02 the vedanta kesari february 2014

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The Vedanta Kesari THE LION OF VEDANTA

A Cultural and Spiritual Monthly of the Ramakrishna Order since 1914 Swami Vivekananda Ratham, Tamil Nadu

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Editor: Swami Atmashraddhananda Managing Editor: Swami Gautamananda Printed and published by Swami Asutoshananda on behalf of Sri Ramakrishna Math F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 T h No.31, e V Ramakrishna e d a n t a K eMath s a r i窶コoad, ~ II ~Mylapore, Trust from Chennai - 4 and Printed at Sri Ramakrishna Printing Press, No.31 Ramakrishna Math Road, Mylapore, Chennai - 4. Ph: 044 - 24621110

The Vedanta Kesari VOL. 101, No. 2

ISSN 0042-2983

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A CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL MONTHLY OF THE RAMAKRISHNA ORDER

Started at the instance of Swami Vivekananda in 1895 as Brahmavâdin, it assumed the name The Vedanta Kesari in 1914.

For free edition on the Web, please visit: www.chennaimath.org

CONTENTS FEBRUARY 2014

Vedic Prayers

45

Editorial  A View of Life—from ‘Above’

46

Articles  The Spiritual Universe of Sri Ramacharitamanas: As Seen through Its Two Invocatory Verses A.P.N. Pankaj  Vedanta: The Root of American Transcendentalism Pravrajika Virajaprana  True Education Liberates: Lessons from Sri Ramakrishna’s Upbringing Swami Sandarshanananda Compilation  Call to the Youth of India Swami Vivekananda

55 58 69

63

Annual Report  Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission Synopsis of the Governing Body Report for 2012-13

75

New Find  Unpublished Letters of Swami Saradananda

78

The Order on the March 80 Book Review 82 Feature  Simhâvalokanam (Arguments Against Atheism) Cover Story: Page 4

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The Vedanta Kesari Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004 h (044) 2462 1110 (4 lines) Fax : (044) 2493 4589 Email : mail@chennaimath.org Website : www.chennaimath.org TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS

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N Cover Story N Swami Vivekananda Ratham, Tamilnadu The year 2013-2014 marks the 150th Birth Anniversary year of Swami Vivekananda. To celebrate this event, in Tamilnadu, as also in other Indian states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and others, a Vivekananda Ratham (chariot) was organized. Mounted on an automobile, fitted with a fiberglass Ratha-shape, four horses, and Swamiji’s statue, the Tamilnadu, Vivekananda Ratham visited numerous towns, cities and villages, covering thousands of km in Tamilnadu and Puducherry. It received a warm welcome everywhere with solemnity, festivity and religious fervour by the educated and commoners alike. After some 300 days of travelling, it arrived in Chennai on 29th December 2013 where it was accorded a rousing welcome and programmes were held in various parts of the city (please see report on page 80). o

T he V edanta K esari P atrons ’ S cheme We invite our readers to join as patrons of the magazine. They can do so by sending Rs.2000/- or more. Names of the patrons will be announced in the journal under the Patrons' Scheme and they will receive the magazine for 20 years. Please send your contribution to The Manager, The Vedanta Kesari by DD/MO drawn in favour of Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai with a note that the enclosed amount is for the Patrons' Scheme. (This scheme is valid in India only).

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T.K. Ajjan, Udhagamandalam Madhu Nirmala N, Vijayawada Debi Prasad Roy, Uttarakhand Dilipsingh C. Jadeja, Ahmedabad

The Vedanta Kesari Library Scheme SL.NO. NAMES OF SPONSORS

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AWARDEE INSTITUTIONS

Indian Cancer Society, Mumbai - 400 012 N.B.R. Cancer Registry, Neendakara, Kollam, Kerala - 691 588 Naga Hospital Authority, Kohima, Nagaland - 797 001 Cancer Hospital, Agartala, Tripura State - 799 006 Rotary Cancer Hospital, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi - 110 029 Christian Medical College, Vellore - 632 004 Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi - 110 060 Healis-Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health, New Mumbai - 400 614 To be continued . . .

The Vedanta Kesari VOL. 101, No. 2, FEBRUARY 2014 ISSN 0042-2983

E ACH

SOUL IS POTENTIALLY DIVINE.

T HE GOAL IS TO MANIFEST THE DIVINITY WITHIN.

Vedic Prayers

Tr. by Swami Sarvananda

One result, they say, is obtained by vidya (knowledge of ritualistic philosophy), and quite another by avidya (ignorance or pure rituals). Thus have we heard from the wise who explained it to us.

The Sat-chit-ananda—existence-knowledge-bliss Absolute—is the nature, the birthright of the Soul, and all the manifestations that we see are Its expressions, dimly or brightly manifesting Itself. Even death is but a manifestation of that Real Existence. Birth and death, life and decay, degeneration and regeneration—are all manifestations of that Oneness. So, knowledge, however it manifests itself, either as ignorance or as learning, is but the manifestation of that same Chit, the essence of knowledge; the difference is only in degree, and not in kind. The difference in knowledge between the lowest worm that crawls under out feet and the highest genius that the world may produce is only of degree, and not of kind. The Vedantin thinker boldly says that the enjoyments in this life, even the most degraded joys, are but manifestations of that One Divine Bliss, the Essence of the Soul.

—Swami Vivekananda, CW, 2: 194

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Editorial

A View of Life—from ‘Above’ Climbing the ‘Monument’ As long as you stand at the foot of the Monument, so long do you see horses, carriages, Englishmen, and Englishwomen. But when you climb to its top, you behold the sky and the ocean stretching to infinity. Then you do not enjoy buildings, carriages, horses, or men. They look like ants.1

That is how, on 1 January 1883, Sri Ramakrishna described the ‘world’ as it looks when one climbs up the ‘Monument’—a tall tower of 157 feet, a kind of war memorial with a viewing gallery on the top, erected in 1828. Earlier called Ochterlony Monument and now called the Shaheed Minar, it is an important landmark in Kolkata.

Sri Ramakrishna had used this analogy of climbing up the ‘Monument’ and viewing the ‘Englishmen and women’ (a reference to the fact it was frequented

by British residents then) to illustrate the relative importance, or unimportance, of our worldly possessions, pleasures and positions. Seen from spiritual angle, things look no different. It all looks so different from the worldly plane. Sri Ramakrishna had said earlier,

A similar illustration is given in the Bhagavad Gita [2.70], As into the ocean—brimful and still—still flow the waters, even so the Muni [the contemplative man of realization] into whom enter all desires, he and not the desirer of desires, attains to peace.

Explains one of the contemporary commentators, The ocean is not at all affected by the waters flowing into it from all sides. Similarly, that man alone finds true peace in whom no reaction of desires is produced by the objects of enjoyment,

Many people talk of Brahmajnana [Knowledge of Brahman, the Highest Reality], but their minds are always preoccupied with lower things: house, buildings, money, name, and sense pleasures.

But when you climb up the monument of Brahmajnana, all looks petite, small, toylike. Everything falls into place. All one’s mundane things ‘look like ants.’

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which he happens to come across during his sojourn on earth.2

To be unaffected by the flow of events and experiences—that is the point. It is freedom not be to affected by anything. But this viewing of the world like a witness is not the ‘response’ of a Tamasik mind—lazy, inactive and gloomy, full of passions and desires nevertheless. It is the response of a highly evolved and refined mind. It is the state of seeing things from a very high, high standpoint.

Climbing a tall building and looking at the world around can be a stunning experience for someone who had not seen it earlier, or who has a mind for it. Going up a skyscraper or mountain peak, when one looks around, one indeed sees things smaller in size. But let us visualize something a bit taller than the tallest building or the mountain in the world—that of looking at the world through a common airplane. While going still further or higher is possible, through a space ship, let us restrict ourselves, for time being, seeing or understanding the world by flying through an airplane. Let us check our imagination for a moment! Or extend it to the heights of an airplane and look at the world ‘below’ in a new and better light! The process of an aspirant getting to ‘view’ from above is similar to a ‘flying experience’.

The ‘Flying Experience’ ‘Look, Papa, there! See how fast the aeroplane is going, and there, lo, it is rising up, up, and we are flying above the houses and colonies, into the sky!’ It is not uncommon to hear such excited comments from a first-time child traveling with his or her parents [thanks to low cost flying, air travel has become a reality for thousands in India or elsewhere now]. Let us visualize ourselves a ‘guest’ in T h e

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one such journey—and see if similar parallels can be drawn as Sri Ramakrishna did with regard to climbing the ‘Monument’ and viewing the world from there.

Before we proceed, let us remember that one vital requirement for ‘flying’ is that it needs a high-energy fuel. Ordinary petrol or diesel cannot give the power that is needed to take to skies; it needs a special type of fuel (called Aviation fuel). In spiritual life, too, one needs high-energy fuel to climb up the inner heights. In the spiritual context, this energy comes through living a life of purity and selfcontrol. No wonder, chastity, Brahmacharya, has been emphasized upon in all mystical and spiritual traditions. Says Swami Vivekananda, The great sexual force, raised from animal action and sent upward to the great dynamo of the human system, the brain, and there stored up, becomes Ojas or spiritual force. All good thought, all prayer, resolves a part of that animal energy into Ojas and helps to give us spiritual power. This Ojas is the real man and in human beings alone is it possible for this storage of Ojas to be accomplished. One in whom the whole animal sex force has been transformed into Ojas is a god. He speaks with power, and his words regenerate the world.3 The ‘Ojas’ is that which makes the difference between man and man. The man who has much Ojas is the leader of men. It gives a tremendous power of attraction. . . .It has this peculiarity: it is most easily made from that force which manifests itself in the sexual powers. If the powers of the sexual centres are not frittered away and their energies wasted (action is only thought in a grosser state), they can be manufactured into Ojas.4

Equipping oneself with the mighty power of Ojas, of pure and clean thinking and emotions is, thus, basic to ‘flying higher’.

We have only one energy—either we use it

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at lower levels or use it for a higher purpose.

Indeed if the lower channels of our body-mind are open, the higher channels do not open up.

It is like turning on the water taps in the lower stories of a multistorey building and expecting the higher water taps to become operative. One needs to conserve and transmute one’s animal nature in order to cultivate the divine nature.

As Swamiji points out,

When the aeroplane takes off, one has to secure a belt around one’s waist. Jerks, turns and going-ups or sideways of the flight can throw one off one’s seat. In spiritual life, one should secure oneself with the belt of nishtha or one-pointed devotion to the spiritual instructions given by one’s spiritual teacher.

One should be steady, faithful and intense.

Swamiji says,

The animal has its happiness in the senses, the human beings in their intellect, and the gods in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful.5

Nishtha (devotion to one ideal) is the only method for the beginner; but with devotion and sincerity it will lead to all. Churches, doctrines, forms, are the hedges to protect the tender plant, but they must later be broken down that the plant may become a tree. So the various religions, Bibles, Vedas, dogmas—all are just tubs for the little plant; but it must get out of the tub. Nishtha is, in a manner, placing the plant in the tub, shielding the struggling soul in its path. . . .7

Returning to our narrative, when the flight has to take off, it has to taxi around and gain enough speed in order to take off. Indeed one has to make serious and constant efforts in order to launch into the sky of spiritual life. ‘So long as the “skin sky” surrounds man, that is, so long as he identifies himself with his body, he cannot see God,’ says Swamiji.6 Spiritual practices are vital for one to see the world differently.

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When the flight begins to climb, one begins to see how small the airport looks!

The large structure one meanders through before boarding the flight—it just becomes a

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large white patch in the large green and grey landscape!

And then slowly, everything becomes similarly small or smaller. We see how large buildings, houses, colonies, trees, rivers, oceans, mountains, forests and so on, all becomes a continuous mass of colourful matter. There is nothing high and low now. Everything is just there, with nothing specially big or small about it. All our world of achievements, failures, quarrels, misunderstandings, clever maneuverings, ups and downs of earthly existence—everything is flattened, as if it were a mere dream or cosmic play. Echoing this experience, Swamiji says, In our miseries and struggles the world seems to us a very dreadful place. But just as when we watch two puppies playing and biting we do not concern ourselves at all, realising that it is only fun and that even a sharp nip now and then will do no actual harm, so all our struggles are but play in God’s eyes. This world is all for play and only amuses God; nothing in it can make God angry.8

raining or foggy beneath the clouds, but from above the clouds one sees only a bright sun.

One is above the world of relativity.

In conclusion, one indeed finds quite striking parallels between climbing up the ‘Monument’ or flying up through an aeroplane and spiritual progress. One can learn much through them. Of course, there are fundamental differences between the two—one is a physical, sensory experience, another subtle, beyond-the-senses experience.

One begins and ends (no one can fly around all one’s life!), the other one is an inner and lasting change within, attaining which one does not return to the world of relativity except for ‘doing good to others’ by telling that there is something beyond. And that something transcendental is right within us! What we are looking for outside, out there, is inside, in here.

What to seek for in life, then? In Swamiji’s words, based on his own flying experience of spiritual realm,

As one sits through the flight, seeing through the vanishing landscape below, the flight climbs above the cloud line—some 10 -12 km above the earth—and the scene becomes further plain and homogenous. There, above the ‘sea’ of clouds, one sees the shining sun (if one is flying during the day) or waits for the expectant sun (if one is traveling at night).

