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MIND CONTROL

mEµÖvv{CJtàf tbtkôÀg¢ÀJt mJtolNuM;& >blmiJuÂà={gd{tbk rJrlgög mbà;;& >>Nli& Nlih¥vhbu=Tcw°Ót Æt]r;d]ne;gt >ytÀbmkô:k bl& f]UÀJt l rfUÂ¤a=rv raà;gu;T >>g;tu g;tu rlëahr; blëa¤ajbÂô:hbT >;;ô;;tu rlgögi;=tÀbàguJ JNk lgu;T >>Giving up all de sires born of the will, with draw ing the senses from ev ery di rec tionby strength of mind, at tain tran quil lity lit tle by lit tle with the help of the buddhiarmed with for ti tude. Once the mind is es tab lished in the At man, one should notthink of any thing else. When ever the fickle and un quiet mind strays, with draw itand re store it to the con trol of the At man alone. (Bhagavadgita, 6.24-6)

One can not see God with out pu rity of heart. Through at tach ment to ‘woman andgold’ the mind has be come stained—cov ered with dirt, as it were. A mag net can notat tract a nee dle if the nee dle is cov ered with mud. Wash away the mud and themag net will draw it. Like wise, the dirt of the mind can be washed away with thetears of our eyes. This stain is re moved if one sheds tears of re pen tance and says, ‘OGod, I shall never again do such a thing.’ There upon God, who is like the mag net,draws to Him self the mind, which is like the nee dle. (The Gos pel of Sri Ramakrish na,173-4)

Where is God? He is where the world is not. If you wish to go to God, you mustturn your back on the world. The senses must be con trolled and turned in the op po -site di rec tion. God is seated in the heart; so all your sense en er gies and men tal en er -gies must con verge to that one point and take you there. But this can be done onlywhen you re al ize that He is the best, the high est, in the whole uni verse. (SwamiRamakrishna nanda)

11 PB - JANUARY 2005

PRABUDDHABHARATA

Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!

Vol. 110 JANUARY 2005 No. 1

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C To Our Readers c

With this issue Prabuddha Bharata stepsinto its 110th year of pub li ca tion. This spe cial is sue of 96 pages is a col lec tion of ar ti cles onvar ied themes.

Started by Swami Vivekananda, this or -gan of the Ramakrishna Or der has be fore itthe task of dis sem i na tion of man-mak ing Ve-dantic truths as lived and taught by Sri Ra -

ma krishna, Holy M other Sri Sarada Deviand Swamiji.

On this oc ca sion we are happy to sendour New Year greet ings and best wishes toall our read ers, con tri bu tors, ad ver tis ers,friends and well- wish ers. M ay we re questthem to en rol their friends as sub scribers tothis jour nal.

W here the Heart Is, this month’s ed i to -rial, is an at tempt to briefly cap ture the glory of the di vine Light, which em bod ied for thewel fare of hu man ity as Sri Ramakrishna, SriSarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda.

PrabuddhaBharata— 100 Years Agofea-tures some clip pings from ‘Oc ca sional Notes’and ‘News and M is cel lanies’.

Re flec tions on the Bhagavadgita is Swa mi Atulanandaji’s com men tary on verses 1 to 20 of the elev enth chap ter of the Gita.

Both the ador able di vine as pect and theen dear ing hu man as pect were in ter twined in Swa mi Vivekananda’s per son al ity. In Vive -ka nanda the Man— Swam iji’s Hu man itySri C S Ramakrishnan depicts the sec ond as -pect, de tail ing the unique re la tion ship be -tween Swamiji and his guru Sri Rama krish -na; Swa miji’s love for his mother, brotherdis ci ples, dis ci ples and his pets; and his witand hu mour. A for mer ed i tor of VedantaKesari, the au thor has been as so ci ated for de -cades with Sri Ramakrishna M ath, Chennai.

In Vedanta Is an In ves ti ga tive Sci ence,Not a Closed Sys tem Swami M ukh ya nan da -ji pres ents an in te gral view of Vedanta and

dis tin guishes be tween opin ion- and in ves ti -ga tion-based knowl edge. He ar gues that sci -ence need not look down upon Vedantasince the latter is as sci en tific as the former, if not more, with its own meth od ol ogy for in -ves ti ga tion of truth; in fact, they form twoas pects of man’s to tal knowl edge. A se niormonk of the Ramakrishna Or der from BelurM ath, the au thor is a deep think er and hasmany books and pa pers to his credit.

In Man i fes ta tions of the God dess DrAlan Hunter re views var i ous be liefs in god -desses in an cient and re cent cul tures andanal y ses the de i fi ca tion of Sri Sarada Devi as a god dess. The au thor is a se nior lec turer inpeace and reconciliation studies at Coven tryUni ver sity, UK. He vis its In dia and Chinafre quently.

In dia’s Re ju ve na tion: Swa mi Vi ve ka -nan da’s Vi sion is the text of Swami Atma-priyanandaji’s pa per pre sented at a sym po -sium or ga nized on this theme by Rama-krishna M is sion, M umbai, on 23 De cem ber2001. In In dia the thrust has mainly been onmen tal and spir i tual re ju ve na tion. The au -thor un der lines in this learned pa per theneed for more of phys i cal (sci en tific) re ju ve -na tion in the light of Swami ji’s thoughts. Fa -

PB - JANUARY 2005 12

� This Month �

mil iar to our read ers, the au thor is prin ci pal,Rama kri shna M is sion Vid ya man di ra, Belur.

Holy M other is the em bodi ment of theover arch ing fem i nine ideal and an eter nalbea con light for all women. A per son i fi ca -tion of pu rity, she was a pri mary re cep ta clefor the di vine Shakti. Prof Amalendu Chak-ra borty ad mi ra bly por trays these var i ous fac -ets of M oth er’s life in An Em bodi ment ofUni ver sal Moth er hood, and un der lines thein du bi ta ble fact that, more than any thing else, she is the moth er of all. A for mer head of thede part ment of phi los o phy of Pres i dency Col -lege, Kolkata, the au thor is one of our reg u -lar con tri bu tors.

The re stored and ren o vated an ces tralhouse of Swami Vivekananda in Kolkata is a new branch of the Ramakrishna M is sion,hous ing two com plexes: a me mo rial at Swa -miji’s place of birth and a Cul tural Cen trecom pris ing three wings: Vivekananda Re -search Cen tre, Text book Li brary and Sem i -nar Hall, and Ru ral and Slum De vel op mentCen tre. His Ex cel lency Dr A P J Ab dul Ka -lam, Pres i dent of In dia, in au gu rated the Cul -tural Cen tre on 1 Oc to ber 2004. Awak en ingof In dia is the text of his inaugural ad dress.

It is easy to cull pas sages from SwamiVivekananda’s teach ings to suit one’s agen -da, but it is lu di crous to try to con tain Swa -mi ji within the pale of pol i tics, says SwamiSan dar sha nanandaji in his learned ar ti clePol i tics, Re li gion and Vivekananda. Theau thor anal y ses the ills plagu ing our so ci etyand dis cusses rem e dies in the light of Swa -mi ji’s mes sage of time less rel e vance. One ofour reg u lar con tri bu tors, the swami is a monkof the Rama kri shna Or der from Ra ma kri sh -na M is sion Vid yapith, Deoghar.

The Vedas are called ‘shruti’, mean ingthat they have been heard—by a suc ces sionof dis ci ples from their gu rus. Swami Tatha-

ga ta nan daji cap tures this an cient, In dianmethod of im part ing knowl edge in his an a -lyt i cal ar ti cle A Brief In tro duc tion to In dia’s Sa cred Oral Tra di tion. The au thor is a se -nior monk of the Ramakrishna Or der andheads the Vedanta So ci ety of New York.

To wards En lightened Cit i zen ship is ananal y sis by Swa mi Satyamayanandaji of themu tual in ter ac tion and in flu ence of in di vid -ual and so cial forces, and the in ter re la tion -ship be tween in di vid u als. En lightened cit i -zen ship, the au thor ar gues, con sists in look -ing upon oth ers and in ter act ing with them onthe broad er can vas of hu man ity and, as one’s per cep tion gets re fined, look ing upon ev ery -one as the At man, the di vin ity that per vadesour body and mind. The swami is a monk ofthe Ramakri sh na Or der from Ad vai ta Ashra-ma, Kolkata.

Holy M other was a mother, wife and nun in one. In A W on der Tri an gle Sri N Hariha-ran anal y ses the strange co ex is tence of thethree as pects in her, who was an em bodi -ment of pu rity (pavitratá-svarépiîæ). The au -thor is a post grad u ate in eco nom ics and isclosely as so ci ated with Ramakrishna M ath,M adurai.

SwamiVivekananda’s First Hosts inBom bay: Ram dasChabildas and ChabildasLalubhai is Swami Shud dha ru pa nan da ji’spains tak ing re search work on the lives of the son and fa ther who played host to Swamiji.The au thor is a monk of the Rama krishnaOr der from its Jaipur branch.

Im pli ca tions of the First Three Meet -ings be tween Sri Ram akrishna and M byDr C S Shah brings out the es sence of theM as ter’s teach ings for house hold ers. De -ceased a few months back, the au thor was a med i cal con sul tant from Aurangabad andreg u larly wrote for this jour nal and VedantaKesari.


This M onth 3

Where the Heart Is

EDITORIAL

‘Any one who has sin cerely called uponGod even once must come here,’ SriRamakrishna an nounced one day at

Dakshineswar with the as sur ance of a pipercon fi dent of the mu si cal web that his mag i calflute can weave. And if Sri Krishna’s leg end -ary flute con tin ues to be witch men andwomen to this day as it did in the an cientgroves of Vrindaban, the charm of Sri Rama-kri shna’s words have proved no less mes -meric. The im mense pop u lar ity of the Sri SriRa ma krishna Kathamrita (The Gos pel of Sri Ra-ma krishna) bears am ple tes ti mony to this fact.

For the ear nest spir i tual as pi rant seek inga sense of di rec tion in the vast ex panse of thespir i tual realm, Sri Ramakrishna’s wordscome as a whiff of fresh air. The pro fun dityand sub tlety of the spir i tual world, as also itsra di ance, is laid open to ac cess by Sri Rama kri -sh na through his sim ple Ben gali pa tois—col -lo quial, yet so ex pres sive. In his dis course,com plex philo soph i cal prob lems, ex is ten tialpar a doxes and eth i cal di lemmas are all re -solved through il lu mi nat ing met a phors andapt sim i les. For in stance, he tells us that in thewall that stands bar ring our vi sion of the tran -scen dent the avatara is the met a phor i cal‘hole’. It is only through this ‘hole’ that we canre al is ti cally vi su al ize the di vine play of theSpirit. Again, when we find him talk ing to theDi vine M other in a way as nat u ral as any ofour across-the-ta ble talks, we are keen toknow what we need to do to par tic i pate inthose con ver sa tions. Pat co mes the re ply,‘Have in tense long ing for God’, and this as pi -ra tion is then lik ened to the dis ci ple’s gasp ingfor breath on be ing forc ibly dunked in a pondby a guru keen on driv ing home his point.

