This story was related to me by one of my patients from Coimbatore. Sometime in the 1960s when Maha Periyaval visited Coimbatore, this gentleman offered poornakumbham as Periyaval came along the road. He told the Paramacharya “Periyaval may not remember but on the same road thirty years ago my father too offered poornakumbam to you when you came. Maha Periyaval said “Yes, but were you not living in the opposite house at that time, and not in the present house?” For such a memory, the word superhuman is an understatement.
Once by accident we overheard a history and geography lesson at Kurnool. We were standing outside one of the huts of the Mutt camp and could faintly hear a teacher giving lot of details about the people, history, religion, languages, customs and livelihood of the inhabitants of Cambodia and Thailand. We presumed that probably one of the Vedic teachers was coaching his son studying in high school. A few minutes later Maha Periyaval came out of the hut, and we learnt that He had been talking to Bala Periyaval who had been initiated into sanyasa just a few days earlier. We marveled at the extensive knowledge of Maha Periyaval in so many different fields.
MahaPeriyaval’s wide knowledge and deep understanding of many subjects was phenomenal. Once when He was camping at Sivastanam near Kancheepuram, we had gone there for dharshanam. One devotee came and submitted a short printed summary physics of a PhD dissertation. He said he would be submitting the thesis to the Madras University shortly and prayed for Periyaval’s blessings for the PhD degree. It was a highly technical subject. Maha Periyaval went through the booklet of about twenty pages rapidly for a few minutes and put it aside and gave him prasadam. After some time when the devotee had gone away, He turned to me.
His Holiness: “You take this booklet, go to that tree’s shade, sit down there, study it carefully and then come back and tell me the gist of it”.
I took the booklet and spent nearly half an hour over it. I came back to Maha Periyaval.
His Holiness: Have you studied and understood it.
I replied: Yes.
His Holiness: “Then tell me what it is all about”.
I began to explain. After two or three minutes Maha Periyaval interrupted me.
His Holiness: “I do not agree with what you say. Are not the two statements in the second para on the first page and the first para on the fourth page contradictory to each other? Go and read it again”.
I was thunderstruck. I took the booklet to the shade of the tree again and read through it. I found that what Maha Periyaval said was absolutely correct. What discrepancy I could not find out in a scientific dissertation after studying it for half an hour, Maha Periyaval had detected in a couple of minutes in the midst of giving darshanam to several devotees!
I realized He was only testing me and may be very gently pricking the bubble of my ego!
Once by accident we overheard a history and geography lesson at Kurnool. We were standing outside one of the huts of the Mutt camp and could faintly hear a teacher giving lot of details about the people, history, religion, languages, customs and livelihood of the inhabitants of Cambodia and Thailand. We presumed that probably one of the Vedic teachers was coaching his son studying in high school. A few minutes later Maha Periyaval came out of the hut, and we learnt that He had been talking to Bala Periyaval who had been initiated into sanyasa just a few days earlier. We marveled at the extensive knowledge of Maha Periyaval in so many different fields.
MahaPeriyaval’s wide knowledge and deep understanding of many subjects was phenomenal. Once when He was camping at Sivastanam near Kancheepuram, we had gone there for dharshanam. One devotee came and submitted a short printed summary physics of a PhD dissertation. He said he would be submitting the thesis to the Madras University shortly and prayed for Periyaval’s blessings for the PhD degree. It was a highly technical subject. Maha Periyaval went through the booklet of about twenty pages rapidly for a few minutes and put it aside and gave him prasadam. After some time when the devotee had gone away, He turned to me.
His Holiness: “You take this booklet, go to that tree’s shade, sit down there, study it carefully and then come back and tell me the gist of it”.
I took the booklet and spent nearly half an hour over it. I came back to Maha Periyaval.
His Holiness: Have you studied and understood it.
I replied: Yes.
His Holiness: “Then tell me what it is all about”.
I began to explain. After two or three minutes Maha Periyaval interrupted me.
His Holiness: “I do not agree with what you say. Are not the two statements in the second para on the first page and the first para on the fourth page contradictory to each other? Go and read it again”.
I was thunderstruck. I took the booklet to the shade of the tree again and read through it. I found that what Maha Periyaval said was absolutely correct. What discrepancy I could not find out in a scientific dissertation after studying it for half an hour, Maha Periyaval had detected in a couple of minutes in the midst of giving darshanam to several devotees!
I realized He was only testing me and may be very gently pricking the bubble of my ego!
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