d. 1887 · Varanasi
The walking Shiva of Kashi
For decades the people of Varanasi watched an enormous, mostly silent, usually unclothed yogi move through their city and float in their river, and concluded — as Ramakrishna himself affirmed on meeting him — that Shiva walked in Kashi. Accounts of his age and feats grew legendary; his state, those who met him agreed, was beyond dispute.
He taught little in words. His recorded instructions point to renunciation of craving and realization of the Self as the only wealth that survives. His life was itself the discourse: utterly possessionless, utterly unafraid, utterly absorbed.
From his example, the message this page keeps: the realized state owes nothing to comfort, image, or explanation. What he practiced was absorption in the Self; what he demonstrated is that such absorption is possible while walking through the middle of a crowded city.