With a fe lic i tous turn of phrase or in ge -nious coin age of com pounds preg nant with

mean ing, Sri Ramakrishna pro vides strik ingin sights into hu man na ture as well as time lessspir i tual ver i ties. ‘Gita re peated ten times overre veals its es sence: t(y)agi, the renunciant.’This is one ex am ple of Sri Ramakrishna’s de -light ful play upon words. How ever, the lev els of mean ing and the philo soph i cal im pli ca -tions en folded in this sim ple sen tence are truly man i fold. Is sues of study, of re pet i tive japaand its po ten tials, of mean ings and es sen tialsare all in volved therein, as are gram mat i calnu ances. ‘Kamini-kanchana’, ‘lust and lu cre’ or, lit er ally, ‘woman and gold’, is a re cur rent ex -pres sion in Sri Ramakrishna’s nar ra tive. It hasre mained a highly de bated term (es pe cially inthe trans la tion), a fact that tes ti fies to the truthof Sri Ramakrishna’s as ser tion that kamini- kan chana alone is maya. Then there are ex pres -sions like ‘Yato mat tato path; As many faiths somany paths’ and ‘Shiva jnane jiva-seva; Ser viceto man as Shiva’, that have at tained aph o ris ticsta tus in spir i tual dis course.

Par a bles, the hall mark of proph ets, con -sti tute a lit er ary genre that is con sid ered par -tic u larly dif fi cult to con struct. Sri Ramakrish -na is a mas ter of the par a ble. Folk wis dom, Pu-ra nic leg ends, per sonal an ec dotes and ev ery -day events—he weaves them all to gether intoa rich nar ra tive, at once en light en ing and en -ter tain ing.

His room at Dakshineswar is a ver i ta ble‘mart of joy’. Singing, danc ing and spir i tualtalk al ter nate in never-end ing suc ces sion. Di -vine in spi ra tion is in the very air. Sri Rama kri -sh na dis likes long faces. His wit ti cisms set hisdis ci ples roll ing with side-split ting laugh ter.

In sum, his mag ne tism is ir re sist ible.Young or old, man or woman, let tered or oth -er wise, one is sim ply left spell bound oncewithin Sri Ramakrishna’s magic cir cle.


Yet Sri Ramakrishna is a hard task mas ter. He is the pro ver bial money changer whowould care fully test all his coins. Coun ter feitssim ply can not pass mus ter. If you are not agen u ine as pi rant you can’t en ter the magic cir -cle; and very few seem to en joy that priv i lege.Nor can you be com pla cent once you are grant -ed en try. If you are in vited by him to stay over -night at Dakshineswar you are sure to beroused in the mid dle of your sleep and in -structed to med i tate; and dur ing the day youhave only to take a false step to be rapped onyour knuck les by the ever-watch ful M as ter.Worse still, he could leave you to fend foryour self if your ‘un ripe I’ be comes too as ser -tive. Spir i tual life can then ap pear hard andthank less.

Again, the splen dour of Sri Ramakrish -na’s spir i tual achieve ments can blind us totheir in cred i ble im men sity. A re vered monk of the Ramakrishna Order once pointed out thatthe rep re sen ta tion of Sri Ramakrishna’s sam -adhi in the Kathamrita has proved highly mis -lead ing; not be cause the por trayal is notveridical, but the ease with which Sri Rama -kri shna en ters into deep sam adhi and emerg -es there from with won der ful in sights ob -scures the rar ity of sam adhi (of a high or der)as a phe nom e non.

~ ~ ~

Sri Ramakrishna is the myth i cal piper, butwhen Narendra sings he is him self trans -ported into ec stasy, his phys i cal form left

trans fixed in sam adhi. Ev i dently, Narendracan hyp no tize even the ma gi cian. Small won -der then that men and women from all sec -tions of so ci ety should be cap ti vated by themag ne tism of his per son al ity and the power of his mes sage when he even tu ally burst forth on the global scene as Swami Vivekananda. Hismes sage to the West and his plan of ac tion forIn dia have proved to be pe ren nial in their in -spi ra tion. For the youth of In dia Swamiji is anideal to be looked up to, if dif fi cult to em u late.His mul ti fac eted per son al ity and many-sided

ge nius make him easy to identify with. If youare keen on foot ball, Swamiji will tell you thatit is prob a bly better for you than por ing overthe Gita. You need not be a lin guist to be fas ci -nated by the charm and power of his lan -guage, both Eng lish and Ben gali—‘phrases inthe style of Bee tho ven, stir ring rhythm like themarch of Han del cho ruses’. For the mu si cian,singer or art ist, Swamiji is a ver i ta ble muse(gen ders, of course, are not rel e vant here), andfor those seek ing a phi los o phy to live by Swa -miji of fers a re li gion that is ‘sim ple, pop u lar,and at the same time meets the re quire mentsof the high est minds’. If his exhortatory marchfrom Co lombo to Almora was elec tri fy ing inits ef fect, the re cord of these In dian speechescon tin ues to en thuse In dian youth with thespirit of re nun ci a tion and ser vice.

It is dif fi cult to hear Swamiji’s call andnot re spond. One can not help but iden tifywith his great pas sion for the up lift of themass es and ser vice of the poor and af flicted. IfSwa miji’s heart wept for the masses we surelycan not let those tear drops go in vain.

Yet, can we re ally mea sure up to this call? Do we have the mus cles of iron, the nerves ofsteel, and the heart akin to the thun der bolt that Swa miji de mands of us in or der to ac com plishhis Her cu lean mis sion? Do we pos sess thatpu rity, pa tience and per se ver ance nec es saryto suc ceed against over whelm ing odds? Dowe have hearts that can feel, minds that canthink prag mat i cally and hands that can ex e -cute plans?

~ ~ ~

Anon-descript rick shaw-puller walkedinto the book stall of a RamakrishnaM is sion in sti tu tion and asked for a

freshly re leased, bulky Ben gali vol ume on SriSarada Devi (Shatarupe Sarada). He was ratherdown cast to learn that the book was pricedmuch higher than the amount that he had with him, that be ing all of his day’s earn ings. Themonk in charge of the stall turned cu ri ous andin quired what he wished to do with the book


Where the Heart Is 5

and if he could at all read the book. The rick -shaw- puller’s re ply was re veal ing. He hadseen a copy of the book with one of his pas sen -gers. The face on the cover had re minded himof his own mother. He could not read, but hisson could, and he would read out to him about M other.

Equally fas ci nat ing is M urugan’s storythat has re ceived some pub lic ity re cently (seeVedanta Kesari, April 2004, 32-4). Con victed ofmur der at the young age of sev en teen andserv ing a life sen tence along with his fa therand brother, he was driven to de spair over thesuf fer ings of his mother and sis ters. He wascon tem plat ing sui cide when he was given abook on the life and teachings of Sri SaradaDe vi by a fel low in mate. He browsed througha few pages rather dis in ter est edly when his at -ten tion was drawn to the fol low ing words ofHoly M other: ‘Do not be afraid. Hu man birthis full of suf fer ing. Hold on to the name of Godand wade through the suf fer ings. Even thegods, holy men, avataras and saints will haveto go through suf fer ing if they take hu manbirth. They have to go through phys i cal andmen tal tor tures for oth ers, to ab solve oth ers oftheir sins.’

Read ing this pas sage over and over again M urugan re al ized the in sig nif i cance of his suf -fer ings in com par i son with those of manyother peo ple, even those who were great andsaint ly. In his own words, ‘I felt as though abur den was lifted from me, a feel ing of light -ness spread within me, and I felt that M otherher self had con soled me. I gave up the idea ofsui cide that very night. I started con front ingmy suf fer ing and de pres sion face to face, andstarted chant ing the name of Sri Ramakrishna. Slowly I felt a sense of peace en gulf ing me; I

felt M other’s grace and bless ings sur round ingme’. By his own ad mis sion, M urugan is now atrans formed man. M other’s mes sage hastaught him to open up his heart in prayer andthus at tain peace of mind and clar ity ofthought. To put M other’s per sonal ex am ple ofser vice into prac tice he now takes classes onthe Bhagavadgita, Thiruvasagam (a Tamil scrip -tural text), and the lives and teach ings of SriRa makrishna, Holy M other and Swamiji forhis fel low in mates who look upon him as aven er a ble teacher help ing them out of theirown ag ony and suf fer ing. M other’s call toavoid look ing at oth ers’ faults and to ‘makethe whole world one’s own’ has in duced an at -ti tu di nal change that has brought him closerto many of the other in mates.

These an ec dotes will not ap pear out ofthe or di nary to those fa mil iar with the life ofHoly M other, al though they are rel a tively re -cent events. But they do carry a strong mes -sage of hope. Sri Ramakrishna’s spir i tual bril -liance can daz zle us into blind ness and sap our in tre pid ity (Arjuna’s con di tion in Chap ter 11of the Gita may be re called for—a rather un -equal—com par i son). On the other hand, wecan hardly match up to Swamiji’s ex pec ta -tions. But with M other, we can find our spir i -tual feet. It is in the na ture of moth ers to pro -vide their chil dren with phys i cal and emo -tional sup port. But the M other Di vine strikes a deeper chord by awak en ing the spir i tual heart of her chil dren. Our rick shaw-puller wouldgive all of his day’s earn ings to know aboutM oth er, and the trans formed M urugan would make any mother proud. ‘To live for oth ers,’says M urugan, ‘is the M other’s heart. Af ter all, it is the heart of the Al mighty.’ M other is res i -dent where the heart is. ~


6 Prabuddha Bharata

Al ways re mem ber, the Lord is the doer. If ever the idea that ‘I am the doer’ en ters into your

head, the Lord in stantly flies away. All ef forts will then be in vain. Let not the ‘un ripe’ ego

ever en ter your heart. Pray that you may only be an in stru ment in the hands of the Lord, through

His grace. Only then will you be come a real karma yogi.

—Swami Premananda


Prabuddha Bharata— 100 Years Ago

January 1905

To those who with us share the be lief that the up lift of the masses, the ar rest of so cial de cay, and

the prog ress of the coun try can be ef fected by the spir i tual power of our Blessed Re li gion, the

ret ro spect is ex tremely dis ap point ing. No sys tem atic ef fort has yet been made to spread the

prin ci ples of the Re li gion Eter nal to the mil lions of our un ed u cated broth ers and sis ters. No pure form

of wor ship has as yet been given to them, though our sa cred shastras con tain the high est and best of

such in the world. They are made to starve in the midst of plenty.

