06 June - advaitaashrama.org · ment of the translation of this Upanishad by Swami...

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9 PB-JUNE 2002

Traditional Wisdom

THE GOAL OF LIFE

Rn au=Ju=e=: mÀgbrô; l aur=ntJu=eàbn;e rJlríx& >

If a man knows the Atman here (in this life), he attains the true goal. If he does not know Ithere, a great destruction awaits him. (Kena Upaniøad, 2.5)

yNç=bôvNobÁvbÔggk ;:t~hmk rlÀgbdàÆtJ”t g;T >

ylt‘là;k bn;& vhk Æt{wJk rlat©g ;àb]ÀgwbwFt;T Œbwåg;u >>

By realizing the Atman, which is soundless, intangible, formless, undecaying, and similarly,tasteless, eternal and odourless; realizing That which is without beginning and end, beyondthe Great, and unchanging—one is freed from the jaws of death. (Kaôha Upaniøad, 1.3.15)

He is born in vain, who having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attemptto realize God in this very life. (Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 27)

The aim of human life is to realize God and remain immersed in contemplation of Him. Godalone is real and everything else is false. God is one’s very own, and this is the eternal rela-tionship between God and creatures. One realizes God in proportion to the intensity of one’sfeeling for Him. (Swami Nikhilananda, Holy Mother, p. 214)

The whole object … is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reachGod and see God, and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even as the Father inheaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus. (Teachings of Swami Vivekananda,p. 79)

Vol. 107 June 2002 No. 6

� This Month �

This month’s editorial, Religion—Essen-tials and Non-essentials, discusses SwamiVivekananda’s views on true religion.

It is a hundred years since Swami Vive-kananda gave up his body on 4 July 1902.Beginning this month we serialize a three-part research article by Ms Linda Prugh, en-titled Vivekananda: Conqueror of Death!The first part details Swamiji’s premonitionsand predictions about his passing. LindaPrugh is a member of the Vedanta Society ofKansas City, Missouri, USA. She is knownfor her book Josephine MacLeod and Viveka-nanda’s Mission, published by Sri Ramakrish-na Math, Chennai.

The Role of Bhávaná in Moral and Spiri-tual Development by Sri Jaideva Singh is anedited version of his article from the October1940 issue of the now defunct PhilosophicalQuarterly.

Dr Sumita Roy, Associate Professor ofEnglish at Osmania University, studies inher article Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devivis-a-vis Indian Renaissance the contempo-rary relevance of Sri Sarada Devi’s personal-ity.

Non-violence: A Spiritual Perspectiveby Swami Prabuddhanandaji is a reflectionon the different aspects of ahimsa, an impor-tant value distinguishing human beingsfrom animals. A senior monk of the Rama-krishna Order, the author is head of theVedanta Society of Northern California, SanFrancisco. The article is a gift from AHIMSA.

In his article Reflections on CommunalViolence in India Swami Tyaganandajianalyses if religion is really responsible for

communal violence. The author is AssistantMinister at the Vedanta Society of Boston.

Glimpses of Holy Lives features inspir-ing glimpses from the life of KáraikkálAmmaiyár, a renowned woman saint amongthe sixty-three Náyanmárs (Shaiva saints) ofTamil Nadu.

Avadhéta Upaniøad is the third instal-ment of the translation of this Upanishad bySwami Atmapriyanandaji, Principal, Rama-krishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math.

A senior monk of the Ramakrishna Or-der, Swami Siddhinathanandaji discusses inSoar with the Swan the two ‘Indras’ trans-formed by Sri Ramakrishna, and their pre-cious bequest to humanity. A senior monk ofthe Ramakrishna Order, the erudite authorhas a number of books to his credit. He ispresently at the Ramakrishna MissionSevashrama, Kozhikode.

I am the Indus by Prof B N Sikdar is afirst person narrative of the River Indus, giv-ing a sweeping account of the history it waswitness to. The author is a former professorof English, Presidency College, Calcutta Uni-versity.

In his article Ramakrishna-Vivekanandaand the Harmony of Religions, SwamiSandarshananandaji stresses the ever-impor-tant message of harmony the Master and hisdisciple lived and preached. The author isfrom Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith,Deoghar.

From this month Prabuddha Bharata—AHundred Years Ago appears on a full pageafter the editorial.

PB-JUNE 2002 10

Religion: Essentials and Non-essentials

EDITORIAL

Sri Ramakrishna’s life is a glorious vindi-cation of the fact that the Truth behind allreligions is one and all religions are valid

paths to that Truth. His prime disciple SwamiVivekananda disseminated this message ofharmony of religions the world over. Swamijinever tired of asking people to live religionthan busy themselves in frothy talk. Hisavowed aim was to make Vedanta under-standable to even a child: ‘The dry, abstractAdvaita must become living—poetic—in ev-eryday life; out of hopelessly intricate mythol-ogy must come concrete moral forms; and outof bewildering Yogi-ism must come the mostscientific and practical psychology—and allthis must be put in a form so that a child maygrasp it. That is my life’s work.’1 Those whohave studied Swamiji’s Complete Works willknow how admirably Swamiji lived up to thetask. There was hardly anyone else who threwso much light and clarity on religion, separat-ing its essentials from its non-essentials, andmaking it accessible to the common man.

We shall examine certain common con-ceptions about religion, and see how Swa-miji’s teachings on religion help us see thingsin perspective.

Popular Notions about Religion

In the Kumbha Mela held in Allahabadlast year, on a single important day nearly 20million people had a dip in the confluence ofthree holy rivers—a mind-boggling feat forthe organizers, which attracted the attentionof everyone around the world. It is a vindica-tion of Swami Vivekananda’s pronouncementthat religion is the backbone of India, that peo-ple in India are practical in religion. BesidesKumbha Mela, a bath in a holy river like theGanges is considered in India auspicious, for

the river is believed to purge us of our mentalimpurities.

And there are people who are devoted toa holy book—the Bhagavadgita for Hindus, theBible for Christians, the Koran for Muslims,the Guru Granth Sahib for Sikhs, the Tripitakafor Buddhists, and so on.

Undertaking vigils, fasts, visiting tem-ples, churches and mosques are some moreways people adopt to practise religion.Making pilgrimages to holy places is yet an-other activity that makes one feel religious.

In most cases, however, these religiousobservances hardly leave any impression onour lives. People continue to be what theywere: as worldly, if not more. There are theso-called devout, who would not hesitate toharm others in the name of religion, if dictatedby people with vested interests. Swami Vive-kananda’s views on religion are as strengthen-ing as they are conducive to a spirit of har-mony. We discuss here his famous mahávákyas(great utterances) on religion. These arequoted from his Complete Works (1.124).

Potential Divinity

Swamiji’s first mahávákya is ‘Each soul ispotentially divine. The goal is to manifest thisdivinity within ….’ To those who have notgiven much thought to this saying, this may beanother theoretical pronouncement. Not to adeep student of Swamiji’s works.

What is meant by potentiality and mani-festation? If you asked a school student whathe would like to become when he grew up, hewould probably say, ‘I will become a doctor, ascientist, an engineer …’ When he finishes hiscollege education, let us assume he becomeswhat he wanted to—a doctor, for example.When the doctor was still a boy in school, he

11 PB-JUNE 2002

can be said to be a potential doctor. He was ig-norant of medical science then. When he hassecured his medical degree, the ignorance per-taining to the medical field has vanished—atleast to a great extent. He is now endowedwith the knowledge of medical science. Thatexplains the concept of potential divinity in us.As long as it is potential, we are ignorant aboutit; in a state of manifestation, we know that weare divine. So potentiality implies ignoranceand manifestation, knowledge. What is this ig-norance due to? Our mental impurities, our at-tachment to things ephemeral, including ourbody and mind. Swamiji held the manifesta-tion of this divinity to be the goal. How tomanifest it? That takes us to Swamiji’s secondmahávákya.

Control of Nature

‘… by controlling nature, external and in-ternal.’ Swamiji’s reply to Khetri Maharaja’squestion ‘What is life?’ is significant: ‘Life is anunfoldment and development of a being un-der circumstances tending to press it down.’2

That is, not being carried away by the life cur-rent, but struggling against it. Every problemand obstacle in our way bears witness to that.Every endeavour of ours is beset with ada-mantine walls of difficulties, and involvesstruggle.

This is more true when it comes to reli-gion—if we want true religion, that is. Strug-gle against external nature is something evi-dent to us in the life of scientists, the great dis-coverers and inventers of the fruits of technol-ogy. Such scientists were driven by one con-sideration: search for truth. Bodily needs in-cluding sleep and food were but secondary totheir quest. And nature reveals its secrets tosuch persevering ones. Internal nature refersto our own nature, our mind, its desires, pro-pensities, prejudices, attachment, aver-sion—the list is long. In short, controlling in-ternal nature implies controlling the mind.Says Swamiji: ‘It is grand and good to knowthe laws that govern the stars and planets; it is

infinitely grander and better to know the lawsthat govern the passions, the feelings, the will,of mankind. This conquering of the inner man,understanding the secrets of the subtle work-ings that are within the human mind, andknowing its wonderful secrets, belong en-tirely to religion.’3

And he held this struggle against natureas the sign of human life, when he said ‘Man isman so long as he struggles to rise above nature’(2.65). He equated with stagnation and death alife of harmony with nature:

We hear a great deal about living in harmonywith nature, of being in tune with nature. This isa mistake. This table, this pitcher, the minerals,a tree, are all in harmony with nature. Perfectharmony is there, no discord. To be in harmonywith nature means stagnation, death. How didman build this house? By being in harmonywith nature? No. By fighting against nature. It isthe constant struggle against nature that consti-tutes human progress, not conformity with it.(6.35-6)

So, it is clear that controlling our inner na-ture in particular is the way to the mani-festation our potential divinity.

The Four Different Paths to the Goal

To continue with Swamiji’s mahávákyas.‘Do this either by work, or worship, or psychiccontrol, or philosophy—by one, or more, or allof these—and be free. This is the whole of reli-gion.’ Work, worship, psychic control andphilosophy refer, respectively, to the paths ofselfless work (karma yoga), devotion (bhaktiyoga), mind control and meditation (rajayoga), and knowledge (jnana yoga). The pathsshown by all major religions of the worldcould be classified under one of these fourgroups. These four paths suit four differenttypes of human mind: the active, the devo-tional, the contemplative and the discrimi-native. We shall have a cursory look at thesefour paths.

Karma yoga aims at detaching the willfrom the fruits of work. One method is to de-

PB-JUNE 2002 12

296 Prabuddha Bharata

tach oneself by sheer will-power, and theother is by offering the fruits of actions to God.A mind purified by detachment and self-sur-render becomes a fit instrument to manifestthe Atman.

In Bhakti yoga the aspirant tries to give aGodward turn to his impulses. Attachment tothe world is transmuted into love of God. Aidsto this are prayer, meditation, repetition of thedivine name, and constant remembrance ofthe Lord. By God’s grace the aspirant is en-dowed with His vision.

Raja yoga is the path of mind control, theprocess of turning the mind on its source byrepeated practice of concentration and medi-tation. According to Patanjali this yoga con-sists of eight limbs, beginning with purifica-tory disciplines and ending in samadhi, ab-sorption in the Self.

Jnana yoga is the path of knowledge: ne-gating with the sharp sword of discriminationeverything except the Divine Reality behindthe manifest universe, including our body andmind. This path is of course not easy. Jnanayoga is certainly not book knowledge or intel-lectual gymnastics. The aspirant is expected topossess certain qualifications: discrimination,detachment, control of mind, and the desirefor liberation. The three steps in this path areùravaîa (hearing or reading about spiritualtruths), manana (thinking deeply on what onehas heard) and nididhyásana (meditation of thenature of enquiry into the nature of the At-man).

One thing common to all these paths ismind discipline. It needs to be remembered,however, that all these four attitudes are pres-ent in all of us, but one predominates the otherthree. Though Swamiji held these four pathsas independent means to manifest the divinitywithin, he advocated employing as many ofthese faculties as one can, which is what hemeant by ‘by one, or more, or all of these’.Swamiji’s ideal of a perfect man was he inwhom all these four ‘elements’ were equallymanifest:

Would to God that all men were so constitutedthat in their minds all these elements of philoso-phy, mysticism, emotion, and of work wereequally present in full! That is the ideal, myideal of a perfect man. … To become harmoni-ously balanced in all these four directions is myideal of religion. And this religion is attained bywhat we, in India, call Yoga—union. To theworker, it is union between men and the wholeof humanity; to the mystic, between his lowerand Higher Self; to the lover, union betweenhimself and the God of Love; and to the philoso-pher, it is the union of all existence. This is whatis meant by Yoga. (2.388)

Secondary Details

To continue with Swamiji’s mahávákya.‘… and be free. This is the whole of religion.’ Ina nutshell, manifesting our potential divinityby controlling nature and becoming free is thewhole or the essence of religion. This is in linewith his definition of religion as ‘the manifes-tation of the divinity already in man’ (4.358).Then what about all that we described at thebeginning of this essay: pilgrimages, temples,books, and so on? Swamiji gives them theirdue importance: ‘Doctrines, or dogmas, or rit-uals, or books, or temples, or forms, are butsecondary details.’ In other words, they arenon-essentials of religion—to repeat, not theessence of religion. Not that they are not neces-sary. They are useful as long as they furtherthe primary aim of religion, which is manifes-tation of divinity.

Unfortunately, for most people religionis only one more trapping along with theirother possessions. Says Swamiji, ‘There is aform of religion which is fashionable. Myfriend has much furniture in her parlour; it isthe fashion to have a Japanese vase, so shemust have one even if it costs a thousand dol-lars. In the same way she will have a little reli-gion and join a church’ (4.19). Religion hardlyhas any transforming effect in such people.

True Test: Transformation of character

What is needed is a sincere attempt attransformation. Three natures are intertwined

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Religion: Essentials and Non-essentials 297

in human personality: animal, human and di-vine. Religion should help us transcend ouranimal nature, become humans, transcendthat too and become divine. Swamiji’s anotherpithy statement makes this clear: ‘Religion isthe idea which is raising the brute unto man,and man unto God.’ (5.409)

That holds a great lesson for us. Anythingthat whips up the animal in us, anything thatmakes us get at others’ throats, could be any-thing but religion. The secondary details liketemples, rituals, dogmas and creeds have sucha strong hold on such people that they losesight of real religion, which in Swamiji’swords is ‘being and becoming’. That would belike ‘fighting over the basket and the fruitshave fallen into the ditch’ (4.128). If not prop-erly understood, religion can degenerate intomere observance of externals, the non-essen-tials. Swamiji could not have been clearerabout religion:

Be therefore spiritual first.… Religion is nottalk, or doctrines or theories; nor is it sectarian-ism. …. Religion does not consist in erectingtemples, or building churches, or attendingpublic worship. It is not to be found in books, orin words, or in lectures, or in organisations. Re-ligion consists in realisation. … and such an ex-perience is possible for every one of us, if wewill only try. (4.179-80)

In other words, in the absence of con-scious efforts to change oneself, purify one’smind, transform one’s character, the second-ary details will only make a mockery of reli-gion. One is reminded of Sri Ramakrishna’s al-lusion to a bath in the Ganges purifying one ofall sins. The sins are perched on the branch of atree on the bank, only to descend on the indi-vidual as soon as he is up after his bath. SaysSri Ramakrishna, ‘Suppose a man becomespure by chanting the holy name of God, butimmediately afterwards commits many sins.He has no strength of mind. He doesn’t take avow not to repeat his sins.’4 What is requiredis a real desire to turn a new leaf.

If we want to be truly religious, we can-

not have a better yardstick than strength. Any-thing that weakens us—be they superstitionsor a politics-driven herd mentality manifest-ing our animal nature—has no place in reli-gion. Swamiji’s words apply to all religionsthat exist and any that is to come in future: ‘It isa man-making religion that we want. … Andhere is the test of truth—anything that makesyou weak physically, intellectually, and spiri-tually, reject as poison.’5

��

To summarize. Manifestation of our po-tential divinity constitutes the essence of reli-gion. Irrespective of our religious affiliation,there are four paths to make this possible: self-less work, devotion, mind control, and reflec-tion, discrimination and meditation. Second-ary details, non-essentials, are useful to the ex-tent they help in transformation of character,in making us change from brutes to humans togods.

The more people study Swamiji, themore clarity and sanity there will be in reli-gion. If you are put off by the nine volumes ofhis Complete Works, there is a wonderful pa-perback titled What Religion Is—in the Words ofSwami Vivekananda. A publication of AdvaitaAshrama, Kolkata, the book is an excellentcompilation of Swamiji’s views on religion,scattered over his Complete Works. �

References

1. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), vol. 5, pp. 104-5. [Hereafter CW, fol-lowed by volume and page numbers.]

2. His Eastern and Western Disciples, The Life ofSwami Vivekananda (Calcutta: AdvaitaAshrama, 1979), vol.1, p. 281.

3. CW, 2.65.4. M., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami

Nikhilananda (Madras: Sri RamakrishnaMath, 1985), p. 190.

5. CW, 3.224-5.

PB-JUNE 2002 14


15 PB-JUNE 2002

Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years Ago

June 1902

SELF-REALIZATION AND FORM

Every individual is a seeming mass of changes. His body is changing every minute; so is his

mind. Is he then a mass of never ceasing change and nothing more, or, is there in him something

permanent? The monistic Vedanta affirms , that beyond both the body and the mind, is the Self,

which, it says, never changes.

The Self, according to the Vedanta, is the real individual and the individual that changes is only

apparent. The apparent individual, which is eternally changing, is in reality the unchanging Self, but,

through ignorance, forgetting his real nature and thinking himself to be changing, he finds himself to

be such. It is possible for him to give up this ignorance and be established in his real nature of

unchange. This is the Vedantic doctrine of Self-realization.

Forms and finites are subject to change. The Self, being beyond change, is not a form and not

finite; therefore, Self-realization is equivalent to the reaching of a positive state of formless Infinity.

Man is a finite individual, because he, through ignorance, thinks himself finite. Let him think the

opposite way, that he is not finite, and infinite he will be. This is the ‘not this, not this’ method of the

Jnana Yogin, who, convinced from the very first of the apparentness of the finite individuality and the

reality of the Self, breaks his connection with all forms—tearing himself off from the gross, the fine,

the finest, till there remain none to limit him—by the sheer force of the conviction and the thought, ‘I

am He, the formless Infinite’, and tries to stand alone in his infinite nature.

—Swami Swarupananda

THE KINGDOM OF JANAKA

Once upon a time King Janaka passed the sentence of banishment upon a Brahman convict.

The Brahman confessed his crime and said that he fully deserved the punishment passed upon him.