What a contrast to the world below! It may be

Take a very, very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby’s play, and we know that, so cannot be disturbed by it. If the mind is pleased with praise, it will be displeased with blame. All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent; but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. It is perfectly free, it is bliss. The more our bliss is within, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what the world calls religion.9 o

References 1. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai, p.177

2. Swami Swarupananda, The Bhagavad Gita, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, p.70 4. CW, 6.130 5. CW, 1.186 6. CW, 7.36 7. CW, 7.7 8. CW, 7.5

3. CW, 8.46 9. CW, 7.11

Bondage is of the mind; freedom too is of the mind. If you say, ‘I am a free soul. I am a son of God! Who can bind me?’ free you shall be. —Sri Ramakrishna

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Simhâvalokanam From the Archives of The Vedanta Kesari (January, 1923-24, Pp. 810-815)

Arguments Against Atheism (In imaginary conversation)

By Swami Ramakrishnananda [A direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna] (Continued from previous issue. . .)

[Continued the rejoinder] ‘Will or nill you are bound to serve inasmuch as you are completely under Its control, for you cannot deny the resistance which you get from all sides. But this power appears to you to be cruel when you look upon only one side of It forgetting Its other sides of which this side is a connecting link. As when you simply look upon a portion of the ear of the elephant, it appears to you to be very ugly, but seen with the whole body, there is no such ugliness. The parents sometime whip their children. Whipping itself is very ugly, but when we consider the motive of the parents we cannot but praise it.

Government hangs a culprit. Now hanging is very nasty and cruel. But the fellow hanged, has lately butchered his wife and children. When you know this, does his hanging appear to you to be nasty and cruel at all? So you see what appears to be apparently cruel, may really be not so if you dive deep into the matter.’

‘But in the cases you have cited’ answered my friend, ‘The children are wicked and the man is a culprit. As for the widow I am speaking if she is generally reputed to be a very pious woman, is the sorrow for the loss of her child the fruit of her piety?’

‘No, certainly not. That is the fruit of her ignorance, and want of piety. If her devotion and love towards her God were greater than that towards her child, then she could not feel the bereavement at all, but on the contrary she would be rather grateful to her Lord for removing her bondage and impediment. But as that Almighty Power does not like that the pious woman should be in the darkness of ignorance, It has taken away the child which virtually belongs to It, for through Its influence alone the child came into existence, to Its own side. It is through mistake we call our own what really is not our own. So in order to dispel that mistake It has taken away the child from the widow. She may weep for a few days, but after that period she will find consolation in herself, knowing it for certain, that the child was not hers but God's and that there is nothing else permanent save God, and so if she places her love in God there is no fear of further bereavement, whereas if it be placed in things other than God, there is every chance of separation.’

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At this the other cried out, ‘What! Children are impediments in the path of virtue! Those sweet innocent cherubs that make this otherwise miserable world an abode of happiness and joy to all men,—are they to be considered as barriers on our way? They rather serve to give us life and vigour in our tedious journeys through the world.’

‘No, no they are not barriers, so long as they do not occupy that place in our heart which we should allot to that Power we call God that being Eternal and Great,—greatest of all existing things, for, by definition everything is under the control of God. As the maidservant of a wealthy man nurses the children of her master, and acts as a second mother to them, chastising them if they do anything wrong, coaxing and caressing them to sleep, and doing sundry other motherly services to them, but all the while knowing that the children are not hers but her master's; so if a man or a woman can look upon his or her children as the children of God and that he or she is simply a servant employed by God for their sake, then there can be no bondage. All things will go on smoothly.’ This was my reply.

The other asked, ‘But then why should your God create pain, sorrow, anguish, folly, ignorance and all such things at all? As you say that your God is Almighty, It could easily do away with all those nasty things, and make the world a place of incessant bliss, there is no necessity of teaching through the process of flogging.’

To this I replied, ‘You may hate pain, sorrow, anguish, folly, ignorance, &c., but of course, on the contrary, you love pleasure, jollity, enjoyment, knowledge and all such good things. Don’t you?’

‘There is no doubt about it,’ was the quick reply.

‘Well my dear sir’, said I, ‘there can be no pleasure without pain, no knowledge without ignorance.’

‘Strange! How can that be?’ questioned he.

To which I replied, ‘Just imagine one incessant course of uniform pleasure without any break, since by hypothesis there is no break in the uniform course, you won't be able to compare your present state of happiness with any intermediate state and in that case you will not be able to know whether that state is happy state or not; for we think ourselves happy, when we compare our state of happiness with a previous state of inferior happiness, i.e., happiness mingled with a little bit of pain. So you see that uniformity of happiness is no happiness at all. You will only know yourself happy when you experience a little bit of pain, and greater the pain you feel, the greater the enjoyment of happiness you will get in return, for by comparison alone you will come to know how miserable you were and how happy now you are. A hungry man relishes his food, much more than one who has not so much hunger. Similar is the case with knowledge and ignorance. You can only know that you are more learned when you compare notes with your past school career. So you see that if you want to enjoy bliss, the pleasure of knowledge, and all such good things, you will T h e

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have to take up pain, ignorance &c., along with them too. Pleasure and pain are the two sides of the same thing. You cannot take up pleasure without pain nor pain without pleasure.

Therefore your idea of a world where there is perpetual, intense and uniform happiness, falls to the ground.’ ’But do they not tell of a place called Heaven where Indra reigns and is that not full of bliss perennial?’ Inquired he.

‘How can you account for that? Do you believe that your scriptures simply imagine some false impossibilities?’

‘Why? No. Those who share in the bliss of Heaven, they remember their past miseries in the world, and because they have the previous experiences of great miseries, they can supremely enjoy the pleasures of Heaven by Swami Ramakrishnananda comparing them with their past miserable lives on the Earth,’ such was my reply, at which he turned the course of our talk by saying, ‘Very well. Let us return to our old question. You said God is the combination of all what resists our desire and by so doing leads us. It is a sort of anti-power as regards ourselves, which is ever free and therefore almighty, and always resisting without being resisted. Has that power any intelligence? Can it feel as we do?’

To this my answer was, ‘Look into the workings of that Energy. Are they not orderly and regular? Can order and regularity come out of non-intelligence? Look at the flowers.

How tastefully they are made! Look at the beauties of Nature. How sweetly they are spread before you for your enjoyment! Can they proceed from a Being that has neither feeling nor taste? Look at your own Self. You are nothing but as the Power is making you. It is gradually lifting you up from the lowly basement of ignorance to the exalted pinnacle of knowledge.

It is making you more and more unselfish, more and more noble, more and more intelligent, more and more pious, as you grow more and more old. If you dive deep into the workings of this Power, you will gradually see that It is really bringing you up with a thousand times more care and love than what your parents can command.’

At this he asked, ‘How can that be since this Power resists my desire, whereas my parents love me and readily give me whatever I ask of them?’

At this I questioned him in return, ‘Do your parents not resist your desires too, when T h e

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your desires tend towards evil? The senses are the causes of our desire. Unless those desires be checked we will be lead hither and thither by the senses which are always misleading, for they confirm us in our errors of seeing as permanent what are impermanent. So you see that by checking desires the errors are checked. Is that not a great benefit? By timely resistance from this Power we are brought to a proper sense of our real position.’

‘But’ replied he, ‘the Scriptures attribute to the Power we are speaking of, which you call God, many beautiful male and female forms. How can you account for that? As far as I have understood you, that Power can have no such form or if it has any, it is the whole universe. The whole universe is the body of that Infinite Power. It cannot be called either male or female, but males and females and all things proceed from It.’ ‘Well, I see you have hit upon the universal Form of the Lord,’ I replied. ‘But did I not tell you that that Power is a thousand times more loving than your parents, and is the repository of all sorts of powers and that there is none to resist It? This being the case, and it being the more natural, the more easy and more attractive for us to know It as our own dearest, most beautiful, most loving, and nearest of all friends and relations in the universe, we naturally look upon It as such and It becomes the most loving He or She at least for our sake, for what is impossible for an Almighty, All-merciful and All-loving Power. So you see, He (henceforth we should not call Him ‘It’) cannot be altogether unknown and unknowable. His very loving and kind nature disproves this. When those spotless, pure children of Nature, the Sages and Rishis of yore ardently desired to see their unseen Father, their unseen Mother that was supplying them with all their little wants, was keeping them from all unforeseen dangers, was decorating their sylvan abodes with exquisitely beautiful, and divinely fragrant flowers, was entertaining them daily with the melodies poured forth from the throats of Nature's sweet choristers, the gaudily dressed, and clear voiced merry denizens of the air, that Father or that Mother could not conceal Himself or Herself longer, and appeared before them as Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, as Saraswati, Lakshmi, Durga. So you see our scriptures are nothing but a record of Divine Graces poured forth at different times on different fortunate, and pure-hearted individuals. These men are the authors of our Scriptures. They know something of God, and what they know they recorded for the benefit of the posterity.’

The friend replied, ‘Well, it may be, your God is really loving and kind. In that case I cannot deny that, although I have much doubt about his loving kindness. But to return: you just now said that desires lead men to error. So according to you therefore the giving up of desire is the best means to escape from the grip of error.’

To this I answered, ‘Yes. Moreover if you have no desire you will not experience any resistance from the hands of God. A permanent peace will be established between your God and yourself, i.e., your interest will be blended with that of God. Your ideas will be T h e

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His ideas and vice versa, i.e. you will lose your own self in His self, as a river loses itself in the ocean.’ ‘But’ added I, ‘Why don't you believe that He is All-loving and All-merciful?’

‘Because’, said he, ‘if He be All-merciful, He cannot be Almighty. For since He is All-merciful, how can He see one of His creatures suffer. That is against His nature. The moment He sees one of His children suffering, He will at once relieve him for He is almighty. But unfortunately my dear sir, that is not the case, as we daily experience in the world.’

‘Why’ I replied, ‘I do not experience any such thing in the world. A man once got a big ulcer on his back, which unless operated, would surely end in his death. The man was helpless and poor. But a kind doctor, who lived next door, came to see him of his own accord, without asking any fee, and made the necessary operations. O! the agony which the man was in, at the time of the operation is beyond all descriptions. The fond grandmother of the man began to rail at the doctor for his inhumanity. Do you join with the old lady to call him inhuman, although the man got perfectly cured after a few days? So although the doctor was apparently cruel yet he was very merciful. Similarly the apparently cruel God is nothing but merciful. But perhaps you will say, a doctor having but limited power, cannot help the poor man in a better way, but as regards God the case is altogether different with Him. He could cure him if He simply willed, without giving him so much trouble, for by hypothesis He is almighty. To this my answer is, that He could cure him in no time, no doubt as well as He could have given him no ulcer at all, but since He had purposely given that to him, He did not like to cure him so soon in order to remind him of his past misconducts and thus to make him more careful about his future conduct.’

By this time the sun has lifted himself up a considerable way above the horizon, and has been sending over us some of his lusty rays through the branches of the trees to remind us that we should go home and take upon ourselves the shares of out daily duties. Thus we departed.

(Concluded.)

I never met the young man again. o

vvv A Vedic Rishi’s Testimony about the Self I have known that Great Being [that Cosmic Self]. It is beyond ignorance, and it is self-luminous like the sun. If a spiritual seeker knows that Self, he [automatically] goes beyond death. There is no other way of reaching the goal.

I know this Self, which never ages, which is eternal, and is also the Self of all. It is allpervasive, everywhere, and in every being. Those who know Brahman [the Self] declare that it is without birth [and also without death]. They [the knowers of God] say it is eternal.

—Shvetashvatara Upanishad, III.8, 21

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The Spiritual Universe of Sri Ramacharitamanas As Seen through Its Two Invocatory Verses A.P.N. PANKAJ

(Continued from the previous issue. . .)

Spiritual Philosophy in Invocation Through two Sanskrit shlokas of obeisance to Sri Sita and Rama respectively, Tulasi spells out the spiritual philosophy of Manasa which, in the entire magnum opus finds recurring echoes. If we say that the rest of Manasa is a bhasya on these two shlokas, we would not, in our humble opinion, be far off the mark. In fact, it is necessary for a discerning reader to understand and appreciate that an observation or a statement by our poet, if implicit, abstruse or indicative at that particular point, has its explanation or context in a subsequent passage, sometimes immediate or close enough and on other occasions, fairly, even pretty later.

Vice versa is also true, because the details or explanation of a later statement would have been provided earlier. There are thus strong backward and forward linkages in Manasa. In addition, there also are referential relationships of words, lines, meanings, purports and episodes used or occurring in the text which are to be found in various scriptures and works of classical literature, especially Sanskrit since the poet has promised his linkage with Puranas, Vedas, etc. Connoisseurs of letters, on recalling and relating them to Manasa– statements, will have their joy multiplied

manifold. This is in keeping with the poet’s concern for respect among the sages.

This notwithstanding, Manasa is essentially for lay readers, seekers of spiritual goal and simple unsophisticated devotees of Sri Sitaramachandra who do not understand Sanskrit. For them Manasa like the Bhagavad Gita, is holiest of the texts and its recitation, even if they do not comprehend its deeper meaning amounts to offering worship to their beloved personal god.