So cial life is a school of train ing for men and women. Its in sti tu tions are means of rais ing hu man

na ture to cer tain stan dards of ex cel lence. The so ci et ies which ap prox i mate and el e vate their

stan dards of tener than oth ers pos sess the great est amount of life and health. Those which do

not [do that] but stag nate or pull down the stan dards to suit their ease and in cli na tion show sure signs

of de gen er a tion and de cay. The in sti tu tions of a so ci ety must al ways call for stren u ous ef fort and con -

quest of lower na ture, and should there fore be el e vated when ever pos si ble and never low ered. Do we

lower our ed u ca tional stan dards to ac com mo date the idle ness or back ward ness of our boys and

girls? Why then should the more vi tal so cial stan dards be low ered to pan der to the love of ease and

plea sure of our grown-up boys and girls? We should not for get Kant’s words that an ideal is ‘a cit i zen -

ship, which is in heaven’, which the more we grow up to, we find be yond our reach, al ways in spir ing

and beck on ing us to come higher.

—from ‘O ccasional Notes’

Free Copies of Prabuddha Bharata

Akind friend has given us one year’s sub scrip tion for 50 cop ies of Prabuddha Bharata, wish ing

that a copy may be sent free of charge to such li brar ies, col leges and schools as would like to

have it. The Man ager will be glad to send to any such in sti tu tion a copy of the pa per each

month from Jan u ary to De cem ber 1905 on re ceipt of an ap pli ca tion, coun ter signed by the head mas ter

or prin ci pal in case of schools and col leges, and by a lead ing cit i zen in case of a li brary.

~ ~ ~

Sandow is a mighty man of mus cle, but a stron ger one than he has just made his ap pear ance in

Lon don. His name is Letti, and at a pri vate view he per formed re mark able feats of strength, de -

spite the fact that he does not ap pear to be gifted with any ex cep tional phys i cal ca pa bil i ties.

Herr Letti is only 5 ft high, weighs 10 st, is 37 years old, a miller by trade, and was born near Mu nich.

His mus cles are quite un trained, yet he lifted a huge an chor on which were four men, the whole

weigh ing 1500 lbs. He thus beat the world’s re cord lift of 1100 lbs by 400 lbs. Not con tent with this, he

tried his strength against a 16 hp mo tor car, to which, when the car was go ing at 35 miles an hour, he

was at tached by means of a strap. He stopped the prog ress of the car im me di ately, and pulled it back

across the arena. Un til six months ago Herr Letti had no idea of his strength; he was never trained,

and lives like an or di nary man.

—from ‘News and M iscellanies’

Reflections on the Bhagavadgita

SW AMI ATULANANDA

Chap ter 11: The Vi sion of the Uni ver sal Form

In the tenth chap ter Sri Krishna de claredthat the en tire uni verse is ruled and sup -ported by only a part of His power. Arjuna

begs to be fa voured with a vi sion of the way inwhich God sup ports the uni verse by His un-searchable power. And his prayer is grant ed.

Speaking from the high est stand point,the Lord is ab so lute and form less. Though form -less, fire seems to take a form when some thingis ablaze. Sim i larly, though form less, God ap -pears with form to the dev o tee. When themind is pure and spir i tu al ized, the in com pre -hen si ble di vine maj esty of God throws, as itwere, a re flec tion on that pu ri fied mind andthat is the spir i tual per cep tion of man. As fireis pres ent ev ery where and can be made vis i ble through fric tion, even so God is pres ent ev ery -where and can be made vis i ble through burn -ing love and de vo tion.

How won der ful, be yond all com pre hen -sion, is the state ment made by Sri Krishna inthe last verse of Chap ter 10: ‘O Arjuna, whatneed is there for you to know all those de tails?I alone ex ist, sus tain ing this whole uni verse by a por tion of M y self.’ This en tire uni verse withall its won ders, its worlds, stars, plan ets andso lar sys tems is held in place and kept un dercon trol by the power of the Lord, Ishvara. And what tre men dous en ergy to ac com plish that!Words can not de scribe it, the mind can notcon ceive it, yet it is af ter all a frag ment, an in -sig nif i cant part of the glory and power of God. For at the back of all this power and of all man -i fes ta tion re mains the un ex pressed Satchid-ananda. About That we can not know any thing.All ques tions re gard ing It can only be met withsi lence. The an swer that we get from theVedas re gard ing this ab so lute state is ‘neti,

neti; not this, not this’. That is all we can knowabout It: that It is nei ther this nor that. ‘Therethe sun can not il lu mine, nor the moon, nor thestars, nor the flash of light en ing—what tospeak of this mor tal fire! All shine af ter Himwho shines. All this is il lu mined by His ra di -ance.’1 And how can we know any thing pos i -tive about It? For ‘From there words re flectback with thought with out reach ing the goal.’2

‘There the eye can not reach, nei ther can speechnor the mind.’3

Arjuna has un der stood that this Ab so lute state is far be yond the reach of men or gods.No one can pen e trate there and live. To knowBrah man one has to be come Brah man. And soSri Krishna is lead ing Arjuna step by step.Keep the High est in view, but work your wayup from the bot tom. Then there is no dan ger.Yes, I per me ate all things as but ter per me atesmilk. And as churn ing is nec es sary to pro ducebut ter and to make it vis i ble to the eye, so isprac tice nec es sary to see M e. There fore firsttry to see M e in what ever is the great est of itskind. I am the lion among wild an i mals; I amRama among war riors; I am Prahlada amongDaityas. ‘What ever be ing there is pow er ful,beau ti ful or glo ri ous, know that to have sprungforth from a por tion of M y splen dour.’4 I willstart you on the way.

And now in the elev enth chap ter Arjunasays, ‘Yes, I have un der stood. I have lis tenedat ten tively and shall do as You tell me. But if Imay have a glimpse of Your di vine form, OKrishna, if I may once see it, if I may once wit -ness how You dwell in these man i fes ta tions,then it will be eas ier af ter wards to re mem berYou al ways.’ And that is the be gin ning of theelev enth chap ter.


Re mem ber, Arjuna does not ask for a vi -sion of the Ab so lute. That would be im pos si -ble, but he wants to see the form of Ishvara,God the Sustainer of the uni verse, God im ma -nent in na ture, the Spirit, the M other, in allthings. ‘Yes,’ says Arjuna, ‘You are the sunamong heav enly bod ies, but how are You thesun? I can say that, but what of that? I want tosee You there in the sun, like the rishi of oldwho ad dressed the sun, “O Sun, they tell me to me di ate on you as Ishvara. But I do not see Ish-vara; I see only your burn ing rays. Re movethose rays; gather up your burn ing ef ful gence;

re move your golden disk; that I (the seeker ofTruth) may see the su preme Spirit, your veryes sence.”’5 And then the rishi saw. And so Ar -ju na also wants to see the Lord. And he seesand de scribes his vi sion in this chap ter.

The vi sion spo ken of here is re ally a rev e -la tion, a spir i tual awak en ing. It is an in ter nalex pe ri ence; it is the Knowl edge of the GreatBe yond. It is the re al iza tion of God as the Soulof the uni verse.

The chap ter opens with this re quest ofAr juna.

1.Arjuna said:

By the su prem ely pro found words re gard ing Self-knowl edge, spo ken by You out ofcom pas sion for me, my de lu sion has been dis pelled.

By Your words of wis dom (as re corded inpre ced ing chap ters), O Lord, my de lu -sion has been dis pelled. I la boured un -

der a great miscomprehension, con found ingTruth with false hood, Re al ity with ap pear -

ance, the Eter nal with the ephem eral. But Your words have showed me the path of nir vanaand re-es tab lished my power of dis crim i na -tion re gard ing the True and the false, the Selfand the non-Self, Spirit and mat ter.

2. O Lo tus-eyed (Krishna), I have heard at length from You of the or i gin and dis so lu tionof be ings, as well as of Your in ex haust ible great ness.

In Chapters 7 to 10 Sri Krishna has told Ar-juna quite ex plic itly about the cre ation and

dis so lu tion of things and also of His in fi niteglory.

3. O Great Lord, as You have de clared Yourself, so it is. (Still) I de sire to see Your Ishvaraform, O Su preme Be ing.

Arjuna ad dresses Sri Krishna here as theGreat Lord. Surely what ever the LordHim self says, must be true. Arjuna

shows thereby that he has no doubt re gard ingthe truth of what Sri Krishna taught. He doesnot test the au thor ity of Sri Krishna. But for the

sat is fac tion of his own spir i tual as pi ra tion hewishes to see His Uni ver sal Form. Arjuna does not ask to see any of God’s in fe rior forms, butHis Ishvara form, the Om nip o tent, the Om ni -scient, the Om ni pres ent, pos sessed of in fi nitewisdom, strength, virtue and splendour.

4. O Lord, if You think I am ca pa ble of see ing it, then, O Lord of yo gis, show m e Your im -mu ta ble Self.

OLord, One who re ceives my prayer, inwhom I put all my trust, show meYour im mu ta ble Self. I am very anx -

ious to be hold it. But I do not know whether Iam wor thy. If I am fit for that great fa vour,then may it be granted to me. Thou art the

Lord of yo gis. If or di nary yo gis can ex er cisesu per hu man pow ers, then who can tell theex tent of Your pow ers, for all other pow ersare but re flec tions of Yours?

And then, thus im plored by Arjuna,


Reflections on the Bhagavadgita 9

5. The Blessed Lord said:

Be hold, O son of Pritha, by hun dreds and thou sands My var i ous ce les tial forms of dif -fer ent colours and shapes.

6. Be hold the Adityas, the Rudras, the Vasus, the twin Ashvins and the Maruts. Be hold,O de scen dant of Bharata, many won ders that were not seen be fore.

7. O Gudakesha, be hold in this body of mine the en tire uni verse to gether with all themov ing (crea tures) and the unmoving (ob jects) and what ever else you de sire to per ceive.

Sri Krishna is pleased with Arjuna. His hu -mil ity and sin cere de sire to know theTruth have awak ened this re sponse in Sri

Krishna’s heart. ‘Yes, I will show you M y di -vine na ture. All the hun dreds and thou sandsof forms, mun dane and ce les tial, you will seees tab lished as a whole in M y Uni ver sal Form.You will see what no hu man be ing has ever

wit nessed be fore. The en tire uni verse with allits crea tures you will see as part of M y body.And what ever else you may like to see, youwill see all that now. You will see the past, thepres ent and the fu ture. Your anx i ety re gard -ing the out come of the bat tle will be re movedand many other things will be re vealed toyou.’