‘But,’ said he, ‘I cannot leave your kingdom, O great king, unless I know how far it extends. Please

therefore tell me how I should know the boundary of your kingdom.’ This question, apparently so sim-

ple, set the king thinking. After remaining in deep contemplation for some time he softly replied, ‘Your

question, O good Brahman, has opened my eyes. The kingdom over which I rule, belonged to my

forefathers, who claimed its ownership just as I do now. But where are they now? They have all

passed away, but the kingdom remains the same. How can I say, then, that it belongs to me? With

my death the kingdom will not vanish, but my sense of ownership will undoubtedly cease for ever. Re-

garding my body in this light, I do not see how I can call it my own. Who knows that the molecules

which compose it do not consider themselves masters of it? After my death dogs and jackals will feed

upon it. I thus see distinctly that the body is not my own. How can I then be the owner of things which

I possess and enjoy with this body? It was out of ignorance, O good Brahman, that I ordered your ex-

ile. Mithila does not belong to me any more than the sky belongs to a particular individual of the world.

Live in Mithila in perfect peace as long as you will.’

—Swami Virajananda

� Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years Ago �

Vivekananda: Conqueror of Death!

LINDA PRUGH

Part I: On the Eve of Departure

One hundred years ago, on 4 July 1902,Swami Vivekananda left his physicalbody. It seems, however, that as de-

cades have passed, the force behind his ideasand his teachings has not for a moment dimin-ished, but has rather grown in strength, grownin breadth, and been broadcast further andfurther, so that today one finds devotees ofSwamiji in every corner of the globe. As heonce said, ‘I am a voice without a form.’ So hisvoice has continued to carry the life-givingmessage of Vedanta, and today people stillcare immensely about every aspect of theswami’s life that carried that message. More

important than a teacher is his teaching. How-ever, it seems teachings penetrate a student’smind best when they are demonstrated in thelife of the teacher. Swamiji taught how to liveby living, and he taught how to die by dying.This year is the centenary of Swami Viveka-nanda’s passing away. It seems a good time tolook at some significant events connected withthe last days of the great Vivekananda. We be-gin, however, much further back, back to thelast days of his Master, Sri Ramakrishna, whenNarendra was still a youth, a student, aleader-in-training for his world-shaking mis-sion.

Prophecies and Intimations

Ineffable Peace

It was a spring evening in 1886 at theCossipore garden house, near Calcutta. Sincethe previous December, Sri Ramakrishna’sdisciples had been serving and nursing him,as he lay dying of cancer. Since the first of Jan-uary, when the Master had blessed thirty-onedevotees and given them various states of ec-stasy and illumination, his chief disciple,Narendra, had been begging Sri Ramakrishnato give him the experience of the Absolute; togive him the direct experience of his identitywith Brahman. Now, all of a sudden, on thisevening, that experience came to him with fullforce. The Life of Swami Vivekananda describesit this way:

[Narendra] was meditating, when suddenly hefelt a light at the back of his head, as though atorchlight were playing there. It became more

and more brilliant, and larger and larger.Finally it seemed to burst. His mind becamemerged in it. What transpired then in his con-sciousness was beyond words, for that Abso-lute state is beyond description. Sometime afterthis realization he wrote some verses, ‘TheHymn of Samadhi’, which hint at the nature ofthat exalted state.

All was still and quiet in the room, [then]Naren [cried] out, ‘… where is my body?’

Word of Naren’s condition was quickly givento the Master, who was seated ‘in intensecalm’ in his upper room. ‘Let him stay in thatstate for a while,’ he replied. ‘He has teased melong enough for it.’1

The Life continues:When [Naren] regained full consciousness ofthe physical world he found himself sur-rounded by his anxious brother-disciples.Memory came back. He felt as though he were

PB-JUNE 2002 16

Vivekananda: Conqueror of Death!

bathed in ineffable peace. His heart was full tooverflowing with ecstasy. He realized that theAbsolute of Vedanta alone could reconcile allphilosophies. When he presented himself be-fore the Master, … [Sri Ramakrishna told him]:‘Now then, the Mother has shown you every-thing. Just as a treasure is locked up in a box, sowill this realization you have just had be lockedup and the key shall remain with me. You havework to do. When you have finished work, thetreasure box will be unlocked again; you willknow everything then, as you did just now.’

And later, Sri Ramakrishna said to his otherdisciples:

Naren will pass away only of his own will. Themoment he realizes who he is, he will refuse tostay a moment longer in the body. The time willcome when he will shake the world to its foun-dations through the strength of his intellectualand spiritual powers. I have prayed that the Di-vine Mother may keep this realization of theAbsolute veiled from Naren. There is muchwork to be done by him. But this veil is so thin, sovery thin that it may give way at any time.2

Before his own death, on 16 August 1886,Sri Ramakrishna gave two behests to Naren-dra: to keep together his brother-disciples in aspiritual community and to spread the univer-sal, life-giving message of Vedanta.

Vivekananda served the Master’s causefor sixteen long years. His ‘public life’, duringwhich he most firmly organized the monasticcommunity that bears his Master’s name, andduring which he did the bulk of his teachingand became known throughout the world, canbe said to consist of nine years, from 1893 to1902. During that period he spent a total of fiveyears in the West during two exhausting stays.During the first tour, he founded the VedantaSociety of New York in November 1894, andhe left a group of devotees in London to carryon work there when he returned to India inDecember 1896.

‘My Task is Done’

On 1 May 1897, having returned to Indiafrom his first tour of the West, Swamiji for-

mally organized the Ramakrishna Mission forthe purpose of worshipping God through ser-vice to others. That summer, on 9 July, in a let-ter to Mary Hale, Swamiji began indicatingwhen he would die. In this letter he firstexpresses some degree of satisfaction with thework done in India, then writes: ‘I feel my taskis done—at most three or four years more oflife are left. … I must see my machine in strongworking order, and then knowing sure that Ihave put in a lever for the good of humanity,in India at least, which no power can driveback, I will sleep, without caring what will benext.’3

One month later, on 10 August, when hewas in Bareilly, he told Swami Achyutanandathat he would live only five or six years more.4

Two months later, Vivekananda wrote toSwami Brahmananda, saying: ‘I have all alongbeen like a hero—I want my work to be quicklike lightning and firm as adamant. Similarlyshall I die also.’5

One year later, on 2 August 1898, in thegreat Himalayan shrine of Shiva at Amarnath,Swami Vivekananda experienced the grace ofAmarnath, not to die until he willed it. SisterNivedita, who was present, later wrote aboutit:

[The swami] entered the cave. With a smile heknelt, first at one end of the semi-circle, then atthe other. The place itself was vast, large

17 PB-JUNE 2002

Vivekananda: Conqueror of Death! 301

He had taken two pebbles into

his hand, and was saying how,

when he was well, his mind might

direct itself to this and that, or his

will might seem less firm, but let

the least touch of pain or illness

come, let him look death in the

face for a while, and ‘I am as

hard as that (knocking the stones

together), for I have touched the

feet of God.’

enough to hold a cathedral, and the greatice-Shiva in a niche of deepest shadow, seemedas if throned on its own base. A few minutespassed, and then he turned to leave the cave.

To him, the heavens had opened. He hadtouched the feet of Shiva. He had had to holdhimself tight, he said afterwards, lest he ‘shouldswoon away’. [He continued] ‘I thought theice-lingam was Shiva Himself … I never en-joyed any religious place so much!’

He always said too that the grace of Amar-nath had been granted to him there, not to dietill he himself should give consent.6

A few weeks earlier, Vivekananda hadtalked about death to the Western discipleswith whom he was travelling. ‘He had takentwo pebbles into his hand, and was sayinghow, when he was well, his mind might directitself to this and that, or his will might seemless firm, but let the least touch of pain or ill-ness come, let him look death in the face for awhile, and “I am as hard as that (knocking thestones together), for I have touched the feet ofGod.”’7

Several weeks after visiting Amarnath,Swami Vivekananda left the party of Westerndisciples to return to Calcutta. It was mid-Oc-tober of 1898. On his way, he stopped at La-hore and was the guest of Nagendra NathGupta, who later reminisced: ‘At this time hehad a prescience of early death. “I have threeyears more to live,” he told me with perfectunconcern, “and the only thought that dis-turbs me is whether I shall be able to give effectto all my ideas within this period.” He died al-most exactly three years later.’8

In June 1899, Vivekananda returned tothe West. He spent ten weeks in New York atRidgely with the Leggett family, then went toCalifornia where he spent the next six months.In April 1900 he founded the Vedanta Societyof San Francisco. In a talk on the Bhagavadgita,he told those Vedanta students: ‘Stand up anddie game! … If death comes … let it come! Weare determined to die game. That is all the reli-gion I know.’9

One remembers that all of the swami’s

work was taken on not because it was his workbut because it was his Master’s. By the springof 1900 he was exhausted, and a number of let-ters written by him at that time reflect his innerwithdrawal from all activity. A knower of At-man has no ego and no desire. Without ego ordesire, there can be little action. Time and timeagain, as one studies his life during this pe-riod, one sees the real end of his formal teach-ing, though he was still to give a few talks andclasses in New York and two or three informaltalks in Paris before returning to India in De-cember 1900.

‘Bonds are Breaking’

In April 1900 from Alameda, California,the swami wrote to Josephine MacLeod:

Work is always difficult; pray for me, Joe, thatmy works stop forever, and my whole soul beabsorbed in Mother. Her works, She knows. …The battles are lost and won. I have bundled mythings and am waiting for the great deliverer.‘Shiva, O Shiva, carry my boat to the othershore.’ … Bonds are breaking—love dying,work becoming tasteless—the glamour is offlife. Only the voice of the Master calling—’Icome Lord, I come.’ … Yes, I come. Nirvana isbefore me. I feel it at times—the same infiniteocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath.

I am glad I was born, glad I suffered so, gladI did make big blunders, glad to enter peace. Ileave none bound, I take no bonds. Whether thisbody will fall and release me or I enter into free-dom in the body, the old man is gone for ever,never to come back again! The guide, the Guru,the leader, the teacher, has passed away; theboy, the student, the servant, is left behind. …

Behind my work was ambition, behind mylove was personality, behind my purity wasfear, behind my guidance the thirst of power!Now they are vanishing and I drift. … Mythoughts seem to come from a great, great dis-tance in the interior of my own heart. They seemlike faint, distant whispers, and peace is uponeverything, sweet, sweet peace … without fear,without love, without emotion.10

The following July of 1900, in New YorkCity, Theodore Whitmarsh was present when

PB-JUNE 2002 18


Swami Vivekananda, on his way to Paris,went to say goodbye to Mr Francis H Leggett.‘He heard [the swami] say that he would notbe coming back to America, adding, ‘I’m go-ing to India to die.’ Then Mr Whitmarsh saidto him, ‘If you’re going to die, you shouldmake a will.’ The swami answered: ‘I havenothing to will.’ Mr Whitmarsh said, ‘Youhave your books.’ Then Vivekananda said, ‘Ifyou’ll make out the will, I’ll sign it.’11

Then when Vivekananda went to saygoodbye to Swami Abhedananda, he toldhim: ‘Well, brother, my days are numbered. Ishall live only for three or four years at themost.’ Abhedananda said: ‘You must not talklike that, Swamiji. You are fast recoveringyour health. If you stay here for some time,you will be completely restored to your for-mer strength and vigour. Besides, we have gotso much work to do. It has only begun.’ ThenSwamiji said to Abhedananda: ‘You do notunderstand me, brother. I feel that I am grow-ing very big. My self is expanding so muchthat at times I feel as if this body could not con-tain me anymore. I am about to burst. Surelythis cage of flesh and blood cannot hold me for

many days more.’12

That fall, in Cairo, after touring variousparts of Europe, Swami Vivekananda toldMadame Emma Calve that he wanted to goback to India to be with his brother monks.Then he said to her, ‘I want to go back to Indiato die and want to be with my brothers.’ Ac-cording to her memoirs, she then said to him:‘Swamiji, you cannot die. We need you.’ Hethen told her he would die on the fourth ofJuly.13

In the spring of 1901 in Dacca, where hehad taken his mother on a pilgrimage, Swamijistartled a group of disciples by telling them: ‘Ishall at the most live a year more. I feel it myduty now to take my mother to the holy placesof pilgrimage which she desires to visit.’14

With his health failing rapidly due to diabetesand asthma, Swamiji then went to Shillong inApril. During a severe attack of asthma, asSwamiji sat, gasping and hugging a pillow tohis chest, he said to his attendant: ‘What doesit matter [if the body goes]! I have given themenough for fifteen hundred years.’15 He knewhe had fulfilled his Master’s mission.

Final Journey

‘Greatness in Little Things!’

In July 1899, aboard the Golconda on hisway to the West, Swami Vivekananda hadtold Sister Nivedita: ‘As I grow older I findthat I look more and more for greatness in littlethings. I want to know what a great man eatsand wears, and how he speaks to his servants.I want to find a Sir Philip Sidney greatness!Few men would remember the thirst of others,even in the moment of death.’16 This ideal oflove and consideration for others shows up sostrikingly in Swamiji’s every movement as hemade his way to Death.

On 18 December 1901, Swami Viveka-nanda sent $ 480 to Christine Greenstidel, adevotee in Detroit, Michigan, for her passageto India. On 4 March 1902, Swamiji wrote to

Nivedita from Varanasi, where he was stayingas a guest with other monks. His letter re-garded the expected arrival of Christine in In-dia. Again, the swami’s letter shows histhoughtfulness of others in spite of his failinghealth. He writes:

It is night now, and I can hardly sit up or write,yet still feel duty bound to write to you this let-ter, fearing lest it becomes my last, it may putothers to trouble. …

[Christina’s] reaching India is very near. …In case I pass away, which I would very muchlike to do in this City of Shiva, do you open herletters directed to me, receive the girl, and sendher back home. If she has no money to go back,give her a passage—even if you have to beg. …

Ramakrishnananda came [to Belur Mathfrom Madras] a few weeks before I came away

19 PB-JUNE 2002


and the first thing he did was to lay down at myfeet 400 Rs he had collected in so many years ofhard work!!! … I can scarcely suppress mytears. … Well, if I pass away, see that 400 Rs ispaid back—every rupee to him. Lord bless youand Ramakrishnananda.

I am quite satisfied with my work. To haveleft two true souls is beyond the ambition of thegreatest.17

When he returned to Belur Math, theswami received from an American devotee acheque for Rs 750. Immediately, he took it toSwami Brahmananda and said: ‘After mypassing away, Christine may want to go backto America. Then where will you get her pas-sage? Take this money and use it for that.’18

On 16 March, Swamiji was too ill to at-tend the Ramakrishna birth anniversary festi-val. To keep visitors to a minimum, SwamiNiranjanananda served as his gatekeeper, justas he had done for Sri Ramakrishna in his lastdays. A lay devotee, visiting Swami Viveka-nanda, felt very much affected by his obviousstate of poor health. Understanding his feel-ings, Vivekananda said to him: ‘What is theuse of giving way to sorrow, my boy? Thisbody was born, and it will die. If I have beenable to instil into you all, even to a small de-gree, some of my ideas, then I shall know that Ihave not lived my life in vain!’19

‘I Must Go to Make Room’

During the spring of 1902, JosephineMacLeod was in India. She later wrote aboutthe last time she saw Swamiji. We note againhis love and insightful consideration of hisdisciples in his final conversation with her.She writes:

I saw Swami off and on all that year [1901-02].One day in April he said, ‘I have nothing in theworld. I haven’t a penny to myself. I have givenaway everything that has ever been given tome.’ I said, ‘Swami, I will give you fifty dollars amonth as long as you live.’ He thought a minuteand then he said, ‘Can I live on that?’ ‘Yes, Oyes,’ I said, ‘but perhaps you cannot havecream.’ I gave him then two hundred dollars,but before the four months were passed he hadgone.

At Belur Math one day [29 March 1902],while Sister Nivedita was distributing prizesfor some athletics, I was standing in Swamiji’sbedroom, at the Math, at the window, watch-ing, and he said to me, ‘I shall never see forty.’ I,knowing he was thirty-nine, said to him, ‘But,Swami, Buddha did not do his great work untilbetween forty and eighty.’ But he said, ‘I deliv-ered my message and I must go.’ I asked, ‘Whygo?’ and he said, ‘The shadow of a big tree willnot let the smaller trees grow up. I must go tomake room.’20

In the same vein, Swamiji consciouslywithdrew himself from affairs of the Math,saying: ‘How often does a man ruin his disci-ples by remaining always with them! Whenmen are once trained, it is essential that theirleader leave them, for without his absencethey cannot develop themselves.’21

The Glory of Freedom!

Christine Greenstidel arrived in India inApril 1902, and almost immediately Swamijisent her nearly 1000 miles away to the AdvaitaAshrama at Mayavati in the Himalayas. Thereshe would be with Mrs Charlotte Sevier andthe group of monastics who were publishingPrabuddha Bharata. Perhaps Swami Viveka-nanda wanted to protect Christine from hav-

PB-JUNE 2002 20


A lay devotee, visiting Swami

Vivekananda, felt very much

affected by his obvious state of

poor health. Understanding his

feelings, Vivekananda said to

him: ‘What is the use of giving

way to sorrow, my boy? This body

was born, and it will die. If I have

been able to instil into you all,

even to a small degree, some of

my ideas, then I shall know that I

have not lived my life in vain!’

ing to endure the harsh Calcutta summer heat;perhaps he thought that a great geographicaldistance would give her some detachmentwhen he died. During the month or so that shewas able to spend in Calcutta, she observed agreat difference between the aspect the swamihad shown in the West and that which ap-peared to be moving him in India. She wrote inher reminiscences:

‘He (Swamiji) is restless, so restless,’ somewould say. But it was not the restlessness of theman who does not know what is urging him on,what it is he wants. Only too well did he under-stand what was actuating him. He could haveexplained it lucidly, logically. A great free soul,conscious of the reality of his being, of his divin-ity, felt himself imprisoned in a cage of flesh.The bondage of the body was torture. The lionbrought from the jungle, where he roamed atwill, never forgets the glory of freedom. Rest-lessly he paces the short distance allowed by hisbars. Here was a mighty free soul caged in flesh.… True, we are all caught in this bondage, butthere is hardly a human being who knows it.We cling to our captivity.

But here before our eyes we saw one whowas fully conscious, who realized the GreatFreedom beyond, to whom the bondage wastorture, who was ceaselessly struggling tobreak through. … Without any teaching what-ever, our eyes were opened. ‘I am not the body, Iam not the mind.’ ‘So that is what it means,’ wethought. ‘I am beyond the body with its disabili-ties, beyond the mind with its limitations, for Iam That, I am That.’

