Swami Anandananda Saraswati: Thinking of Sri Swamiji, I find that it is not only the mind, awareness and knowledge but his total practicality. He could do everything and he knew how to do everything. Once in Munger we were shovelling, moving earth and he taught me how to hold the shovel and how to shovel. Other times, how to fold paper, how to count money. He knew everything. Any subject that was brought to him in satsang or even with his close disciples, any argument, any topic, any subject, he knew exactly the answer, the situation, and he had his view. We disciples were full of different kinds of conditionings in the mind. He did not have any of those things. He was absolutely free, absolutely relaxed and he was constantly demonstrating that. His answer, behaviour, attitude was the absolutely correct one, not at all conditioned, not at all according to what our logic, reasoning or understanding would have been.
One program was held in a city in a big flat and after the satsang, there was going to be lunch for Sri Swamiji. Since after the satsang there was going to be food, we placed different pots and pans, plates, all the necessary utensils in the corridor, so that as soon as the satsang was over, we could serve lunch. There was a handle of one ladle sticking out towards the middle and we must have walked past that ladle hundreds of times.
Finally, Sri Swamiji arrived at the flat and he went through the corridor to get to the hall. He was right in front of us, when he got to that ladle, he stopped and with one finger turned the spoon, put it in the right position and carried on. That is still fixed in my mind: with one finger he showed us that it would have taken one finger and five seconds to put it right, and he actually did it for us! He was a living example of what it is to be absolutely connected with the immediate reality, there was nothing that would escape his awareness, absolutely nothing.
I also felt that simultaneously he had a greater level of awareness, of consciousness, functioning at the same time. I saw Sri Swamiji giving mantra diksha and talking to people at the moment of diksha. People would come with different spiritual problems and whoever came in front of him, he would just close his eyes. Then he would open his eyes and say exactly what was appropriate, what was the right thing for this person.