8. But you can not see Me with these eyes of yours. There fore I give you di vine Sight. Be -hold My su preme yoga power!

‘You asked M e, whether I thought youfit to see M y di vine form. No, Arjuna,no hu man be ing has ever be held M y

Uni ver sal Form. Nei ther would you be able tosee it with your hu man eyes. You have seenM y man i fes ta tions in life, but to day you willtouch the very sub stance of M y Be ing. For thatI have to give you supersensuous sight. I cando that through M y yoga power. I alone cangive that re al iza tion to man, that spir i tual il lu -mi na tion which brings moksha. It is a powerthat be longs to M e as Ishvara, and when I in -car nate for the well-be ing of man kind, I carrythat power with M e.’ The In car na tions alonecan give man that di vine in sight. They can saywith Je sus, ‘All things are de liv ered unto M eof M y Fa ther; and no man knoweth the Sonbut the Fa ther; nei ther knoweth any man theFa ther, save the Son and he to whom so ever the Son will re veal Him.’6 Unto them is given allpower in heaven and on earth!

That spir i tual vi sion co mes with the open -ing of the third eye, the spir i tual eye, lo catedbe tween the eye brows, which is closed in or di -nary peo ple. When that eye opens, the field ofman’s con scious ness changes. It is shifted anden larged, bring ing with it di vine per cep tion.

One be comes a seer, a rishi, or a prophet.Sri Ramakrishna had the power to awak -

en spir i tual power in man. By a touch Hecould be stow the state of sam adhi on dev o -tees. The scales would drop from their eyesand they would look into Eter nity; they would be hold Truth face to face. Some times it hasbeen said that this is sim ply hyp no tism. No.Hyp no tism means re plac ing one set of ideasby an other pres ent in the mind of the per sonwho hyp no tizes. But that is not what hap penshere. In this case, while quite con scious ofwhat takes place in him, the dev o tee sees thedark ness of ig no rance, which ruled in his mind,dis pelled by the light of Wis dom. As the mistclears when the sun rises, so layer af ter layer of dark ness dis ap pears and Truth be gins to shinefrom within. The cat a ract is lifted. True andfull vi sion, man’s in born sight, is es tab lished.Then, and not un til then, does man come to his own. He sees clearly and is free from de lu sion.He is him self. He is dehyp notized. He is freedfrom the hyp notic in flu ence the world hadthrown over him. That can be brought aboutonly by the di vine Teacher.

But how do we know that the guru doesnot sim ply hyp no tize the dis ci ple? It was


10 Prabuddha Bharata

proved in Sri Ramakrishna’s case. Once it hap -pened that Sri Ramakrishna was com ing outof the state of sam adhi and in his ec static joytouched some of the dev o tees around him. Im -me di ately, they all had di vine vi sions. In theirjoy they called oth ers, and Sri Ramakrish natouched ev ery one who came to him. There wasa large num ber of them, for peo ple came fromdif fer ent di rec tions to wit ness the mir a cle andto be them selves blessed with the di vine touch.They all be came il lu mined at that mo ment,but the vi sion was dif fer ent with each one ofthem. Each had a dif fer ent ex pe ri ence and re -al iza tion. Some saw their ishtadeva ta: they sawthe Lord in the form in which they wor -shipped Him. One saw Krishna, an other Bud -dha, and an other the Di vine M other. Oth erssaw the uni verse as a dream: the gross man i -fes ta tion van ished and only the uni verse ofideas re mained. Each one re al ized his own ideal.Had it been a case of hyp no tiz ing people in aroom (as some yo gis do) all would have hadthe same ex pe ri ence, the same vi sion. But thatwas not the case. Nei ther did Sri Ramakri sh naim print the vi sion on their minds, for thenthey would have seen what was for eign tothem. But these per sons, ev ery one of them, re -al ized that for which they had been striv ing. Itwas the ful fil ment of their prayers in a mostun ex pected man ner. It was the ful fil ment oftheir in ner most and high est as pi ra tions. Whatthey saw be fore this (as St Paul ex presses it)through a dark glass, they saw now in a clearvi sion, as if the glass had been re moved. Whatthey had been strug gling for, what they hadbeen grop ing af ter, stood re vealed be fore them.

Ev ery spir i tual ex pe ri ence is a step ad -vanced on the path of life. It is a glimpse ofHim, to wards whom we are trav el ling. Throughthe mists we see the moun tain peak. Higherand higher we climb, some times as cend ing,some times de scend ing, but al ways pro gress -ing. Some times the vi sion is clear, some timesob scured. But He, who is our goal, standsthere, im mov able, un chang ing, wait ing, call -ing, guid ing from a dis tance! And when wehear His voice, we fol low. And who is He?That se cret will be re vealed only when wecome very close, when we rise very high, be -yond the worldly, ma te ri al is tic at mo sphere;when we rise to where the air is pure and clear. Then we will see Him, who is far and near,than whom none is greater or smaller, thanwhom none more sub tle or vast—very dis tantfirst, but now very near.7 And great is the sur -prise, for He for whom we have been seek ingin heaven and on earth, in for ests and moun-tain caves and churches and tem ples and scrip -tures—He is re al ized as no other but our owndi vine Self, our very in ner most Ex is tence. Hewas with us al ways but we did not know it.We wore a mask and we saw our own re flec -tion masked. We had for got ten that it was amask. But now we know and the mask is re -moved. The ego, the per son al ity, is dis card edand the At man shines in His own glory. It isthe real ‘I’, the real man.

And now we will see how Sanjaya (whois re lat ing all this to King Dhritarashtra) de -scribes the vi sion of the Uni ver sal Form asseen by Arjuna. Later Arjuna him self re lateshis ex pe ri ence. But at pres ent

9.Sanjaya said:

O King, hav ing spo ken thus, Hari, the Great Lord of yoga, then showed to Partha His su -premeIshvara form.

Sanjaya then tells King Dhritarashtra thataf ter Sri Krishna, the Great Lord of Yoga(M aháyogeùvara) has spo ken to Arjuna,

the su preme form of Ishvara be gins to re vealit self. We must not for get that God in His high -

est ab so lute state is with out form. But throughHis yoga power He ap pears to have in fi niteforms and at trib utes. And among these forms,that seen by Arjuna is the high est.

Sanjaya calls Sri Krishna Hari. One of the



mean ings of Hari is ‘one who re moves’. AndKrishna is so called be cause He re moves ig no -rance, the source of man’s suf fer ing.

En dowed with di vine sight Arjuna thensees the Ishvara form. And what does he see?He sees a form …

10. W ith many mouths and eyes, with many won drous sights, with many ce les tial or na -ments and with ce les tial weap ons up lifted,

11. W earing ce les tial gar lands and gar ments, anointed with ce les tial fra grant per fumes,the all-won der ful De ity, re splen dent, bound less, fac ing the uni verse ev ery where.

Ishvara faces the uni verse ev ery where, asHe is the Self of all be ings. It is a glo ri ous vi-sion. With what can it be com pared? Oh! It

is be yond all com par i son. It ex cels ev ery thingimag in able. Still, to give an idea of that gloryby way of ex am ple, Sanjaya says:

12. If the ef ful gence of a thou sand suns were to shine at once in the sky, that might re -sem ble the splen dour of that great Be ing.

But that is not all.

13. There in the body of the God of gods, the son of Pandu then saw the whole uni verserest ing to gether with its m an i fold di vi sions.

Arjuna saw in that Universal Form of theLord the whole uni verse rest ing, as itwere, with all its var i ous man i fes ta tions

of devas, spir its, men, an i mals, stars, plan etsand so lar sys tems. It is all con tained in Him.Won drous is the vi sion, and see ing it,

14. Then Dhanajaya, over pow ered with won der, and his hair stand ing on end, bend ingdown his head in awe to the De ity, spoke with folded hands.

And now Arjuna de clares his own ex pe -ri ence. He is filled with won der andawe. But soon that won der makes room

for ec stasy. His soul is lifted up to higherspheres. Di vine en ergy flows through him. He

can not con tain him self. He must give ut ter -ance to that ex alted feel ing. His heart flowsover and he be gins to sing the praises of theLord, re lat ing all that passes be fore his vi sion.And so,

15. Arjuna said:

O Lord! In Your body I see all the gods, as well as mul ti tudes of all kinds of be ings; LordBrahmá seated on the lo tus throne, all the rishis and all the ce les tial ser pents.

Om ni pres ent and all-con tain ing Lord, in Your body I see all the devas and allforms, an i mate and in an i mate. Out -

side of You, noth ing ex ists. Even Lord Brah-má, the Cre ator of the uni verse, who is seatedin the cen tre of the Earth-lo tus, is con tained inYou.

The lo tus is the em blem of the uni verse.The su preme De ity, as the Cre ator Brahmá, isseated in the cen tre of the in fi nite uni verse;this is his lo tus seat. ‘All the rishis, the greatsages of yore, and the ce les tial ser pents are en -

folded in You.’ The ce les tial ser pents (theUragas) are an or der of ce les tial be ings whopos sess great wis dom, usu ally un der stood tobe in some way con nected with ser pents.

The Lord has said, ‘By M e is this en tireworld per vaded, and all be ings abide in M e.’Yes, it is true. Now Arjuna sees it. Gods, rishis,celestials, even the Cre ator has his abode inHim. Out side Him noth ing ex ists. Arjuna knewit be fore but he had never seen it. He ac ceptedit as truth be cause Sri Krishna had told him so.But now co mes re al iza tion. It is no lon ger a



ques tion of be liev ing. It is es tab lished knowl -edge. It is ex pe ri ence. That is very dif fer ent.We know and we be lieve many things aboutGod, but once it flashes in our mind as Truth,then it is Knowl edge for ever. It be comes partof us. We can never again doubt it; we cannever for get it. From the deep est re cesses of

our be ing that Knowl edge rises up and re veals it self to our con scious ness. That is called in spi -ra tion, in tu ition, the still small voice, or thevoice of God, who dwells within us, teach ingfrom within.

What else does Arjuna see?

16. O Lord of the uni verse, O Uni ver sal Form, I see You with man i fold arms, stom achs,m ouths and eyes, bound less on ev ery side; I see nei ther Your be gin ning, nor mid dle nor end.