Sitam Natoham: Obeisance to Sita Udbhavasthiti samharakarinim klesaharinim Sarvashreyaskarim sitam natoham ramavallabham

In the above shloka Gosvamiji uses four epithets for Sita while offering his salutation to her: i) She is the cause of creation, continuance and annihilation ii) She is allayer of Klesas, obstacles and afflictions iii) She is the dispenser of all that is shreya–good iv) She is Ramavallabha, Rama’s beloved and one who loves Rama She is the Cause of creation, continuance and annihilation.

o The author is a devotee from Chandigarh and is known for his scholarly and insightful writings on spiritual matters.

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Rama who is Narayana, Vishnu, Hari, before assuming the form of a newborn baby, appears before Kausalya, his mother as Narayana with four arms and weapons, etc.

The gracious, compassionate friend of the distressed and the benefactor of Kausalya, ‘manifested’. The mother, on seeing him, was overjoyed. His charm was such as would capture the hearts of ascetics and entice their eyes. ‘It is a wonderful form’ she bemused.

His body was of the hue of clouds; in his four arms, he held his weapons (conch, disc, mace and lotus). He sported celestial ornaments and a garland of wild-flowers (vanamala), his eyes were large…17 If Rama is Narayana, Sita as his consort, is Narayani. She is thus the energy that creates, sustains and dissolves. Says Chandi,

S is sarvakarana, sarvatmaka (cause of all, comprising all akasharas, the undecaying letters) i is vakprasadakara nirmala (bestower of pure, limpid speech) t is dhanadhanyadi sampatprada, prasanna (gracious, bestower of wealth and property) a is akarsanatmaka sarvagata (drawer of devotees nearer, all pervading) Sita is thus shabda-brahmatmika vani, sarasvati, the spirit of the words of the Vedas.

She creates the speech, makes it undecaying and blesses it with articulation, expression and comprehension. Tulasi pays her obeisance seeking limpid intellect.

Srishthistitivinasanam saktibhute sanatani Gunashraye, gunamaye, narayani namostute

Janaka suta jaya janani janaki atisaya priya karunanidhana ki Take juka padakamala manavaun jasu kripa nirmala mati pavaun19

Obeisance to you, O Narayani! You are the veritable power of creation, sustenance and dissolution (but) you yourself are eternal. You are the substratum of (three) modes and also embody them.18

The name Sita is trivarnatmaka consisting of three syllables: Sita. According to Sitopanishad (1-2), s signifies amrita, ambrosia; sat, existence and truth; and prapti, one of the eight siddhis, supernatural accomplishments, which means power of going anywhere and achieving anything and also stands for moon. i symbolizes the unmanifest yogamaya of Vishnu who with the syllable va is the seed of this phenomenal world. She manifests herself with her moonlike lustrous appearance, bedecked with celestial ornaments jewels and garlands. ta is the symbol of Mahalakshmi who extends herself as the proliferated creation.

The forementioned syllables, according to the Akshamalikopanishad, symbolize the following: T h e

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As the gracious Lakshmi–Rama20, she bestows wealth and power and maintains the world. As Kali, she is the omnipresent controller of Death, the Great Annihilator.

Vibhishana, indeed, tells Ravana that Sita for the clan of Rakshasas, is Kalaratri, Night of Death (V.40;4) While powers and functions of these three goddesses are vested in and exercised by her when she intends to do so or when Sri Rama prompts her (a reference to sankhya school), she, like the Supreme Brahman who, having pervaded the universe, transcends the directions,21 is above and beyond these powers and functions. ‘All mayas’, says Tulasi, ‘are latent in her.’22 From a fragment of hers, countless Umas, Ramas and Brahmanis originate. She is the Adi Shakti, the Primeval force who with just a movement of her brow creates the world.23

Owing to her proximity to Rama, Sita is the source of bliss for the world. Of all embodied beings, she is the cause of origin, continuance and dissolution. She should be regarded as the mulaprakriti, primal nature and the supreme sovereign (Ishvari, possessed of six majesties).24 In the Adhyatma Ramayana (I.1.3-4) Sita herself tells Hanuman, ‘I am to be known as

mulaprakriti, the cause of creation, etc’. Sita is jagadisha maya, the illusive power of the lord of the universe (Manasa II. 126; ch). In fact, as Sri Krishna says, God descends on earth assisted by her (Gita IV-6); so when Rama has to come, Sita has necessarily to be there with him (Manasa I. 152) She is Kleshaharini, destroyer of obstacles and afflictions.

Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras (II.3) speaks of five kleshas, obstacles or afflictions thus25, i) Avidya—ignorance, (ii) asmita— egoism, (iii) raga—attachment (iv) dvesha —aversion and (v) abhinivesha—instinct of clinging to life.

These are obstacles in Samadhi. Ignorance, the first klesha, is the root cause of the other kleshas. ‘So long as avidya is not overcome, there will be life in samsara…

Though we do not remember our past lives, we can infer particulars about them from the tendencies of the present.26 Tulasi says By this one (avidya), jiva, as its helpless underling suffers in the ditch of transmigratory existence; it is evil and an embodiment of misery.’27

As long as we are not free from avidya, the other obstacles or afflictions will continue to trouble us.

(To be Continued. . .)

References 15. Ibid,I (i) Invocation Sloka 7

(ii) 14; 4 (iii) 14; 5 16. Ibid, I. 10; 2 17. Ibid I. 192; Ch1 CP Srimad Bhagavata X. 3.9-10; Adhyatma Ramayana I.3. 16-18, Anand Ramayana I.2-4 18. Pankaj, A.P.N. & Bhaana: Chandipathah (Sri Durgasaptasati XI. 11) (Delhi, Motilal Banarsi Dass, 2013) p.261 T h e

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19. Manasa I. 18; 4 20. Ibid (i) I. 289 (ii) VI 107; ch 21. Rigveda X. 90.1 22. Manasa II. 252; 2 23. Ibid, I. 148; 1-2 24. Sri Ramattaratapini Upanishad I. 3-4. Sitopanisad 2 (Isadivimsotharasatopanisada Mumbai, Nirnayasagara Mudranabayam, 1948) (Sanksrit)

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25. For detailed explanation & Commentary, see Prabhavananda, Swami. Patanjali Yoga Sutras (Madras, Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2004) p. 67-74 26. See Radhakrishnan, S. Indian Philosophy Vol. II. p. 365 27. Manasa III. 15; 3 2 0 1 4

Vedanta: The Root of American Transcendentalism PRAVRAJIKA VIRAJAPRANA

(Continued from the previous issue. . .)

Transcendentalism and Its Influence So having briefly looked at the early Vedic influence on the West, and in particular America, we’ll turn now to how this influence gave rise to the American Transcendentalist Movement, which had its heyday in the 1840s to 60s.

First of all, who were the transcendentalists? The transcendentalists were a group of refined, cultured, highly educated idealistic people, well read in world literature and philosophy, many of whom were multilingual with the ability to read primary source material in Latin, Greek, German, French, and Hebrew. They were the intelligentsia of New England, mostly men—though there were some women, three prominent women come to mind, the most outstanding being the brilliant, feisty Margaret Fuller—many if not all were Unitarian, most were Unitarian ministers, Harvard graduates, associated with the Harvard Divinity School. They were primarily located in Boston, Cambridge, and Concord, Massachusetts. Religious in outlook, though not in the conventional sense, they were profoundly thoughtful with inquiring, probing, yet poetical minds. They encouraged

free-thinking and critical reflection in religion during a time when dogma was dominant.

During Swami Vivekananda’s stay in some cities of Massachusetts where Emerson and others used to congregate, he met some of the later generation transcendentalists who were members of the ‘Free Religious Association’, an offshoot of this original group of transcendentalists. There was, for example, Frank Sanborn, the cousin of Kate Sanborn, who had met Swamiji on the train from Chicago to Boston. Frank Sanborn knew Emerson, Thoreau and Alcott personally.

In Mrs. Ole Bull’s Cambridge Conferences and parlor meetings, Swamiji also associated with liberal thinkers and divines, the likes of the Oriental philosopher Josiah Royce and psychologist William James both of Harvard (the latter being the author of the well-known Varieties of Religious Experiences, in which James quotes from Swamiji’s Raja Yoga). Swamiji so impressed these liberal sympathetic thinkers that he was offered the chair of philosophy at the Harvard Divinity School.

The original transcendentalist community was loosely knit—all of them were highly individualistic and intense—but they

A nun at the Vedanta Society of Northern California, San Francisco, USA, since 1972, Pravrajika Virajaprana is the editor and compiler of Photographs of Swami Vivekananda. She has contributed many thoughtprovoking articles for Vedanta Kesari and Prabuddha Bharata. This article is based on her talk on the same subject delivered at the Vedanta Society in March 2009. o T h e

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had common ideals. They were convinced that each person was a unique manifestation of the universal spirit and as such had a singular contribution to make to the whole.

The transcendentalists were never formalized as a group; they were friends dedicated to the Eastern spiritual ideals that they had discovered and loved. Because of their philosophy which emphasized the importance of acquiring knowledge beyond the senses, they were given the name The Transcendentalists by others. We will mention only some of them by name because our point is not to discuss individuals per se or the literary movement, but what they stood for and how Vedanta influenced their thought.

Besides Emerson, the most well-known are Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, William Ellery Channing, and some would include Walt Whitman. Most of this liberal group, and others not mentioned by name here, used to gather in Emerson’s home in Concord to discuss philosophy and religion during a time when there was a spiritual crisis facing the country. Materialism was on the rise; social ills, including slavery, plagued the society. These trends coupled with the conservative views of Puritan Christianity, especially with its heavy emphasis on sin and hell fire, flew in the face of everything these idealistic people believed in. There was a deep rift, a disillusionment, with the then narrow interpretation of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The transcendentalists were all high-minded earnest seekers of truth. Their sincerity would not allow them to accept what they found so appalling to the human spirit. So rebelling intellectually and spiritually against Protestant orthodoxy, they followed the light within, as they called it. Through their idealism, their pursuit of truth, unity, and cosmic T h e

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consciousness, a spiritual renaissance sprung up; New England flourished intellectually and spiritually, especially during the mid 19th century.

This renaissance nourished the gradual growth of American interest in Vedic literature and philosophy; it began to spread. The transcendentalists strongly believed in a super-sensual reality; that reality, they felt, was the core of man. His inner being was spiritual, not material. The deeply spiritual and intuitive thought of the Orient, especially Vedantic ideas, struck a responsive chord in them. They were exposed to many different schools of Oriental thought, but almost all of them gravitated toward Hindu thought.

Having discovered this mine of infinite knowledge and wisdom, they felt liberated from the constricted, dogmatic views of 19th century Christianity and eagerly pursued an intuitive inquiry into truth instead of a brain-based approach in their discussions, study, correspondence, lectures, and writings.

Thoreau’s motto for the transcendentalists was: Ex Oriente Lux, ‘The Light from the East’.

Transcendentalism: Some Basic Tenets The transcendentalists had a sense that there was no distinction between one’s own consciousness and cosmic consciousness.

They held that the universal Spirit dwells in everyone equally from the highest being to a grain of sand. From the universal spirit, flowed all truth, beauty, and goodness. Bronson Alcott expressed their view of the spirit as one, ‘whose center and circumference are one; omniscient, omnipotent, self-sustaining, uncontained, yet containing all things in the unbroken synthesis of its being.’ This idea was expressed beautifully in Emerson’s essay on the Over-soul, which in Vedantic language is the Paramatman. This essay is

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infused with the spirit of the Upanishads.

His thought masterfully reflects the Vedas; it’s apparent that he clearly grasped the lofty ideas and then proceeded to produce them with tremendous power. The inner light for the transcendentalists was the Atman, though most of them did not use that word to describe it. It is because of the Atman, or light of God, in every being, that all forms of life are worthy of respect and adorable. This they ascribed to wholeheartedly. For them God’s presence in man was related to the idea of God’s immanence and omnipresence.

Transcendentalism, however, was not pantheistic. Pantheism, as put forth in Western philosophy, states that the universe is God. In other words, He is identified with the various forces and workings of nature and therefore limited to his manifestation. Pantheism does not accept the transcendent aspect of God. The transcendentalists considered the world as a projection and symbol of the universal, infinite spirit. God is the cause and the universe is the effect. God is light; He is inseparable from the universe as a cause is inseparable from its effect. True knowledge of this divine light, according to them, is beyond sense perception or mental cognition. Swamiji accepted the transcendentalists’ view but took it one step further in his lecture on the ‘Cosmos.’ He says:

probably Emerson, Fuller, and Alcott. We do know that for the transcendentalists mystical consciousness, a non-empirical, non-rational mode of apprehending reality was their ideal, as is the central aim of the mystical experience in Vedanta, which is to have an immediate grasp of the undifferentiated unity of the universe as a whole.

The transcendentalists recognized the seriousness of their quest. Their disciplined search for life’s meaning and purpose and often their austere adherence to principles bear this out. They were uncompromising in their opinion that individuals and society should be governed not by utilitarian, materialistic criteria, but by spiritual laws transcending place and time. One should, they felt, always remain true to the light within oneself, which is none other than the Supreme Being. They were

Everything that you see, feel, or hear, the whole universe is His creation, or to be a little more accurate is His projection; or to be still more accurate is the Lord Himself.

