All World
Gayatri Pariwar

It gives me a deep sense of joy to write the foreword to this 

book, which is an English version of Param Pujya Gurudev’s 

deeply moving literary and mystical travelogue in Hindi: Sunsan Ke Sahachar.

This free rendering in English has been done by my friend Shivashankaran, as a token of his tribute to and reverence for the Yug Rishi Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya. On behalf of this Mission and on my own behalf I express our deep gratitude to Sri Shivashankaran for his labour of love towards making available to the English knowing public one of the most enchanting, inspiring, exhilarating and uplifting works of the Seer-Sage.

In today’s dismal world conditions, with all-pervading darkness, degeneration, dehumanization, perversity and naked vulgarity (all-round retrogression), many a sensitive person would very much wish to get away from it all and seek peace in some remote recesses of the high Himalayas or in the still deeps of the oceans. But howsoever high, far or deep we might flee from this world of strife, struggle, hate, cruelty, perversity and falsehood, there can be no rest or respite for any of us until we have clearly understood and squarely faced and surmounted the problems and challenges that the forces of Darkness have thrown up before us. The truth is that so long as we refuse to inwardly change and transcend and transmute our petty ego-centred selves and rise into the Light of Unifying Awareness, Within and Above, mere change of locale would not help. There has to be a radical, life-transforming attitudinal change from Within before we are able to find real solutions to the problems besetting our world. This booklet provides a deep and insightful spiritual research into and a true diagnosis of the basic causes of the malady humanity is suffering from; and it also provides the unfailing remedy there for. 

This little booklet will be equally inspiring uplifting, and illuminating for the environmentalist, the nature lover and the spiritual seeker. Even as a superb creative masterpiece of literary writing in Hindi, it stands out in a class apart. It gives a glimpse into the deepest recesses of the Seer-Soul of a multi-splendoured Mystic Guide par-excellence of our age, who heard sermons in the stones and celestial songs of harmony, unity and love in the Himalayan wilderness - in its brooks and streams, its flora and fauna, its icy winds and in the hearts of the simple folks - and could concretely experience his Oneness with all creation: Vasudevah Sarvam Iti. Any attentive and perceptive reader is bound to have some hazy glimpse of his own Indwelling Divinity (Real, Conscious and Ecstatic) while going through this booklet.

This work marks a prominent milestone in Gurudev’s long, incomparably stupendous creative endeavour. In 1960-61, during his one-year self-imposed seclusion (Agyatvas) in Uttrakhand Himalayas he contributed a series of articles for publication in the Hindi monthly Akhand Jyoti, titled: Sadhak Ki Diary Ke Kuchh Prishtha (Some pages from the diary of a Sadhak). Later these articles were compiled and published in book form as- Sunsan Ke Sahachar. It is said that words used to cascade effortlessly out of Gurudev’s pen instinct with matchless profundity, clarity and simplicity, directly inspired by Mother Saraswati, as a token of her Grace upon this beloved Son of Hers. From this booklet one can have a feel of his inimitable, moving, musical style of literary creativity. Now that Akhand Jyoti is going to complete 77 years of its life, let us     remember with deep gratitude and thanksgiving the contribution the Yug Rishi made through his magically facile pen towards inspiring, guiding and exhorting millions of way-lost souls to arise, awake and start on their pilgrimage towards the Indwelling Light, and know their true identity as sons and daughters of Immortality (Amritasya Putrah).

Countless number of people climb the mountains, go to the sacred Himalayas on pilgrimage, take a dip in the holy Bhagirathi (Ganga); but how many of these experience, like Gurudev, their spontaneous Oneness with all manifestation, as revealed through the pages of this booklet? He never considered the Himalayas as a skyward rising heap of rock and stone, covered with perennial snows. He revered it as the Abode of Gods, the Philosopher’s Magic stone, with the miraculous alchemic quality of metamorphosing the basest of human beings into angelic persons endowed with godlike qualities. Similar was his symbolic conception of the sanctifying and purifying Ganga. One stands simply dumbfounded before the profundity of his creatively mystic seer-vision, bursting through the veils of false appearances, and giving us a radiant glimpse of the Real World of Shining Glory under the flux and foam of shadowy appearances of our world of ignorance while living alone in seclusion in the sacred Himalayas, expressing the inexpressible in a language unsurpassed in its simplicity and depth of vision. One feels like kissing the blessed pen through which this life-transforming teaching flowed.

I feel tempted to quote the famous lines of Robert Browning before closing:

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise

From outward things; whatever you may believe.

There is an inmost centre in us all,

Where truth abides in fullness; and around,

Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,

This perfect clear perception - which is truth.

A baffling and perverting carnal mesh

Binds it, and makes all error; and to Know

Rather consists in opening out a way

Whence the Imprisoned Splendour may escape,

Than in effecting entry for a light

Supposed to be without.

In Gurudev this Imprisoned Splendour stood out fully released and manifested even in his flesh and blood. His life was a living demonstration of his teachings.

I rejoice that this invaluable booklet is now available in its English version, too.

On the sacred day of Guru Poornima, I humbly bow before the Invisible Gurusatta and seek His blessings to be more and more attentive and fine-tuned to his Ever-Present Guidance.

Guru Poornima - Dr Pranav Pandya

July 22, 1994