Yes, that also the Lord has told Arjuna. ‘Iam the Spirit dwell ing in the heart of allbe ings. I am the be gin ning, the mid dle

and the end of all be ings.’8 In deed it is so. ‘Youare all, O Lord. All these war riors, friends andfoes are but Your self. For merly I saw themask; now I see You be hind the mask. For -

merly I saw the ap pear ance; now I see the real.You are eat ing through all mouths, see ingthrough all eyes. Who is fight ing with whom?It is You Your self; it is Your magic play. Youare putt ing on these dif fer ent forms of war -riors and there fore

17. I see You with di a dem, mace and dis cus; a mass of ra di ance shin ing ev ery where daz -zling to the sight, blaz ing all around like burn ing fire and sun, and im m ea sur able.

Glo ri ous, glo ri ous, a mass of splen dourand ef ful gence is the vi sion of God. Itcan be seen only by those who are fa -

voured with di vine Grace. None else can be -hold it. St Paul was tem po rarily blinded whenon his way to Da mas cus. He says, ‘Sud denlythere shone from heaven a great light roundabout me. And I fell unto the ground, andheard a voice. … ’9 ‘And when I could not seefor the glory of that light, be ing led by thehand of them that were with me, I came intoDa mas cus.’10And St John, when he re ceivedhis rev e la tion on the isle of Patmos, fell as dead.He writes, ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’sDay and heard be hind me a great voice, as of atrum pet.’11 ‘And I turned to see the voice that

spake with me.’ (1.12) And when I saw Him, Ifell at his feet as dead. And He laid His righthand upon me, say ing unto me: “Fear not. … ”’ (1.17)

Such vi sions are granted to very few, be -cause who can sur vive it, ex cept a cho sen few?Whose brain is strong enough to with standthe shock? Whose phy sique would not beshat tered? But those who sur vive are lifted be -yond all suf fer ing and de lu sion. Arjuna with -stood the shock and came out il lu mined. Buthe also could not stand it for long, as we shallsee later on. But as it was, he had a won der fulre al iza tion. And so he de clares in the nextverse: From what I have seen it is clear that

18. You are the Im per ish able, the Su preme, the One to be known. You are the su premeRef uge of this uni verse. You are the ever-un chang ing Guard ian of the Eter nal Dharma. Youare, I know, the an cient Be ing.

Arjuna in his vi sion sees the De ity pos -sessed with in fi nite forms and at trib -utes. But that vi sion is so il lu mi nat ing

that he per ceives (through the power of faith)even the attributeless De ity re ferred to in this

verse. He sees the Lord as the Im per ish able, be -yond time and change, the One ob ject, the Oneto be known by all seek ers of free dom. You are that Knowl edge in which ev ery thing is known.You are the su preme Ref uge of the uni verse,



the un chang ing Guard ian of Re li gion. The uni -verse is safe be cause it rests in You; as long asYou are, the uni verse will be; and dharma, orre li gion, is also safe. It may be partly hid denfor a time, but You are its un dy ing Guard ian.

Your eye is ever watch ful and there fore dhar -ma can never be en tirely de stroyed. It is eter -nal. You are, I know, the ev er last ing Spirit, theAn cient Pu ru sha. This is my firm con vic tion.

And then Arjuna con tin ues:

19. I see You with out be gin ning, m id dle or end, with in fi nite power, with num ber lessarm s, the sun and the m oon Your eyes, the burn ing fire your mouth, heat ing the whole uni -verse with Your own ra di ance.

The phe nom e nal is pierced in all di rec tionsby the Real and made one with it.

Lis ten!

20. By You alone the space be tween heaven and earth and all the quar ters are per vaded.O Great Soul, see ing Your mar vel lous and awesome form, the three worlds are stricken withfear.

Arjuna re al izes one truth af ter an other.Has not the Lord prom ised to His dev -o tees that He de stroys the dark ness of

their ig no rance with the bril liant Light ofKnowl edge? How true it is! Ev ery word thatSri Krishna ever spoke to Arjuna in prom ise,Ar juna now sees ver i fied.

In this verse we get the first in di ca tion offear. We shall see later how fear over takes Ar -juna. He is not yet ready for this ex alted vi sion, which co mes to those he roic souls who treadthe path of jnana. He is afraid that he would bemerged in the Uni ver sal, that he would losehis in di vid u al ity. He Him self may be swal -lowed up by those fear ful mouths. He for getsthat to be swal lowed by the Lord is like en ter -ing the ocean of Bliss.

And now, in or der to re move the doubten ter tained by Arjuna re gard ing his suc cess in

the bat tle, Sri Krishna pro ceeds to show himthat vic tory for his army is cer tain. Seeing this,Arjuna goes on.

(To be continued)

References

1. Katha Upanishad, 2.2.15.

2. Taittiriya Upanishad, 2.4.1.

3. Kena Upanishad, 1.3.

4. Bhagavadgita, 10.41.

5. Adapted from Ishavasya Upanishad, 15.

6. St M at thew, 11.27.

7. M undaka Upanishad, 3.1.7; Katha, 1.2.20;

Ishavasya, 5.

8. Gita, 10.20.

9. The Acts, 22.6-7.

10. Ibid., 22.11.

11. Rev e la tion, 1.10.



As a bird flies to the sky with its two wings, so we must have the two wings of dis crim i na tion and

re nun ci a tion to climb the ed i fice of Liberation. If one has real dis crim i na tion and re nun ci a -

tion, one is safe. A man runs af ter wa ter in a mi rage only so long as he mis takes the mi rage for real

wa ter. Once the de lu sion is bro ken, no body goes af ter a mi rage for wa ter. The truth is that only he

es capes whom the M other Her self holds by the hand. Sri Ramakrishna used to say, ‘A fin ger print is

clear when the ink is all right, and if it is bad, the im pres sion is also bad.’ Spir i tual in struc tions

make a last ing im pres sion only on the mind that pos sesses dis crim i na tion and re nun ci a tion.

—Swami Turiyananda

Vivekananda, the Man: Swamiji’s Humanity

C S RAMAKRISHNAN

‘Átmánaó mánuøaó manye, rámaó daùa-ra thátmajam; I con sider my self a man, the son of Dasharatha,’ de clared Sri

Ra ma. An in car na tion of M ahavishnu, he took elab o rate care to con ceal his di vin ity. He con -ducted him self as the ideal man, the rolemodel of eth ics. ‘Rámo vi g rahaván dharmaë; Ra -ma is righ teous ness em bod ied,’ pro claimedeven his en emy M áræ ca. It is no ac ci dent thatSwa mi Vivekananda, who had re ceived theRa ma man tra from Sri Rama krishna, alsostrove his best to con ceal his di vine pow ersand ded i cated his life to the ser vice of fel lowmen. Only a Vivekananda could say ‘We arethe ser vants of that God who by the ig no rant iscalled M AN.’1

The Two Modes of the Suprem e

The Su preme ex presses it self in twomodes: that of paratva, the tran scen den tal, and that of sau labhya, easy ac ces si bil ity. Paratvashines as di vin ity while saulabhya flows as hu -man ity. The two qual i ties may ap pear con tra -dic tory on the sur face, but they are, in fact, aseam less con ti nu ity. When we study Swami -ji’s life care fully we can see how his di vin itydoes not pre clude his hu man ity. Rather hishu man ity is all the more vi brant be cause of the sub stra tum of di vin ity.

Swam iji’s Divinity

Of Swamiji’s di vin ity there can be nodoubt. We have it from Sri Ramakrishna him -self that Naren had been per suaded to comedown from the saptarshi man da la to as sist him.The first time they met on earth, the M as ter ad -dressed Naren as Narayana and asked himhow he could have been so un kind to havekept him wait ing for so long. Swa mi ji was thegift of Lord Vireshwara of Vara na si, and his

mother could wean him away from mis chiefonly by chant ing Shiva’s name and pour ingwa ter over his head. His brother dis ci ples likeM ahapurush M aharaj have ac tu ally seen himas Shiva. Never given to any thing but truth,Sri Rama kri shna de scribed him as a thou -sand-pet alled lo tus.

His More Important Humanity

All this en cour ages us to put Swamiji on a ped es tal and wor ship him. He is in deed fullywor ship-wor thy, but in treat ing him as a de itywe are do ing an in jus tice to him as well as toour selves. The de ity is sep a rate from the wor -ship per. Is there not a dis tance be tween thetwo? Not nec es sar ily. Narada in vites us tostudy the pas sion of the gopikas of Vrindabanfor Krishna. They knew that Krishna was notjust the son of Yashoda, but he was the ul ti -mate Re al ity, the Indweller of all hearts. Hewas para, the Su preme. Yet by their pas sionthey had made him their own. He was not sep -a rate from them. The magic of love had trans -formed the im per sonal Ab so lute into the in -tensely per sonal Dar ling. This is parábhakti,pa ra ma prema. If we are true bhaktas of Swa-miji, it behoves us to make him our own. Andthis can be done only by study ing and un der -stand ing Swamiji’s hu man ity, the nu ances ofhis many-splendoured hu man bonds.

Vol umes have been writ ten by notedwrit ers about Swamiji as a yogi, as a prophet,as the Vedanta Kesari (Lion of Vedanta), as apa triot, as the awakener of mod ern In dia, asan or a tor by di vine right and as the co los susstrid ing across the con ti nents to storm the bas -tions of ‘ego-centric re li gious iso la tion ism’.This is mag nif i cent lit er a ture, but much moresoul-sat is fy ing it will be if we lift the veil a lit tle and gaze at the hu man face, the hu man heart


and the hu man spirit of the great Lover. ‘Donot seek for Him [God], just see Him,’ he saidonce. (7.29) Let us there fore not seek his spir i -tual per son al ity, but see him as a son be fore his mother, as a dis ci ple be fore his guru, as a gurube fore his dis ci ples, and as a mas ter be fore hispets. Let us en joy his ro bust re la tion ship withpeo ple, an i mals, birds, trees and all na -ture—and above all, his spar kling wit andside-split ting hu mour.

