Paramahamsas are those who are firmly established in the Divine. Unlike most of us who have to sit in meditation and practice for long periods before we get a taste of what it means to be outside our egos, the Paramahamsas have no such requirement. They have a deep and permanent connection with a deeper Reality that is found when the ego-mind does not control consciousness.
The Paramahamsas do not just understand the difference between the Real and the ego-mind experience at a theoretical level; instead they experience this difference directly. Some Paramahamsas stumble into this state of experiencing consciousness spontaneously, while others achieve it after many years of practicing long hours of meditation.
All this is well and good, but how do we recognize a Paramahamsa? Is it possible to look at somebody and say if he or she is a Paramahamsa? The difficulty of this is described in the following poem:
Sometimes naked, sometimes mad,
Now a scholar, again as a fool,
Thus they appear on earth,
the Paramahamsas!
– From Viveka Chodasmoni by Adi Shankara (Probably authored around 800 AD)
Unfortunately Paramahamsas don’t make it any easy on us in having a consistent pattern of behavior by which we can recognize them. Most of them live in isolation or anonymity seeking no attention to themselves. Once Swami Vivekananda stumbled onto a anonymous Muslim Paramahamsa. He later recalled that “his every line and curve said that he was a Paramahamsa.” Swami Vivekeanada himself was a realized master and he could discern what we cannot. That is why the title of Paramahamsa is usually bestowed only by realized masters on its recipient and not otherwise.
It is well known that meditation changes the way we think and act. It also changes the brain physically in measurable ways. Just 20 minutes of meditation has profound physical impact on our body that is measurable. On the same lines it is well known that prolonged meditation for many years rewires the brain permanently. We can now hope that as the collaboration between yogis and scientists grows we may have some clear objective measures of how the human brain evolves and changes as it grows into deeper yogic states. Maybe in the not too distant future the mystery of identifying a Paramahamsa unambiguously may be resolved.
Note: The alternative spelling for Paramahamsa is Paramahansa. The picture is of Paramahamsa Yogananda. Probably the first Paramahamsa from India who moved permanently to the US (He arrived in Boston in 1920).
You may also like: The Story of Ramana Maharshi: Becoming Established