Trailinga Swami

TRAILINGA SWAMI (1601 - 1881)
Swami Trailinga, who was reputed to be nearly three hundred years old when he died, is so renown in India on such a widespread basis, that few Hindus would deny the possibility of truth in any story related to his astounding miracles. If Jesus returned to earth and walked the streets of New York, displaying his divine powers, it would cause the same awe among the people that Trailanga created decades ago as he passed through the crowded lanes of Benares. He was one of the siddhas (perfected beings) that have cemented India against the erosions of time.
On many occasions the Swami was seen to drink, with no ill effect, the most deadly poisons. Thousands of people, many still alive today, observed Trailanga floating on the Ganges for days on end, sitting ON TOP of the water or remaining hidden for long periods under the waves. A common sight at Manikarnika Ghat was the Swami's motionless body on the blistering stone slabs, wholly exposed to the merciless Indian sun.
MANIKARNIKA GHAT

Whether the great master was above water or under it, and whether or not his body challenged the fierce solar rays, Trailanga sought to teach men that human life need not depend on oxygen or on certain conditions and precautions.
The yogi was great not only spiritually, but physically. His weight exceeded three hundred pounds: a pound for each year of his life. As he ate very seldom, his mystery increased. A master, however, easily ignores all usual rules of health when he desires to do so for some special reason, often a subtle one known only to himself. See also Nirodha.
Great saints that have Awakened from the cosmic mayic dream and realized this world as an idea in the Divine Mind, can do as they wish with the body, knowing it to be only a manipulatable form of condensed or frozen energy. Though physical scientists now understand that matter is nothing but congealed energy, illumined masters have passed victoriously from theory to practice in the field of matter control.
Trailanga always remained completely nude (see: Digambara). The harassed police of Benares came to regard him as a baffling problem child. The natural Swami, like the early Adam in the garden of Eden, was unconscious of his nakedness. The police were quite conscious of it, however, and unceremoniously committed him to jail. General embarrassment ensued; the enormous body of Trailanga was soon seen, in its usual entirety, on the prison roof. His cell, still securely locked, offered no clue to his mode of escape.(see)
The discouraged officers of the law once more performed their duty. This time a guard was posted before the Swami's cell. Might again retired before Right: the great master was soon observed in his nonchalant stroll over the roof.
The Goddess of Justice wears a blindfold; in the case of Trailanga the outwitted police decided to follow her example.
The great yogi preserved a habitual silence. In spite of his round face and huge, barrel-like stomach, Trailanga ate only occasionally. After weeks without food, he would break his fast with potfuls of clabbered milk offered to him by devotees. A skeptic once determined to expose Trailanga as a charlatan. A large bucket of calcium-lime mixture, used in whitewashing walls, was placed before the swami.
"Master," the materialist said, in mock reverence, "I have brought you some clabbered milk. Please drink it."
Trailanga unhesitatingly drank, to the last drop, the quarts of burning lime. In a few minutes the evildoer fell to the ground in agony.
"Help, swami, help!" he cried. "I am on fire! Forgive my wicked test!"
The great yogi broke his habitual silence. "Scoffer," he said, "you did not realize when you offered me poison that my life is one with your own. Except for my knowledge that God is present in my stomach, as in every atom of creation, the lime would have killed me. Now that you know the divine meaning of boomerang never again play tricks on anyone."
The sinner, healed by Trailanga's words, slunk feebly away.
The reversal of pain was not a result of the master's will but of the operation of the law of justice that upholds creation's farthest swinging orb. The functioning of the divine law is instantaneous for men of God-realization like Trailanga; they have banished forever all thwarting crosscurrents of ego. See also Enlightenment and Karma, their role in the Awakening experience.
In an exploration of how any downstream outflow the Swami may have had on more modern times, it is said Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was greatly impacted by Trailanga. There are at least four references to the Swami in The Gospel of Ramakrishna. The longest, in Swami Nikhilananda's introduction, describes Ramakrishna's VISION of the Siva in Benares; "with ash-covered body and tawny matted hair, serenely approaching each funeral pyre and breathing into the ears of the corpses the mantra of liberation."
When Ramakrishna paid his visit to Trailanga Swami he later declared him to be a real Paramahamsa, a "veritable image of Siva." Ramakrishna also described the Swami as having taken a vow of silence, but also quotes him regarding the mind, so apparently he was not always silent (possibly writing responses).
On one KNOWN occasion in Benares, Trailanga forsook his usual silence in order to pay public honor to Lahiri Mahasaya. One of Trailanga's disciples objected.
"Sir", he said, "why do you, a Swami and a renunciant, show such respect to a householder?".
Trailanga replied, "My son, Lahiri Mahasaya is like a divine kitten, remaining wherever the Cosmic Mother has placed him. While dutifully playing the part of a worldly man, he has received that perfect Self-realization which I have sought by renouncing everything - even my loincloth!".