Swam iji and His Mother

To his mother Bhuvaneswari Devi, Swa -mi ji was strongly at tached. He was an en fantter ri ble like Krishna. He was so rest less andnaughty that she used to say, ‘I prayed to Shi -va for a son and He has sent me one of His de -mons. I had to de ploy two nurses to man agehim. But aside from oc ca sional out bursts hewas a sunny-tem pered, sweet and lov ing child’.And Swamiji would say that it was his motherwho in spired him. Her char ac ter was a con -stant in spi ra tion to his life and work. ‘I oweher ev ery thing that I am.’ (2.507) ‘The lovewhich my mother gave me has made me whatI am, and I owe a debt to her that I can never re-pay.’ (9.203) And Sis ter Nivedita re cords, ‘Swa-miji in her ited his royal bear ing, in tel lec tualfac ul ties, ex traor di nary mem ory and moralpu rity from his mother.’ Sis ter Chris tine ex -claims, ‘How he loved his mother!’2

Some times when he was in other parts ofIn dia, he would be ap pre hen sive that some -thing had hap pened to his mother. We findthat at his re quest, M anmatha Babu, his host in M a dras, sends a tele gram to Cal cutta and only when the re ply co mes that she is quite all rightdoes Swamiji feel re lieved. Again, it is re cord -ed that he took the trou ble to go to a re motevil lage, Valangaiman, partly by rail and partly on foot, to con sult a fa mous as trol o ger, Go vin -da Chetty by name, who also as sured himabout the good health of his mother. When hewas in the mon as tery in Belur, he would senda mes sen ger post-haste to make sure she waswell. To the very end her com fort and care was

one of his chief con sid er ations. When his fa -ther died leav ing the fam ily in ut ter pen ury,Swamiji of ten de clined to eat, say ing he hadeaten in a friend’s house, in or der that hismother might not be de prived of food. Whenfi nally he had to take sannyasa and leave herto fend for her self, it was a ter ri ble wrench, but he told him self that, as the ad age says, for thegood of the world ev ery thing must be givenup. He men tions in one let ter, ‘I am no hard- hearted brute. If there is any be ing I love in thewhole world, it is my mother. Yet I be lievedand still be lieve that with out my giv ing up theworld, the great mis sion which RamakrishnaParamahamsa, my great M as ter, came to preachwould not see the light.’3

And like Shankaracharya, the great cham -pion of Advaita, he went back to his mother inher last days. Af ter his glo ri ous preach ing inthe West, he came and met his mother. Withhis head on her lap, with all the pranks andhelp less ness of a child, he cried, ‘M other, feedme with your hands and make me grow.’4

One day, while he was stay ing at Bala-ram Bose’s house, his mother’s maid ser vantcame there and asked Swami Brahmanandaji,who was also stay ing there then, ‘Where is Na -ren?’ Thanks to his di a be tes, Swamiji used toget no sleep at night and tried at day time tohave few snatches of it. Brahmanandaji peepedinto Swamiji’s room and find ing him asleep,told the maid ser vant so, and she went away.On wak ing up and be ing told that his moth er’s maid ser vant had come, Swamiji scold ed Brah-manandaji for not wak ing him up. Thinkingthat his mother had sent the maid ser vant forsome spe cial work, he im me di ately called fora hired car riage and reached his mother’splace. He asked his mother why she had sentthe maid ser vant to him, and sur prised, shetold him that she had not sent her. Swamijithen called the maid ser vant and asked herabout it. She re plied, ‘I went for some work inBaghbazar-Chitpur area and just wanted tolook you up. Since Rakhal said that you weresleep ing, I came away.’ Swamiji re pented for



hav ing scolded Brahmanandaji, sent a car -riage to Balaram Bose’s house to fetch him atthe house and when he ar rived begged for -give ness of him for scold ing him.5

De spite his bad health he took his motheralong with other fam ily mem bers on a pil -grim age to Dacca and all had a dip in the sa -cred Brahmaputra river on an aus pi cious day.In spite of their pro found re al iza tions, bothShan kara and Vivekananda re mained butchil dren to their moth ers, and herein lies theirgreat ness.

Swam iji and His Guru

The re la tion be tween Sri Ramakrishna andNaren is one of the most be witch ing chap ters inthe his tory of guru-shishya re la tion ship. In thatim mor tal verse ‘Sthápa ka ya ca dharmasya‘ Swamiji calls his M as ter avatára variøôha, the su preme In -car na tion. This is not hy per bole but a heart felttrib ute re sult ing from long andstren u ous ex per i men ta tion. Hedid not ac cept Sri Ra makrishnaand his state ments blindly. Hetested both rig or ously. He chal -lenged his mas ter at ev ery stepand so he be came sure of ev erystep in the spir i tual od ys sey. Andthe M as ter too was very happy that Naren chal -lenged him. He mould ed Na ren for his great mis -sion in di rectly. When Naren would not ac ceptvigraha árád ha ná, im age wor ship, SriRamakrishna saw this as a hand i cap, be causewith out ac cept ing the Di vine M other Narenwould not be able to tap the shakti nec es sary forthe stu pen dous mis sion to be en trusted to him.Hence Guru M a ha raj should have con trived thesud den pov erty of Naren’s fam ily and his hav ing to go to Bhavatarini to sup pli cate for re lief. AndBha va tarini, en joy ing the game, made him prayonly for jnana, bhakti and vairagya.

In Sri Ramakrishna’s hands Naren waslike clay in the pot ter’s hand. When Narenasked him for nirvikalpa sam adhi the M as tertook him to task for be ing so nar row-mindedas to seek only his own up lift in stead of be ing a

ban yan tree whose wide-spread ing branch esaf forded shel ter to all the four types of as pi -rants:árta, jijðásu, arthárthæ and jnani. Sri Ra -ma krishna did give him the taste of nir vi kalpasam adhi one day, but pointed out that he waskeep ing this trea sure un der lock and key tillNaren had ac com plished his mis sion. Andhow thrill ing is the ep i sode when Sri Rama kri -sh na, de scend ing from sam adhi, re jected thecon cept of com pas sion for oth ers and in sistedthat what is re quired is ser vice to all God’s cre -ation. Swamiji caught the pro found im pli ca -tion of this mahávákya and cre ated his tory byequat ing re nun ci a tion with self less ser viceand fab ri cat ing an or ga ni za tion to make ‘ùivajðáne jæva seva’ prac ti cal Vedanta. And from hisdeath bed the M as ter wrote that Naren wouldteach the world. He left no op tion for Naren tore treat in wards, and be fore he passed awaytrans ferred to his be loved dis ci ple all his spir i -

tual trea sures. M as ter and dis ci ple fit ted eachother like lock and key. Each had made theother com pletely his own. With the two it wasa high-volt age spir i tual ro mance. The ag onyand the ec stasy of each when sep a rated fromor united with the other strongly re mind us ofthe ro mance be tween Krishna and the gopis.When Swamiji would thrillingly ex pa ti ate onthe rásalæla he must have been nos tal gi cally re -mem ber ing his own lila with the M as ter. ‘I amhis ser vant through life af ter life. A sin gleword of his is to me far weight ier than theVedas and the Vedanta. Tasya dása-dása-dáso’ -ham—Oh, I am the ser vant of the ser vants ofhis ser vants.‘6 Once while con vers ing with hisbroth er dis ci ple Swami Yogananda, Swamijire marked about the great ness of Sri Ramakri -sh na: ‘Even if you might form an idea of thelim its of Brahmajnana, the knowl edge of the


Vivekananda, the M an: Swamiji’s Humanity 17

Master and disciple fitted each other like

lock and key. Each had made the other

completely his own. With the two it was a

high-voltage spiritual romance.

gan serv ing the fam ine-stricken vil lag ers ofM ur shidabad with just four annas in hispocket. If Swamiji was the mov ing spirit of theideal of ser vice to hu man ity, it was Akhanda-nan daji who put this ideal into prac tice.

Alasinga Perumal is a name fa mil iar to us all. This bare foot scholar col lected the moneyfor Swamiji’s voy age to the West and startedthe Brahmavadin and the Prabuddha Bharata toprop a gate Swamiji’s ideas. Swamiji said ofhim, ‘One rarely finds men like our Alasingain this world—one so un self ish, so hard-work -ing and de voted to his Guru, and such an obe -di ent dis ci ple is in deed very rare on earth.’(7.334) Swamiji con tin u ously wrote to himfrom Amer ica and Eng land, guid ing him andin spir ing him to work for the re gen er a tion ofthe moth er land. These let ters re veal the heartof the pa triot-monk who had re nounced allworld ly ties, but had one love: his coun try,and one grief: its down fall.

Pro fes sor Singaravelu M udaliar of the Pa-chi appa’s Col lege, M a dras, came to ar gue withSwa miji, and crit i cized Hin du ism. But con ver -sa tion with Swamiji changed him into a de -voted dis ci ple. Swamiji used to fondly callhim Kidi. We learn that the pro fes sor used tosub sist on fruits and milk like a par rot. Now,in Tamil a par rot is called kiòi. Swamiji pro -nounced the word as ‘Kidi’ and so the namestuck. Swamiji would say, ‘Caesar said, “I came,I saw, I con quered.” But Kidi came, he saw andhe was con quered.’7 Re nouncing the world, Ki -di led the life of a re cluse, faith ful to the M as ter till his last breath.

How Swamis Kalyanananda and Nish -cha yananda es tab lished the Sevashrama atKan khal and Swamis Shubhananda and Acha-la nanda opened the Sevashrama in the holycity of Varanasi is a saga that high lights Swa -miji’s power to in spire his dis ci ples to su per -hu man self less ser vice to the af flicted, the low -ly and the lost. Did he not say

I must see my ma chine in strong work ing or der, and then know ing sure that I have put in a le verfor the good of hu man ity, in In dia at least,

which no power can drive back, I will sleep,with out car ing what will be next; and may I beborn again and again, and suf fer thou sands ofmis er ies so that I may wor ship the only Godthat ex ists, the only God I be lieve in, the sum to -tal of all souls—and above all, my God thewicked, my God the mis er a ble, my God thepoor of all races, of all spe cies, is the spe cial ob -ject of my wor ship.

8

His Disciples and Friends from the W est

The men and women in the West whomSwa miji charmed into in ti mate and gen u inefriend ship form a class by them selves. DrWright, M r and M rs Hale, the Ly ons, the Bag-leys—all played their parts in bring ing Swa-miji into the lime light. M rs Ole Bull, whomSwamiji ad dressed as ‘mother’, con trib utedsub stan tially to pro cure the land for Be lurM ath. To M iss Waldo we owe the text of the‘Raja Yoga’, which Swamiji dic tated to her,and the ‘In spired Talks’, which Swamiji de liv -ered at Thou sand Is land Park. Of Sis ter Chris -tine, who ded i cated her self to the build ing upof the Nivedita School in Cal cutta, Swamijiwould say, ‘I worry about ev ery one ex ceptyou.’ His faith in her in nate good ness was soim mense.

Jo se phine M acLeod, Swamiji’s Joe, everre mem bered his ad mo ni tion to her to ‘LoveIn dia’ and tire lessly worked to cre ate lov ers ofIn dia through out the world. Her sis ter andbroth er-in-law, the Leggetts, played host toSwa miji at the fa mous Ridg ley M anor, whichhas now be come part of the M is sion in theStates. With the M ead sis ters Swamiji was soin ti mate that they felt Christ him self was intheir midst. M rs Edith Allan, whom Swamijicured of her de pres sion, wrote:

He was so many-sided, won der fully be yondde scrip tion. All things to all men; he was all thefour Yogas. Some times the Vedantic lion, some -times like a child; to me he was al ways the pa -tient and lov ing par ent. Noth ing was too smallfor his no tice and in ter est—such love as can notbe com pre hended; he al ways lis tened. He toldme not to call him Swami, but to call him ‘Baba-ji,’ as the chil dren did in In dia.