In 1902 I saw him at Belur, a very differentVivekananda from the one whom I had knownin America. Here I saw the lion in his naturalsurroundings. Here it was not necessary towear the mask of conventions, nor to conformto man-made rules. He had a serenity herewhich was sometimes lacking in foreign coun-tries. He was among his own. He could be him-self and it was an even greater self than we hadseen before. He was surrounded by young dev-otees and brother-disciples, those sons of SriRamakrishna, who were now gathered in, afterlong years of wandering. Much of his work wasfinished. He had given his message in [theWest]. In India the roar of the lion was heard

from Colombo to Almora. Through the devo-tion of his young English disciple [Josiah]Goodwin, his message was put into permanent[published] form. He had acquired the plot ofland [at Belur] on the Ganges of which he haddreamed in America, and built a shrine for theworship of Sri Ramakrishna and a monasterywhich was to shelter the children of Sri Rama-krishna—his fellow disciples. He had orga-nized teaching centres, educational institutions,orphanages, famine and flood relief. He wasonly thirty-nine, and he knew that his releasewas near. It came July 4, 1902.22

Sri Ramakrishna had foretold that whenNaren knew who he really was, he would re-fuse to remain a moment longer in the body.Sister Nivedita wrote:

During the last year of his life, a group of hisearly comrades were one day talking over theold days, and the prophecy that when Norenshould realise who and what he had alreadybeen, he would refuse to remain in the body,was mentioned. At this, one of them turned tohim, half-laughing, ‘Do you know yet who youwere, Swamiji?’ he said. ‘Yes, I know now,’ wasthe unexpected answer, awing them into ear-nestness and silence, and no one could ventureat that time to question him further.23

On Buddha Purnima, in May 1902,Swamiji gave monastic vows to the last of hisdisciples, Swami Achalananda. This youngmonk had been staying at Belur Math since thefall of 1901. Once he heard Swamiji say, ‘Youwill see, after two hundred years people willdesperately cry for a hair of Vivekananda’s.’One day Vivekananda told Achalananda tobring flowers and put them at his feet. Then hetold him to bring more flowers and put themat the feet of Swami Brahmananda. Swamijisaid: ‘Remember, the Guru and the President[of the Order are one]. Henceforth, worshipthe President every day.’24

In May, Swami Brahmananda men-tioned to Swami Sadananda that Swamijiwould slip away from them, even as Sri Rama-krishna had done, for he was seeing Ramakri-shna in Swamiji every day. That spring,

21 PB-JUNE 2002


Swami Sadananda also had a premonitionthat Swamiji would not live long, because hislove and his compassion for others were ex-panding so much, it was hard for him to con-trol them.25

This Divine Love!

Swami Sadashivananda recalled in hisreminiscences:

Swamiji’s health broke down completely andhe [said to] Swami Shivananda, ‘This is a shat-tered body. How long can you keep it going?And supposing this body is no more. Nivedita,Shashi (Swami Ramakrishnananda) and otherswill obey me. They will die in harness and cannever falter in carrying out my words. They aremy only hope.’ In this way he would give usalso hope and benedictions. …

Whoever has seen the swami even once cantestify that he has seen a man who could loveand who came to teach love to the world. Howmany youths have renounced everything tojoin the order of monks only because of this di-vine love of the Swami! Even to this day thislove compels them to sacrifice their own lives toserve others.26

In late June, one week before his passingaway, Swamiji asked his disciple SwamiShuddhananda to bring him the almanac.Swamiji opened it and read a number ofpages. He asked Shuddhananda to put the al-manac in a certain place. He kept it in his roomand was seen looking at it over the next severaldays. The young monk did not realize thatSwamiji had now fixed the date of his depar-ture: 4 July.27

Swami Shivananda once reminisced: ‘Afew days before his passing away, Swamiji de-clared, standing in this very courtyard of theMath, that the [spiritual] current that has beenreleased will run unimpeded for seven oreight centuries—nobody will be able to stopit.’28

‘What Great Love He Had for Us!’

Swamiji had established a rule in themonastery that every day the monks would

come to the chapel at 4 am and again in theevening. Anyone who was late was to go outand beg for his food that day. Swami Bodha-nanda later wrote about what happened oneday shortly before Swamiji’s passing:

A few of us overslept ourselves, and we werelate for the morning meditation. When we cameto the chapel, meditation was over, and SwamiVivekananda—oh, what a great love he had forus—said, ‘Why are you late?’ There were threeof us and we said that we had overslept. Thenhe said: ‘You cannot have your meals here to-day. You have to go out and beg for your food.What have you come here for? You could havedone all your sleeping and eating at home; youdid not have to come here for that.’ Then wewent out, and all the time we were gone, as welearned later from some of the other swamis,Swamiji anxiously inquired several times:‘Where have they gone? Where will they eat?’When we came back he said, ‘You know, I hadto order that, because I felt that was the rightthing for you to do.’

A few days before his passing away, a mancame to the Math, a friend from his youth, andasked him for some money. I used to be a sort ofsecretary to Swami Vivekananda and kept his[small amount of] cash. And he asked me togive him two rupees … and I said, ‘Give himtwo rupees and there will not be much left.’ Heanswered: ‘Do you think I care for that? Givehim two rupees plus a little more. In a room, ifone window is open and the correspondingwindow is closed, there is no ventilation, so let itgo by one window and it will come by theother.’29

‘A Great Tapasya Has Come upon Me’

In the summer of 1902, Swamiji’s discipleSwami Kalyanananda was at Belur, servinghim. Swamiji one day asked him to bring someice for him. Kalyanananda walked from Cal-cutta carrying 40 pounds of ice. Seeing him,Swamiji blessed him and said, ‘In future a timewill come when you will attain the state of anillumined soul.’ In late June he told him:‘Look, Kalyan. Do you know my ideal? Onone side of the Math there will be a temple ofRamakrishna. There the monks will meditate

PB-JUNE 2002 22


and then utilize their concentration and medi-tation for the good of mankind. They willserve the living gods. Serving others is akin tomeditation. Utilize your concentration for thesuffering of humanity.’ Swami Achalanandawas present. This was the last time either ofthem saw Swamiji, Kalyanananda going toKankhal, where he had been working to servesick monks in the Himalayas, and Achala-nanda going to Varanasi to the RamakrishnaMission Home of Service.30

Three days before Swamiji’s death, whilewalking on the spacious lawn of the monas-tery with Premananda, Swamiji pointed to aspot on the bank of the Ganges and said,‘When I give up the body, cremate it there.’31

After Vivekananda’s death, Swami Sara-dananda recalled about his last days:

Swamiji’s death was most wonderful! … Latelyhis spirit of renunciation had become verymuch intensified just as it used to be in his ear-lier days. At 4 am he would take everybody tothe Chapel to perform japa and meditation andhe would even say, ‘My task is done, now it isfor you to take over the work, look after every-thing, and relieve me.’ Sometimes he wouldsay, ‘Death has come to my bedside, I have beenthrough enough of work and play, let the worldrealize what contribution I have made, it willtake quite a long time to understand that.Should I go on playing this game for ever? Ihave thrown away the play-things after theplay.’

… a few days earlier, he had told Rakhal[Swami Brahmananda], ‘This time I must doone thing or the other: either I must recoup myhealth through meditation … and japa, andwork with full vigour, or else I shall give up thisshattered body.’32

Sister Nivedita later wrote about Swa-miji’s last days and her last meetings with him:

When June closed, … he knew well enough thatthe end was near. ‘I am making ready for death,’he said to one [Nivedita] who was with him onthe Wednesday before he died. ‘A greatTapasya and meditation has come upon me,and I am making ready for death.’

And we who did not dream that he would

leave us, till at least some three or four yearshad passed, knew nevertheless that the wordswere true. News of the world met but afar-away rejoinder from him at this time. Even aword of anxiety as to the scarcity of the rains,seemed almost to pass him by as in a dream. Itwas useless to ask him now for an opinion onthe questions of the day. ‘You may be right,’ hesaid quietly, ‘but I cannot enter any more intothese matters. I am going down into death.’ …

Did we not remember the story of the greatNirvikalpa Samadhi of his youth, and how,when it was over, his Master had said, ‘This isyour mango. Look! I lock it in my box. You shalltaste it once more, when your work is finished.’

‘… And we may wait for that,’ said themonk who told me the tale. ‘We shall knowwhen the time is near. For he will tell us thatagain he has tasted his mango.’ …

It would seem, indeed, that in his with-drawal from all weakness and attachment,there was one exception. … It was on the lastSunday before the end that he said to one of hisdisciples, ‘You know the Work is always myweak point! When I think that might come to anend, I am all undone!’

On Wednesday [2 July] of the same week,the day being Ekadashi, and himself keepingthe fast in all strictness, he insisted on servingthe morning meal to the same disciple. Eachdish as it was offered—boiled seeds of thejack-fruit, boiled potatoes, plain rice, and ice-cold milk—formed the subject of playful chat;and finally, to end the meal, he himself pouredthe water over the hands, and dried them with a

23 PB-JUNE 2002


‘Do you know my ideal? On one

side of the Math there will be a

temple of Ramakrishna. There the

monks will meditate and then

utilize their concentration and

meditation for the good of

mankind. They will serve the

living gods. Serving others is akin

to meditation. Utilize your

concentration for the suffering of

humanity.’

towel.‘It is I who should do these things for you,

Swamiji! Not you, for me!’ was the protest natu-rally offered. But his answer was startling in itssolemnity—’Jesus washed the feet of His disci-ples!’

Something checked the answer ‘But thatwas the last time!’ as it rose to the lips, and thewords remained unuttered. This was well. Forhere also, the last time had come.33

(to be continued)

References

1. His Eastern and Western Disciples, The Life ofSwami Vivekananda, 5th edn., 2 vols. (Calcutta:Advaita Ashrama, 1-1979; 2-1981), vol. 1,pp. 177-8. [Hereafter Life, 5th edn., followedby volume and page numbers.]

2. ibid., 1.178-9.3. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9

vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), vol. 5, pp. 136-7. [Hereafter CW, fol-lowed by volume and page numbers.]

4. His Eastern and Western Disciples, The Life ofSwami Vivekananda, 1st edn., 4 vols. (Calcutta:Advaita Ashrama, 1912-18), vol. 3, p. 185.[Hereafter Life, 1st edn., followed by volumeand page numbers.]

5. CW, 8.430.6. The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 5 vols.

(Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1995), vol. 1,pp. 347-8. [Hereafter CWSN, followed by vol-ume and page numbers.]

7. CWSN, 1.339-40.8. His Eastern and Western Admirers, Reminis-

cences of Swami Vivekananda (Calcutta: Advai-ta Ashrama, 1994), p. 18. [Hereafter Reminis-cences.]

9. CW, 1.479-80.10. ibid., 6.431-3.11. See Linda Prugh, Josephine MacLeod and Vive-

kananda’s Mission (Chennai: Sri RamakrishnaMath, 1999), pp. 237-8.

12. See Life, 5th edn., 2.489.

13. See Marie Louise Burke, Swami Vivekananda inthe West: New Discoveries, 6 vols. (Calcutta:Advaita Ashrama, 1983-87), vol. 6, p. 397.

14. Life, 1st edn., 4.71-2.15. Swami Chetanananda, God Lived with Them (St

Louis: Vedanta Society of St Louis, 1997),p. 63.

16. CWSN, 1.137.17. CW, 9.180-1.18. Brahmachari Akshayachaitanya, Brahma-

nanda Lilakatha (Calcutta: Nababharat Pub-lishers), p. 217.

19. Life, 5th edn., 2.631.20. Reminiscences, p. 242.21. Life, 1st edn., 4.69-70.22. Reminiscences, pp. 223-4.23. CWSN, 1.257.24. Swami Achalananda, ‘Nine Months with

Swami Vivekananda’ trans. Swami Chetana-nanda in Vedanta Kesari, September 1989,p. 335.

25. Sankari Prasad Basu, Letters of Sister Nivedita, 2vols. (Calcutta: Nababharat Publishers, 1982),vol. 1, p. 488.

26. Reminiscences, p. 412-3.27. See Life, 5th edn., 2.648.28. For Seekers of God: Spiritual Talks of Mahapurush

Swami Shivananda, trans. Swami Vividish-ananda and Swami Gambhirananda (Cal-cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1972), p. 172.

29. Swami Bodhananda, ‘Vivekananda: The Manand the Master’ in Vedanta Darpan, May 1932,pp. 9-10.

30. Swami Abjajananda, Swamijir Padaprante(Belur Math: Ramakrishna Mission Sarada-pitha, 1983); freely translated from Bengali bySwami Chetanananda (audiotaped).

31. God Lived with Them, p. 196.32. Complete Works of Swami Abhedananda, 10 vols.

(Calcutta: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, 1970),vol. 10, pp. 113-4.

33. CWSN, 1.261-3.

PB-JUNE 2002 24


The Role of Bhávaná in Moral and Spiritual

Development

JAIDEVA SINGH

In our moral and religious literature, theword bhávaná occurs a number of times. Itis frequently used in one form or other in

the Yoga Sétras of Pataðjali, in the Vyása Bháøyaon the Yoga Sétras, in Buddhism, in the Bhaga-vadgætá and the Yoga Vásiøôha.

In this paper we shall examine the psy-chological significance of bhávaná and indicatethe great role it plays in our moral and spiri-tual development.

Bhávaná—Some Definitions

Let us now see what bhávaná means. Ety-mologically, it means ‘making (to) become’.We shall see presently that this definition isvery significant. It is used in the sense ofdwelling upon the mind, imagining, pictur-ing, ideation, meditative reflection, concep-tion, thought, idea or image. It is also used tosignify emotion, devotion, steeping and infu-sion. Vácaspati Miùra in his TattvavaiùáradæÔæká on the Yoga Sétra Bháøya defines bhávanáas ‘punaëpunaùcetasi niveùanam, making anidea enter the mind over and over again’,which means holding and maintaining an ideain the focus of consciousness.

The question that arises is, how is a wordwhich only means ‘making (to) become’ usedin the sense of thought, ideation, meditation,and so on. The answer is that our great think-ers discovered that thought is creative, that ifan idea is held and maintained constantly inthe focus of consciousness (punaëpunaùcetasiniveùanam), it is realized that one becomeswhat one thinks. This is the great psychologi-cal significance of bhávaná. Bhávaná may there-fore be translated as ‘creative thinking’. It goeswithout saying that bhávaná demands con-

stant practice.Now, were these thinkers right in saying

that thought is creative? If we turn to modernpsychology, we shall find that in one form oranother modern psychologists also maintainthe same view. Says Charles Baudouin in hisSuggestion and Auto-suggestion: ‘When I think Isuffer, I do really suffer; there are no imagi-nary ills, if by imaginary we mean illusory. Asentiment, a passion, may be the result of asuggestion; but they are nonetheless real.Their essence is to be felt and felt they are.Therein lies their full reality. Suggestion hasveritably created something, for it has givenlife to a self-sufficient entity.’ (p. 77)

Fouillee went so far as to say that ‘ideasare forces.’ William James says in his Principlesof Psychology: ‘Consciousness is in its very na-ture impulsive. We do not have a sensationand a thought and then have to add somethingdynamic to it to get a movement’ (vol. 2, p.526). Emerson, the great American thinker, re-alized the creative force of thought very wellwhen he said in his Conduct of Life:

[Man] thinks his fate alien because the copula(between person and event) is hidden. But thesoul contains the event that shall befall it; for theevent is only the actualization of its thoughts,and what we pray for is always granted. Theevent is the print of your form. It fits you likeyour skin. A man will see his character emittedin the events that seem to meet, but which ex-ude from and accompany him. Events expandwith the character. (pp. 43, 45)

We have seen that bhávaná means notonly thought but also emotion. This meansthat our psychologists believed that a thought,in order to be fully effective and creative, must

25 PB-JUNE 2002

The Role of Bhávaná

in Moral and Spiritual Development

be charged with emotion, that our whole per-sonality must give to it its fullest allegiance. Inorder to become what we think, we must becompletely steeped in the thought; our wholepersonality must consent to its undividedpresence in the mind. It has been a moot pointamong Western psychologists whetherthought by itself without the aid of emotioncould be dynamic. Certain psychologists, forinstance, Thorndike, have called in questionthe view that an idea by itself can have force.They maintain that an idea by itself is unableto achieve anything. When it seems to beworking for its realization there is always anintermediary effective element. It would beuseless to discuss here which view is more cor-rect, but one thing that is perfectly clear is thatan idea is more effective, works for its realiza-tion in a much better way if it has the warmthof emotion. Baudouin has clearly realized theimportance of emotion when he says, ‘when,for one reason or another, an idea is envelopedin a powerful emotion, there is more likeli-hood that this idea will be suggestively real-ized.’ (Suggestion and Auto-suggestion, p. 114)

As bhávaná means both thought and emo-tion and causal force, it alone includes allthose elements that successfully bring aboutthe realization of an idea. The concept ofbhávaná is therefore of great psychological sig-nificance. I do not know of any parallel con-cept in Western psychology that includes allthe elements that bhávaná does (idea + emotion+ being steeped in + making become—acausal force). Bhávaná may be defined as an

idea charged with emotion in which ourwhole personality is steeped and which makesus become what we think.

Conditions for Bhávaná to be Effective

Bhávaná can work successfully when thefollowing conditions are fulfilled: (1) Relax-ation or withdrawal of attention from externalobjects, and freedom from the tyranny of thesenses (ùama and dama); (2) Collectedness, inwhich our whole inner life flows together andcollects itself within us. Without collec-tedness, bhávaná cannot be effective. Sri Krish-na says in the Bhagavadgætá:

Násti buddhirayuktasyana cáyuktasya bhávaná;

Na cábhávayataë ùántir-aùántasya kutaë sukham. (2.66)

Ùaïkaránanda rightly explains ayuktasyaas asamáhita-cetasaë and Ùaïkara also explainsit as asamáhita-antaëkaraîasya, which means‘of the uncontrolled’. Na ca-ayuktasya bháva-ná—‘for the uncontrolled, bhávaná is not possi-ble.’

This statement of Sri Krishna—na cáyuk-tasya bhávaná—also gives incidentally the psy-chological mechanism of bhávaná, giving us ahint about how bhávaná works. When themind is collected, it is the moment of its high-est attention. In such a moment, when we holdand maintain an idea in the focus of conscious-ness, we put our whole heart and soul into it;in such a moment, the idea sinks into thedeeper consciousness, and as bhávaná is a dy-namic ùakti (force), it brings about a change inour character, a transformation of our person-ality. It makes us become what we think. Thedeeper consciousness, the unconscious, is tele-ological; it somehow finds out means for therealization of the bhávaná and often astonishesus by its wonderful sagacity. Emile Coue hasgiven numerous examples of the mysteriousworking of the unconscious.