Said to have been associated with the mysterious Gyanganj (Jnanaganj) hermitage somewhere in Tibet -- a secret place of great masters said to be hidden in a valley high in the mountains of the Himalayas or possibly on on the flatlands to the north of Kailash-Mansarovar. Another highly venerated monk almost always associated with Gyanganj is the mysterious Indian sage Mahavatar Babaji, who, like Trailanga Swami, is reputed to have had an extremely long life span...although in Babaji's case, rumored to still be alive after 1800 years. Equally of interest is the Digambara monk that contributed to Sri Ramakrishna's full Awakening, Totapuri. Totapuri, like Trailanga Swami, is said to have lived 300 years as well.
Trailanga Swami: The Greatest of the Known Kriyayogis (1601-1881)
Very good reference has been made in the Autobiography of a Yogi to Trailanga Swami. The number of unpublicised Kriyayogis belonging to family stories and legends are so many in India that we talk about them and over a period of time it either passes into either family legend or is forgotten.
But the greatest Kriyayogi about whom many events have been verified historically is the great Trailanga Swami. His life sketch is given in many books in some outlines here and there. Briefly it is: the word Trailanga, used mostly in Varanasi, is derived from the word Trailanga, referring to the area where Telugu language is spoken. It is the modern Andhra Pradesh, where he was born in a village near Vizianagaram in a Brahmin family. His father, Narasimha Rao, was a landlord and his mother Vidyavati was a great worshipper of Lord Shiva. The name chosen for him was Shivaram who once crept into the room in which she was worshipping and a great illumination emanating from the Shivalinga entered his body. His puzzled mother had to be convinced by her husband that their son was a great divine person in human form.
One day, after Shivaram grew a little older, he asked his mother to initiate him into Shiva-mantra, as she, his mother, could do it. So the first guru of Shivaram was his own mother whom he loved so much that when she died, he attended the cremation and decided never to return home. His noble younger brother got built a cottage for Shivaram who was then 40 years old.
He did his sadhana for 12 years and then moved to the great pilgrimage, Pushkar (near Ajmer), where he met a yogi, Bhagiratananda Saraswati with whom stayed with him as his guest. This yogi initiated him into kriya yoga and, gave him a new name Gajanan Saraswati but he became famous only as Trailanga Swami. He maintained mouna (vow of silence) for many years, moving from place to place when he became known for the miracles that took place round him.
The king of Nepal and his courtiers were once hunting a tiger which entered the cave where Trailanga Swami was in meditation and sat by his side like a cat. The king and his courtiers entered the cave but seeing a yogi hesitated to open fire. Opening his eyes Trailanga Swami asked the king to come near him assuring that the tiger would not even growl at them. The king then requested Trailanga Swami to be his guest at his palace but he went and stayed at the Pashupatinath temple. Once again, when crowds started collecting round him day and night, he ran away, never to return to Nepal again.
No one knows when he reached Varanasi, the place of Lord Shiva. There he lay totally naked on the roads. Two English magistrates tried him successively. His huge body weighing 300 pounds was put inside jails both times and both times all the watchmen and the English magistrates saw him outside the jail or on the roof top. Repeated happening of this miracle convinced all that they could do nothing and he had to be freed. Yet once again a mischievous English magistrate collected garbage and asked him to eat it in his court since Trailanga Swami always said that everywhere he saw only God since he had reached the highest stage of yogic development possible in human form. He asked everyone to eat it but they did not. He put his hand on the plate containing garbage and it turned into sweet smelling sweetmeats and he ate it. The English rulers did not trouble him after that and Trailanga Swami came to be know as Sachal Vishwanath, (moving Lord Vishwanath or Shiva).
In the Bengali books I have read I came across some very striking incidents, two of which can be added.
1. The Maharaja of Benaras took Trailanga Swami once on a boat. The Raja was attired splendidly with a silver sheath containing his golden sword, studded with diamonds, tied round his waist. What was it, asked Trailanga Swami and when told that it was priceless family heirloom, he took it in his hand and threw it in the river. The Raja was crestfallen. Then Trailanga Swami put his hand in the flowing water and brought out more than four or five similar swords and, asked the Raja to recognize his. The pride of the Raja was reduced to dust and he learnt a lesson in detachment.
2. Young Ramakrishna (later Paramhamsa) went to Benaras only to see the great Trailanga Swami in 1869. Trailanga Swami took his urine and sprinkled it on the idol of Goddess whom Ramakrisha worshipped and asked what was the difference between his urine and the Ganga water. Trailanga Swami had reached that great state when the entire world was sacred and godly in which there was nothing non-sacred. Ramakrishna Paramhamsa said about Trailanga Swami“ I saw that Universal Lord Himself was using his body as a vehicle for his Manifestation. He was in an exalted state of knowledge. Kashi12 was illumined by his stay there.”13
Trailanga Swami took samadhi on the ekadashi (11th lunar day) of the bright lunar of the month of Pousha (December) 1881.Out of these 280 years of his worldly existence Trailanga Swami spent 150 years in Varanasi where for days and months he floated on the river Ganga without ever eating. There is no instance of such a great Kriyayogi as Trailanga Swami which was ever got historically verified.