Though many of the transcendentalists seem to take this monistic leap intellectually, it is impossible to say if any of them had a glimpse of this state. Emerson and Thoreau in particular were extremely private men.

It has been recorded, however, that some of them did have some kind of spiritual experience, especially, Thoreau, and most T h e

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Henry David Thoreau

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In considering how some of these essential ideas of the transcendentalists merged into mainstream American thought, and in some ways caused a shift, let’s focus on how Emerson and Thoreau in particular presented these Vedantic ideas by uniquely incorporating them into their own thinking.

What the transcendentalists had in common with Indian thought besides metaphysics was a moral philosophy in action. They accepted the unity of being, God’s presence in man, the harmony of religions, and universal moral law. They assimilated what they read, but they were not reductionist in their thinking.

They never tried to pare everything down to one concept or single idea, or single religion or philosophy, although both Alcott and Thoreau wanted to have a world bible that would include the truths and diversified insights of all great mystics and world religions. But that is different.

As Swamiji remarked at the Parliament of Religions, ‘Unity in variety is the plan of nature’. They had already come up with some of these ideas before being exposed to the Orient. Their thought already broad and comprehensive to begin with became more so through exposure to Asian philosophy. The transcendentalists did not advocate Oriental thought as a substitute for Western conceptions, but considered it as a complement. Neither Emerson nor Thoreau nor any of the other transcendentalists ever became ‘a Hindu’. They were uniquely American in every respect, but were able to tap the source of ancient knowledge, incorporate it into their philosophy, religious and cultural traditions, and then in

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their own way present it to other Americans and ultimately to other people throughout the world. In the final address at the Parliament of Religions Swamiji said [CW, 1.24]: Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid . . . But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

This is exactly what the transcendentalists were trying to do some fifty or sixty years before Swamiji said this. The works of Emerson and Thoreau contain an element beyond a mere literary or religious movement.

Their unique genius was to make the perennial immediate, to make the ancient wisdom relevant to their times, to make it current.

Emerson’s early interest in Hindu thought blossomed in the 1840s as did Thoreau’s. Emerson had offered the use of his personal library to Thoreau; this was an eyeopening experience for him. Emerson’s library was superior even to Harvard’s. Therein he made many discoveries, including various translations of Vedic and other Oriental

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scriptures, which he could not have found elsewhere; he read avidly, consuming this extensive Vedic collection that Emerson had acquired over the years. Thoreau found an idealistic philosophy of life that appealed to him and was more akin to his own than he was able to find in Western literature. So earnest was he that if he could not find an English translation of a particular work that he wanted to read in English, he would translate it from French or German.

Of all the transcendentalists, Thoreau loved solitude and contemplation perhaps more than any other. By nature, a methodical, deep thinker, he was also attracted to the intellectual disciplines of Jnana yoga. One of the most outstanding aspects of his character (and he had many) that makes him unique among the transcendentalists is his interest in the practice of yoga.

Thoreau was a man driven to act on his beliefs. His famous essay on Civil Disobedience which became the bible for Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King testifies to this fact.

He attempted at least for some time to realize his relation with ancient wisdom by practically following certain principles and disciplines.

He, like Emerson, was attracted to Hindu mysticism, especially to the idea that one could achieve higher consciousness through union with Brahman.

But perhaps the difference between the two men was that Thoreau was more inclined to undertake the disciplines necessary to, as he put it, ‘yoke the mind’. In the book American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions, the author comments: ‘Thoreau’s Walden is an experiment in literary religion made actual’.

And indeed he did practice yoga at Walden in his own way. He meditated, studied scriptures, regulated his diet, and as he would say, ‘went down to the pond every morning like a Hindu at Benares for morning ablutions’.

He reported that he spent a whole morning sitting in his doorway utterly unconscious of the passage of time. He wrote in his journal that he had been, ‘expanded and infinitely and divinely related for a brief season’. Describing a yogin who is absorbed in contemplation, he wrote to a friend that such a person was, ‘Free in this world, as the birds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chains.’

And then he added, ‘To some extent, at rare intervals, even I am a yogi.’

(To be Continued . . . )

He [Swami Vivekananda] came over to Paris with Mr. Leggett in August.

There, my sister and I stayed at the Holland House, and the Swami and Mr. Leggett stayed at a different hotel; but we saw them every day. At that time Mr. leggett had a courier who always called Swami ‘Mon Prince!’ And Swami said to him, ‘But I am not a prince. I am a Hindu monk.’ The courier answered, ‘You may call yourself that, but I am used to dealing with Princes, and I know one when I see one.’ His dignity impressed everyone. Yet, when someone once said to him, ‘You are so dignified, Swami’, he replied, ‘It isn't me, it's my walk.’

—Reminiscences of Vivekananda, p.230-31

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Compilation

Call to the Youth of India SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

(Continued from the previous issue. . .)

Swami Vivekananda’s ideas on India and his call to the youth of India are spread across his various talks, writings, interviews and letters. The core of his ideas was written in his letters to his disciples and brother-disciples in India, and in the series of talks that he gave when he reached India.

Here is a selection from his talks given at Colombo, Kumbhakonam, Madras (Chennai) and Lahore, which covers almost all the important ideas with regard to India, her history, and the task before the Indian youth. The following compilation, made by Gokul Muthu of Bangalore, can be an appetizer to help the youth get an overview of Swamiji’s ideas and encourage them to probe further. References and pointers for further reading are given at the end.

All excerpts are from the section Lectures from Colombo to Almora, which can be found in the third volume of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. This section is also available as a separate book by the same title, published by Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata.

Principles of Hinduism There are certain great principles in which, I think, we—whether Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Shâktas, or Gânapatyas, whether belonging to the ancient Vedantists or the modern ones, whether belonging to the old rigid sects or the modern reformed ones—are all one, and whoever calls himself a Hindu, believes in these principles. Of course there is a difference in the interpretation, in the explanation of these principles, and that difference should be there, and it should be allowed, for our standard is not to bind every man down to our position. It would be a sin to force every man to work out our own interpretation of things, and to live by our own methods.12 1. Vedas Perhaps all who are here will agree on the first point that we believe the Vedas to be the eternal teachings of the secrets of religion.

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We all believe that this holy literature is without beginning and without end, coeval with nature, which is without beginning and without end; and that all our religious differences, all our religious struggles must end when we stand in the presence of that holy book; we are all agreed that this is the last court of appeal in all our spiritual differences.

We may take different points of view as to what the Vedas are. There may be one sect which regards one portion as more sacred than another, but that matters little so long as we say that we are all brothers in the Vedas, that out of these venerable, eternal, marvellous books has come everything that we possess today, good, holy, and pure. Well, therefore, if we believe in all this, let this principle first of all be preached broadcast throughout the length and breadth of the land. If this be true, let the Vedas have that prominence which they always deserve, and which we all believe in.13 2. God The second point we all believe in is God, the creating, the preserving power of the whole universe, and unto whom it periodically returns to come out at other periods and manifest this wonderful phenomenon, called the universe. We may differ as to our conception of God. One may believe in a God who is entirely personal, another may believe in a God who is personal and yet not human, and yet another may believe in a God who is entirely impersonal, and all may get their support from the Vedas. Still we are all believers in God; that is to say, that man who does not believe in a most marvellous Infinite Power from which everything has come, in which everything lives, and to which everything must in the end return, cannot be called a Hindu. If that be so, let us try to preach that idea all over the land. Preach whatever T h e

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conception you have to give, there is no difference, we are not going to fight over it, but preach God; that is all we want. One idea may be better than another, but, mind you, not one of them is bad. One is good, another is better, and again another may be the best, but the word bad does not enter the category of our religion. Therefore, may the Lord bless them all who preach the name of God in whatever form they like! The more He is preached, the better for this race. Let our children be brought up in this idea, let this idea enter the homes of the poorest and the lowest, as well as of the richest and the highest—the idea of the name of God.14 3. World The third idea that I will present before you is that, unlike all other races of the world, we do not believe that this world was created only so many thousand years ago, and is going to be destroyed eternally on a certain day. Nor do we believe that the human soul has been created along with this universe just out of nothing. Here is another point I think we are all able to agree upon. We believe in nature being without beginning and without end; only at psychological periods this gross material of the outer universe goes back to its finer state, thus to remain for a certain period, again to be projected outside to manifest all this infinite panorama we call nature. This wavelike motion was going on even before time began, through eternity, and will remain for an infinite period of time.15 4. Man Next, all Hindus believe that man is not only a gross material body; not only that within this there is the finer body, the mind, but there is something yet greater—for the body changes and so does the mind—

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something beyond, the Atman—I cannot translate the word to you for any translation will be wrong—that there is something beyond even this fine body, which is the Atman of man, which has neither beginning nor end, which knows not what death is. And then this peculiar idea, different from that of all other races of men, that this Atman inhabits body after body until there is no more interest for it to continue to do so, and it becomes free, not to be born again, I refer to the theory of Samsara and the theory of eternal souls taught by our Shastras. This is another point where we all agree, whatever sect we may belong to. There may be differences as to the relation between the soul and God. According to one sect the soul may be eternally different from God, according to another it may be a spark of that infinite fire, yet again according to others it may be one with that Infinite. It does not matter what our interpretation is, so long as we hold on to the one basic belief that the soul is infinite, that this soul was never created, and therefore will never die, that it had to pass and evolve into various bodies, till it attained perfection in the human one—in that we are all agreed.16 5. Eternal Purity of Atman And then comes the most differentiating, the grandest, and the most wonderful discovery in the realms of spirituality that has ever been made. Some of you, perhaps, who have been studying Western thought, may have observed already that there is another radical difference severing at one stroke all that is Western from all that is Eastern. It is this that we hold, whether we are Shâktas, Sauras, or Vaishnavas, even whether we are Bauddhas or Jainas, we all hold in India that the soul is by its nature pure and perfect, infinite in power and blessed. Only, according to the dualist, T h e

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this natural blissfulness of the soul has become contracted by past bad work, and through the grace of God it is again going to open out and show its perfection; while according to the monist, even this idea of contraction is a partial mistake, it is the veil of Maya that causes us to think the soul has lost its powers, but the powers are there fully manifest.17 This is one great point to understand, and, my friends, my brethren, let me tell you, this is the one point we shall have to insist upon in the future. For I am firmly convinced, and I beg you to understand this one fact—no good comes out of the man who day and night thinks he is nobody.18 . . . We are the children of the Almighty, we are sparks of the infinite, divine fire. How can we be nothings? We are everything, ready to do everything, we can do everything, and man must do everything.

This faith in themselves was in the hearts of our ancestors, this faith in themselves was the motive power that pushed them forward and forward in the march of civilisation; and if there has been degeneration, if there has been defect, mark my words, you will find that degradation to have started on the day our people lost this faith in themselves.

Losing faith in one’s self means losing faith in God. Do you believe in that infinite, good Providence working in and through you?

If you believe that this Omnipresent One, the Antaryâmin, is present in every atom, is through and through, Ota-prota, as the Sanskrit word goes, penetrating your body, mind and soul, how can you lose heart? I may be a little bubble of water, and you may be a mountainhigh wave. Never mind! The infinite ocean is the background of me as well as of you. Mine also is that infinite ocean of life, of power, of spirituality, as well as yours. I am already joined—from my very birth, from the very fact of my life—I am in Yoga with that infinite life

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and infinite goodness and infinite power, as you are, mountain-high though you may be.

Therefore, my brethren, teach this life-saving, great, ennobling, grand doctrine to your children, even from their very birth.19 India’s Lessons on Religion 1. Principles vs. Personality Excepting our own almost all the other great religions in the world are inevitably connected with the life or lives of one or more of their founders. All their theories, their teachings, their doctrines, and their ethics are built round the life of a personal founder, from whom they get their sanction, their authority, and their power; and strangely enough, upon the historicity of the founder’s life is built, as it were, all the fabric of such religions. If there is one blow dealt to the historicity of that life, as has been the case in modern times with the lives of almost all the so-called founders of religion—we know that half of the details of such lives is not now seriously believed in, and that the other half is seriously doubted—if this becomes the case, if that rock of historicity, as they pretend to call it, is shaken and shattered, the whole building tumbles down, broken absolutely, never to regain its lost status.20 Every one of the great religions in the world excepting our own, is built upon such historical characters; but ours rests upon principles. There is no man or woman who can claim to have created the Vedas. They are the embodiment of eternal principles; sages discovered them; and now and then the names of these sages are mentioned—just their names; we do not even know who or what they were. In many cases we do not know who their fathers were, and almost in every case we do not know when and where they were born.