Three phases can be clearly marked in theworking of bhávaná. First, the maintenance of

PB-JUNE 2002 26


But bhavana is not simply

autosuggestion. … It is a

meditative reflection charged

with energy that brings out actual

realization of not only the idea of

health, of a modification in the

body, but also of the highest

ideal of the self.

the idea of the desired change in the focus ofattention. Second, the work of realization thatis carried on in the deeper consciousness bythe dynamism of bhávaná, unnoticed by our-selves. Third, the actual realization, the ap-pearance of the desired change in our charac-ter and personality.

Bhávaná and Autosuggestion

The parallel of bhávaná that I can think ofin modern psychology is autosuggestion. Ashas been well established by modern psychol-ogists, for autosuggestion also we require astate of relaxation and collectedness, and au-tosuggestion also works by means of the un-conscious. The very etymology of the wordsuggestion, ‘to bring in from underneath’ (sub,‘under’ + gerere, gestum, ‘to carry’, ‘to bring in’)points out its relation to the unconscious. It iswell known that Coue cured a number of dis-eases by leading his patients to evoke in them-selves ideas of health and vigour by means ofautosuggestion. But bhávaná is not simply au-tosuggestion. It is something more, and has amuch deeper significance. It is a meditative re-flection charged with energy that brings outactual realization of not only the idea ofhealth, of a modification in the body, but alsoof the highest ideal of the self. There are layersof consciousness still deeper than the so-calledunconscious, which modern psychology hasnot yet explored. Bhávaná establishes its con-nection with the deepest layer of conscious-ness.

Moral Development

We have briefly examined the psycho-logical mechanism and significance of bháva-ná. We shall now see how bhávaná can be a toolfor our moral and spiritual development.Here is a very typical and telling examplefrom the Yoga Sétras of Pataðjali: Vitarka-bádhane pratipakøabhávanam (2.33). Dr Ganga-nath Jha has very beautifully translated it thus:‘(When these restraints and observances) areobstructed by their “counter-intents” (there

should be) pondering over the antitheses ofthem.’ In order to eradicate undesirablethoughts, habits of mind, and emotions (kill-ing, lying, stealing, and the like), one shouldmeditate on their opposites (love, truth, hon-esty, and so on).

Many important truths of psychologicaland ethical significance are involved in thissétra.

First, in order to be effective, bhávanámust be positive, not negative. If a man pon-ders over the thought ‘I shall not be cruel’, he isallowing the idea of cruelty to enter his mindindirectly, and this is to court disaster. In thevery act of saying ‘I shall not be cruel’ a manstill thinks of cruelty; the thought of cruelty isstill flickering in his mind. This negative ap-proach will not do. Marden has rightly said inThe Miracle of Right Thought: ‘No matter howhard you work for success, if your thought issaturated with the fear of failure, it will killyour efforts, neutralize your endeavours, andmake success impossible.’ In order to get rid ofcruelty, one should not think of it at all, noteven in a negative way. One should ratherdwell on the opposite virtue of kindness—imagining oneself to be engaged in practisingkindness in thoughts, words and deeds. Thuscan one grow into a kind man. That is the greatpsychological secret of the cultivation of vir-tues, of moral development.

Second, a positive bhávaná held in the fo-cus of consciousness ipso facto inhibits all

27 PB-JUNE 2002

The Role of Bhávaná in Moral and Spiritual Development 311

Alas! How many lives have been

ruined … by undisciplined

imagination, due to the lack of

right bhavana. The remedy lies in

a right and healthy bhavana

practised fervently and

continuously, and in avoiding all

occasions of temptation till the

bhavana has taken effect and a

new thought- habit has been set.

other presentations. This is also the view ofmodern psychologists. McDougall says, ‘Voli-tional attention, like all attention, involves in-hibition of all presentations other than the oneheld at the focus of consciousness’ (Social Psy-chology, p. 244). Again, ‘throughout the ner-vous system, with the exception possibly ofthose most primitive parts directly concernedin the control of the visceral organs, inhibitionalways has this character, appears always asthe negative aspect, or complementary result,of a positive process of innervation.’ (SocialPsychology, p. 245)

Indian psychologists discovered thislong ago. Madhusédana Sarasvatæ, comment-ing on the 66th verse of the second chapter ofthe Bhagavadgætá, thus explains bhávaná withgreat psychological insight: ‘Bhávaná nidhidh-yásanátmiká vijátæya-pratyayántarita-svajátæya-pratyaya-praváharépá, bhávaná is of the natureof meditative reflection, consisting in the con-tinuous flow in consciousness of similar ideasand consequent inhibition of all dissimilarideas.’ Without any material change, one mayeasily imagine McDougall’s statement citedabove as the translation of MadhusédanaSarasvatæ’s explanation of bhávaná. Thus, wemust concentrate on the positive idea, notworrying about the inhibition of dissimilarideas. The inhibition will be carried out as amatter of course; it is only a complementaryresult of positive bhávaná.

To discuss the contribution of bhávaná ingreater depth. In order to get rid of a particu-lar weakness in character, we have to dwellconstantly in thought on the opposite virtue,safely leaving the result in the hands of thedeeper consciousness, which knows its busi-ness full well. The drunkard drinks in spite ofhimself because of two reasons. First, the oldthought-habit of the pleasures of drinking isdeeply ingrained in his character and has notworn off as yet; it still persists. He is only intel-lectually convinced of the evils of drinking; hehas not formed a new tendency in his charac-

ter by a continuous and fervent bhávaná on so-briety. Second, when he passes by a bar, orwhen a friend offers him a peg, he dwells in hisimagination on the pleasures of the drink, andthe action occurs almost with certain fatality;the hand goes to the cup, the cup goes to thelips, and in goes the liquor before he realizeswhat he has done. Poor Omar Khayyam criedin the agony of his soul:

Indeed, indeed, repentance oft before I sworeI swore—but was I sober when I swore?

And then and then came spring,and rose-in-hand

my threadbare penitence apieces tore.

Alas! How many lives have been ruined,how many promising young men have beenmorally wrecked, by undisciplined imagina-tion, due to the lack of right bhávaná. The rem-edy lies in a right and healthy bhávaná prac-tised fervently and continuously, and inavoiding all occasions of temptation till thebhávaná has taken effect and a new thought-habit has been set.

Spiritual Development

Just as bhávaná helps us in moral develop-ment, even so it does in spiritual development.In Vedanta one finds bhávaná being used as anaid to spiritual development. It is callednididhyásana. After having convinced himselfthat his body and mind are not the real Self,the aspirant fervently practises the bhávaná‘so’ham, I am That’. The Átman being his realSelf, by this constant bhávaná he succeeds ulti-mately in realizing the highest Self, the ‘peacethat passeth understanding’.

Bhávaná is, indeed, the greatest psycho-logical miracle; it can transform our personal-ity and character. It deserves the closest atten-tion of the educationist, the social reformer,the psychiatrist, the doctor, and the aspirant. Itwas no exaggeration when our ancient think-ers said, ‘Yádìùæ bhávaná yasya siddhirbhavatitádìùæ, as is the bhávaná, so is the attainment.’ Itis a deep psychological truth. �

PB-JUNE 2002 28


Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi vis-a-vis Indian

Renaissance

DR SUMITA ROY

Born in a remote village but living in Cal-cutta, the citadel of British power at thattime, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi was a

gentle bridge between the old and the new.Worshipped by her own husband Sri Rama-krishna as feminine power incarnate, SaradaDevi exemplified the emerging model of awife and mother, besides being a sangha mata,mother to an entire order of monastics. ThusIndian renaissance has in her a resilient figureadapting itself to radical changes in the worldaround.

A Unique Life of Selfless Service

Basic to this renaissance model is her out-standing one-pointed dedication to service.Living most of her life in an incredibly smallroom in the Dakshineswar Kali temple, sheserved her lord and master without any grainof discomfort or complaint. Thus, an impor-tant aspect of great relevance to us is her com-mitment to service without any kind of expec-tation. In this respect she lived through the to-tal spectrum of qualities associated with disin-terested action, and this service transcendedher immediate household. While Sri Ramakri-shna with his delicate health required con-stant care and concern, she bestowed equalcare and concern on the visitors and disciples.

One can visualize the ordeal of cookingfor a large number of people in a small room,at generally odd hours, with total devotionand manifest love. When this is seen in itsproper context of modern aids to cooking andall the present-day amenities, one is amazed atthe totality of her personality doing things in ajoyous spirit and not as a duty. Holy Motherencouraged her disciples to lead a life of activ-

ity, giving up idleness.

Education for Character and Self-reliance

She was vaguely aware of the transfor-mations sweeping through the country dur-ing that crucial period of cultural and socialupheaval. These swift alterations, she real-ized, affect family structure but should not beallowed to dilute the core of the value systemwhich the family has always represented in In-dia. For instance, she had great concern forgirls getting educated. She felt that thosewomen who, because of widowhood, wereparticularly under strain, should develop aspirit of self-reliance. If a family could not sup-port them, they should try to support them-selves without depending on the patronage ofthe patriarchal family. This ideal is now em-bodied in several educational institutions runby the Ramakrishna Order, inspired by herideals.

Education for character and for suste-nance, based on the viable elements of Indiantradition, is what she advocated. She is a vin-dication of the fact that education need notnecessarily be linked to literacy. Traditionalvalue systems assigning a particular role towomen found favour with her but not irratio-nal acceptance of all the elements.

Her Catholic and Positive Outlook

One is struck by her catholic outlook cut-ting across caste and ethnic barriers—almostimpossible for a person living in an ethos ofcaste rigidities and regimentation. Thus,Ramakrishna’s ideal of positive acceptancefinds in her life a live demonstration.

Holy Mother could be firm when neces-

29 PB-JUNE 2002

Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi

vis-a-vis Indian Renaissance

sary, and take hard decisions even when theymeant pain for some. As Swami Nirvedanan-daji pointed out:

This exquisite sweetness embodied in the HolyMother was wonderfully matched by her digni-fied bearing as well as her sagacious dealingwith people and their affairs. The ‘stateliness ofher courtesy and her great open mind’, herquick penetrating insight into the core of anyproblem placed before her and her extraordi-nary power of passing ‘large and generousjudgement’ on matters however new or com-plex, all these were no less impressive than hermotherly tenderness.1

A good example is her refusal to don thetraditional insignia of a widow after the pass-ing away of Sri Ramakrishna. She was ofcourse inspired by Sri Ramakrishna himself.Hence her negation of the traditional role isnot a mere gesture of social revolt but is an end

product of spiritual assumptions regardingthe genderlessness of the Ultimate Reality. Ifthis sounds ponderous to those who do not be-lieve in this, its effect on Holy Mother was tomake her more self-reliant, and renounce thecrippling factors of traditional roles assignedto a widow.

Another context in which this was dem-onstrated is the ease with which she couldcommunicate her ideal to even Westernwomen admirers of Ramakrishna. She couldestablish spontaneous rapport with such out-standing and gifted Western women as SisterNivedita, whose own role in the Indian renais-sance is significant. This is not a question oflanguage barriers but a question of the trans-mission of values across cultures. She never al-lowed the integrity of her belief and faith to becompromised and accommodated, even in thecontext of women with different theologicaltraditions. This apparently simple woman

posed a challenge to regressive preconcep-tions about Indian women stored in the popu-list Western readings of Oriental cultures ofthose days.

Redefinition of the Role of Women

There are several implications here forthe emerging feminist discourse. Her mar-riage to Ramakrishna without its basis on thebiological is of great interest since it couldmean redefinition of the traditional inimicalrole conceived for women in spiritual life.Woman is not a distraction weaning manaway from his inward quest; on the contrary,she can be a regenerative power helping andaiding—in fact energizing—the very quest.Ramakrishna, who emphasized ‘woman andgold’ as perils on the path, has without anyirony worshipped Sarada Devi as sakti incar-nate. Woman is thus delinked from pervasive

cultural readings as a temptress. Holy Motheroffers correctives to these perceptions espe-cially in the modern context, where excesses offeminism are becoming evident.

The Ramakrishna Sarada Mission

The practical implications of all theseideas are embodied, so to say, in the Ramakri-shna Sarada Mission (Sarada Mission, forshort), an order of nuns, with branches in Indiaand abroad. One interesting aspect of this Mis-sion is its total autonomy—it has its own trust-ees, rules and regulations, and everything elsenecessary for its functioning. This autonomydraws its inspiration from Swami Vivekanan-da himself. When he was asked what hewould like women to do in the context of chal-lenging situations, he categorically said thatthis should be left to women themselves to de-cide. No superior wisdom, he felt, need be at-tributed to the male. It is this respect and integ-


PB-JUNE 2002 30

Peace of mind is a singular achievement which all of us seek,consciously or otherwise. Holy Mother has given a sure key to enterthis treasure house, in her own inimitable way.

rity that have animated the founding of theSarada Mission. From medical servicesthrough education to publication, Sarada Mis-sion’s activities are varied.

The Sarada Mission is certainly inspiredby social orientations but it draws its strengthfrom the primary aim of inward life. This or-der balances work with contemplation, and ifany compromise is necessary, even work willbe marginalized. Such imbalances never seemto disfigure this movement, though. The Mis-sion is doing pioneering work in remote tribalareas such as Khonsa in Arunachal Pradesh.But the education here is grounded in the twinideal of Ramakrishna Vedanta—service andsalvation.

Spirituality in Practice

When a disciple asked her ‘What is theaim of life?’ Mother answered him forth-rightly: ‘To realize God and to remain im-mersed in his contemplation.’2 This may givethe impression that she wanted renunciationto be the basic aim of life, disregarding the sec-ular world, in which this contemplation has tobe carried out. As she rightly put it, creation it-self is a blending of the laukika (the secular)and the adhyatmika (spiritual). ‘One has to takeup some work,’ for ‘is it possible to meditatefor all twenty-four hours of the day? How canthe mind be kept well without any work?’ sheasked unambiguously.3 One can call this prac-tical spirituality. The word practical is inclu-sive and assigns different facets of life theirproper place.

One need not consider this a pious plati-tude. In addition to her spiritual ministry, shehad to live in a household of close relativessome of whom were, if not neurotic, at leastdifficult to live with: her own niece Radhu, forinstance. One can hardly imagine the ordealthis imposed on her God-centredness andtranquillity. Such a context is fraught with tre-mendous powers of healing—a discipline in-

creasingly becoming visible. In fact, she sawthe episode of her neurotic niece as a devicedesigned by the Master to infuse commitmentand compassion for suffering humanity. Shenarrated: ‘How the Master has entangled methrough Radhu! After the passing away of theMaster, I did not at all relish anything in life. Ibecame utterly indifferent to worldly thingsand kept on praying “What shall I achieve inremaining in this world?” Then the Masterpointed out a girl ten or twelve years old andsaid, “Cling to her as a support. Many childrenseeking instruction will come to you.”’4

Her Prescription for Peace

All these facets stem from the centralquality of a saint—all-embracing love. Herlast testament, so to say, echoes this: ‘If youwant peace of mind, do not find fault with oth-ers. Rather see your own faults. Learn to makethe whole world your own. No one is astranger, my child; the whole world is yourown!’5

Peace of mind is a singular achievementwhich all of us seek, consciously or otherwise.Holy Mother has given a sure key to enter thistreasure house, in her own inimitable way.This is her greatest contribution to the newdawn, which Ramakrishna-Sarada-Viveka-nanda Vedanta has ushered in. �

References

1. Swami Nirvedananda, The Holy Mother (Cal-cutta: Sarada Math, 1983), p. 66.

2. Swami Tapasyananda and Swami Nikhila-nanda, Sri Sarada Devi the Holy Mother (Ma-dras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1969), p. 402.[Hereafter Sri Sarada Devi.]

3. The Gospel of the Holy Mother (Madras: SriRamakrishna Math, 1986), p. 105. [HereafterGospel HM.]

4. Gospel HM, p. xxx.5. Sri Sarada Devi, pp. 217-8.

Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi vis-a-vis Indian Renaissance 315

31 PB-JUNE 2002

Non-violence: A Spiritual Perspective

SWAMI PRABUDDHANANDA

Non-violence or harmlessness (ahimsa)is one of the twenty-six qualities of anindividual born with divine nature as

described by Sri Krishna (Bhagavadgita, Chap-ter 16). Some other qualities are fearlessness,purity of heart, truthfulness, absence of greedand hatred, gentleness, forgiveness and forti-tude. In this essay we shall attempt a brief per-spective of non-violence.

Jungle Law and Human Dharma

There is a Sanskrit saying which means‘life lives on life.’ That is how things are, andthis is very evident in the animal kingdom,where we find the survival of the fittest—oneanimal eating up another animal, and that ani-

mal being eaten up by a bigger animal. Thereis a story in Indian mythology about a dog thatwas being chased by a wolf. It approached aholy man and asked, ‘What shall I do?’ Theholy man said, ‘Well, I will use my powers andconvert you into a wolf.’ So he turned the doginto a wolf. Afterwards the wolf becameafraid of the tiger and it went to the holy managain, who said, ‘All right, I will make you a ti-ger.’ Then afterwards the tiger was afraid of alion. Like this the story goes on, and the dogbecomes a bigger animal every time. One dayin search of food it came across the holy manand said, ‘I will eat you up.’ So the holy mansaid, ‘You ingrate, I helped you outgrow allyour fear and now you want to eat me up! Be-come a dog again.’ So the poor creature be-

came what it was—a dog.What is the moral of this story? At the an-

imal level, man is right. It is called animaldharma or jungle law. The jungle law is: thecat eats up the rat, and then the cat is eaten upby something else. In short, life depends onlife. It is acceptable as far as the animal king-dom is concerned, but when we come to hu-man beings the situation is different. Onceupon a time in human history there was canni-balism; people used to eat people. And theyfound this was not an appropriate behaviourfor man. So the ancient dharma prohibitedthis. Dharma prescribes values we should cul-tivate and live by. According to the jungle life-style, one animal survives on another. But

when it comes to human beings, they weretold, ‘Your lifestyle should be ahimsa, not tohurt others. What is harmful to you, you shallnot do to others.’ This is the essence of ancientdharma: do not harm others.

Motive More Important than the Act

There are other meanings of dharma.One meaning is that whatever sustains us isdharma. Whatever strengthens us and what-ever brings integration in us, is dharma. Ifthere is no dharma, society will break down topieces. So it is dharma which holds society to-gether. What is the power that integrates? It isnon-violence. Violence causes disintegration,it breaks society into pieces. Ahimsa or non-vi-olence stands for the highest degree of harm-

PB-JUNE 2002 32

According to the jungle lifestyle, one animal survives on another. Butwhen it comes to human beings, they were told, ‘Your lifestyle shouldbe ahimsa, not to hurt others. What is harmful to you, you shall not doto others.’ This is the essence of ancient dharma—do not harm others.

