the Guru did not attach any importance to them. Can a few such incidents be narrated? A man was brought to the Guru, with arm-chains and leg-hurdles in locks. He was said to be very violent. Guru took pity on him and removed the chains and locks from his hands and legs. He was set free and the Guru spoke to him in gentle words to go and live a peaceful life. He regained his normalcy. A man whose house was attacked by a poltergeist (kuttichattan) came to Guru for help. The Guru tried to convince him that such phenomena are only reflections of sickly minds. But he insisted on getting help from the Guru. The Guru then wrote a letter to the poltergeist addressing him as, “dear Kuttichattan, please do not disturb this poor man.” He signed it as ‘Yours, Narayana Guru.’ It became immediately effective. A woman was brought to him who had weeping eczema. The Guru asked her to take powdered neem bark in neem oil (which is extremely bitter). She said she came to Guru so that she would not be asked to eat anything bitter like the physicians would prescribe. Then he said she might as well eat erattimadhuram (an extremely sweet root of a herb) in honey. Her incurable eczema became fully cured. Although this remedy was tried by other physicians on their patients it did not give any positive result. He always used some herb to give psychosomatic healing. This was mainly to ward off the superstitious clinging to miracles. When there was a big draught and cattle were dying and farms were withering away, he composed five verses in praise of ardhanariswara. It was sung by people and rain came. There is probably some reciprocation between the human mind and atmospheric forces. There are hundreds of unscrutinised hearsay stories attributing miracles to Guru. But his life style and philosophy do not encourage any emphasis on the value of such stories. (to be continued)
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 07:23:06 +0000
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