Great Souls Recognize Swami

Great sage reveals Swami's identity
Sri Shivananda Maharaj is known to be a great sage. He has several divine powers and can create objects at will. Some devotees, who doubted Swami took Him to meet Sivananda Maharaj. When the Maharaj looked at Swami, he said, "He is the Lord Datta, whom people search everywhere". Looking at the devotees, Maharaj said, "Lord Datta is in Him constantly. He is not an occasional visitor to Swami's body, who comes and goes, but is ever-present".

One of the devotees present there, was under the impression that Lord Datta comes in to Swami to accomplish some work and leaves Swami whenever the work is done. His belief was based on the statement given by Swami "Datta enters Me whenever a work is to be done and leaves Me whenever the work is over like an electric current entering a wire". In fact, Swami had deliberately said so since it is not easily acceptable to most devotees that He is Lord Datta Himself. Devotees afflicted by the diseases of egoism and jealousy, are unable to accept the human incarnation of the Lord. Therefore Swami sometimes refers to Himself as a devotee of the Lord. At other times He may refer to Himself as one in whom God visits occasionally, or one in whom God dwells permanently. The different versions are for different devotees having progressively lower egoism and jealousy. Only to the highest devotee, who is completely free of egoism and jealousy, does He clearly declare that He is the Lord Himself.

The particular devotee had taken one of the various versions Swami's identity and had literally thought that Lord Datta visited His body only on occasion. Maharaj looked at this devotee and told him, "If you think that Lord Datta enters Swami only on occasion, you have totally missed the truth. You have fallen in a bog. Understand this very well; Lord Datta stays in Swami all the time."

Thereafter, Maharaj garlanded Swami and praised Swami as Lord Datta by shouting "Jai Jai Datta-Victory to Lord Datta". Maharaj further added "Lord Datta came down in this human form and is writing books about Himself".

He who eludes angels and sages
Once, Phani was walking along a street in Mumbai. He was thinking about Swami. Suddenly he heard voices from above. He looked up in the sky and to his amazement, he saw several angels and sages discussing something loudly. He listened carefully and noticed that they were talking about Lord Datta. They were saying that no one can recognize Him when He incarnates on earth; not even angels and sages. One of them was saying "Who is this Swami on earth, who walks with a bag hanging from one shoulder? This Swami is changing the rules of creation!" Some other angel replied "He is the human incarnation of Lord Datta, who has come down to propagate divine knowledge to the world. He is covered by a very thick veil of Maya. Nobody can recognize Him. Even sages and angels like us cannot recognize Swami."

The surprising fact is that on the same day and at the same time, Swami composed a new song in Vijayawada and began singing it. It goes thus, "brahmarsirva devova syat dattatreyam kojanati?". It means "Be he an angel or the highest sage, who can recognize Lord Datta?" When Phani returned to Vijayawada, Swami welcomed him with this very song and had a good laugh.

Midnight Meeting with Goddess Kali
One night Swami was sleeping in the house of Mrs. Seethamma. At midnight, she woke up hearing some voices from Swami's room. She was confused as to who would be talking to Swami at this hour. Unable to contain her curiosity, she peeped into the room through a window. She saw that Swami was speaking with a lady who was sitting opposite to Him, with her back towards Seethamma. Unable to see the face of the lady, Seethamma could not recognize her. However it was obvious that she was no ordinary lady. She was definitely some Goddess. She was wearing a blue sari and was adorned with a golden crown and exquisite jewel-studded ornaments.

Seethamma thought of opening the door and entering the room. However she was afraid that the Goddess might vanish. So she continued listening to the conversation between the two of them through the window. She recounted later, "I was not sure who that lady was. I thought she was the presiding deity of our village. I tried to follow their conversation but could not understand much since they were speaking Sanskrit. Swami was speaking in an authoritative tone, while the lady was speaking very politely and submissively. After some time the lady disappeared. After she left, Swami still sat there with closed eyes. I closed the window and went back to bed.

Next morning, I asked Swami, who the divine lady was. Swami told me that she was the Divine Mother Kali. Kali is the ferocious and terrifying form of the Divine Mother. I asked about what the conversation was about". Swami replied, "She wanted to destroy humanity through the dreaded disease, AIDS. I prevented her form doing so saying that the time had not come for it. I assured her that I will change humanity through My Divine Knowledge and that she should wait for some more time. Seethamma said that she regretted not being able to see the Goddess's face. Swami replied, "If you had seen her face, it would have been the last thing you ever saw. No ordinary person could see the terrifying form of Kali and still live. I knew that you were peeping through the window. We both knew it. Therefore I did not allow Kali to turn back and look at you. I knew that you were contemplating on entering the room. I immediately removed that idea from your mind and prompted you to go back to bed.

Sri Ganapathi Sachidananda Swami
A famous saint and incarnation of Lord Datta, Sri Ganapathi Sachidananda Swami, once said, "Lord Datta will be born in India as scholar. He will write several books and the books will become world famous. This is predicted in a Nadi book". Devotees of Swami believe that Swami is the very same author referred to by Sri Ganapathi Sachidananda Swami. Sri Ganapathi Sachidnanda Swami asked for three sets of all the works of Swami and kept them in His personal library There is also a mention of such a scholar in the prophesies of Nosterdamus.

Eight incarnations of Lord Datta
Swami asked Sri C. Balakrishna Murthy to write the books on the life histories of seven great incarnations of Lord Datta namely: Sri Ganapathi Sachidnanda Swami, Sri Satya Sai Baba, Sri Shirdi Sai Baba, Sri Akkalkot Maharaj, Sri Manik Prabhu, Sri Narasimha Saraswati and Sripadavallabha. After writing these seven books, Sri C. Balakrishna Murthy, wrote an eighth book on the life history of Swami. It is interesting to note the significance of the fact that he mentioned Swami as the eighth incarnation of Lord Datta and Swami's name is Venu Gopala Krishna Murthy. Lord Krsna was the eighth son of His mother. The number eight and the name Krishna (Krsna) are both common between Swami and Lord Krsna.