But what cared they, these sages, for their T h e

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names? They were the preachers of principles, and they themselves, so far as they went, tried to become illustrations of the principles they preached.21 At the same time, just as our God is an Impersonal and yet a Personal God, so is our religion a most intensely impersonal one—a religion based upon principles—and yet with an infinite scope for the play of persons; for what religion gives you more Incarnations, more prophets and seers, and still waits for infinitely more? The Bhagavata says that Incarnations are infinite, leaving ample scope for as many as you like to come. Therefore if any one or more of these persons in India’s religious history, any one or more of these Incarnations, and any one or more of our prophets proved not to have been historical, it does not injure our religion at all; even then it remains firm as ever, because it is based upon principles, and not upon persons. It is in vain we try to gather all the peoples of the world around a single personality. It is difficult to make them gather together even round eternal and universal principles. If it ever becomes possible to bring the largest portion of humanity to one way of thinking in regard to religion, mark you, it must be always through principles and not through persons. Yet as I have said, our religion has ample scope for the authority and influence of persons. There is that most wonderful theory of Ishta which gives you the fullest and the freest choice possible among these great religious personalities. You may take up any one of the prophets or teachers as your guide and the object of your special adoration; you are even allowed to think that he whom you have chosen is the greatest of the prophets, greatest of all the Avatâras; there is no harm in that, but you must keep to a firm background of eternally true principles. The strange fact

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here is that the power of our Incarnations has been holding good with us only so far as they are illustrations of the principles in the Vedas.

The glory of Shri Krishna is that he has been the best preacher of our eternal religion of principles and the best commentator on the Vedanta that ever lived in India.22 2. Rationality of Religion The second claim of the Vedanta upon the attention of the world is that, of all the scriptures in the world, it is the one scripture the teaching of which is in entire harmony with the results that have been attained by the modern scientific investigations of external nature.23. . . It seems clear that the conclusions of modern materialistic science can be acceptable, harmoniously with their religion, only to the Vedantins or Hindus as they are called. It seems clear that modern materialism can hold its own and at the same time approach spirituality by taking up the conclusions of the Vedanta. It seems to us, and to all who care to know, that the conclusions of modern science are the very conclusions the Vedanta reached ages ago; only, in modern science they are written in the language of matter. This then is another claim of the Vedanta upon modern Western minds, its rationality, the wonderful rationalism of the Vedanta.24 3. Acceptance of Religious Diversity India alone was to be, of all lands, the land of toleration and of spirituality; and therefore the fight between tribes and their gods did not long take place

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here. For one of the greatest sages that was ever born found out here in India even at that distant time, which history cannot reach, and into whose gloom even tradition itself dares not peep — in that distant time the sage arose and declared, EH§$ gX² {dàm ~hþYm dX{ÝV— ‘He who exists is one; the sages call Him variously.’ This is one of the most memorable sentences that was ever uttered, one of the grandest truths that was ever discovered.

And for us Hindus this truth has been the very backbone of our national existence. For throughout the vistas of the centuries of our national life, this one idea—EH§$ gX² {dàm ~hþYm

dX{ÝV—comes down, gaining in volume and in fullness till it has permeated the whole of our national existence, till it has mingled in our blood, and has become one with us. We live that grand truth in every vein, and our country has become the glorious land of religious toleration.25 The world is waiting for this grand idea of universal toleration. It will be a great acquisition to civilisation. Nay, no civilisation can long exist unless this idea enters into it. No civilisation can grow unless fanatics, bloodshed, and brutality stop. No civilisation can begin to lift up its head until we look charitably upon one another; and the first step towards that much-needed charity is to look charitably and kindly upon the religious convictions of others. Nay more, to understand that not only should we be charitable, but positively helpful to each other, however different our religious ideas and convictions may be. And that is exactly what we do in India as I have just related to you.26

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4. Spiritual Oneness, the Rationale of all Ethics The other great idea that the world wants from us today, . . . is that eternal grand idea of the spiritual oneness of the whole universe. I need not tell you today, ... how the modern researches of the West have demonstrated through physical means the oneness and the solidarity of the whole universe; how, physically speaking, you and I, the sun, moon, and stars are but little waves or wavelets in the midst of an infinite ocean of matter; how Indian psychology demonstrated ages ago that, similarly, both body and mind are but mere names or little wavelets in the ocean of matter, the Samashti; and how, going one step further, it is also shown in the Vedanta that behind that idea of the unity of the whole show, the real Soul is one. There is but one Soul throughout the universe, all is but One Existence. . . . It is the one great life-giving idea which the world wants from us today, and which the mute masses of India want for their uplifting, for none can regenerate this land of ours without the practical application and effective operation of this ideal of the oneness of things.27 The rational West is earnestly bent upon seeking out the rationality, the raison d’ être of all its philosophy and its ethics; and you all know well that ethics cannot be derived

from the mere sanction of any personage, however great and divine he may have been.

Such an explanation of the authority of ethics appeals no more to the highest of the world’s thinkers; they want something more than human sanction for ethical and moral codes to be binding, they want some eternal principle of truth as the sanction of ethics. And where is that eternal sanction to be found except in the only Infinite Reality that exists in you and in me and in all, in the Self, in the Soul?

The infinite oneness of the Soul is the eternal sanction of all morality, that you and I are not only brothers—every literature voicing man’s struggle towards freedom has preached that for you—but that you and I are really one.

This is the dictate of Indian philosophy. This oneness is the rationale of all ethics and all spirituality.28 Let every man and woman and child, without respect of caste or birth, weakness or strength, hear and learn that behind the strong and the weak, behind the high and the low, behind every one, there is that Infinite Soul, assuring the infinite possibility and the infinite capacity of all to become great and good. Let us proclaim to every soul: C{Îmð>V OmJ«V àmß` dam{Þ~moYV— Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached. Arise, awake! Awake from this hypnotism of weakness.

(To be continued . . .)

References 12. CW, III-372 13. CW, III-372 14. CW, III-373

15. CW, III-374 16. CW, III-374 17. CW, III-375

18. CW, III-375 19. CW, III-376 20. CW, III-182

21. CW, III-183 22. CW, III-183 23. CW, III-184

24. CW, III-185 25. CW, III-186 26. CW, III-187

27. CW, III-188 28. CW, III-189 29. CW, III-193

He who hates no creature, and is friendly and compassionate towards all, who is free from the feelings of ‘I and mine’, even-minded in pain and pleasure, forbearing, ever content, steady in meditation, self-controlled, and possessed of firm conviction, with mind and intellect fixed on Me—he who is thus devoted to Me, is dear to Me. —Srimad Bhagavad Gita, XII, 13-14 T h e

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True Education Liberates Lessons from Sri Ramakrishna’s Upbringing SWAMI SANDARSHANANANDA

Education is Manifestation of Perfection ‘You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant,’1 said Swami Vivekananda.

By that the Swami meant a child educates itself, and a teacher oversees its progress. Given the conditions favourable for a child’s growth, it grows like a plant grows spontaneously. So, any kind of education that does not assist it to grow up to behave rationally and independently is detrimental to a child. Its natural learner aptitude demands inspiration but brooks no unwarranted interference. Its intrinsic energy thus works in a typical fashion, independent of an agent.

Accordingly, it behoves a teacher to have a clear conception regarding the peculiarity of a child before he or she embarks on its teaching. The fact that, defying the prevalent norms without and being in step with the norms within, a child does well and emerges successful is difficult to realize and accept.

But, one, to whom the un-manifest world of a child is discernible, knows the art and joy of its teaching well, similar to a gardener who feels the exaltation of nurturing a

sapling to its healthy development. The task of teaching a child isn’t simple but requires intricate qualities such as intuition, patience, perseverance and, most of all, unqualified affection and continuous attention. Although it extracts a lot of energy and labour, teaching a kid is in the end as much rewarding as it is challenging in the beginning.

A child needs freedom to think and act as learner. It is ‘like an infinite spring, coiled up in a small box’ which ‘is trying to unfold itself’.

It looks to someone reliable alongside who could appreciate and fulfill its need. The role of a teacher, in this respect, is akin, as it were, to the role of a mine sweeper, removing the thwarting impediments, and thereby making its advances hassle free. In a word, the duty of a teacher is to create a congenial condition in which a child would awaken its latent power, and would freely unfold its hidden acumen unhindered by anything.

The Right Approach The fundamental principle basing which Vivekananda shapes his thesis on education is: ‘Knowledge is inherent in us; no knowledge comes from outside.’2 If knowledge denies all externality, what purpose, then, the process of learning has in the scheme of study?

Vivekananda makes it clear, saying that what a child learns, strictly speaking, is what it ‘unveils’ or ‘discovers’ within—by dint of

o The author is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order at its Narendrapur Centre in West Bengal.

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suggestion it receives from without. He argues the correct approach of an external teacher is to offer the suggestion ‘which rouses the internal teacher (of a child) to work to understand things’.3 That is why, when one thinks one is teaching and imposes oneself on a child one goes against its grain and spoils its true education. What then a teacher should do primarily? A teacher ought to build confidence in it, for, unless a child acquires faith in himself, or, in other words, possesses Shraddha, it isn’t likely to do much in life. In fact, when Shraddha enters one’s heart one almost wins the battle against ignorance, and one’s education eventually becomes ‘characterbuilding’ and ‘man-making’ as well, as Vivekananda has propounded. An unwavering intellect indisputably absorbs that what it determines as truth. ‘That steadfast alligence to truth is called Shraddha’—shrat satyam tat asyat dhiyate iti shraddha (Yaksha).

Parents—the Best Teacher of a Child A child has a tendency to depend upon the grown-ups, thinking itself weak and limited because of its little physical stature and strength. It isn’t conscious of its inner power at the outset. A teacher has to act responsibly to destroy this preconceived idea of a child and bring it to believe firmly that its physical strength and size matter little since it has an enormous strength of mind by means of which it could do anything what it would wish to do.

Once it gets the proof of it, doing something creative on its own, it starts shedding its sense of dependence and does excellently. Its faith in its own self takes the driving seat to reach the destination it sets for itself.

The Self is an infinite reservoir of power.

It is there in everyone, whether puny or powerful, like, the infinite ocean exists behind T h e

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both the bubble and the mountain-high wave.

Vivekananda urges: The infinite ocean is the background of me as well as you. Mine also is that infinite ocean of life, of power, of spirituality as well as yours.

Therefore, my brethren, teach this life-saving, great, ennobling, grand doctrine to your children even from the very birth.’4

A parent is the first teacher of his child.

As the teacher, he therefore has a great responsibility in bringing up a child. Those who left their marks on earth by genius amply attest to this truth. Their noble lives and contributions are treasured by humanity.

Kshudiram: An Exemplary Parent To offer a concrete example of how a wise parent raises his child and to what consequences, one could very well dwell on Kshudiram Chattopadhya, father of Sri Ramakrishna. He dexterously handled his child to promote its originality. While bringing up his child Gadadhar (later Ramakrishna) Kshudiram was relentlessly alert that Gada-

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dhar’s pristine potential did not face any problem in the process of its manifestation.

The fact that Kshudiram foresaw his son’s extraordinary future also went to endorsing his high capability of grooming his child at its budding stage. For, it was the prime factor that had eventually ascertained the pattern of his dealings with Ramakrishna in childhood.

To others, the child might have appeared wayward by the seemingly bizarre behaviour.

But to the father, instead, everything his child did had struck him deeply meaningful. Says Sri Ramakrishna’s biography: Kshudiram noticed that the self-willed boy would sometimes go with his friends to play outside the village rather than going to school, or he would attend an open-air dramatic performance nearby without first asking permission. But Kshudiram did not scold the boy as other parents would have; he thought the boy’s willfulness would improve his life in the future.

There was sufficient reason for him to think this.

Whenever Gadadhar began anything, he would not stop till it was finished; he never tried to conceal his actions by lying and his loving heart never induced him to harm anyone.5

Having favourable conditions from his parent in his early life and growing normally according to his natural inclinations, the distance the self-taught Ramakrishna traversed beginning from childhood to adulthood

through a born free boyhood had equipped him with all the startling qualities of an unparalleled preceptor under whose tutelage were produced stalwarts that had the capacity even to resurrect the morally, aesthetically, intellectually and spiritually dead.

Since he observed his son’s activities were not incompatible with what he was destined to become, Kshudiram was the least worried of all about the unusual things Gadadhar did. Gadadhar learnt more from studying man and nature than from formal schooling. His keen power of observation endowed him with the knowledge and skills of many things which other children were lacking. He applied them in his creative faculty and reaped the best in acting, painting, clay modelling, reciting, singing and in other artistic traits, for the learning of which he would not have to go to any teachers as such.

His boyhood is full of intriguing accounts of its facile expression: Observing Gadadhar’s acting talent, one day some of his friends proposed that they form a yatra (country drama) group and asked him to train them.6

Gadadhar agreed and ‘under his direction the boys quickly learned their roles and memorized the songs of the dramas’.

When they presented the same before the public, their performances ‘resounded’

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through the audiences. Gadadhar once went to visit his sister and had noticed that his sister Sarvamangala would ‘cheerfully’ serve ‘her husband’. The scene impressed him deeply and subsequently inspired him to reproduce it in a painting.

Swami Saradananda says: ‘We heard that members of the family were surprised to see how accurate the portrait was.’7 Similarly, he ‘became expert in making clay-images of gods and goddesses.’ He would make them to worship along with his friends.

