Vassant Shirvaikar - Yogiraj: The Life And Teachings of Shri Shankar Maharaj

DR. VASSANT V. SHIRVAIKAR

A DIVISION OF MAOLI MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED

Yogiraj: The Life and Teachings of Shri Shankar Maharaj

Copyright 2014 V. V. Shirvaikar

First Edition: November 2014

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C O N T E N T S

P R E F A C E

T his biography of Shri Shankar Maharaj was originally intended to be published as a regular book. However, since most of the devotees of Shri Shankar Maharaj are used to reading Marathi literature, potential publishers did not find it practical to publish this book which was in English. Fortunately, use of the Internet became widespread In mid 1900s and an extract was posted in February 2000 on the Internet that gave devotees access to information depicting the personality of Shri Shankar Maharaj at the following URL as a sub-page of my English translation of Dnyaneshwari: www.hinduweb.org/home/dharma_and_philosophy/vshirvaikar/Dnyaneshwari.

The text was quite popular. Unfortunately after some time the Website managers of Hinduweb stopped access to it making it impossible to upload revisions and updates. By this time the biography of Shri Shankar Maharaj was in the final stage of completion. This and other spiritual writings by the author were shifted to the geocities platform at http://www.geocities.com/vshirvaikar offered by Yahoo! until Yahoo! too discontinued Geocities in 2009. The Webpages were then transferred to the present URL www.vvshirvaikar.de at the domain owned by my good friend Mr. Dietrich Platthaus from Essen, Germany.

The origin of the biography itself lies in an English article on Shri Shankar Maharaj I wrote for the quarterly magazine Sai Arpan (Dassera 1995 issue) at the request of its editor Dr. Amiya Kumar Sahu. This magazine, which is no longer active, was published by Shri Shirdi Sai Baba Spiritual and Charitable Trust Bombay. Until then all the information on Shri Shankar Maharaj had been in Marathi. Though the two novels Towards the Silver Crests of Himalayas and the posthumously published novel Know Thy Self by G. K. Pradhan, a prominent disciple of Maharaj, were based on characters fashioned after the personality of Maharaj, they did not refer directly to Maharaj. However, the Marathi translation by Dr.R. J. Joshi of the first novel did contain considerable information about Maharaj in its Foreward, in the context of his interaction with Mr. Pradhan. Non-Maharashtrian readers were deprived of the fascinating life history of Maharaj. I agreed therefore to write the article and set about collecting all the available information on Maharaj, which was incidentally all in Marathi. In addition I already had noted down hitherto unpublished experiences of my dear friend (late) Mr. Vasant Kulkarni, a disciple of Maharaj. Still more information could be collected through personal interviews with some of the devotees and disciples of Maharaj who were still living then. Credit for this goes primarily to one of the disciples, late Mr. V. M. (Nana) Pandit, who became a close friend and came forward to take me and introduce me to them, besides telling about his own experiences. All the information put together was voluminous enough to be incorporated into a book.

In 2009 Mr. Sanjay Vengurlekar of Mahim, Mumbai published some more information on Maharajs lineage, which I have included in this book, some in the main text, and some as footnotes.

It became clear from all the collected information that Maharaj was an unusual Guru. He was not bound by rules and conventions. He did not start or leave behind any organization and he did not preach. The edifice of Samadhi Mandir we see today is the outcome of the great veneration and love of his devotees. Maharaj was a different kind of Guru. He made every effort to turn peoples mind towards God so that they could start on the spiritual path at least in this lifetime while those born with pre-birth spiritual background were helped to progress further. Persons with unusual high spiritual background like Dr. Dhaneshwar were led to perfection. He had powers to understand the spiritual level of people. He had told Mr. Vasantrao Kulkarni, Many persons come to me. I decide the level where each one belongs. A dog may be of imported pedigree, but his place is at the door. And unlike many spiritual Gurus he never allowed anybody to forsake his own duties in favour of spiritual pursuit. After the text of this book was assembled, I realised the greatness of Maharaj, his gigantic personality as a saint, a Siddhayogi, a father and a mother to his devotees, a patron, protector and guide, indestructible by physical death, always forgiving of the terrible blunders of his devotees all this and more and yet at heart he remained an innocent child.

Putting the extract on the Internet paid some dividends, for Mr. Shankar Sagare sent me some old but original photographs of Maharaj by email. I am very grateful to Mr. Sagare for these. A German translation of this biography made by my friend Mr. Dietrich Platthaus of Essen, Germany, is also on the web.

I am grateful to all the devotees and disciples who gladly gave me the interviews and especially Mr. Pandit for taking personal interest in arranging the interviews, and to my son Mukul for arranging to design the website. All this work could not have been possible without the inspiration and support from Maharaj, for we are only instruments in the larger scheme of things. My obeisance to him.

Sadguru Shri Shankar Maharaj

Pasayadan

PRAYERS TO THE SUPREME

Now, may the Supreme God who is the soul of the entire universe
be satisfied by this discourse and grant me grace.

May the wicked shed their sinister outlook and
May they develop liking for good deeds and
May all individuals develop friendship with each other.

May the universe lose its darkness of sin and
May the dawn of righteous duties come and
May the desires of all creatures be fulfilled.

May the assemblies of devotees of God who shower all that
is auspicious on this earth meet all creatures.

These devotees are walking seeds of the wish-trees, living
community of wish-stones or talking oceans of nectar.

May these saints who are (unblemished) like the moon without
spots or sun without the scorching heat, be the friends and relatives