Non-violence: A Spiritual Perspective

lessness. Mahatma Gandhi believed ahimsa tobe a universal law.

Though the word ahimsa or non-vio-lence has a negative connotation, let us exam-ine the dictionary meaning of the word. Youhurt someone with physical force. That is vio-lence, according to the dictionary. But that is avery primitive definition. When we come tohuman dharma, this definition is not enough. Ican hurt you through my words. I can hurtyou through my thoughts. Swami Vivekanan-da used to say that jealousy is the worst formof injury. So ahimsa implies that one shouldnot hurt others by thought, word or deed. Notonly that, there is a positive side—you shouldhelp and love others.

Again, sometimes what appears to be vi-olence is not really so. Think of a surgeon. Heplunges his knife into the chest of a patient.This is an act of compassion. A teacher or amother disciplines a child, and the child feels

hurt. But that discipline is necessary for thegood of the child. And then there are otherswhose duty is to protect society, like police-men or soldiers. In the course of their workthey may have to apparently hurt others. Butthat is not violence. Therefore the questionarises: what really is violence? To answer thiswe have to determine first what is the motivebehind the act. Motivation becomes more im-portant than the act itself. Externally, the actmay be apparently violent, but another di-mension needs to be considered here: thethought or the motive behind the act. Now,first the jungle law is ruled out because it is notfor human beings. Next, you add another di-mension—the mental dimension. Because ashuman beings we live more at the mental than

at the physical level. Therefore, our teacherssay that when you talk about violence, youshould take into consideration the motive, theintention behind the act.

Ahimsa for our Own Health

Vedanta teaches, ‘For the health of yourmind, let other people alone; do not harmthem. If you hurt others, you will lose yourmental health.’ The great philosopher Patan-jali says that the main obstructions to mentalhealth are killing, falsehood, anger and igno-rance. Ignorance ends up in misery. Andwhen you become miserable, you inflict thatmisery on others too. Swami Vivekananda ex-plains it this way. Every vicious thought willrebound. Every thought of hatred you cherish,even sitting in a cave, turns up and will oneday come back to you with tremendouspower, and make you suffer. If you project ha-tred and jealousy, they will rebound on you.

No power can avert it. When once you haveput them in motion, you will have to reap theirfruit. Remembering this will prevent you fromdoing wicked things. Not that someone elsewill hit you, you will hit yourself.

Ahimsa is Not Weakness

There are several methods to rise aboveviolence, such as karma yoga, the path of self-less work. Karma yoga teaches us how to liveand work in this world. A karma yogi is onewho understands how to use non-violent re-sistance as the highest manifestation of power.Resisting evil is but one a step towards themanifestation of the power of non-violence.Before reaching this highest ideal, man’s dutyis to resist evil, even by using force, if called

33 PB-JUNE 2002

Non-violence: A Spiritual Perspective 317

What is the rationale behind non-violence? According to Vedanta, allexistence is one, the same divinity pervading the entire world. Anysense of otherness brings problems. Fear, violence, hatred—all thisarises because there is a sense of otherness. The wise man beholdsall beings in his Self, and the Self in all beings. For that reason he doesnot hate anyone.

for. It is not ‘resist no evil.’ Resist evil. But it de-pends on how you resist. Only when you havegained the moral strength to resist violence,will non-resistance become a virtue in you.Even Mahatma Gandhi used to say thatnon-violence is the weapon of the brave,weapon of the strong. He also said that vio-lence is better than cowardice. So non-vio-lence is not synonymous with weakness.

Oneness of Existence

What is the rationale behind non-vio-lence? According to Vedanta, all existence isone, the same divinity pervading the entireworld. Any sense of otherness brings prob-lems. Fear, violence, hatred—all this arises be-cause there is a sense of otherness. The wiseman beholds all beings in his Self, and the Self

in all beings. For that reason he does not hateanyone. To the seer all things have really be-come the Self. What delusion, what sorrowcan there be for him who perceives this one-ness? So the solution is oneness. By being vio-lent, we are cutting at our own roots. And thatis why we suffer. Wherever we sacrifice truth,we suffer. And the truth is we are all one. Donot break this law. Just as when we violate thelaws of well-being we suffer, even so when webreak the spiritual law of oneness, sufferingwill be inevitable—physical and mental. Onething leads to another. In view of this, violenceneeds to be given up.

Attitude towards Suffering around Us

Finally, in spite of our best efforts, we seeso much suffering in the world—an earth-

quake, a flood, a famine, an epidemic, and thelike. If we look at the big picture we may saythat a lot of violence is going on everywhere:death, disease, suffering, so much pain—canwe stop all that? Our teachers say that cos-mic-level violence is a part of nature, a part ofthe divine scheme, and it goes on all the time.It is a cosmic play—Divine Mother’s play. Butdoes it mean that we are justifying in behavinglike animals? No, not at all. We must take abigger and broader view of things. A personwho sees everything as a divine play can be-come a person of great love. First a person hasto transcend animal nature, then transcendhuman nature too and become divine. That isSwami Vivekananda’s definition of religion:raising man from the brute level to the humanlevel to the divine level. That is our goal in life.

On the other side is the law of the jungle.Ahimsa—the great dharma of harmlessness—is midway between the two. After that, be-yond all dharmas and beyond all violence andnon-violence, is pure love. Then you will seethe divine hand behind love, peace and theso-called violence.

Whether we like it or not, wars go on.Thousands of people are killed. How shall welook upon that? We should look at it with allsympathy, all love, seeing at the same time thedivine play or the divine power behind it. Sowe accept that just as we accept somethingvery pleasant. A man of God salutes the un-pleasant too because he sees the divine playeven in that. So this is a way of looking fromdifferent sides to get different views of this im-portant subject of non-violence. �

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We must take a bigger and broader view of things. A person whosees everything as a divine play can become a person of great love.First a person has to transcend animal nature, then transcend humannature too and become divine. That is Swami Vivekananda’sdefinition of religion: raising man from the brute level to the humanlevel to the divine level. That is our goal in life.

Reflections on Communal Violence in India

SWAMI TYAGANANDA

On March 30th of this year the SouthAsian Association at the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology (MIT) put

together a forum to discuss the communal vio-lence sparked by the recent event at Godhra inGujarat. The purpose was to publicly con-demn violence in the name of religion and tohelp bring the estranged communities to-gether. Among the invitees were a PhD stu-dent from Harvard who was a native ofGujarat, and a representative each from theMuslim and the Hindu communities.

Eyebrows were raised and emotions ranhigh after the somewhat aggressive and accu-satory speech by the Hindu representativefrom the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) ofAmerica. His response was fuelled at least inpart by an earlier presentation of what wascertainly a lopsided historical narrative thatlargely painted Muslims as the victims andHindus as the habitual perpetrators. When thefloor was thrown open for discussion, almostall of the questions and angry comments werehurled at the VHP representative. The forumthat aimed at condemning violence and pro-moting understanding was itself becomingtoo fractious. Fortunately, things did not goout of hand and the meeting ended after giv-ing almost everyone a chance to have theirsay. In any case, here is a brief summary of thereflections that I offered on the occasion:

We gather here today in sadness and inprayer for the innocent victims of the recentcommunal flare-up in Gujarat and a few otherplaces in India. Nearly 10,000 miles separateus from the region where the actual eventstook place. We have the ‘numbers’ of peoplewho lost their lives or were injured, or whosehomes and businesses were destroyed, and onour minds are imprinted the ‘images’ sup-

plied by the media. What most of us don’thave are the very real and personal tragediesexperienced by hundreds of families: everyperson who died was either a mother or fatheror child or wife or husband of somebody orother. We can identify with the tragedy in abetter way if we realize what it might havemeant to us if we had lost any of our own nearand dear ones in these communal clashes. Sothe strong emotions, the distrust and the fearthat the recent happenings have generated areperfectly understandable.

It is appropriate that all right thinkingpeople should condemn violence inflicted onfellow human beings. But alongside condem-nation, there should also be reflection. Merelycondemning something or trading accusa-tions will not solve the problem. It may onlyproduce more anger or hatred. When we con-demn anything, we express our unhappiness,or displeasure, or disagreement, with what-ever has happened. But the next questionshould be: is there anything we can do to pre-vent such things from happening again? Thatis how reflection begins. When we begin to re-flect, several issues come up.

The first thing we may realize is that vio-lence is a global phenomenon: it is not re-stricted to only one country or between onlytwo specific groups of people. So while werightly condemn violence that occurred re-cently in India, we should also condemn vio-lence that has occurred—and is occurring,even at this very moment—elsewhere in theworld.

The violence in India has been describedas ‘communal violence’, which, I think, is afairly accurate description, because two com-munities were indeed involved in inflicting vi-olence on each other. People from both the

35 PB-JUNE 2002

PB-JUNE 2002 36


communities have suffered and people fromboth the communities have caused the suffer-ing. Endless wrangling about who sufferedmore and whose violence was ‘spontaneous’as opposed to ‘premeditated’, is a sure recipefor prolonging the violence and the conse-quent suffering.

I am not sure, though, if ‘communal vio-lence’ is synonymous with ‘religious vio-lence’. By community is meant a group of peo-ple sharing a common interest, ideology orfaith. Such communities can indeed clash withone another but that doesn’t necessarily meanthat it is a clash between ideologies or reli-gions. In every religion, we have teachings re-lated to love, understanding and peace—so itis difficult to understand why those who callthemselves ‘religious’ should indulge in ha-tred and actions that destroy peace.

Swami Vivekananda once said: ‘In my lit-tle experience I have collected this knowledge:that in spite of all the devilry that religion isblamed with, religion is not at all in fault; noreligion ever persecuted others, no religionever burnt witches; no religion ever did any ofthese things. What then incited people to dothese things? Politics, but never religion; and ifsuch politics takes the name of religion, whosefault is that?’ (The Complete Works of SwamiVivekananda, 4.125)

By ‘politics’ Vivekananda meant greed orthe quest for dominance and power—or retal-iation against perceived threat—that often in-fluences individual and social reactions.

I would like to say something more aboutretaliation against threat. The issue of ‘iden-tity’ needs to be considered. All of us will nat-urally and spontaneously resist any threat toour lives, because that is a direct threat to ouridentity as human beings. But we are not just‘human’: we have several more identities be-sides a human identity. We have identitiesbased on gender, culture, religion, nationalityand race. Whenever any of these identities isthreatened, we retaliate. To begin with, the re-

taliation is usually verbal. But if that doesn’tproduce the desired effect, it turns to physicalviolence leading to injury, death and destruc-tion.

Whenever we feel threatened, we need toask ourselves, ‘Which identity of mine is atstake here?’ In an interreligious context, suchinner inquiry may produce questions like:What exactly is ‘religion’? What does it meanto be ‘religious’? Is it possible for me to be afaithful practitioner of my religion without in-dulging in violence? We may be surprised tofind that it is usually possible to overcome thethreat quietly, intelligently and peacefully.Disagreements there will always be, but can Ifind a way to express my displeasure or dis-agreement in a calm, balanced and respectfulmanner? Does my view automatically become‘right’ if I can beat the daylights out of thosewhom I consider my enemies? Such questionsmust be asked and their answers explored.

Our condemnation of violence will bemeaningful only if we don’t indulge in vio-lence—verbal or physical—in our own dailylives. We should be able to find other means ofresolving our disputes and disagreements. Adialogue in the spirit of mutual respect andunderstanding will be very helpful in most sit-uations. Let us try to find constructive, peace-ful ways of resolving conflicts. A good way tobegin is by making sincere efforts to listen—even if we don’t agree—to what others have tosay. It is a good practice to put ourselves inothers’ shoes and see how it feels. If we don’tlisten and try to understand others, what righthave we to expect others to listen to us and un-derstand us?

I believe that every religion has enoughresources to help its practitioners solve all dif-ficulties in a peaceful way. If we fail to do that,let us not put the blame on religion, our own orsomeone else’s. Let us take the responsibilityon our own shoulders and recognize our ownfailure. We have the power to either build ordestroy our future. The choice is ours. �

Glimpses of Holy Lives

Yearning Made Her God’s Own

Paramadatta was a prosperous wholesalegrain merchant in Karaikkal (presentlyin Tamil Nadu). His business ethics and

hospitality won him many friends amongbusiness contacts.

After transacting his business with Para-madatta one day, a friend presented him withtwo luscious mangoes specially grown in hisgarden. The colour of the fruit and the uniquefragrance bore testimony to their speciality.Since it would be some time before Parama-datta went home for lunch, he requested hisfriend to hand over the mangoes at his resi-dence, on his way back. The friend handedover the fruit to Punitavati, Paramadatta’swife, and left.

Punitavati was a devoted wife. She wascooking food, her lips repeating Shiva’s name,when she heard a knock at the door, followedby namaë ùiváya, the famous Shiva mantra.There was an elderly Shivacharya (sannyasin)at the door. Punitavati greeted him withfolded hands, saying namaë ùiváya. Thesannyasin said he was hungry and tired after along walk, and wondered whether he couldhave alms. Punitavati welcomed him, gavehim water to wash his feet and spread a leafbefore him for food. Cooking was just halfdone. She served him whatever was ready.She suddenly remembered the mangoes herhusband had sent, and thought a mango maypartly make up for the incomplete food. Shewondered whether her husband would bringsome guest for lunch and might need both themangoes. She finally resolved that service to aShivacharya was superior to any other consid-eration, and placed a mango on thesannyasin’s leaf. Immensely pleased with herhospitality, the sannyasin blessed her pro-fusely and left.

Punitavati resumed the cooking. By thetime it was over, her husband returned home.When he sat for his meal he got it confirmedfrom her that the mangoes had reached her.She served him the only mango among otheritems. Paramadatta immensely liked thesweet fruit and asked for the second. Punita-vati was in a fix. She was taught by her mothernot to displease her husband in any way. Infact she never had occasion to displease him sofar. Such a situation had never arisen by God’sgrace. Did one arise today? Paramadattamight not have objected to the first mango be-ing served to the sannyasin. He did not haveanything against holy men. But Punitavatithought that there might still remain a sense ofwant in her husband.

When she was cogitating thus, her hus-band called her a second time. In great anxietyher panting heart went out to Lord Shiva, to berelieved of the fix. Lo! There appeared on heroutstretched palms another mango! Her hus-band called her a third time, and she ran tohim, fruit in hand. With deep gratitude toShiva for protecting her, she placed the fruiton her husband’s plate. With a single bite,Paramadatta felt here was a different fruit. Ittasted like nectar, as it were. Usually, you feelthe sweetness of a fruit on your tongue, buthere was one whose sweetness and fragrancehe could experience all over his body andmind, nay, deeper! ‘Punitavati, I have nevereaten such a fruit! Is this the one my friendbrought?’ he exclaimed.

An embodiment of purity and chastity,Punitavati told him what happened. ‘Really?’he asked her. He knew of her noble descentand her sterling virtues. But getting a fruitfrom the Lord Himself! ‘Really?’ Punitavatiretold the incident. He gazed at her awestruck:

37 PB-JUNE 2002

� Glimpses of Holy Lives �

PB-JUNE 2002 38


‘Can you get one more fruit?!’ Punitavati won-dered, ‘What sort of test is this, my Lord?’With her eyes closed, her mind surrendered toGod in utter helplessness and yearning. Lo,right before Paramadatta’s eyes, there ap-peared a second fruit on her palm! His gazestill transfixed, Paramadatta rose from hisseat. He wondered in reverence: ‘She did noteven articulate her prayer! The Lord re-sponded to her mere mental supplication, justlike that! How devoted must she be! Is she anordinary lady or a divine being? How could Itreat her as my wife all these days?’ He trem-bled at his thoughts, washed his hands andwas off to his shop. His mind repeatedlyplayed back the scene for him, his cogitationcontinuing unabated.

Paramadatta left for another country byship on a mercantile expedition. His businessflourished. On his return, a merchant in Naga-pattinam (in Tamil Nadu, again) offered himhis daughter in marriage. On return from asecond expedition next year, he was over-joyed to see a daughter born to him. He namedher Punitavati. He went a third time on hismercantile tour. Punitavati, his first wife, wasin his thoughts all the time, but with an adora-tion due to a divine being. On his return, hefound Punitavati’s father waiting for him withhis relatives. He said he did not have any ob-jection to Paramadatta’s second marriage, butpleaded that he didn’t desert Punitavati.‘Where is she?’ asked Paramadatta. Punita-vati’s father replied that she was in a friend’shouse, and said he would fetch her there.

Paramadatta said he would visit her him-self, and set out with his wife and daughter.His mind was full of thoughts of Punitavati.They reached the house. When Punitavati ap-peared before him, with folded hands he in-troduced to her his wife and daughter, andasked them to prostrate before her. He himselfjoined them and fell at her feet. The relativeswere scandalized at this strange behaviour ofa husband. Paramadatta got up and said, ‘Re-spected elders, Punitavati is not my wife any-

more. She is not a human being; she is divine. Ileft her on seeing a miracle she wrought, mar-ried again in due course, and named mydaughter after her. I can’t think of her as wifeanymore. Nor am I fit to be her husband.’ Henarrated the whole story. The relatives wereagape in wonder, and fell at Punitavati’s feet,realizing her greatness.

Punitavati closed her eyes in prayer: ‘OShiva, if it is your wish that my husbandshould desert me, why all this external beautyfor me anymore? Grant me the form of awraith.’ Immediately, before everyone pres-ent, the young Punitavati got transformed intoan abominable, ghostlike form. She leftNagapattinam and set out on foot to MountKailas, the holy abode of her Lord Shiva.When she neared the mountain, she did notwish to defile it with her feet. Legend has itthat she traversed the last stretch on her head!Uma, Shiva’s spouse exclaimed: ‘O my Lord,amazing is the love of this bony frame which isapproaching us, walking on its head!’ Shivareplied: ‘She is a mother who cherishes Us.And this glorious form she prayed for and ob-tained.’ As Punitavati came closer, Shiva ad-dressed her ‘O Mother!’ (Tamil, ‘ammaiye’),and asked her what she wanted. She prayedonly for undying blissful love for Him. Sheprayed not to be born again and, if born, to begranted His constant remembrance. Shewanted to sing His praises and be vouchsafeda vision of His cosmic dance. Shiva grantedher prayer and asked her to go to Tiruva-langadu (in Tamil Nadu), where she couldwitness His dance. She walked back to Tiru-valangadu and sang praises of the Lordthrough devotional hymns.