9



M a dame Calve, the top op era singer ofthat time, who was cured of her near-fa tal de -pres sion, said of Swamiji, ‘He seems to haveemp tied my brain of all its fe ver ish com plex i -ties and placed there in stead his clear andcalm ing thoughts.’10 The Seviers, who builtM a yavati, lit er ally sac ri ficed their lives forSwa miji. When M rs Sevier was asked, ‘Don’tyou get bored?’ her re ply was, ‘I think of Swa -miji.’ Of Nivedita, the spir i tual daugh ter ofSwa miji, vol umes can be writ ten. This ‘ladywith the lamp’ awak ened the In dian masses,gave the soul-stir ring slo gan of ‘M other In dia’and de signed the first na tional flag of In dia.Swa miji saw in her ‘the M other’s heart, thehero’s will’.

The list of dramatis per so nae in the epicof Swamiji’s life in the West is re fresh inglylong. His ca pac ity to love was in cred i ble. Hefelt equally at ease with princes and pau pers,chil dren and the elderly, the pi ous and thefallen. ‘They are all of one fam ily. I can see my -self in all of them and they in me. The world isone fam ily,’ he said. We are re minded of theles son he learnt from the danc ing girl at Khet -ri. He brought life to any gath er ing and bright -ness to any house hold. The older mem bers ofthe fam i lies found in him a son, the young girlssaw a sym pa thetic brother, and the chil drenhad in him a su perb sto ry teller.

Be sides Nivedita, Eng land also con trib -uted to Swamiji’s mis sion in Goodwin, towhose note- tak ing of Swamiji’s lec tures weowe the bulk of his Com plete W orks. When helearnt of Goodwin’s de mise at Ooty Swamijisaid, ‘M y last pub lic ut ter ance is over. Nowmy right hand is gone’. Of his ‘faith ful

Goodwin’ he com posed thestir ring poem ‘Re qui es cat inPace’.

In the late eve ning of 9 De -cem ber 1900, Swa miji re turnedto Belur M ath from his sec ondtrip to the West. The gate of theM ath was closed for the night.But can a gate stop Swa mi ji? Hescaled the wall and en tered the

M ath. The gar dener in sheer panic re ported tothe monks, ‘An Eng lish man has en tered byscal ing the wall.’ The sur prised monks werewon der ing who might be the stranger whohad the au dac ity to en ter the M ath stealth ily.And lo, they could not be lieve their eyes whenthey found their leader stand ing be fore them:‘I heard the bell in vit ing you all to your sup -per. I thought I should not miss it.’ The monksstart ed danc ing. The whole at mo sphere vi -brated with mer ri ment and me lo di ous songs.

Love for His Pets

Not only were men, women and chil drendear to him, he felt re laxed in the com pany ofhis pets. An te lope and stork, duck and goose,goat and sheep, cow and kid, dog and deer—all were ob jects of his fon dling. He used totalk to these pets. The black kid M atru had free ac cess to his room and used to sleep in a couchnear his mas ter. De votees who came to paytheir hom age to him would be pleas antly sur -prised to find him play ing and run ning hereand there to amuse M atru. When the kid diedSwamiji wept like a child.

His W it and Hum our

Of his bub bling hu mour let us see a fewex am ples. A Chris tian mis sion ary had just ar -rived in a far-off is land in hab ited by can ni bals. He met the tribal chief and asked him, ‘Well,how did you like my pre de ces sor?’ Smackinghis lips, the can ni bal re plied, ‘He was de-li- cious.’

Swamiji was very fond of cream. WhenJoe sent him some money, he asked, ‘Do you



S wamiji b rought life to any gathering and

b rightness to any household. T he older

memb ers of the families found in him a

son, the young girls saw a sympathetic

b rother, and the children had in him a

superb storyteller.

think this will suf fice for me?’ Joe re plied, ‘Yes, per haps you can not have cream.’

M rs Steele of fered Swamiji dates with the food. The lec ture he de liv ered af ter this washighly ap pre ci ated. M rs Steele re marked, ‘Swa-mi, it was your day.’ Quick came Swa mi ji’s re -ply, ‘No, no, madam, it was your dates.’

Once a gen tle man asked him af ter a lec -ture, ‘Swamiji, have you seen God?’ Swamijilaughed and said, ‘Do I look like it? How can abig, fat man like me see God!’

On an other oc ca sion when Swamiji wasspeak ing about the pov erty in In dia a lis tenersaid, ‘Swami, af ter see ing you we can hardlybe lieve the oc cur rence of fre quent fam ines inIn dia.’ Swamiji’s re ply was, ‘M y tummy is myFam ine Re lief Fund.’

‘Swamiji, you said just the op po site yes -ter day,’ pointed out a lady. He re plied, ‘Yes,madam. That was yes ter day.’

He says in his ‘Raja Yoga’, ‘The first signthat you are be com ing re li gious is that you arebe com ing cheer ful. When a man is gloomy,that may be dys pep sia, but it is not re li gion. …What busi ness have you with clouded faces? It is ter ri ble. If you have a clouded face, do notgo out that day, shut your self up in your room. What right have you to carry this dis ease outinto the world?’11

~ ~ ~

Swamiji was a mar vel lous com bi na tionof sweet ness and ir re sist ible force, ver ily achild and prophet in one. His heart bled for the poor, the lowly and the lost. The Lion of Ve dan-

ta roared against in jus tice wher ever he spot -ted it. But his per son al ity also ra di ated hu mansweet ness, bound less hope and vast ness ofsoul. His fun-lov ing na ture is enough to con -vince us that the road to joy and bliss isthrough re nun ci a tion and self less ser vice. Swa -mi ji was a de light ful par a dox. He had tran -scended all bond age but was rich in hu manbonds. In him Shankara and Bud dha met in abeau ti ful sym phony. ~

References

1. The Com plete W orks of Swami Vivekananda, 9

vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,

1997), 8.349.

2. His East ern and West ern Ad mirers, Rem i nis -cences of Swami Vivekananda (Cal cutta: Advai -

ta Ashrama, 1994), 175.

3. CW , 8.297.

4. Sailendra Nath Dhar, A Com pre hen sive Bi og ra -phy of Swami Vivekananda (M a dras: Viveka -

nan da Prakashan Kendra, 1,1975; 2,1976), 910.

5. Ibid., 1167.

6. CW , 7.483.

7. His East ern and West ern Dis ci ples, The Life ofSwami Vivekananda, 2 vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita

Ashrama, 1, 2000; 2, 2001), 367.

8. CW , 5.136-7.

9. M a rie Lou ise Burke, Swami Vivekananda in theW est: New Dis cov eries, 6 vols. (Cal cutta: Advai -

ta Ashrama, 1, 1984; 2, 1992; 3, 1985; 4, 1986; 5,

1987; 6, 1987), 6.18.

10. Life, 1.450.

11. CW , 1.264-5.



Patriotism

Prac ti cal pa tri o tism means not a mere sen ti ment or even emo tion of love of the moth er land

but a pas sion to serve our fel low coun try men. I have gone all over In dia on foot and have seen

with my own eyes the ig no rance, mis ery and squa lor of our peo ple. My whole soul is afire and I

am burn ing with a fierce de sire to change such evil con di tions. Let no one talk of karma. If it was

their karma to suf fer, it is our karma to re lieve their suf fer ing. If you want to find God, serve

Man. To reach Narayana, you must serve the daridra-narayanas, the starv ing mil lions of In dia.

—Swami Vivekananda

SWAMI MUKHYANANDA

I

There is a widely held opin ion amongmost sci en tists and West ern-ed u catedper sons that sci ence means the meth od -

ol ogy and the em pir i cal point of view thatorig i nated and de vel oped in the West dur ingthe last few cen tu ries to in ves ti gate facts andthe na ture of ob jects and en ti ties in the ex ter -nal world. It is very pop u lar be cause of itsmany strik ing the o ret i cal and tech no log i calachieve ments in the ma te rial realm. They alsogen er ally hold that the achieve ments in otherfields are non-sci ence or con trary to sci ence,and of ten de cry some of these as su per sti tions, es pe cially in re gard to achieve ments con -cerned with the religio-spir i tual realm.

The Integral View of Vedanta

This at ti tude is re ally con trary to thespirit of real sci ence, which should be a com-pre hen sive in ves ti ga tion of all facts and eventsin ev ery field of life and ex is tence that are ex -pe ri enced, by ap pro pri ate sys tem atic meth -ods suited to the na ture of the ob ject of in ves ti -ga tion, even as West ern sci ence does it in re -gard to its own dif fer ent fields. All in ves ti ga -tions of sci ence as such must be in the con textof an in te gral view of the to tal ex is ten tial re al -ity cov er ing all fields—ma te rial, men tal andspir i tual—experiencable by man through his

trained ex ter nal and in ter nal fac ul ties. Fromthis point of view, West ern sci ence is only apar tial sci ence, valid in its own field, re lated tothe ma te rial phe nom ena as an ob ject of thesenses. There can be, and there are, sev eralpar tial sci en tific views of the ex ter nal world,valid from their own point of view as far asthey go. The di chot omy in and the frag men -tary and reductionistic ap proach of West ernsci ence leaves out sev eral im por tant as pects of the in fi nite ex is ten tial re al ity, es pe cially re -gard ing the real na ture of the hu man per son -al ity and his in ner be ing, which is the sourceand cen tre of all in ves ti ga tion and knowl edge,and is the real knower and ex periencer. TheBhagavadgita (13.2-6) points out that the in te -grated knowl edge of both the fields—the ex -ter nal field of the uni verse as an ob ject, and the in ter nal field of sub jec tive ex pe ri ence, or theSpirit within, which is the real know er and ex-periencer—is the true and com plete knowl -edge.1

This is the spe cial field of Vedanta, whichtakes an in te gral view of all as pects of the in fi -nite ex is ten tial re al ity—both the ex ter nal andin ter nal as pects of ex pe ri ence—and in ves ti -gates the na ture of both the knower and theknown, the sub ject and the ob ject, and the na -ture and mean ing of knowl edge it self.2

II

Vedanta is as much an in ves ti ga tive sci -ence as other sci ences, but with its ownfield of in ves ti ga tion and its own meth -

ods and ap pro pri ate in stru ments.3 Sri Shan-

ka ra also points out in the Vivekachudamani:‘Re al izing your Self (At man) as the Self of allbe ings by means of scrip ture, rea son ing andyour own re al iza tion, do away with the su per -