Shaping of Gadadhar into a Perfect Teacher Kshudiram’s far-sightedness, pure character and ability to make a correct assessment regarding the possibilities in a child could have, indubitably, placed him among the exceptional teachers across the world. His innocuous training and personal examples had made a tremendous impact on the child and helped it become a world teacher later. Kshudiram inspired him as his pathfinder. He learnt to value the cardinal qualities of his personality most, and forthwith imbibe those qualities at that unripe age. He mastered the ability to discriminate between what is apparently impressive but really counter productive and vice versa, to which his father always consciously directed his efforts. And abandoning the will for acquiring academic proficiency and for earning money by its aid, he displayed his keen power of discrimination he cultivated at the time.

Presumably, ‘it did not take him long to understand that people seek a formal education and advanced degrees in order to make money’ which he did not want like others. Says Sri Ramakrishna’s biography: He also noticed that although people enjoyed worldly pleasures with their hard-earned money, they were not necessarily endowed T h e

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with truthfulness, strength of character and righteousness as his father had been. . . So it [was] no wonder that Gadadhar became indifferent to a mere money-making education.

He decided to be content with ‘plain food and clothing’ as his father had been; he realized that the prime goal of human life is to attain love for God.8

Gadadhar’s artistic faculty in boyhood had a direct bearing on his adulthood as well as in his more mature years. It made his spiritual contribution to the world exorbitantly rich and epitomized him as ‘the Master’.

Vivekananda remarked: ‘The artistic faculty was highly developed in Sri Ramakrishna (Gadadhar), and he used to say that without this faculty none could be truly spiritual.’9 Not only that, he had even said, ‘I learned how to reason scientifically from Sri Ramakrishna.’10 Interestingly, likewise, the celebrated dramatist of Bengal Girish Chandra Ghosh, who was also a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, once said, ‘I learned how to write drama and how to act from Sri Ramakrishna.’ 11 The plays he wrote after meeting Sri Ramakrishna were full of Sri Ramakrishna’s ideas such as the harmony of religions, love of God, glory of renunciation, directions for spiritual practices and other gems from his extraordinary

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life and teachings. He prepared the drama Vilwamangal Thakur at Sri Ramakrishna’s behest after he heard its story from him. Sri Ramakrishna even showed him actually performing how an important character of it should be presented.12 As the Divine Play describes, Gadadhar had a highly developed interest in religion, but he did not have much use for book learning. Observing that pandits and teachers with advanced degrees had cravings for money and worldly enjoyments, he did not see any value in having an education like theirs.

Gadadhar came to this conclusion by using his keen insight first to ascertain the motive behind people’s actions, and then to evaluate their behaviour against the standards of his father’s renunciation, devotion, truthfulness, ethical conduct and righteousness.’13

The same teacher trait as his father’s was in full bloom in Sri Ramakrishna. He was never found to have interfered with the fundamental character of anyone whom he chose to teach and guide. Vivekananda himself said, ‘he would keep us under control by carefully observing even the minute details of our life.’14 That Sri Ramakrishna ‘never destroyed single man’s special inclinations’15 was also noticeable to him. He ‘lifted up’ any ‘degraded’ person by giving ‘words of hope and encouragement’ intimately.

Sri Ramakrishna inspired Vivekananda as an ideal teacher. This was expressly declared by Vivekananda. He said: It only needed the meeting with a great teacher— Ramakrishna Paramahamsa—to kindle in me the final determination to follow the path he himself had trod, as in him I found my highest ideal realized.16

In order to establish the fact that Sri Ramakrishna was an extraordinary teacher and that he was head and shoulder above other T h e

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excellent teachers of the world, Vivekananda explained in a speech in the West: I could not believe my own ears when I heard Western people talking so much of consciousness! Consciousness? What does consciousness matter! Why, it is nothing compared with the unfathomable depths of the subconscious and the heights of the superconscious! In this I could never be misled, for had I not seen Ramakrishna Paramhamsa gather in ten minutes, from a man’s subconscious mind, the whole of his past, and determine from that his future and his powers?17

Ordinary teachers jump into the bandwagon and move in a rut. But genuine teachers are off-beat—they travel alone following a strange road and bring out the pearls of mankind. Sri Ramakrishna was such a teacher, of course.

Concentration—the Core of Education In Vivekananda’s perception, a teacher has only to do so much for children as the children might learn to apply their intellect to proper use of hands, legs, ears and eyes.

The concept is equally applicable to all sections of children in society, whether privileged or underprivileged. But, to him ‘concentration’ is the ‘only method by which to attain knowledge’. It is the only way by which ‘nervous association of ideas’ takes place.

Hence, concentration ought to be the main component of child education. This is one thing which is applicable from a child ‘to the highest yogi’ so far as acquiring knowledge is concerned. If a child knows how to concentrate the powers of mind and focus on its study it becomes knowledgeable easily.

A contemplative child thus growing enters youth when it is absolutely necessary that one learns how to discriminate between facts.

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With a trained mind alone one could collect the needed facts at will to one’s own benefit.

A concentrated mind turns back on itself and tames all evil tendencies within, which distract one out of the track of the real learning, and brings them under control.

Vivekananda says: The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.18

But concentration of mind is not achieved in a trice. If Shraddha is the firm ground on which one has to stand chastity is the safety belt one should wear and attach to the rope discrimination while climbing the mountain of concentration in order to touch its summit.

‘Continence gives wonderful control’ and power to that climber.

Education emancipates—sa vidya ya vimuktaye—and concentration evidently plays a pivotal role in it. And to take education forward is to carry out a sustained search for the knowledge of truth. The intensity of this search increases as the depth of concentration of mind increases—the more mind gets concentrated the more it gets sharpened and pierces mystery to fetch the glow of wisdom.

Ignorance (avidya) mystifies one with a deep sense of opposites (dvandvas) and doesn’t let one to realize the ultimate Truth or to be established in that knowledge (vidya) which liberates one for good.

So, the aim of all education is to annihilate ingrained ignorance and to make the

knowledge of the Self shine forth. Thus, with the dawning of the wisdom of the Self, one becomes absolutely free from all worldly afflictions born of ignorance.

Conclusion Vivekananda himself is perfect example of such a one. Unlike Sri Ramakrishna, he was formally well educated in schools and colleges of British India. He came in touch with many modern minds but was not swept away by their ideas. His father kindled in him the spirit of true education, awakening the teacher in him in his childhood who led him in search of truth and placed him on the highest pedestal of knowledge. He discovered education as a panacea consequently. His academic studies helped him to ask questions, but never to remain complacent. He proves a truly educated loves for love’s sake and inspires others to love and serve without selfish motives.

Vivekananda expected that our education would take a fresh turn attaching primacy to its essential purpose. True education being manifestation of inner perfection brings out the spiritual nature of man, endowing him with divine qualities, such as non-violence, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, tranquillity, aversion to fault finding, kindness to living beings, freedom from covetousness, modesty and steadiness.

And a free people with no impure resolves and selfish motives would form a happy nation. o

References 1. CW, 5:410 2. CW, 1:28 3. CW, 2:239 4. CW, 3:376 5. Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play by Swami Saradananda (Tr. By Swami Chetanananda), Vedanta Society of St. Louis, pp.118 7. Ibid, pp.142 8. Ibid, pp.135-36 9. CW, 5:259 10. Girish Chandra Ghosh by Swami 6. Ibid, pp.141 Chetanananda, Advaita Ashrama, pp.226 11. Ibid, pp.225 12. Ibid, pp.225-26 13. Sri Ramakrishna and 14. Swami Vivekananda on Himself, Advaita Ashrama, pp.24 15. Ibid, pp.60 His Divine Play, pp.131 16. Ibid, pp.9 17. Ibid, pp59-60 18. CW, I:130 T h e

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Annual Report

Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission

Synopsis of the Governing Body Report for 2012-13 The 104th Annual General Meeting of the Ramakrishna Mission was held at Belur Math on Sunday, the 15th December 2013 at 3.30 p.m. Following is the synopsis of the annual report presented at the meeting which was attended by monastic and lay members. The meeting also included presentation of the Report on the Commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.

Bhagwan Mahaveer Foundation, Chennai, selected our Itanagar hospital for the 15th Mahaveer Award for excellence in the sphere of community and social service. Chhattisgarh Government conferred the Dr Bhanwar Singh Porte Memorial Award for Tribal Service for the year 2012, on our Narainpur centre.

During the year under review, the Mission started a New centre at Kothar, Odisha. Outside India, New Mission centres were started at Kathmandu in Nepal and at Bagerhat and Mymensingh, in Bangladesh. A branch centre of Ramakrishna Math was started at Comilla, Bangladesh and a branch centre of both Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission was started at Jessore, Bangladesh. A new Mission sub-centre of Nadi (Fiji) Ashrama was started at Suva, Fiji.

In educational field, the following new developments deserve special mention: (i) Narendrapur College was awarded ‘A’ grade (the highest grade) by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC); (ii) the Polytechnic College of Chennai Students’ Home was conferred the NIQR-TVN Kidao Outstanding Educational Institution Award by the National Institution for Quality and T h e

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Reliability (NIQR), Chennai; (iii) Vivekananda Centenary College of Rahara started MSc course in Botany affiliated to West Bengal State University, Barasat.

In medical field, the following new developments deserve special mention: (i) Inauguration of Speech Therapy Unit and addition of Optical Coherence Tomograph (OCT) Machine, Neonatal Bubble CPAP System, Automatic Peritoneal Dialysis Machine, etc in Lucknow hospital; (ii) Starting of a High Dependency Unit with 8 beds, which is similar to Intensive Care Unit (ICU), at Varanasi Home of Service; (iii) Addition of X-ray, Ultrasonography and Pathology departments to the dispensary of Sargachhi centre; (iv) Addition of I-Stat analyzer and Bilicheck system to the laboratory, Arthroscope and Laparoscope equipment to the operation theatre of our Itanagar hospital.

In rural development field, the following new projects deserve special mention: (i) Narainpur centre commenced seven trades in its Industrial Training Institute (ITI), constructed 20 check dams, dug 20 bore wells, etc.; (ii) Sargachhi centre started a Skill Development Institute (SDI) to offer training in various courses approved by the National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT),

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Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt. of India.

Under the Math, the following new projects deserve special mention: (i) Inauguration of an exhibition ‘Sri Ramakrishna Divya Lila Pradarshani at Balaram Mandir, Kolkata; (ii) Addition of a Fully Automatic Biochemistry Analyzer and a Dental Chair by Pune Math to its Clinic; (iii) A workshop for village tribals by Ponnampet centre.

Outside India, the following new developments deserve special mention: (i) Two new buildings, namely Boys’ Home Study Hall and Sri Sarada Nursery School Building, at the Batticaloa sub-centre of Colombo (Sri Lanka) Mission; (ii) Baliati centre in Bangladesh constructed Monks’ Quarters and Dispensary building; (iii) Inauguration of newly constructed shrine-chapel at Providence (USA) centre.

During the year, the Mission and Math undertook several relief and rehabilitation programmes in different parts of the country

involving an expenditure of Rs. 2.26 crore, benefiting 4.94 lakh people belonging to around 1 lakh families in 415 villages.

Welfare work was done by way of providing scholarships to poor students, pecuniary help to old, sick and destitute people, etc., (about 36.30 lakh beneficiaries); the expenditure incurred was Rs. 11.55 crore.

Medical service was rendered to more than 80.20 lakh people through 15 hospitals, 125 dispensaries, 60 mobile medical units and 953 medical camps; the expenditure incurred was Rs. 146.37 crore.

Nearly 3.29 lakh students were studying in our educational institutions from kindergarten to university level, non-formal education centres, night schools, coaching classes, etc. A sum of Rs.251.88 crore was spent on educational work.

A number of rural and tribal development projects were undertaken with a total expenditure of Rs. 41.26 crore benefiting about 42.67 lakh rural people.

Commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda In commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, the inaugural function of Swamiji’s 150th birth anniversary celebration was organized by Ministry of Culture, Government of India, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, on 12 January 2013. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) awarded Vivekananda School of Excellence Awards to 40 schools, including six of our schools affiliated to CBSE. The fouryear-long service programmes started in different parts of the country in 2010 continued. A sum of Rs. 51.77 crore was spent on these central-government-aided service projects from 08.10.2010 to 30.06.2013.

A brief report of the Central-Government-grant-aided service projects from 08.10.2010 to 31.08.2012 Commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda A brief progress report of the Central-Governmentgrant-aided service projects from 08.10.2010 to 30.06.2013 T h e

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1. Print Media Project : Printed 11.97 lakh copies of books on Swamiji's life and teachings in 23 languages and 13.25 lakh copies of 17 other titles in 10 languages. A sum of Rs. 425.17 lakh was spent.

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2. Cultural Programmes Project: Organized seven state-level seminars on religious harmony, interfaith dialogues in five states, Conferences on Unity in Diversity in three states and three regional programme on tribal and folk culture. A sum of Rs. 180.25 lakh was spent.

3. Electronic Media Project: Audio DVDs on ‘Personality Development’ and ‘Education as viewed by Swami Vivekananda’ with multimedia effect were produced.

A Documentary Feature ‘A Poet, a Man, a Monk’ on Swami Vivekananda and his teachings in digital format is nearing completion. A sum of Rs. 144.57 lakh was spent.

