Autobiography of The Avatar: Why I Decided Not to Learn Swimming

In the young age, usually the mother’s brothers - the uncles, take the responsibility of making the boys swim in the home well, teaching swimming. It’s a village hobby during the vacation. And of course, I grew up with a large number of cousins. If you see all my young age photograph, childhood photographs, it’ll always be a large group! Because two reason, photography is rare than the number of kids living there. In the modern day, number of kids is rare and photography is regular. In those days photography is very rare, number of kids is large so everyone will try to put their neck for photograph. In those days once or twice a year only we even get photographed. Now only once an hour you get photographed or you just photograph. It is not even nowadays, once a day! It’s all once an hour.

So my uncles were trying to teach swimming for all the kids. The village farmhouse, my grandfather’s favourite village farmhouse, which my grandmother owned, and they waited and donated it to us which is there as a our ashram - Arunachala Dhyanapeetam, Nithyan ... where fa … my father’s samadhi is there; that is the same property, same well. So all the uncles, they sit around, and they drop one by one each kid, and help that kid to swim. They will actually tie that a bottle guard shell on the stomach with the thread, and also they’ll tie a rope in the hip and hold that, so the child doesn’t get drowned. It’s a village … way of safety mechanism. And, they were trying to throw every kid. When they were trying to put me, I said, “No, I am a sannyasi. I am not supposed to swim.” In shastras, there is an instruction that sannyasi is not suppose to swim or light fire for cooking. Some of those ... and we do not know why they created; in those days, in those days all the risky things sannyasis were asked to avoid because sannyasis are really rare species.

They were teasing me that because I am afraid to swim, I am using this as instruction. I looked in I saw my cognition was so clear, there was no powerlessness, there was no fear. But I didn’t want to learn swimming, just I wanted to respect that rule. Of course, there was a discussion there. One of my uncle whom I really respect very well because he is a great swimmer and he protects everyone, he takes care of everyone. In those days what you know about taking care, means if he can climb the coconut tree and cut coconut and give. He can pluck mangoes and feed you. These are all the, these are all the ideas with which we decide who is caring, who is loving. There was a discussion and that uncle who I used to respect, … he was debating about marriage and sannyas and advising me, “You should not think you are a sannyasi now itself, you should see life and get married and all that.”

Fortunately, before him I was already consolidated by Yogananda Puri, understand. Because he has already consolidated my cognition, my depth - no question of even argument. Understand, anything about which you don’t even argue is your depth! Even if there is a scope for argument, it is only your length or breadth, not depth! I was fortunate enough, I was already consolidated in my depth by Yogananda Puri. Not even argument! I saw very clearly there was no fear of water. It was only I decided not to, because I read somewhere in one book, in shastra that sannyasi should not swim. 06:19

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