Swami Nityananda, I am sure most people don’t know a lot about. I am here to tell you that He was one of the greats of God realized beings that have graced this planet. He actually reminds me a lot of Shirdi Sai Baba who, of course, was Sai Baba’s past life and a Self realized Avatar.
In beginning my research about Him, I had no idea of the awesome magnitude of this glorious being. In this chapter I will share with you His life story as told by disciples.
Nityananda was already a Self realized Master in his teens and twenties. The name Nityananda means eternal bliss, because this is where He lived. Little is known about His early childhood years. Nityananda, when asked about His childhood used to say that as long as His human form existed it did not matter where it came from. It was just idle curiosity to be interested in such limiting factors.
Strangely enough, He prescribed no special spiritual practices or course of study other than cultivating a pure mind and intense desire for liberation and God realization. Nityananda was a complete renunciate in the highest and most extreme sense of the term. He dressed in nothing but a loin cloth and for a number of His early years, didn’t dress in any clothes at all.
He ate only when fed and slept wherever the spirit guided Him with a complete disregard to the elements. He was an enormous powerhouse and transmitting center of spiritual energy. He once said, in this regard as quoted from a book called, "Nityananda, the Divine Presence", by M.U. Hatengdi, "The ocean has plenty of water, it is the size of the container brought to collect it that determines the quantity taken."
Nityananda never had a guru, nor performed any spiritual practices. In this sense it might be said that He may have been an Avatar (God realized at birth). On the purpose of life, Nityananda said, "One must seek the shortest way and the fastest means to get back home, to turn the spark within into a blaze, to be merged in, and to identify with the greater fire which ignited the spark."
When asked by one disciple what he should read, He said, "Not necessary, not necessary. If you must read, read the Bhagavad Gita." I am sure Nityananda probably never read a book in His life. All His knowledge was directly from the Source, itself. In His early years He was called "Ram" which means God.
As Swami Nityananda grew into adulthood, he had miraculous powers, the likes of Sai Baba and Jesus Christ during the last three years of His life. Later in His life, literally thousands of people would line up to come to see Him every day.
On one occasion a man came to see Him for the first time and the first thing that Nityananda said was where is your brother? It turns out his brother had been blind since birth. A couple weeks later he brought his brother back and Nityananda said to leave him at the ashram for three days. When the brother returned in three days the man could see.
Earlier in His life as a renunciate some boys seeing this naked dirty renunciate tied a rag with kerosene to Nityananda’s left hand. His hand began to burn as a torch. The only problem was that the boy who set the fire was crying in agony from the pain, not Nityananda. The boy apologized and Nityananda stopped the pain.
Nityananda did not talk a lot or explain himself very well. He would often make very short little statements that no one knew what He was talking about until much later. On one occasion He was standing in a tree as He often did in His youth when He was asked for His help in healing a particular person’s illness caused by a lump on her calf. All Nityananda said was "this one knows and is there." Even though they had never met, He went on His own to their home. He massaged the woman’s calf for a couple of minutes and left. The woman completely recovered.
Another time a mother took her daughter to see Nityananda, to see if He would heal her from blindness. Nityananda said, "Let the child ask for what she wants not you." The child said she just wanted to see her mother once. The next day the child ran to her mother in the other room telling her she could see. After the experience her blindness returned. The child received exactly what she asked for. Nityananda was perceived to be very eccentric by most worldly people, however, not to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. On one occasion He was briskly walking past a woman he had never met and squeezed her breasts as he walked by. The People in the community were greatly angered and wanted to put Him in jail.
Nityananda, when confronted told them not to get excited, for the child would not die. The woman confirmed that her three previous children had all died at their first breast feeding. She delivered in the next few days and her child survived for the first time after breast feeding. A delegation went to Him after this and begged His forgiveness.
A lot of people often thought that He just laid around a lot or wasn’t doing anything. To this Nityananda said, as quoted in Hatengdi’s book, "One must live in the world like common men. Once one is established in infinite consciousness, one becomes silent and though knowing everything goes about as if he does not know anything. Though he might be doing a lot of things in several places, to all outward appearances he will remain as if he does nothing. He will remain always as if he is a witness to everything that goes on, like a spectator at a cinema show, and is not affected by the pleasant or the unpleasant."
On another occasion two men were hired to assassinate Him by a father who didn’t like His son associating with this dirty renunciate who lived in a loin cloth. When the assassins caught Nityananda one of the assassin’s arms became frozen in the air and he was in total pain and agony. A great number of people tried to pull his arm down but couldn’t.
Finally Nityananda touched His arm and it was freed. The men were taken to jail. Nityananda would hear nothing of it and asked that the men be freed and sat in vigil outside the jail and said He wouldn’t move until they were set free. After much trouble they were finally set free and became devotees of Nityananda. Many of the things that Nityananda did were very bizarre. On one occasion He walked into a house where a child had been born a number of hours before. He proceeded to swallow the dried remnants of the child’s umbilical cord, and walked out. When asked by devotees why, He said that many children of this family had passed away in infancy, but this child would now life.
In another demonstration of His awesome powers, Nityananda was "roughly" thrown off a train because he had no money or ticket. When it was time for the train to depart it couldn’t move for some strange reason. Passengers saw Nityananda and explained that He was no ordinary sanyasin (renunciate). He was allowed to come back on the train and it immediately started.
The train passed the next station even though the engineer tried to stop the train, and it went on a number of miles further to where Nityananda’s ashram was located and then stopped. When he walked off the train he was wearing a garland of ticket stubs given to Him by the passengers, and handed it to the train official who had roughly tried to throw Him off the train in the first place. The train man profusely apologized, whereupon Nityananda slapped the engine with His hand, told it to move and it did, going backward to the train station that had been passed.
On another occasion Swami Nityananda walked into a devotees kitchen as she was cooking and proceeded to pull out a burning piece of firewood and hit her on the head with it and walked out. Her children, seeing this were very angry and wanted revenge. She said, "No". A year later an expert astrologer was doing the family horoscope and said that she should have died a year ago. It was only then that the family realized what Nityananda had done for her.
On another occasion it was raining like cats and dogs and Nityananda was standing under the awning of one of the shops in some village. The owners ordered this dirty almost naked renunciate out of the shelter, making fun of Him and teasing Him in the process. Appearing very sad, Nityananda was quoted as saying, in Hatengdi’s book, "It would appear that God has decided that only mother Ganga (Ganges River) shall wash the sins of this place." The river overflowed and the shops were wiped out.
On another occasion Nityananda was meditating with His devotees and there was a blinding flash of light behind Him. When they all opened their eyes, He was in some kind of yoga posture and He appeared dead. He had completely stopped breathing. Devotees started spreading the news that Nityananda had died. 36 hours later He came back to life and said, "The time was not yet and the five Divine personalities who met Him persuaded Him to return."
During the building of the ashram, the workers needed to be paid. The work foreman was told to collect the money from under a certain tree, where the exact amount miraculously appeared. On other occasions as the workers would file past Him, the money would miraculously fall from His hand as He opened and closed His fist.
On another occasion Nityananda was taken to jail because a medical doctor in the community said He was insane. He told the jailer He needed to pee. He was given a receptacle and filled it up and asked for another. He kept asking for more receptacles and they finally brought a clay pot which he completely filled with urine and asked for more receptacles. The on duty police sergeant finally got the message and went to the magistrate and asked that Nityananda be released. What he had just experienced was not humanly possible. He was let go and when the doctor who falsely accused Him went back home to his wife she was dancing naked without any clothes on. He went to see Nityananda and begged for His forgiveness.
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