4. Gadadhar Abhyudaya Prakalpa (Integrated Child Development): 174 units started in 23 states. About 17,500 children were benefited. A sum of Rs. 1,739.95 lakh was spent.

5. Vivekananda Swasthya Parisheva Prakalpa (Health Services Project for Mothers & Children): 126 units started in 22 states.

About 13,000 children were benefited. A sum of Rs. 1,174.67 lakh was spent.

6. Sarada Palli Vikas Prakalpa (Women Self-Empowerment): 10 units started in 8 states.

In all, 1619 women were benefited. A sum of Rs. 168.81 lakh was spent.

7 . S w a m i Akhandananda Seva Prakalpa (Poverty Alleviation): 10 units

started in 6 states. Altogether 1135 people were benefited. A sum of Rs. 160.44 lakh was spent.

8. Special Programmes for the Youth: Started 10 Youth Counseling Cells in 8 states; Organized National Level Youth Convention at Narainpur (Chhattisgarh) with 4600 participants; Held 6 Regional Level Youth Competitions / Conventions —total participants: 12,489 from 11 States; Organized State Level Youth Competitions in 8 states— total participants: 1,60,346.

Conducted Sustained Graded Value Education Programmes through (a) 402 units (Non-formal type) in 14 states with 17,006 students of 260 institutions; printed 15.49 lakh books for 182 titles in five languages and (b) 2,539 units (Classroom-based) in 16 states with 1,12,577 students of 727 schools; printed 1.17 lakh textbooks in ten major languages of India for Class V to IX and Class XI. A sum of Rs. 1182.96 lakh was spent.

In all, a sum of Rs. 51.77 crore was spent on the above projects.

We take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks to our members and friends for their kind cooperation and help.

Swami Suhitananda General Secretary T h e

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New Find

Unpublished Letters of Swami Saradananda1 June 12th 1902 Math. Belur. Howrah.

India.

Dearest Granny2 Your kind letter of without date has reached me duly. I thank you very much for the same.

The proposal for the Japan Conference came from Mr.Okakura.

So all credit is due to him & not to me. Perhaps our late dear friend , Dr.Janes ought to have a part of it for Mr.O. must have heard of his work along the line from yourself. I hear Mr.O. & the young Mr.Jagne have worked a little more towards the realisation of the plan.

I do not know as Mr.O. & the young Swami will pull on in friendly terms very long. But let me not speak beforehand and be a false prophet afterwards. As for me I will try to be helpful to Mr.O as long as he & the Swami will be friendly.

I am glad to hear you are to leave for Norway in July & thankful to hear Olea will be with you. Tender my kindest regards to her & prayers for her speedy recovery. My sincere prayers to Sri R. for your peace and something more which you ought to have. May it be brought to you in Norway by the grace of our dear Edwina & of Mr.Bull!

My visit to Sarada Devi has been a delighted one & it has been possible only for you. The one thing with which I have been impressed, while there, is that she ought to have a little place of her own by the Ganges side near Calcutta & that as soon as possible. For I do not believe she will be with us many more years. There are many things again which are sure to make her living with Nivedita or any such worker an impossibility. I have taken upon myself therefore to work to that end, now that I am free from the Math work. My plan is to search for such a little place, to secure it in my own name, when found, by borrowing Rs.8000/- to 10000 from Nivedita or any one else and have the land as a mortgage& then go to the West or anywhere & work & pay off the debt. If I die before the payment of the debt the land goes to the one from whom I have borrowed & I am sure the price of it will realise the principal money at least. Of course I will try to borrow from one, who will not charge any interest. So you can expect me in the west in a few months I think & I humbly ask your blessings dear granny, that I may be permitted to carry out my plans soon. My one prayer, day & night, nowadays has been this, to be permitted to be the humble instrument to render this piece of service to our dear Holy Mother.

My father & mother go to Benares in about a fortnight. They are so thankful to be able to do this! Their loving blessings and gratefulness to you for ever. My friend too does the same to you.

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With all my love to you and gratefulness for all that you have been to me Ever Your Affectionate Boy Saradananda.

P.S. The Swami has gone on a short visit & has not returned as yet. Nivedita is still at Mayabati & is expected to come down soon.

Math. Belur. Howrah.

India. Oct. 18.02.

My dear Mrs.Janes3, Your kind letter of sympathy dated Sep. 11 was most welcome. Indeed as you say the passing away of the Swami has been as inspiring and wonderful. He has strengthened us even by his death, though we feel the separation none the less. I send you some more of the press notices.

I am glad to know you have got such a good position in the Friends’ School and that Edith & Marcia can be with you all the time. My love and blessings to them both.

It is good to know my brother has made such a good impression on you. He is gradually making a good name as a practitioner. Two very difficult cases, which he cured of late has made great impression in the neighbourhood. I am sure he would have sent in his cordial regards to you, had he known, I am writing.

So Mr.Dharmapala is again among you. I hope he will not make as good a name as he did at Greenacre that year.

I might be invited to a Religious Congress in Japan on April next. The Congress will be held amongst the Mahayana Sects of the Buddhists and the different sects of the Hindus. So you see the work of our dear friend Dr.Janes is being taken up to a certain extent by the heathen, whom he loved as well.

Miss Noble (Sister Nivedita) is keeping well. She is now on a lecture tour through western India & has created a good impression everywhere.

With kind regards to you & best wishes as ever, I am Faithfully yours, Saradananda

References 1. A direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna 2. Mrs. Sara Bull 3. Wife of Dr. Lewis G. Janes, an American friend of Swami Vivekananda

Courtesy: Ramakrishna Museum, Belur Math

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The Order on the March Ramakrishna Math and Mission—News and Notes

Commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda Ratham Reaches Chennai Flagged off at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Coimbatore, on April 29 2013, in commemoration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, and traversing through all the districts, covering over 16000 km, visiting thousands of villages, hundreds of small and big towns and all major cities in Tamilnadu, Swami Vivekananda Ratham arrived at Chennai on 29th December 2013. The Ratham was accorded a grand reception at Sri Ramakrishna Math in Mylapore where it reached at 9 am.

The Ratham is scheduled to reach the Vivekanandar Illam in Marina Beach, Chennai, on Wednesday, 8 January 2014.

At all places the Ratham was received with great enthusiasm and joy by presenting Poorna Kumba, garlanding, conducting Arati and offering flowers, conducting of literary competitions for school and college students and awarding prizes, public meetings, distributing Swami Vivekananda’s books free of cost, school and colleges students taking the ‘Swadesh Mantra’ as an oath and so on. Lakhs of people all over took part in the Ratham programme.

At the Mylapore Math: Welcomed by playing of traditional Nadaswaram, with a row of children with flowers and lighted oil lamps in their hands standing on either side, Swamiji was received with showering of flowers, Jaikara, and Arati (done by Swami Gautamanandaji). Offering of fresh lotus flowers with chanting of Om aim srimat swami vivekanandaya namaha 108 times to Swamiji and pushpanjali by monks and devotees was followed by a brief public meeting. Three Welcome Addresses (in Sanskrit, Tamil and English) were presented to Swamiji, besides talks by eminent men and presentation of cultural T h e

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Swami Vivekananda Ratha celebrations at Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore

programmes including singing and recitation of quotes from Swamiji in Tamil and English. The special issue of Sri Ramakrishna Vijayam, the Tamil monthly from the Chennai Math, was released. More than 2 lakhs copies of the special issue focusing on Swamiji’s personality have been printed. On this occasion, Vivekananda Awards for Achievers were presented to eight persons belonging to diverse fields for their outstanding contributions.

In the afternoon, Silambattam (Tamilnadu’s traditional martial art) by students and a poets’ meet in Tamil was held. Nama Sankeethanam by the well-known Sri Vittaldas Maharaj and a two-hour lecturesession in Tamil on Swami Vivekananda, A Rare Spiritual Giant, by the renowned scholar-speaker Nochur Sri Venkataraman was held. Thousands of devotees and visitors attended all the programmes.

In the evening, during the Arati to Sri Guru Maharaj in the temple, Arati to Swamiji in the Ratham was performed in front of the Universal Temple of Sri Ramakrishna.

After visiting numerous schools, colleges, temples, institutions and localities in Chennai, the Ratham is scheduled to return to Coimbatore where the concluding function will be held. We hope to carry to a detailed article giving a comprehensive picture of the Ratham in one of the forthcoming issues of the Vedanta Kesari. o T h e

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Book Review For review in The Vedanta Kesari,

publishers need to send us two copies of their latest publication.

Destination Happiness

By J.P. Vaswani Published by Sterling Publishers (P) Ltd. A-59, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase II, New Delhi -110 020.

2007, Paperback, Pp.355, Rs.250.

The quest for happiness is an ancient one.

Tomes have been written on this, and yet, the quest continues.

Destination Happiness is a compilation of J.P. Vaswani’s ideas and thoughts on this eternal pursuit.

Dada J.P.Vaswani introduces the reader to the many reasons for unhappiness at the very beginning of the book. The book is in the form of a nice fable of a seeker and a sage. Their dialogues, as they pass through various scenes along an ancient path, form the narrative of the book. The gist of the dialogues is summarized into twenty core teachings, a chapter each. Some of the teachings are ‘Forgive before forgiveness is asked’, ‘If you would be happy, always see the good in others’, etc. The narrative is nicely inter-woven with each chapter carrying forward relevant questions to the next chapter.

Most of the self-help books dealing with the concept of happiness, especially by Western authors, rely heavily on statistical analysis of data culled from social experiments or case studies.

The beauty of this book by J.P. Vaswani lies in the plethora of day-to-day human dilemmas that are presented. We can easily identify with the problems discussed, and hence the book opens our mind to a sense of curiosity to know the solution. Though most of us know the answers vaguely, the wellconstructed narrative of teachings, wisely termed as ‘secrets’, reveals striking answers.

Learned readers will be able to draw parallels of some of the concepts to scriptural sayings. J.P. T h e

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Vaswani displays his enormous ability to convey the ancients’ teachings in modern, layman language with consummate ease. He quotes the words of his teacher, Sadhu Vaswani, in many places. The stress on a God-centered life, in and amidst the clamorous materialistic life-style, forms the core of the book.

An index and references to some of the quotes would have been beneficial to the more serious reader. The book is well-brought out and reasonably priced. ______________________ A MONASTIC REVIEWER, NEW DELHI

The Garland of Letters

By Sir John Woodroffe Published by New Age Books, A-44, Naraina Industrial Area, Phase – I, New Delhi 110 028. 2013, Paperback, Pp.307, Rs.400.

A reprint of a classic, this book is a collection of articles published in various journals including the Vedanta Kesari. The first chapter deals with vak or the word, chapters 2-9 are seriously concerned with the doctrine of shabda (verbal testimony). The next twelve chapters are devoted to exemplify the concepts in Tantra-shastra especially with a few modifications of the doctrine of shabda of the Mimamsa school of thought to meet the doctrine of shakti in Tantra-shastra. The rest of the essays describe the subtle nuances of the varieties of mantras (the holy syllables for chanting while worshipping and meditating).

A devoted study of these essays will make both the masters and the disciples to grasp the inner meanings of the scriptural texts and the shakti, nada, bindu, the causal shaktis of the pranava, bija mantras, devata, etc. Again the theoretical elucidations may culminate in a concomitance of knowledge and action, theory and practice. On

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the whole, this book will be a boon to the lovers of philology and yoga. __________________________ R. GOPALAKRISHNAN, CHENNAI

Sanatana Dharma And Its Special Features

By Swami Mukundananda Saraswati, Translated from original Telugu by K. Thirupaiah Published by Swami Satyavratananda, A.P. Divine Life Society, First Edition 2012, Paperback, Pages XXIII+217 The book under review is the English translation of the Sanatana Dharmamu— Dani Visistata, a work in Telugu by Swami Mukundananda Saraswati of Shivanada Ashram, Rishikesh. The translator Sri K. Thirupaiah has done a fantastic job of rendering the original in English.

The book deals with the concept of Sanatana Dharma and the importance of leading a life in accordance with its teachings. The book starts with the enunciation of the concept of dharma, and lucidly defines it to be the one which holds, sustains and protects the whole universe. Then it moves on to explain Sanatana Dharma as the ever-existing cosmic principle which bestows immortality upon its followers by experiencing their identity with the Paramatman or the Supreme Soul.

In the third section, the author speaks of the collective teachings of Sanatana Dharma.

These are the guidelines as to how an individual should behave and live a life to attain moksha or the ultimate goal of life. Here we get a very detailed and exhaustive commentary on several topics that form the guiding principles of Santana Dharma.

The author quotes relevant mantras, shlokas from various scriptures to authenticate his enumerations of dharma. This chapter consists of 24 topics which include the dharma-s pertaining to different classes of people and different stages of life.

With the idea of Sanatana Dharma now in place, in the concluding sections the author talks about the necessity of observing dharma.

He emphasizes that if a person practices dharma sincerely, he is always protected by dharma, whereas non-observance of dharma leads to T h e

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unwanted consequences. According to the author another important feature of Sanatana Dharma is that, even other and seemingly different religions are based on the ideals of the Sanatana Dharma.

Thus Sanatana Dharma has universal adaptation and is relevant for all times and places.