From then on she came to be known asKáraikkál Ammaiyár. She was an ideal wifeand ideal devotee rolled into one. Love of Godwas her only means. Love of God was the onlything she craved for. Her unique life was anexample of that divine love. She is revered asone of the sixty-three Shaiva saints of TamilNadu, called Náyanmárs. �

39 PB-JUNE 2002

Avadhéta Upaniøad

TRANSLATED BY SWAMI ATMAPRIYANANDA

The great vow (continued)

g:t hrJ& mJohmtàv{CwETÿuU nw;tNl´ttrv rn mJoCG& >

;:iJ gtude rJMgtàv{CwETÿuU l rÖtËg;u vwãgvtvi´t Nwõ& >>9>>

9. Just as the sun well absorbs all the [atmospheric] moisture, and the fire consumes allthings [without in any way being affected by them], even so, the pure (unpolluted) yogin experi-ences all things, unstained by good or evil (virtues or sins).

ytvqgobtKbaÖtŒr;²k mbwŠbtv& ŒrJNrà; gÅ;T >

;ÅÀfUtbt gk ŒrJNrà; mJuo m Ntrà;btv¿tur; l fUtbfUtbe >>10>>

10. Just as waters [from all sides] flow into the ocean which is brimful (full to overflowing)and steady (stable), even so he [alone] attains peace, into whom all desires enter [and get dis-solved without affecting him in the least]; not he who seeks the objects of desire.1

Avadhéta’s teaching concerning the Ultimate Truth

vhbt:om=wv=uN&

l rlhtuÆttu l atuÀvrútcoõtu l rn l mtÆtfU& >

l bwbwGwlo Ji bwÿU RÀguMt vhbt:o;t >>11>>

11. There is neither dissolution (destruction, death), nor origination (beginning, birth);there is none bound, nor anyone who aspires [for spiritual realization]; there is no seeker afterliberation, nor anyone liberated. This [indeed] is the Ultimate Truth.

YurnfUtbwríbfUJ{t;rmõÓi bwÿuU´t rmõgu >

cnwf]UÀgk vwht ôgtàbu ;ÀmJobÆtwlt f]U;bT >>12>>

12. The many activities done by me in the past, and the actions done [just] now, for achiev-ing worldly gains—for gaining things here (that is, in this world) and hereafter (that is, inheaven etc)—as well as for attaining liberation, [have been done].

;=uJ f]U;f]UÀgÀJk Œr;gturdvwh&mhbT >

=w&rFltu~Òtt& mkmhà;w fUtbk vwºtt‘vuGgt >>13>>

13. Those actions were performed while depending upon external objects (pratiyogipuras-saram).2 [Reflecting thus, he gains an insight that all his actions, past and present, are motivatedand triggered by external dependence]. That [insight] verily [confers on him] a state of fulfil-ment. Investigating thus [into the truth of his actions], he remains ever content. Let the misera-ble, the ignorant, go round and round through this cycle of saósára (transmigratory existence),on account of [their] desire for children etc.3


PB-JUNE 2002 40

vhbtlà=vqKtuo~nk mkmhtrb rfUrbåAgt >

ylwr;²à;w fUbtorK vhÖttufUrggtmJ& >>14>>

14. By what desire shall I go through this saósára [like the ignorant persons]—I, who amfilled with supreme bliss [of Self-realization] (paramánanda-pérîa)?4 Let those [ignorant per-sons] who yearn to go to the other worlds perform [various] rituals.

mJoÖttufUtÀbfU& fUôbt=lwr;²trb rfkU fU:bT >

ÔgtaG;tk ;u Nt¯ttrK Ju=tlÆgtvgà;w Jt >>15>>

15. What [ritual] shall I perform—by what means, and why—I, who am the Self of all theworlds (sarvalokátmakaë)?5 Let those [ignorant persons] who [think that they] are qualified, ex-plain the scriptures or teach the Vedas.

gu~ºttrÆtfUtrhKtu bu ;w ltrÆtfUthtu~rf{HgÀJ;& >

rlŠtrCGu ïttlNtiau luåAtrb l fUhturb a >>16>>

16. As for me, there is no such [endowment or] qualification, for I am gifted with actionless-ness.6 I have no desire to sleep, to eat (beg for alms), to bathe or to maintain [external] cleanli-ness; nor do I [feel inclined to] indulge in these activities.

Š³th´tuÀfUÖvgà;w rfkU bu ôgt=àgfUÖvlt;T >

dw¼ttvw¼ttr= =Êu; ltàgthturv;JrŸlt >

ltàgthturv;mkmthÆtbtoluJbnk Csu >>17>>

17. Let the onlookers imagine [whatever they want about my state]. What does others’imagination matter to me [who am pure and contented by my very nature]? Just as a bunch ofred blackberries does not burn by the [imaginary] fire superimposed on it by others, I do not [inthe least] partake of the worldly vocation superimposed [on me] by others.

(to be continued)

Notes and References

1. Desires have no impact on a jnánæ’s mind, for they get dissolved there as rivers in an ocean.2. Before the dawn of knowledge, there was dependence on external objects (pratiyogins). On attaining

knowledge, the avadhéta has no need of anything external (niøpratiyogin), for he has realized that he isone with Brahman, the One without a second.

3. Reference to the Bìhadáraîyaka Upaniøad, which speaks about three kinds of desires: for children(progeny), for wealth and for the worlds (lokas).

4. Paramánanda-pérîa could mean ‘filled with supreme bliss’ or ‘of the nature of supreme bliss and infi-nite’.

5. ‘Self of all the words’ would mean that there cannot be any question of the avadhéta’s going any-where, for all space is in him, he being Brahman, the All-pervading and the Infinite.

6. Even the act of interpreting or teaching the Vedas presupposes an agent who acts. The avadhéta, freedfrom all relative attributes, cannot any longer superimpose any agentship on the Self. He thereforedoes not feel that he is acting.

Soar with the Swan

SWAMI SIDDHINATHANANDA

Coins of the British period are not the cur-rent medium of exchange. The metal ofthe old coins may be valuable but they

are not the medium. The old ones have to besmelted and minted anew to make them validfor current use. Sri Ramakrishna has said thathe is the current coin. He has also said that hisendorsement is required to encash chequesnow.

Sri Ramakrishna’s Uniqueness

The Western wave of materialism andatheism was sweeping over India, the land ofthe sages. Imperialism and its proselytismwere sapping the vitality of the Eternal Reli-gion. Macaulay hoped to convert India into aChristian colony. But no, that was not to be.The guarding angel of India provided the pre-ventive measure immediately. Sri Ramakrish-na was born soon after. And he was to be thesaviour of India’s hoary religious and spiritualtradition.

India’s special role in the comity of na-tions is spiritual leadership of the world. Fromtime immemorial spiritual teachers have ap-peared in India. An ancient rishi sang, ‘I haveseen that Supreme Person, resplendent likethe Sun, shining beyond all darkness.’ Thatwas a voice from the remote past. Modernman is a skeptic. He would question the valid-ity of antiquarian voices. Who knows what thevoice said was not a poetical outpouring?Where is the proof? Well, here is the evidence.A modern agnostic approached the priest ofKali at Dakshineswar and asked him if he hadseen God. The answer was straight and clear:‘Yes, I have seen God, as I see you, nay, evenmore clearly than I see you.’ The questionerwas impressed and convinced. He sought tobe shown God. Sri Ramakrishna led Narendra

to God. The ancient message was proved truein unequivocal terms. Ramakrishna attestedthe validity of the Vedas. The revalidation ofthe Vedas is the prime purpose of a descent ofthe Divine. Swami Vivekananda designatedhim as a dharmasthápaka: Vivifier of Virtue.Discovery of God is Ramakrishna’s greatestgift to the world.

Narendra’s Transformation

Naren was a member of the BrahmoSamaj. The Samaj did not believe in a PersonalGod. They were opposed to image worship.Advaita was anathema to them. Naren sub-scribed to the Samaj’s beliefs and practices.Yet he was an earnest seeker of God. Thesearch took him to Ramakrishna, the priest ofKali at Dakshineswar. That was a meeting ofthe ancient India and the modern world. In the

very first encounter, Naren got an assurancethat God is real and can be realized. Ramakri-shna’s behaviour towards him made Naren-dra doubt his sanity. Narendra had to be dis-abused of his Brahmo preconceptions and di-vested of the suspicion of Ramakrishna’s san-ity. Poverty drove Naren to seek the priest’shelp. The priest sent him to Kali in the temple.By the guru’s grace, Naren saw the living Kali

41 PB-JUNE 2002

Ramakrishna attested the validity

of the Vedas. The revalidation of

the Vedas is the prime purpose of

a descent of the Divine. Swami

Vivekananda designated him as

a Vivifier of Virtue. Discovery of

God is Ramakrishna’s greatest gift

to the world.

Soar with the Swan

in the temple image. Naren saw God withform in the image. Two of his misconceptionswere removed. God can have forms and wor-ship of God in idols is not wrong.

Ramakrishna asked Narendra to read theAøôávakra Saóhitá to him. It is a treatise of ul-tra-monistic, iconoclastic Advaita. Naren ridi-culed its proposition. He was talking to Hazradisparaging Advaita. Ramakrishna over-heard him. He came out of his room and

touched Narendra. And lo and behold, theworld disappeared and he was engulfed in aninfinite effulgent Presence. The experiencecontinued for a few days. Naren could nomore doubt the validity of the Advaitic experi-ence.

Naren’s Brahmo prejudices were re-moved. There now remained his suspicion ofRamakrishna’s sanity. Naren considered hima monomaniac at the beginning. Later he saidto Dr Mahendralal Sarkar and others thatRamakrishna was a being between the humanand the Divine. During a birthday celebrationat Dakshineswar, Girishchandra Ghosh re-quested Naren—then Swami Vivekananda—

to write a biography of their master. He said itwas beyond his capacity. While installing animage of Sri Ramakrishna at the house of adevotee in Calcutta, he composed a verse ofsalutation wherein he said: ‘avatára variøôháyarámakìøîáya te namaë, prostration to you,Ramakrishna, the greatest of avataras.’ Thuswe see the evolution of Narendra’s evaluationof his guru. Sri Ramakrishna made Narendrarealize that he was the sanest of men. Naren-dra was shaped to become a fit vehicle for con-veying to the whole world India’s spiritualmessage in and through the life of Sri Rama-krishna.

The Other ‘Indra’ Who Was Transformed

Narendra was the foremost of the monas-tic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. From amongthe lay disciples Ramakrishna chose someoneto be his spokesman. He was MahendranathGupta. He was a well-educated, soft-spoken,sensitive young man. He had a poetic mind.He was a teacher by profession. He was mar-ried even while a student. Domestic problemsmade him disgusted with the world and hesought solution in suicide. One night hewalked out of the house. His wife sensedsomething wrong and followed him. Hin-dered in his intention, he reached his sister’shouse at Dakshineswar. The next day, hereached the Kali temple of Rasmani alongwith his nephew. There in a corner room hesaw a few people listening with rapt attentionto a God-intoxicated man. The little that heheard attracted and impressed him. He won-dered whether it was Sri Shuka instructingParikshit or whether it was Sri Chaitanya atPuri inspiring his devotees. He went roundthe temple and came to the room again. Bythen the devotees had departed and the saintwas alone. He met the saint, exchanged a fewwords and left. But he was captivated. Soon hevisited him again.

One day he opened his heart to the God-man. ‘This world is a horrible place. It is betterto end one’s life.’ Sri Ramakrishna asked him


PB-JUNE 2002 42

Those who have visited

Dakshineswar can see and

hear—while reading the

Gospel—Ramakrishna sitting on

and speaking from his small cot.

The setting is so graphic. No

other saint has had such a faithful

record of his daily doings and

sayings. Verily it is a Veda for the

modern man. Open any page of

the Gospel and you will get the

answer for any problem that is

worrying you. Its message is

universal, not sectarian in any

manner.

why he was speaking in that way. He saidMahendra had already got his guru and thatguru’s grace would make the impossible pos-sible. Mahendra was reprieved and given ref-uge under his wings.

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Mahendra visited his guru wheneverpossible and used to keep in his diary a recordof the visit and conversation. These diarynotes of Mahendra are the source material forthe wonderful book called The Gospel of SriRamakrishna. It is a unique book. It is photo-graphic and sonorous, dramatic and poetic.Those who have visited Dakshineswar can seeand hear—while reading the Gospel—Rama-krishna sitting on and speaking from his smallcot. The setting is so graphic. No other sainthas had such a faithful record of his daily do-ings and sayings. Verily it is a Veda for themodern man. Open any page of the Gospel andyou will get the answer for any problem that isworrying you. Its message is universal, notsectarian in any manner.

Soar with the Two Wings

Sri Ramakrishna is the authentic revela-tion of God for the modern man. He inspiredtwo of his disciples to be his apostles. Bothwere ‘Indras’, one Narendra and the otherMahendra, one an ideal monk and the other anideal householder. The word Narendra inSanskrit means a king and also a physician,master of antidotes for snakebite. Verily Vive-kananda was a prince among men and a phy-sician to rid the venom of worldliness. Hemade the spiritual wealth of India, as revealed

in and through the life of his master, the com-mon property of the world. He also foundedan order in the name of his guru to carry on theeternal heritage of India. Narendra, the skep-tic, was transformed into Vivekananda.

Mahendra was cured of his suicide ma-nia and made the Vyasa of the modern Bhá-gavata that the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is.These two Indras are the wings of the Parama-hamsa, the Great Swan. Swami Vivekanandahas bequeathed the Vedantic legacy throughhis Complete Works and Mahendra has pre-served for us the vision of the process of spiri-tual unfoldment. Swamiji gave the motto‘átmano mokøárthaó jagaddhitáya ca, for one’sown salvation and for the welfare of humanityat large’. The Gospel shows the way forátma-mokøa, and the Complete Works, the wayto jagat-hita. Take shelter under these twowings of the Paramahamsa and soar to the Su-preme Soul with the Great Swan! �

Soar with the Swan 327

43 PB-JUNE 2002

The word Narendra in Sanskrit

means a king and also a

physician, master of antidotes for

snakebite. Verily Vivekananda

was a prince among men and a

physician to rid the venom of

worldliness. He made the

spiritual wealth of India, as

revealed in and through the life

of his master, the common

property of the world.

You achieve greatness

when you are oblivious of the dignity

of those above you,

and make those below you

oblivious of yours.

When you are neither haughty with the humble

nor humble with the haughty.

I am the Indus

B N SIKDAR

I

Aeons and aeons after my birth theychristened me ‘Indus’. At the time I ap-peared, the subcontinent called India

(Greek ‘Indos’) after me did not exist. It was avast tidal sea splashing, swelling, roaring, re-sounding. Billions and billions of years (asmen would later reckon ‘time’) the sea thrustup continents which went on separating andclosing in. Once upon a time the island-conti-nent of India collided with what is the Tibetanplateau; the Himalaya consequently began torise out of the foamy turbulence. It took sevenhundred million years for the mighty range tobecome ultimately the top of the world. Thesegeological contortions happened long, longbefore anything resembling bird or beast ap-peared. Only microbes clung to their precari-ous existence wherever they could.

Time flew. Eras passed. Snow fell and fellon the monarch of mountains. Glaciers creptdown the rock. Rivulets coming down thepeak they called Mount Kailas mingled andcreated me—a mighty outflow that no obsta-cle, natural or man-made, can thwart. I runabout 320 kilometres across the very highrange before cutting through the westernHimalaya and the Karakoram. Indeed it is aheart-swelling panorama. Most places alongmy journey, the gorge is too narrow and hassheer sides. Continuous rapids barrellingdown a steep staircase, I am so fierce in this lapof my journey that no adventurer, howevertough and intrepid, would dare rafting. Then,as I reach the plains, I calm down only to churnnoisily near the sea when the tide pushes meinland. Many revere me as a god, and indeed Iam one: I have been lavish with gifts to bird,beast and man—over the eras.

II

The first Homo erectus to reach my valleylived in caves, made crude tools and weaponsof rock pieces, fought the reptiles, dinosaursand the rest of them as well as they could. I stillsee vividly the first band of them arrive.Leading them slouched an ape-like beingslightly stooping; his face was strong, massiveand square, with thick teeth worn down fromuse as tools, from chewing fibrous roots forwater. His nostrils flared; his dark foreheadsloped sharply back to a peaked skull. Lithe,taut, thinned by hunger and arduous travel,he had led his dwindling family in a south-easterly course from the other side of theKarakoram range. Now, nose testing the air,ears cocked for sound, he watched his familyband coming along behind him. They wereconstantly foraging for berries, grubs, smallmarsupials, digging for honey ants and edibleroots. The leader waved the straggling banddown. Last to arrive was an old man—tribalelder—with a stick, keeping the glowing endsmouldering for cooking fire and holding en-emy and cold at bay. They had already seenthe utility of fire that fell from the heavens andburnt down forests scattering all living crea-tures. Therefore they never let fire die.

Long, long after these and other prehis-torics, Cro-Magnons arrived, people to whomI was Sindhu (‘river’, simple). The other day,pursuing the Persians to the west of theKarakoram galloped Alexander of Macedonin search of new lands to conquer. He bathedhis horses in my waters. Three years after hecrossed, he threw over me a boat-bridge andvanquished Porus (Puru) on the Hydaspes(Jhelum), one of my tributaries. The sea I en-tered by many mouths, the Greeks called

PB-JUNE 2002 44

I am the Indus

Erictheraum. From them the Romans learnt tocall me Indos, which means ‘river’. As the Per-sian tongue had no ‘s’ sound, to it I became‘Hind’; and soon the people on the easternshore were known as Hindus (from the regionto the dwellers of the region; compare, Anglo+ land = England).

Bifurcating Gandhara I came down andmy placid stream acted as a pathway to com-merce and nobler pursuits. Off my watersmen struck a road from Central Asia to the in-terior of India. Caravans carrying merchan-dise plodded up and down. Taxila (in Rawal-pindi, Pakistan) lay on this high road; it wasgreat as a city of commerce, greater as a city oflearning where crowded souls eager forknowledge and wisdom.

III

Modern man in search of his roots hasdug out my valley here and there. MohenjoDaro (‘Mound of the Dead’) is one such place.Before its final destruction it was a city (or,several layers of city-like formations) whoseinhabitants developed a distinct culture oftheir own. Their drainage, public bath-houses,municipal halls and other structures bespeaktheir civic sense and utilitarian outlook. Theycarved statues out of limestone, venerated thebull, carried commerce in boats up and downmy stream, domesticated the buffalo, sheep,elephant, camel and dog. They were also thefirst to develop pictorial writing. (The earliestIndo-Aryan literature was transmitted orally.)They raised wheat, barley, palm date, andfeasted on mutton, pork, fish and eggs.

