Yuvacharya Mahaprajna
Acharyashri Tulsi has a multifarious personality. He is an amalgam of devotion, reason, feeling, equanimity and leadership. He is at once hard and tender, sympathetic and detached, affectionate and disinterested.
The philosophy of anekant regards every object and individual as a combination of many contrarieties. Charyashri is no exception. In sheer existential terms there can be nothing surprising or inexplicable. Every individual soul has infinite knowledge, philosophical profundity, joy and power. Surprise or inexplicability is in the expression or externalization. When the unseen becomes seen, it leaves one wondering. After absorbing the rains the earth gives out its hidden scent. On being burnt the incense sticks give out the latent fragrance. Neither the scent of the earth nor the fragrance of the incense sticks is unreal. Many properties and potentialities remain unrealized until the right factor appears to bring them out in the open. Mystery and miracle lie only in the expression or externalization. What else is physics? Just the way the potential powers of matter are made manifest.
Likewise, what else is religion except the way the potential powers of the consciousness are made manifest? That is why the abodes of religion are full of miracles. The personality of Acharyashree is also miraculous in the same sense because many inherent powers have revealed themselves in it. His achievements are outstanding, so we feel so greatly attracted towards him. What attracts us most towards him is the way inner powers have become manifest in him. If we admire merely his achievements we may at best please ourselves. But if we get to know the way he has actualized his potentialities, we can ourselves earn the entitlement to become like him.
It is a universal truth that penance alone lends lustre and application alone adds preciousness to the human personality. This will be true at all times but particularly so in an age of democracy. Acharyashree has undergone immense penance and has shown infinite application. In popular language he has done all this for the good of the people. In his own language he has done it as part of his spiritual practice. He does not believe that one can do any good to others without being good oneself. According to him the good of oneself is the source of the good of others. Self-decline can never result in the improvement of others. In fact, it will prove harmful to both. Only he can remodel others who has first remodelled himself. Acharyashree is as much interested in one as in the other.