This book, no doubt, is yet another important contribution to the corpus of Dharma Studies.

Books as this are required today to facilitate more discussions and discourses among the commonplace man and thereby strengthen the pillars of dharma for an all-encompassing, valuebased and strong society. ________________ PROBAL RAY CHOUDHURY, COIMBATORE

The Social Message of Mahayana Buddhism

By Satya P. Agarwal and Urmila Agarwal Published by New Age Books. A-44, Naraina Industrial Area. Phase-I, New Delhi-110 028. India.

Soft cover PP 191, Rs 500.

The authors of the book, a scholarly couple, have to their credit a dozen odd books on spiritual subjects. The present book deals with the concept of ‘Engaged Buddhism’. Engaged Buddhism is the socially relevant and active aspect of Buddha’s teaching. To elaborate this concept of ‘engaged’ Buddhism, the authors have drawn mainly from the Lotus Sutra and Bodhicharyavatara, inspired primarily by Shantideva’s book. The authors hold that the Lotus Sutra is the most important as well as the most ancient text of Mahayana Buddhism.

The book is divided into nine chapters along with a preface, acknowledgements, select bibliography and Index. The second chapter deals with the two main sources of the social message of Buddhism. The third chapter ‘Spiritual as well as Secular Aspects of the Message’ highlights the social message of Mahayana Buddhism. The original text of the Lotus Sutra has been provided along with its English meaning; this enhances the importance of the book.

The following chapters deal in detail with the difficulties and challenges faced in spreading

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the message of Buddhism in China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan and other parts of the world. The names of the individuals who helped in spreading the message have been provided. There is special reference to the challenges in translating the Buddhist texts into Chinese as well as making them acceptable to the local populace. How to make these understandable to Confucian and Daoism adherents is quite a job.

The book is a good addition to the existing literature on this subject though it requires additional efforts to make it more interesting. ________________ SANTOSH KUMAR SHARMA, KHARGPUR

SwaDhyaya Makarandam

By Shyamala Devi Bhogaraju Published by the Tripura Sundari Religious Charitable Trust, 900 Middleton LN, Inverness, IL- 60010 U S A. Pp. 36 and an Audio CD. Paper back. Price not mentioned.

There is a growing propensity among multitudes to cultivate a spiritual outlook. This trend is a fitting response to a rising crime graph and widespread allegations of vanishing values and ethics. This encouraging trend could be observed among elders as well as youth. There is also recognition that peace is synonymous with spiritual way of life and that chanting of verses on the Divine will promote purity of the heart. Therefore as their numbers grow, their influence acts as a leverage to restore values and ethics in public life.

We already have books and booklets in English and regional Indian languages, cassettes and CDs, on verses for recitation every day. Some of them fit into one’s pocket or valet and can accompany during travel. The Ramakrishna Mission has published pocket sized books containing verses for recitation round the year. There is however scope for more to provide variety. In this context SwaDhyaya Makarandam will find a place, particularly as the audio CD supplementing the printed text will act as an inducement. The author assigns verses considered appropriate for each day of the week; for instance, Guru Stotram for Thursdays. The accompanying audio CD helps to ensure error-free recitation although some verses could be rendered in different ragas.

The Foreword explains the title. SwaDhyaya, among other things, refers to ‘ . . . sense of being in command of one’s destiny . . .’ a point stressed

by Swami Vivekananda, and helps to realize that ‘. . . there is a common divinity dwelling within everyone . . .’ Therefore there is no question of one being inferior or superior to another. Prayers focus our thoughts on the Divine. ‘Every obstacle, every worrying thought, anything that curbs our progress’, says the author, ‘is laid before the Divine.

Even listeners benefit from the Namavali chanted by others and prayers are chanted for the welfare of all.

Twenty four shlokas have been selected by the author who has also offered an explanation on the significance of the number 24. The Sanskrit text has been transliterated and translated into English and the audio CD is an added attraction. Many of these shlokas will be familiar to those who have a daily schedule of prayers. SwaDhyaya Makarandam will be a devotional lore for beginners keen to start the day with a minimum set of prayers to chant. _______________________________ P. S. SUNDARAM, MUMBAI

 It is when his grace descends that infinite knowledge unfolds. Then one no longer cares for the study of the scriptures. Direct knowledge is one thing and ‘book’ knowledge is another. This, however, does not mean that one should give up the study of the scriptures, for as Sri Ramakrishna used to say, ‘The fan is needed until the spring breeze blows’.

—Swami Premananda

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December 2012 issue of the Vedanta Kesari now available in book form

Indian Culture Its Timeless Appeal and Ageless Charm The core philosophy of Indian Culture a nd its significance in modern times

A must for all students and admirers of Indian Culture

Indian culture is one of the most ancient and diverse cultures in the world.

What is more, it is a living culture, not tucked away in museums and dusty volumes but a living force in the daily and social lives of millions of Indians, in India and abroad. Despite these ennobling truths, it is also a fact that much needs to be done to preserve and cultivate Indian culture especially amongst youth. Dwelling on various aspects of our cultural heritage and the grand philosophy, this volume tries to bring together the scholarly and everyday approach to Indian culture. This aims at promoting understanding of Indian culture in a simple and easy-to-read style, without losing its serious and profound dimensions.

The whole book printed in four-colours Hard bound, Pages. x + 374 Price: Rs. 275/- + Postage: Rs.30/-for single copy.

Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai - 600 004 Email: mail@chennaimath.org

Request for VPP not accepted

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Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama

(A branch centre of Ramakrishna Mission, P.O. Belur Math. Distt. Howrah, W.B. – 711 202) Swami Vivekananda Path, P.O. Bela, Muzaffarpur–843 116, Bihar, Phone: 0621-2272127, 2272963 E-mail: rkm.muzaffarpur@gmail.com Website: www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org

Appeal On the Occasion of 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda

Eye, ENT, Dental Clinic cum Diagnostic Centre Present Infrastructure: Oldest Eye Infirmary in North Bihar established in 1947,

General dispensary, Dental, Homeopathy, X-Ray, Pathology; Our Vision:

A new Medical Building with Specialty in Eye, ENT and Dental care, Various OPD Sections, Well equipped Clinical Lab., R & D Section, Modern Diagnostic, Para medical Training.

First Phase Requirement: 13000 Sq. ft. Construction of Medical Building, Gl.Fl.

remaining work—Rs.20 Lakh, Recovery Unit—70 Lakh,

Diagnostic Unit—60 Lakh, Doctors / Staff Qrs.—60 Lakh,

Equipments: Rs.65 Lakh, Permanent Fund: Rs. 1 Crore Work in Progress: Finishing work of Gr. Fl. and construction of Recovery Unit is in progress

Work in Progress

Surgery in O.T.

Post Care

Dear Friends, Your contribution towards up-coming eye, e n t, dental care project for a place like Muzaffarpur where backlog in blindness eradication is very large and health infrastructure is very poor will be palpably a real homage to Swami Vivekananda whose heart bled for poor humanity. Donors will find here a right place to perpetuate memories and sentiments of their near and dear ones.

With Prayers to Holy Trinity for you and all yours, Swami Bhavatmananda Secretary Any contribution made in favour of “Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur.” is exempted from Income Tax u/s 80G of IT Act 1961.

Details of the Project may be had from our office.

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Saints of Saivism—Periya Puranam (Pictorial) New Release

A highly revered book of Tamil Shaivism, Periya Puranam is the poetic account of the legendary lives of the sixty-three Nayanmars, the saints of Tamil Shaivism.

Periya Purana was compiled during the 12th century by Sekkizhar, himself a Shaiva saint. Saints of Saivism is a pictorial presentation of these sublime lives through pictures drawn by S. Rajam, a noted artist and musician, with narration by well-known littérateur Dr. Prema Nandakumar. Prepared the under the General Editorship of Dr. N. Mahalingam, a scholar and philanthropist, the book is a lucid description of Bhakti and Seva through the divine lives of Nayanmars—especially introducing the young to this hoary heritage of India.

Price: Rs. 300/- + Postage: Rs.30/-for single copy.

No request for VPP entertained Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai - 600 004

Pages. xxxii + 302

New Release

Divine Plays of Lord Siva

Original in Tamil by Dr. Rangaswamy. Translation by Dr. TN Ramachandran General Editor Dr. N. Mahalingam Art by S. Rajam

An adapted version of the Tamil book ‘Chittira Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam’ (based on ‘The Divine Sports of the Lord Shiva’ of Paranjyothi Munivar of 17th / 18th Century), by Dr. R. Rangaswamy, the book includes a short prose version, selected poems, and a painting and a pencil sketch for each episode. It is one of the important works of the Tamil Shaivism.

Price: Rs. 400/- + Postage: Rs.35/-for single copy.

Request for VPP will not be entertained Hardbound, Pp. 404.

Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai - 600 004

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Walking the Walk A Karma Yoga Manual

Swami Tyagananda A handy volume containing a clear elucidation of Swami Vivekananda’s Karma Yoga—as well as other Yogas—Walking the Walk is a must for all serious spiritual seekers. It attempts to demystify and unravel the concept of Karma, bondage and freedom along with practical suggestions for transforming ordinary Karma into an act of Yoga.

The author, a former editor of the Vedanta Kesari, is the head of Ramakrishna Vedanta Society, Boston, USA, and Hindu Chaplain at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai - 600 004 Email : mail@chennaimath.org

Pages xiii + 129. Price: Rs. 55/- + Postage: Rs.22/-for single copy.

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SRI RAMAKRISHNA ADVAITA ASHRAMA (HQS: Ramakrishna Math & Mission, Belur Math) P.O. Kalady, Ernakulam-683574, Kerala Phone: 0484-2462345, Mob: 9447051231 E-mail: srkaadv@dataone.in The Ashrama has been running a free hostel for the poor & underprivileged children from classes V to X since 1936. They are provided with food, uniforms, accommodation and education up to Xth Std. absolutely free of charge. They are enrolled in the school managed by the Ashrama within its campus.

There is an urgent need for repair and renovation of the old hostel buildings and also creating a ‘Hostel Corpus Fund’ of Rs. 2 Crores for maintaining the hostel with 100 boys.

We appeal to the generous public, friends and well wishers to donate liberally for this most essential educational project.

You are also welcome to donate towards various other regular activities: a) Daily Puja & Seva; b) General Maintenance of the Ashrama; c) Charitable Dispensary; d) Widows’ Welfare.

Donations towards the activities of the Ashrama are exempt from Income Tax under 80G. Cheques or Bank Drafts may be drawn in favour of ‘Sri Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Kalady’ and sent to the above address. Donations also can be sent directly through RTGS/NEFT to our A/c No. 338602010009164 at Union Bank of India, Kalady (IFSC Code: UBIN0533866).

Swami Amaleshananda Adhyaksha

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NAVAJEEVAN BLIND RELIEF CENTRE (FREE HOME FOR THE BLIND, ORPHAN AND AGED) TIRUCHANOOR, TIRUPATI - 517503. Ph : 0877-2239992, 9908537528 [Mob.] E-mail: sreenavajeevan@gmail.com Website: www.navajeevan.org

An Appeal 34 Years of Service to Humanity 1979 - 2012 1. Navajeevan School & Hostel for Blind Children – Tirupati, Parlekhimundi, Golamunda 2. Navajeevan Free Eye Hospital

– Tirupati

3. Navajeevan Free Home for Aged – Tirupati, Rishikesh, Parlekhimundi and Chennai 4. Navajeevan Harijan Sewa Ashram

– Kothapeta

5. Navajeevan Sharanagati Vridhashram

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6. Navajeevan Rural Medical Centres

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Berhampur [Orissa]

7. Navajeevan Eye Care Centres

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Serango [Orissa]

8. Navajeevan Orphanage Homes – Tirupati, Parlehkimundi, Saluru, Golamunda, Berhampur, Pandukal, Vizag

A Humble Request for Donation 1. Sponsor one day Annadan to Blind Children and aged

– Rs. 5000/-

3. Sponsor one blind child or Orphan child for one year

– Rs. 6000/-

2. Sponsor 5 IOL Cataract Eye Operations

4. Sponsor one poor aged person for one year

5. Sponsor one free eye camp at Rural/Tribal area 6. Vidyadan—Educational aid for one Child

– Rs. 7000/– Rs. 5000/-

– Rs. 50000/– Rs. 2000/-

Donor devotees can send their contributions by cheque/DD/MO to the above address on the occasion of birthday, wedding day or any other special occasion and receive prasadam of Lord Balaji Venkateswara of Tirupati as blessings.

Contributions to NAVAJEEVAN BLIND RELIEF CENTRE, Tirupati are eligible for Tax Relief U/S 80G of Income Tax Act.

‘We can attain salvation through social work’ – Swami Vivekananda K. Sridhar Acharya Founder/ President

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Vol.101-2 The Vedanta Kesari (English Monthly) February 2014. Regd. with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under No.1084 / 57. POSTAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:TN / CH (C) / 190 / 12-14. LICENCED TO POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT TN/PMG(CCR)/WPP-259 / 2012-14 Date of Publication: 24th of every month

Teach yourselves, teach everyone his/her real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes.

Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.

—Swami Vivekananda

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