The Harappan Civilization (2350-1770BC) spread farther, though it was the former’slegacy. Its remains lie scattered over half a mil-lion square kilometres; the earliest are extantin the Larkana district of Sind and Montgom-ery district of Punjab (Pakistan). There are thePublic Bath, the Great Granary, well-executedroads and lanes and other civic amenities as atMohenjo Daro; a dockyard to export cotton,wool, gold and silver. Then I acted (as now) as

a highway of trade, a life-sustaining artery.To the Vedic tribes I was one of the seven

sacred rivers (along with Ganga, Jamuna,Godavari, Sarasvati, Narmada and Kaveri).The Sarasvati (Rig Veda, ‘Nadi Stuti’, 10.75.5)was as big as the Shatadru and actually metthe ocean (ibid., 6.61.28; 7.95.2). Later on geo-logical upheavals drove the grand stream(also Drishadvati, Rig Veda, 3.23.4) under-ground. Satellites have recently traced hercourse, thus confirming the Vedic references.

Civilization’s pink dawn was first dis-cerned in my valley in Euro-Asian continents.In the first phase it was but a grim struggle forsurvival. Slowly, very slowly, the ape-like be-ing struck roots, traversed eras, ages, centu-ries. Always hopeful, he clung tenaciously tolife and then commenced dreaming, soothsay-ing; was awed by what he took to be supernat-ural intervention—all by virtue of a stirringdeep within himself. Aeons later one monk-poet fancied the spectacle and put it thus(Swami Vivekananda, ‘Angels Unawares’ inCW, 4.385):

One bending low with load of life—That meant no joy, but suffering harsh and hard—… … … … … … … … … … … …Saw, one blessed night,

a faint but beautiful ray of lightDescend to him. He knew not what or wherefromBut called it God and worshipped.

It must have been the work of his third eye.

IV

Through eras I have been a witness toevents—varied and colourful, both blood-curdling and exhilarating. There were thehuge beasts, birds haunting primordial forestsof hugely tall and spreading and thick-leafedtrees; the sabre-toothed tiger, the furry ele-phants, the pterodactyls and the rest of themlurking, tearing, clawing out one another’s en-trails; serpentine plants infested with deadlyinsects, crabs, and the like.

I saw naked hunters hunt in groups; saw

I am the Indus 329

45 PB-JUNE 2002

the primitives burn or scoop out big trunks oftrees; punting flat-bottomed boats, then ap-peared canoes and sea-going craft thathugged the sea-shore.

Eras later, riding horses in wave afterwave, in band after band from north andnorthwest of the Karakoram range, a branchof white-skinned people (devas, ‘shiningones’) came. Sacking, pillaging, demolishingwhatever settlements existed, they nearlyobliterated the native culture. Their invasioncontinued with breaks for two or three millen-nia. In their turn as they spread south, south-east, they settled down and fought amongthemselves. After them the land between theHimalaya and the Vindhya came to be calledAryavarta (‘Land of the Aryas’; see ManuSamhita, 2.22 and Kaushitaki Upanishad, 2.13).

The descendants of Dardic tribes inhabit-ing my valley to the west were such fierce war-riors that to collect tribute for his ashvamedhayajna (horse sacrifice), Yudhishthira chose themaster archer Arjuna for the task (see Maha-bharata, ‘Sabha Parva’).

When the Indo-Aryans started lighting athousand fires to make burnt-offerings in thedense forests of Himalayan foothills, rivers ofblood and lard flowed out until another kindof ethical upheaval put a stop to the cruel ritu-als. History thrust up an embodiment of peaceand compassion in the form of Gautama Bud-dha (563-483 BC). His teaching transformed an

emperor of prowess—one of the noblestknown to the world. For centuries my valleyreverberated with noises stone-cutters, wood-polishers made to set up stupas, rock-pillars,rock-edicts, monasteries and temples. Theychanted hymns in a new sort of liturgy. Thesaffron-clad bards who pondered eternal veri-ties and spun endless theories were finally si-lenced (the Vedanta).

Across me again, as ages rolled on, camethe Hun hordes from the north, soon to un-dergo a sea change wrought by Buddha’sideas. The Mongols followed. The Turks, theAfghans also arrived like hungry wolves.Some returned with huge booties of gold, sil-ver, slaves. Others stayed to conquer andreign, kill or convert. Today or this morning(as I reckon it) in my valleys east and west,north and south, men carrying fierce armour,firing huge, gigantic instruments of massslaughter stained my pure white snow crim-son. Proud of technology (which enables themto photograph me from hundreds of kilo-metres in the heavens) these merciless bipedsconsider themselves in megalomania Homo sa-piens (‘wise men’). How vain! Despite the thincloak worn or discarded in a moment they arevery much the prehistoric Homo erectus. Orhow could they forget that I am (as every riveris) one of God’s benedictions to nourish lifeand all that it means? And pollute me to suffo-cation? �


PB-JUNE 2002 46

The Pearls

The guru was meditating on the river bank when a disciple bowed down to him and placed two enor-

mous pearls at his feet, a token of reverence and devotion.

The guru opened his eyes, lifted one of the pearls and held it so carelessly that it slipped out of his hand

and rolled down the bank into the river.

The horrified disciple plunged in after it but, though he dived in again and again till late evening, he had

no luck.

Finally, all wet and exhausted, he roused the guru from his meditation: ‘You saw where it fell. Show me

the spot so I can get it back for you.’

The guru lifted the other pearl, threw it into the river and said, ‘Right there!’

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and the Harmony of

Religions

SWAMI SANDARSHANANANDA

Much has been said about secularism,especially in our national context. Ithas consequently lost its edge and

eventually become a cliche. In common par-lance, secularism appears to imply peaceful

coexistence of people of different religiousfaiths. But it does not indicate anything elseotherwise by which one can see how to installpeace practically in the midst of a welter ofsuch diverse beliefs. That is perhaps its defi-ciency.

Ironically, there was never any sincere at-tempt at identifying this weakness, let alonefinding out its remedy. It is the penury of aperson’s soul that turns him into a fundamen-talist. Prompted by that parochial attitude, heloses sight of the perennial essence underlying

his avowed religion, which is also the com-mon spiritual base of all other religions, andremains engrossed in its non-essential prac-tices.

A firm conviction of this fact drew SriRamakrishna to practise almost all the majorreligions of the world with utmost devotion.After a comprehensive realization of theirgoals, he proclaimed the harmony of religionsto humanity at large. He offered it as a pro-phylactic against communal as well as sectar-ian strife, which have possessed the earth forlong.

In conclusion, Ramakrishna says:God can be realized through all paths. All reli-gions are true. …

You may say that there are many errors andsuperstitions in another religion. I should reply:Suppose there are. Every religion has errors.Everyone thinks that his watch alone gives thecorrect time. It is enough to have yearning forGod. It is enough to love him and feel attractedto Him.1

He clarifies his spiritual experience again:It is like water, called in different languages bydifferent names, such as ‘jal’, ‘pani’, and soforth. There are three or four ghats on a lake.The Hindus who drink water at one place, call it‘jal’. The Mussalmans at another place call it‘pani’. And the English [Christians] at a thirdplace call it ‘water’. All three denote one and thesame thing, the difference being in the nameonly. In the same way, some address the Realityas ‘Allah’, some as ‘God’, some as ‘Brahman’,some as ‘Kali’, and others by such names as‘Rama’, ‘Jesus’, ‘Durga’, ‘Hari’.2

In the light of his Master’s experience,Swami Vivekananda preached the principlesof a universal religion which might be accept-

47 PB-JUNE 2002

[Vivekananda] knows that man is

obviously hamstrung by certain

limitations handed down by his

lineage. In order to emancipate

him from its legacy he should be

imbued with a liberal spirit bereft

of indiscriminate proclivity

towards a particular faith. So his

vocabulary in this regard was

scientifically chosen and

impeccably set, reflecting

perfectly the import of the

purpose of uniting mankind with

the same spiritual thought and

pragmatism.

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda

and the Harmony of Religions

able to all and sundry. He made a realimpression when he said at the beginning ofhis ‘Raja Yoga’:

Each soul is potentially divine.The goal is to manifest this divinity within

by controlling nature, external and internal.Do this either by work, or worship, or psy-

chic control, or philosophy—by one, or more,or all of these—and be free.

This is whole of religion. Doctrines, or dog-mas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms,are but secondary details.3

One wonders if anything more direct andtransparent than this is possible to inspire manto rise above the tensions of colours andcreeds. When Vivekananda utters thesewords he bears in mind the conflicting issueswhich separate man from man. He knows thatman is obviously hamstrung by certain limita-tions handed down by his lineage. In order toemancipate him from its legacy he should beimbued with a liberal spirit bereft of indis-criminate proclivity towards a particularfaith. So his vocabulary in this regard was sci-entifically chosen and impeccably set, reflect-ing perfectly the import of the purpose of unit-ing mankind with the same spiritual thoughtand pragmatism.

The nature of politics is capricious, withdelusion as the inevitable consequence. Vive-kananda therefore repeatedly urges that wekeep politics in abeyance while doing good tosociety. It is politics which has made wronguse of religion and divided mankind into hos-tile communities. Although his disciple SisterNivedita was goaded by her own notion totake to politics for national regeneration, shenever thought that her Master had any inklingfor politics. She says, ‘He was no politician, hewas the greatest of the nationalists.’

By nationalism Nivedita means a spiri-tual culture, of which her Master was thegreatest exponent, which is again the bedrockof Indian civilization, from the bosom ofwhich the rest of the world can draw nourish-ment for its survival in a milieu of love and

sympathy. To her ‘he was at once a sublime ex-pression of superconscious religion and one ofthe greatest patriots ever born’. She justifiedher affiliation to politics, despite the reserva-tion shown by her Master, as a useful means toaccomplish the task, the brunt of which wasplaced on her by him while dedicating her forthe good of the masses. And this doing good,she understood, would remain a far cry unlessthe country was first given back her freedomfrom the shackles of British rule.

Vivekananda was proud to be an Indian,but not in any narrow sense. His affection forIndia was for her rich contribution to therealm of spirituality, the catholicity of her reli-gion and for her wholehearted hospitality to‘the persecuted and the refugees of all reli-gions and all nations of the earth’.4 He be-lieved ‘that every religion of the world owesits origin to the country between the Gangaand the Euphrates’, that is, ‘of Asiatic origin’(2.361).

Ramakrishna and Vivekananda stood fortruth. They were not hidebound to any super-stition. They absorbed positive ideas from allreligions and nourished themselves with theirvitality to grow into embodiments of Truth.They were genuine world citizens shorn of


PB-JUNE 2002 48

Ramakrishna and Vivekananda

stood for truth. They were not

hidebound to any superstition.

They absorbed positive ideas

from all religions and nourished

themselves with their vitality to

grow into personalities of

distinction, deserving

conspicuous attention. They were

genuine world citizens shorn of

reservations inflicted by

changing circumstances.

reservations inflicted by changing circum-stances. Their sense of brotherhood knew nobounds.

Richard Schiffman in his book Sri Rama-krishna: A Prophet for the New Age describesRamakrishna as a ‘sublime paradox’.5 Thisseems to be one of the most appropriateportrayals of his character. Ramakrishna hasshown many things in his life inexplicable tocommon sense. To read their meanings prop-erly a Vivekananda was required. It was dis-cernible to him alone that Ramakrishna’s ad-vent was for the establishment of that religionwhich does not remain oblivious of man’s ma-terial needs, and seeks to maintain a balancebetween his four basic propensities, that is, a

life of well-adjusted values of dharma, artha,kama and moksha. It was during his apostolatethat Vivekananda broadcast this idea of com-patibility, calling for a fresh spiritual resur-gence rooted in human fellowship. Its efficacywas subsequently perceptible when worldthinkers in his next generation, such as ArnoldToynbee, being influenced by Sri Ramakrish-na, said that ’His [Ramakrishna’s] religiousactivity and experience were, in fact, compre-hensive to a degree that had perhaps never be-fore been attained by any other religious ge-nius, in India or elsewhere.’6 He did not stop

there. Later in the same piece of writing hesaid: ‘The Emperor Ashoka’s and the Ma-hatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence andSri Ramakrishna’s testimony to the harmonyof religions: here we have the attitude and thespirit that can make it possible for the humanrace to grow together into a single fam-ily—and in the Atomic Age, this is the only al-ternative to destroying ourselves.’ (p. viii)

Toynbee mentions Ramakrishna in thesame breath as Ashoka and Gandhi. This is apoint worthy of note. While the former wasout and out a spiritual person, the other twowere political activists—one was a king andthe other was a freedom fighter. There is nodenying this dichotomy in affections amongRamakrishna and them. Still Ashoka and Gan-dhi were intrigued by moral and spiritual vir-tues. They tried to apply them to the spheres oftheir own activities. Both of them madenon-violence the summum bonum of theirideologies. To do that Ashoka embraced Bud-dhism after receiving a rude shock from thebloody consequences of the Kalinga war, andGandhi took resort to the Bhagavadgita andother principal scriptures of the Hindus. Butthe significant point in Toynbee’s statement is‘testimony to the harmony of religions’. Herehe conveys the fact that the harmony of reli-gions propounded by Ramakrishna is not theresult of any academic or theoretical exercise.Rather it is an affirmation of its physical as-similation in his own life. In other words, hedemonstrated that each religion is a ‘uniqueway of salvation’ and ‘all of them alike are in-dispensable to mankind’ and ‘ each leads by adifferent route to the same goal of humanendeavours’ (p. vii).

Accordingly, Vivekananda in his firstspeech at the Parliament of Religions, follow-ing his Master’s teachings, unequivocally de-clared: ‘We believe not only in universal toler-ation, but we accept all religions as true.’7

These words spontaneously fell from his lips,since he appeared on the stage of the Parlia-ment with a mission. And that mission was to

49 PB-JUNE 2002

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and the Harmony of Religions 333

[Vivekananda] tried to awake

mankind to its true glory and

spiritual identity, for he learnt

from Sri Ramakrishna that it was

the panacea for all prevailing

maladies. The moment he knew

that to serve humanity is to serve

God, he realized that man was

nothing but God Himself in

disguise, and all exterior

differences of names and forms

dissolved from his vision.

show light to the world. Its onus was laid onhis shoulders by his Master, and he was com-mitted to fulfil its purpose. He tried to awakemankind to its true glory and spiritual iden-tity, for he learnt from Sri Ramakrishna that itwas the panacea for all prevailing maladies.The moment he knew that to serve humanityis to serve God, he realized that man was noth-ing but God Himself in disguise, and all exte-rior differences of names and forms dissolvedfrom his vision. He says that he worships theonly God whom we ignorantly call man. Hethought that his work would not be completetill man realized that he was one with God.With the consummation of harmonizationthus achieved, mankind will ‘grow into a sin-gle family’ and man will feel that ‘in helpingothers he helps himself’, that ‘in hurting othershe hurts himself’.

Toynbee proved himself to be more thana simple historian. To save human civilizationfrom imminent disaster, he was able to offer asolution, considering the problem in its rightperspective. He could see definitely thatRamakrishna’s harmony of religions was notcontrived but constitutional.

From his very childhood the ardour ofharmony was manifest in Ramakrishna’s be-haviour, which ripened into a wonderful re-source in his adulthood, the wealth of whichhe could successfully pass on to his disciple.So Vivekananda spent his whole life to makemankind understand its important value andutility. He gave the mantra ‘give and take’(5.356) and professed a composite human cul-ture with a universal religion capable of massappeal. Religion to him, therefore, was notbandying words on metaphysical intricacies.It was ‘being and becoming’. In his opinion,‘religion lies in … realization’ (8.229).

Vivekananda was worried ‘that thoughthere is nothing that has brought to man moreblessings than religion, yet at the same time,there is nothing that has brought more horrorthan religion’ (2.360). Simultaneously he waspleased that there was tremendous propitious

power available in all great religions of theworld. The more the sects of these religionsmultiply, the more opportunity there is forpeople to get reformed by their innate good-ness. The existence of only one faith will becatastrophic because perfect balance meansdestruction suppressing differentiation, since‘variety is the first principle of life’(2.382). Sohe asks us to be constructive first. ‘Iconoclastic

reformers do no good to the world. Break not,pull not anything down, but build’ (2.384). Heexhorts us to recognize variation and teachesus to learn ‘that truth may be expressed in ahundred thousand ways, and that each ofthese ways is true as far as it goes’ (2.383).Then he tells us to ‘take man where he stands,and from there give him a lift’ (2.384).

Vivekananda was quite confident of histeaching. He never advanced unnecessary ar-guments in putting forward his views regard-ing universal religion. He was sure that‘through high philosophy or low, through themost exalted mythology or the grossest,through the most refined ritualism or arrantfetishism, every sect, every soul, every nation,every religion, consciously or unconsciously,is struggling upward, towards God; every vi-sion of truth that man has, is a vision of Himand none else’ (2.383). When he interprets reli-gion in such simple language, all confusionsvanish from man’s heart and he gets a glimpseof the true meaning of his belief; he is able to


PB-JUNE 2002 50

If Ramakrishna is the cause,

Vivekananda is its effect, and

cause and effect are essentially

one. In an ecstatic mood when

Vivekananda says that he is a

voice without a form, he removes

all doubt and makes a clean

breast of the fact that he only airs

the message of his Master.

realize unity in the purpose of life. Man be-comes all the more convinced of the immensepossibilities of religion when he hears Viveka-nanda: ‘What I want to propagate is a religionthat will be equally acceptable to all minds; itmust be equally philosophic, equally emo-tional, equally mystic, and equally conduciveto action.’ (2.387)

But the moot question is how to achievethat, especially when he says that ‘to becomeharmoniously balanced in all these four direc-tions is my ideal of religion’ (2.388). His pre-cept is typical in this matter. He does not takerefuge in any religious creed, for credal jeal-ousy eats into man’s rationality and reduceshim to a beast. Hence he comes out with theprinciple of union or yoga. ‘To the worker, it isunion between men and the whole of human-ity; to the mystic, between his lower andHigher Self; to the lover, union between him-

self and the God of Love; and to the philoso-pher, it is union of all existence’ (2.388). Statingthis he abrogates the preached exclusivenessof any religion and thereby its tyranny. Hemakes religion boundlessly broad to accom-modate all faiths, notwithstanding the enor-mous diversity in their traditions. He ascer-tains ‘renunciation and service’(5.228) as themotive power for dynamism and creativity inreligion.

A synthetic and congenial religion of itskind is capable of drawing men closer to oneanother, infusing a sense of belonging to a sin-gle family which had happened with Viveka-nanda himself. Devoid of any reluctance he

could therefore announce: ‘I shall go to themosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter theChristian’s church and kneel before the cruci-fix; I shall enter the Buddhistic temple, where Ishall take refuge in Buddha and in his Law. Ishall go into the forest and sit down in medita-tion with the Hindu, who is trying to see theLight which enlightens the heart of every one’(2.374). Although he was a Hindu sannyasinhe was nevertheless a perfect internationalistsaturated with the universality he inheritedfrom his Master. If Ramakrishna is the cause,Vivekananda is its effect, and cause and effectare essentially one. In an ecstatic mood whenVivekananda says that he is a voice without aform, he removes all doubt and makes a cleanbreast of the fact that he only airs the messageof his Master. Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual tute-lage prepared him specifically for the purposeof effecting a global unification with a com-mon spiritual end. Both of them were personi-fications of the harmony of religions. We hadbetter emulate their examples, throwing asideall varieties in order to attain our highestgood. �

References

1. M., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. SwamiNikhilananda (Madras: Sri RamakrishnaMath, 1985), pp. 111-2.

2. ibid., p. 135.3. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9

vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), vol. 1, p. 124. [Hereafter CW followedby volume and page numbers.]

4. CW, 1.3.5. Richard Schiffman, Sri Ramakrishna: A Prophet

for the New Age (Calcutta: Ramakrishna Mis-sion Institute of Culture, 1994), p. 76.

6. Arnold Toynbee in ‘Foreword’ to SwamiGhanananda, Sri Ramakrishna and His UniqueMessage (London: Ramakrishna Vedanta Cen-tre, 1970), p. vii.

7. CW, 1.3.

51 PB-JUNE 2002

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and the Harmony of Religions 335

Both of them were

personifications of the harmony

of religions. We had better

emulate their examples, throwing

aside all varieties in order to

attain our highest good.

Reviews

For review in PRABUDDHA BHARATApublishers need to send two copies of their latest publications.

PB-JUNE 2002 52

� Rev iews �

Yoga Philosophy of Pataðjali with Bhás-vatæ. Swami Hariharananda Aranya; trans.P N Mukerji; rev. Adinath Chatterjee. Uni-versity of Calcutta, Kolkata. 2000. xxx +736 pp. Rs 400.

Swami Hariharananda Aranya’s name is insep-arably associated with the yoga philosophy ofPataðjali, as he is universally acknowledged as themost authentic and lucid exponent of the yoga aph-orisms after the celebrated Vyása, the first and fore-most commentator on the Yoga Sétras. Ancientcommentators like Vácaspati Miùra (author ofTattva-vaiùáradæ), Bhoja (author of Rájamártáîõa)and Vijðánabhikøu (author of Yoga Vártika) ex-plained the yoga philosophy in the light of their un-derstanding of the significance of the sutras. SwamiHariharananda was probably the only one in thelast century to have combined within him both thetheory and practice of yoga philosophy, which heused in grasping the true import of the sutras andrevealing them in intellectual terms in his Bengalibook Pátaðjala Yoga Darùana. His explanations ofthe Yoga Sétras are not only learned and illuminat-ing, but also authentic, backed as they are by hisrich spiritual experiences. He was a veritable em-bodiment of the Sáïkhya-Yoga wisdom. It is notwithout reason that his present work is recognizedas a classic on Pátaðjala yoga by scholars in Indiaand abroad, and also by people who are keen toknow our ancient spiritual heritage.

The University of Calcutta published the Pátað-jala Yoga Darùana in Bengali for the first time in 1934.It was hailed by readers as an epoch-making work.It was translated into Hindi and published in the1950s.

In deference to the last wishes of the Swamiji,Sri P N Mukerji prepared an English version of thiswork, which was first published by the Universityof Calcutta in 1963. It was hailed by everyone as avery valuable publication in the field of yoga stud-

ies. In his faithful and distortion-free translation, SriMukerji took sufficient care to preserve the charmof the original Bengali version.

The present revised and enlarged edition by SriAdinath Chatterjee has many additions and im-provements. He has not only thoroughly revisedSri Mukerji’s English translation but has also pre-sented an English translation of the Bhásvátæ, SwamiHariharananda Aranya’s commentary on VyásaBháøya. This has considerably enhanced the valueof this edition of the book. Like the earlier editions,this edition too has Sanskrit texts of the Yoga Sétrasand the Vyása Bháøya, and illuminating elucidationsby the Swamiji.

Sri Chatterjee has also included seven illumi-nating essays by Swami Hariharananda Aranya onallied topics. Most of these Bengali essays by theSwamiji are published for the first time. Sri Chat-terjee got all of them rendered into English by dif-ferent scholars, himself doing some, and incorpo-rated them into this enlarged edition. The Englishtranslation of the ancient texts, cited by Vyása in hiscommentary, is given in the appendix besides aglossary of technical terms, and two indices.

With excellent printing, get-up and the paperused, the present book will surely be appreciatedby all those who are interested in grasping the spiritof the composite Sáïkhya-Yoga thought.

Dr Debabrata SensharmaProfessor and Head (Retired)

Department of SanskritKurukshetra University

The Philosophical Foundations of Hin-duism. A Ramamurty. D K Printworld,‘Srikunj’, F 52 Bali Nagar, New Delhi 110015. 2000. viii + 216 pp. Rs 360.

The book is the twelfth in the series ‘Contempo-rary Researches in Hindu Philosophy and Reli-gion’. An attempt has been made in the book to un-

Reviews 337

53 PB-JUNE 2002

derstand comprehensively the nature and meaningof Hinduism on the basis of the two traditions ofùruti and smìti. The uniqueness of the book is thatmost of its attempts to understand Hinduism arebased exclusively on either of the traditions of ùrutior smìti. The author is very particular in definingHinduism ‘as the religion based or inspired by thetraditions of Sruti and Smrti’ (p. 2). Thus the bookpresents a beautiful analysis of the two streams ofthought depicting ùruti as stable and smìti as dy-namic, both contributing significantly to thegrowth and development of Hinduism. The differ-ences between the two traditions are clearly speltout by the author. Ùruti represents revealed knowl-edge and as such does not speak of rewards andpunishments. However, from the point of view ofreligious practices and beliefs, Hinduism is largelybased on and shaped by the smìti tradition. Thechapter on ‘Two Traditions’ presents a comprehen-sive analysis of the implications of the two streamsof religious thought, and accepts them as two mod-els or paradigms. Hinduism is treated as the conflu-ence of these two major streams, which representthe two basic forms of religious life within the greattradition.

Hinduism has distinct views on the meaning ofhuman life and its relationship with world. The au-thor discusses this point in detail in the chapter on‘Hindu World-view’. He has taken great pains toshow that what is called Hinduism is not basedcompletely on either ùruti or smìti, but is the resultof the various attempts and constant efforts to rec-oncile and integrate both the traditions so thatphilosophical understanding and religious life arewell integrated and balanced. This understandingof Hinduism is taken as the basis for explaining thenature and meaning of religion. Accordingly, con-cepts like dharma, man, the Divine and destiny areanalysed—a standing testimony to the scholarshipof the author in this area of study. The book comesto a close before drawing a conclusion, but suc-ceeds in presenting significant ideas vividly.

It is really not easy to do justice to the wealth ofinformation and insightful findings of a book of thiskind in a simple review. With a glossary, bibliogra-phy and an index for further study and references,this book is a significant contribution to alreadyabundant literature on Hinduism.

Dr D NesyReader and Head, Department of Philosophy

University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram

Sanskrit Drama: Its Aesthetics and Pro-duction. Dr V Raghavan. Smt Sarada Ra-ghavan, Krishna Towers, 9/13 SardarPatel Road, Chennai 600 013. 1993. 434 pp.Rs 285.

Sanskrit Drama by Dr V Raghavan is an invalu-able collection of his critical papers and essays onthe various aspects of Sanskrit theatre and drama.This book was released by the late Sri K R SrinivasaIyengar on the occasion of V Raghavan’s shatabhi-shekam celebrations. Dr Raghavan was not only thefounder of Samskrita Ranga but also a renownedcritic of Sanskrit drama, producer of Sanskrit playson the radio and author of several Sanskrit plays.His Anarkali in ten acts received the Kalidas Puras-kar from the Uttar Pradesh Government.

With such impressive scholastic attainments ofthe author, it is no wonder that the present book is atreasure trove of information on the less-publicisedaspects of Sanskrit drama and its aesthetics. Thebook traces extensively the origin and develop-ment of Sanskrit drama. The twenty essays in thisvolume deal primarily with the varieties of Sanskritdrama, its aesthetics, and problems associated withits dramatic productions.

The object of drama according to Indian aes-thetics is the evocation of rasa. Rasa is a transcen-dent state of awareness that leads to the realizationof an inner state of spiritual harmony. Since thepursuit of all art is an aid (sadhana) to contempla-tion and absorption in the divine essence, rasa is as-sociated with this inner state of enlightenment andbliss. An interesting factor is that there is no tragedyin Sanskrit drama in the Western sense of the term.The Indian attitude does not look upon life to be anend in itself; it is but a prelude to the soul’s quest forperfection.

Dr Raghavan’s analysis of the different forms ofIndian dance-dramas which still maintain the basicfeatures of ancient Sanskrit theatre and stage, is ex-haustive and illuminating. These dance-dramas arethe Kudiyattam and Kathakali of Kerala, the Yak-shagana of Karnataka and the Bhagavata Mela Na-taka. Other papers deal with music in ancient In-dian drama, theatre, architecture in ancient India,and notes on ‘Dasarupaka, Bhana and Lasyangas’,‘Uparupakas and Nrityaprabandhas’ and ‘Natya-dharmi, Lokadharmi and Vrittis’.

The well-documented and well-researched es-


PB-JUNE 2002 54

says in the book are presented in a style that is fluid,coherent and lucid. There is no literary jargon, andthe simplicity of the presentation makes an indeli-ble impact on the reader’s imagination. This schol-arly collection of essays is a precious tool for furtherresearch in this eminently challenging field of an-cient Sanskrit drama. The book has an exhaustivebibliography and index.

Dr Rama NairAssociate Professor of English

Osmania University, Hyderabad

The Vimalakirti Sutra. Burton Watson.Motilal Banarsidass, 41-UA JawaharNagar, New Delhi 110 007. 1999. xiv + 168pp. Rs 295.

The Vimalakirti Sutra is the first ever Englishtranslation by Burton Watson of the Chinese workby Kumarajiva. Burton Watson is Professor of EastAsian Languages and Cultures at the ColumbiaUniversity, USA, and one of the celebrated transla-tors of Chinese and Japanese works. The book is animportant Mahayana scripture. The scripture hasbeen translated into other languages also.

The Vimalakirti Sutra was originally written inSanskrit probably during the 1st century AD, con-taining events that took place 400 years earlier, andbased on an authentic work of Mahayana Bud-dhism. The composer of the work as well as thetime and place of the composition are not known.The Sanskrit title of the text is called VimalakirtiNirdesha Sutra. Kumarajiva’s Chinese version con-tains fourteen chapters. Though a religious work, itis marked by episodes not essentially serious by na-ture, but remarkable for their lucid style combinedwith a tinge of humour. This has appealed to com-moners.

The events narrated are said to have takenplace during Buddha’s time. Vimalakirti was awealthy townsman of Shakyamuni’s time. He him-self was a Bodhisattva in his previous existence. Hisname was Akshobhya then. He intended to be re-born at the time of Shakyamuni Buddha’s incarna-tion to become an exponent of the laws of Buddha.Thus he became an expounder of the ideals ofMahayana Buddhism, and that, from a position ofauthority. Vimalakirti is the central figure in the ep-isodes mentioned here. The Vimalakirti Sutra also

contains the early history of Buddhism and the doc-trine of non-dualism of the Mahayana canon. It is aproduct of the early years of Mahayana movement.In spite of its ontological approach, it has found itsway to common people who have no backgroundof Buddhist ideology because of its structural con-ception and art of delineation. The sutras are verypopular in Far East countries like China and Japanand also in some other Asian countries. The Bodhi-sattvas according to Vimalakirti Sutra are said to belimitless in number.

Burton Watson’s translation is very good andwill appeal to those who believe in the practice ofMahayana Buddhism. Its diction is artistic and fullof literary fervour. The translation senses the spiritof the original very well and has every possibility ofbecoming a popular work amongst readers of Bud-dhist works.

The book contains a glossary containing defini-tions of names of important persons and places, aswell as major Sanskrit terms and numerical catego-ries. Our thanks to Motilal Banarsidass for bringingout such an important publication.

Dr Ramdulal BoseFormerly Professor and Head, Department of Bengali

TDB College, Raniganj

Books Received

Glimpses of Wisdom. Comp. Kalluri Surya-narayana. Sankhyayana Vidya Parishat,2-12-34 Annapoorna Colony, Uppal,Hyderabad 500 039. 2001. x + 93 pp. Rs 40.

Pathways to God-realization. Prabhu. D C SSastry, 12/1 K C C Mitra Street, Belgharia,Calcutta 700 056. 1998. 124 pp. Price not men-tioned.

Bhagavadgætá Bibliography (Vol. 1). Comp.Suryakumari Dwarakadas; rev. Dr C S Sunda-ram. Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute,84 Thiru Vi Ka Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600004. 2000. xviii + 99 pp. Rs 120.

Acharya Shankara and His Philosophy. Ed.Dr Bijayananda Kar. Adi Shankara VedantaPratishthanam, IVA-29/4, Unit II, Bhuban-eswar 751 009. 2001. v + 61 pp. Price not men-tioned.

Reports

Installed. A marble image of Holy MotherSri Sarada Devi in the Savitri Temple onSavitri Hill in Pushkar, Rajasthan, on 17 Feb-ruary (Sarasvati Puja day). Thanks to the ini-tiative taken by Ramakrishna Mission,Jaipur, the image replaces the picture ofHoly Mother which was being worshippedin the sanctum sanctorum of the templesince 1973. The spot was sanctified by HolyMother’s visit in 1897.

Inaugurated. The newly built Gita Bhavan atthe Ramakrishna Shishu Vidyalaya, Kho-chna, a school run by Ramakrishna Mission,Dinajpur, Bangladesh; by Swami Smarana-nandaji, General Secretary, RamakrishnaMath and Ramakrishna Mission, on 19 Feb-ruary.

Inaugurated. The newly built Brahmanan-dodayam Higher Secondary School buildingat Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Kalady,on 24 February.

Conducted. A workshop on ‘Total Knee Re-placement’, by Ramakrishna Mission Seva-shrama, Lucknow, on 24 February, in which50 surgeons participated.

Celebrated. The platinum jubilee of Rama-krishna Mission, New Delhi, from 3 to 25March. The celebrations were inauguratedby Srimat Swami Gahananandaji Maharaj,Vice-President, Ramakrishna Math andRamakrishna Mission, who also released asouvenir and declared open a new buildingconsisting of an auditorium and residentialquarters for monks, staff and guests. Thepublic meeting held on the 3rd was chairedby Swami Gahananandaji and addressed bySwami Smarananandaji and others. The

month-long celebration included a seminaron value education (4 March) and a meetingon inter-religious fellowship (5 March) inwhich senior monks of the Ramakrishna Or-der and other distinguished people activelyparticipated. On the 17th, as part of Nara-yana Seva, food and clothes were distributedto a large number of poor people in two lo-calities of Delhi. Sri Jagmohan, Minister forCulture and Tourism, Government of India,presided over the youth rally held on the25th at Shyamal Das Seth’s guest house onRoshanara Road, where Swami Vivekanandastayed in 1891.

Visited. Mr F W Momin, Minister for Educa-tion, Government of Meghalaya; Ramakrish-na Mission Ashrama, Cherrapunji, on 7March. He presided over the annual prizedistribution ceremony of the Ashrama’shigher secondary school.

Organized. A free medical camp by Rama-krishna Math, Puri, at Jodalinga Shiva Tem-ple on Shivaratri (12-13 March). 150 patientswere treated.

Visited. Barrister Moudud Ahmed, Ministerfor Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs,Government of Bangladesh, and the HighCommissioners of India and Sri Lanka toBangladesh; Ramakrishna Math and Rama-krishna Mission, Dhaka. They participated inthe centre’s week-long annual function from16 to 22 March.

Visited. Janab Abdul Matin Chowdhury,Minister for Textiles, and Prof Rezaul Karim,Minister of State for Industries, Governmentof Bangladesh; Ramakrishna Ashrama andRamakrishna Mission, Narayangunj, Bangla-

55 PB-JUNE 2002

� Repor t s �

desh. They took part in the centre’s 4-day-long annual function from 26 to 29 March.

Visited. Dr F A Khonglam, Meghalaya chiefminister; Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama,Cherrapunji, on 30 March. He presided overthe annual prize distribution ceremony ofthe centre’s lower primary and ME schools.

Conducted. 6 free eye camps by our centresin Madurai, Patna, Porbandar, Puri, Ulsoorand Visakhapatnam. 627 persons were oper-ated on and 436 outpatients were treated inthese camps.

Secured. The following ranks by the stu-dents of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith,Chennai, in the Bachelor’s degree examina-tions held by the University of Madras: 1st,3rd, 4th and 5th in Philosophy; 1st, 2nd and3rd in Sanskrit; 1st in Physics. In the Master’sdegree examinations, students of theVidyapith came 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th in Phi-

losophy; 1st and 2nd in Sanskrit; and 2nd inChemistry.

Placed. 1st at the state level and 3rd at thenational level, at the First National CyberOlympiad conducted by the Science Olym-piad Foundation; a student of the Ramakri-shna Mission Vidyapith, Deoghar.

Gujarat Earthquake Rehabilitation Project

Inaugurated. 8 newly built school buildingsin Gujarat (7 in Surendranagar district and 1in Porbandar district) between 19 and 31March.

Handed over. 240 houses (of the 332 takenup) and 43 schools (of the 76 taken up) to theconcerned authorities. Besides this, 42houses and 4 schools have been completed,and 12 school buildings are at various stagesof construction.


PB-JUNE 2002 56

One Tick at a Time

The clock master was about to fix the pendulum of a clock, when, to his surprise, he heard the pendulum

speak. ‘Please, sir, leave me alone,’ the pendulum pleaded. ‘It will be an act of kindness on your part. Think

of the number of times I will have to tick day and night. So many times each minute, sixty minutes an hour,

twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. For year upon year … millions of ticks. I

can never do it.’ But the clock master answered wisely, ‘Don’t think of the future. Just do one tick at a time

and you will enjoy every tick for the rest of your life. ’

And that is exactly what the pendulum decided to do. It is still ticking merrily away.

Revelation!

A guru promised a scholar a revelation of greater consequence than anything contained in the scrip-

tures. When the scholar eagerly asked for it, the guru said, ‘Go out into the rain and raise your head and arms

heavenward. That will bring you the first revelation.’ The next day the scholar came to report: ‘I followed

your advice and water flowed down my neck—and I felt like a perfect fool.’ ‘Well,’ said the guru, ‘for the

first day that’s quite a revelation, isn’t it?’

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