Vedanta Is an Investigative Science,

Not a Closed System

im posed no tion (that you are the body).’4 Justas phys ics and as tron omy have their ownfields of in ves ti ga tion and adopt their ownmeth ods and spe cial ized in stru ments, Vedan-ta also holds that ex is tent truths or en ti ties (bhé-ta- vastus) have to be dis cov ered by in ves ti ga -tion and ex pe ri ence and not spec u lated upon.5

Opinion- and Investigation-basedKnowledge

The Brahma Sutras is a philo soph i cal workbased on the Upanishads and de voted to thein ves ti ga tion and ra tio nal en quiry (brahma- jij -ðá sá) of the na ture of Brah man, the in fi nitespir i tual Re al ity, which is the ground andsource of the uni verse and is im ma nent in allen ti ties and be ings as At man. Com menting on this im por tant work, Acharya Shankara, theem i nent Vedantist of about the sev enth cen -tury CE (sev eral cen tu ries ear lier accordingsome views), points out that there are twotypes of views in re gard to an en tity that is notap pre hended clearly: (1) pu ruøa-tan tra, orviews based upon the opin ions of per sons,and (2) vastu-tan tra, or the view based on thena ture of the thing in it self, ar rived at af ter in -ves ti ga tion. He says:

With re gard to an ex ist ing en tity (bhéta-vastu),dif fer ent views such as ‘it is thus’, ‘it is not thus’, ‘it is there’, ‘it is not there’ and so on can not betrue knowl edge (tattva-jðána), such dif fer encesbe ing based on per sonal opin ions (puruøa-tan -tra). But the true knowl edge of an ex ist ing en -tity, as it is in it self, does not de pend on such dif -fer ing opin ions, which are false or wrongknowl edge (mithyá-jðána). True knowl edge de -pends on the na ture of the en tity it self. It is vas-tu-tan tra, and is ar rived at by in ves ti ga tion anddi rect ex pe ri ence (anubha va).

6

Sri Shankara fur ther points out:

Thus the valid proof (pramáîa) of ex ist ing en ti -ties is vas tu- tan tra. It be ing so, the knowl edge inre gard to Brah man, which is an ex is tent en tity(bhé ta- vastu), is vastu-tan tra, and does not de -pend upon our opin ions. Hence it must be in -ves ti gated and re al ized as it is and not merelyspec u lated upon. For the knowl edge of Brah -man (brahma-jðána) cul mi nates in its ex pe ri en -

tial re al iza tion (anubhava-avasánatvát brahma- jðá nas ya), since brahma-jðána re lates to an ex is -tent en tity.’

7

Hence it must be re al ized through pre scribedap pro pri ate meth ods.8 There is also the di rectand sci en tific method of ra tio nal anal y sis ofthe three states of con scious ness ex pe ri encedby ev ery one—the wak ing, dream and deep- sleep states—known as the avasthá- tra ya pra-kriyá.9

Though rea son ing is help ful and may beadopted in the pro cess of in ves ti ga tion, rea son by it self can not cre ate any ver i ties or en ti ties,nor can it con tra dict ex ist ing ver i ties and en ti -ties, or wish them out of ex is tence, whetherthey are sen su ally grasp able or supersensual-ly re al iz able. They ex ist in their own right andhave to be dis cov ered.

An Open and Growing System

Vedanta is an open sys tem like mod ernsci ence and was ever mod i fy ing its em pir i calview points with prog ress in other sci ences aswell as within its own field, to har mo nize bothwith the to tal knowl edge. But due to his tor i calvi cis si tudes—po lit i cal sub jec tion and dis rup -tion of so ci ety—the in ves ti ga tive spirit and in -te gra tion of new knowl edge were held inabey ance, just as the Dark Ages set in in Eu -rope af ter the eclipse of Greek thought. As are sult, there had been a some what stag nantcon di tion for a few cen tu ries. But in re centtimes, the orig i nal in ves ti ga tive spirit has been re vived, and we can re in ter pret Vedanta to har -mo nize with the re cent dis cov er ies of mod ernsci ence in the em pir i cal field, so far as they arevalid facts and not mere spec u la tions, inwhich many sci en tists freely in dulge. Some ofthe sci en tific dis cov er ies and for mu la tionsmay also have con di tional va lid ity. To beadopted by Vedanta in its own sys tem, theyhave to fit into its frame work of to tal re al ity aswell.

This is what Swami Vivekananda tried todo. He pre sented Vedanta as a sci en tific phi -los o phy be fore the West, even in sci en tific


Vedanta Is an Investigative Science, Not a Closed System 23

gath er ings and to em i nent sci en tists, de lin eat -ing the com pre hen sive na ture of Vedanta,which ra tio nally in te grates both the em pir i caland spir i tual as pects of re al ity. He also point -ed out in Chi cago at the Par lia ment of Re li -gions in 1893 how the lat est dis cov er ies ofmod ern sci ence (in the nine teenth cen tury)seemed like ech oes of the high spir i tual flightsof the Vedanta phi los o phy.10 It can be seenthat mod ern sci ence is com ing closer to East-ern thought with its ad vance ment in micro phy -sics. Prof Capra points out in his Tao of Phys ics:

The ba sic el e ments of the East ern world vieware also those of the world view emerg ing frommod ern phys ics. … East ern thought, and moregen er ally mys ti cal thought, pro vides a con sis -tent and rel e vant philo soph i cal back ground tothe the o ries of con tem po rary sci ence. (25)

Atomic phys ics pro vided the sci en tists with thefirst glimpses of the es sen tial na ture of things.Like the mys tics, phys i cists were now deal ingwith a non-sen sory ex pe ri ence of re al ity and,like the mys tics, they had to face the par a dox i -cal as pects of this ex pe ri ence. From then on,there fore, the mod els and im ages of mod ernphys ics be came akin to those of East ern phi los -o phy. (51)

Thus the mys tic and the phys i cist ar rive at thesame con clu sion: one start ing from the in nerrealm, the other from the outer world. The har -mony be tween their views con firms the an cientIn dian wis dom that Brah man, the ul ti mate re al -ity with out, is iden ti cal to At man, the re al itywithin. (305)

It is wrong to think of Vedanta as a closedsys tem of spec u la tive phi los o phy of a par tic u -

lar per son, as in the case ofWest ern phi los o phies. The Ve-dantic sys tem is based on theen qui ries and re al iza tions ofgreat sages and sa vants fromtime to time from an cient timesand has been a con tin u ing pro -cess. It is as much a grow ing,evolv ing, chang ing sys tem,when new facts are dis cov ered,even as mod ern sci ence is. It has been a co op er a tive endeavour

with con tri bu tions from many, ra tio nally de -bated and es tab lished, and spir i tu ally at testedthrough prac ti cal spir i tual re al iza tions.

Be sides its great cul tural and philoso phi -co- spir i tual at tain ments, com pared age to age, In dia did not lag be hind in em pir i cal sci en tificachieve ments ei ther, as pointed out by WillDurant in the chap ter on In dia in Our Ori en talHer i tage. (See also Brajendranath Seal, Pos i tiveSci ences of the An cient Hin dus and other rel e -vant works on the sub ject.) Its con tri bu tions toem pir i cal sci ence are very great and fun da -men tal. It in flu enced the West in math e mat icsand med i cine con sid er ably through the me -dium of the Arabs. In dia was ahead in al mostall the sci ences till re cently.11

That Vedanta has been a grow ing sys temwill be come ev i dent if one stud ies his tor i callythe growth of the spirit of ra tio nal en quiry and the evo lu tion of the dif fer ent ideas and con -cepts of Vedanta in the con text of its search forthe ul ti mate, com pre hen sive, all-in clu sive Re -al ity, which is the ba sis of all phe nom ena aswell as ex pe ri ence and knowl edge—such asprana, ákáùa, tanmátras, paðca-bhétas, Prakriti- Pu rusha, Ishvara, jiva, jagat, Brah man, antar-yámin, pratyak-átman, maya, jijðásá, anveøaîa,pra máîa, sat-kárya, sákøátkára, anubhava andaparokøa-anubhéti; and the prac ti cal meth odsof re al iza tion of the su preme Re al ity, like thevar i ous yogas and the avasthá-traya- pra kri yá.One has to be gin with the Vedas and gothrough the sev eral Upanishads, the BrahmaSutras and the Gita down to the works of Sri



The Vedantic system is based on the

enquiries and realizations of great sages

and savants from time to time from ancient

times and has been a continuing process. It

is as much a growing, evolving, changing

system, when new facts are discovered, even

as modern science is.

Shankara, Sri Gaudapada’s M a n -dukya Karika, and works like thePanchadashi and the Vedan ta saraof Sadananda.

We may also re fer to thecon tri bu tion of new ideas toVedanta, based on spir i tual re -al iza tions, by Samarth Ramdas(the em i nent guru of the greatShivaji) in his Dása-bodha in Ma -ra thi in the sev en teenth cen tury, and re centlyby the great sages and sa vants Sri Ra ma -krishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Auro bin do,Sri Ramana Maharshi, Swami Ram Tirth, Dr SRadhakrishnan and oth ers.

With deep in sight Sri Aurobindo pointsout:

If we are to live at all, we must re sume In dia’sgreat, in ter rupted endeavour. We must take upboldly and ex e cute thor oughly, in the in di vid -ual and in so ci ety, in the spir i tual and in themun dane life, in phi los o phy and re li gion, in artand lit er a ture, in thoughts, in po lit i cal and eco -nomic and so cial for mu la tions, the full and un -lim ited sense of her high est spirit and knowl -edge. And if we do that, we shall find that thebest of what co mes to us draped in Oc ci den talforms, is al ready im plied in our own an cientwis dom and has there a greater spirit be hind it,a pro founder truth and self-knowl edge and theca pac ity of a will to no bler and more ideal for -ma tions. Only we need to work out thor oughlyin life what we have al ways in spirit. There andno where else lies the se cret of the needed har -mony be tween the es sen tial mean ing of ourpast cul ture and the en vi ron men tal re quire -ments of our fu ture.

12

Different Methods of Knowledge

Acharya Shankara, the great est ex po nent of Advaita Vedanta, was bold enough to statethat each type of pramáîa (means of validknowl edge or proof) has its own sphere of op -er a tion where it is su preme and fully valid.Shruti (re vealed scrip ture, which re cords themys tic ex pe ri ences of sages re gard ing meta -phys i cal ver i ties and the su preme Re al ity) hasits own sphere, and sense per cep tion and rea -

son ing based on it in the em pir i cal plane hasits own; and in each sphere that par tic u lartype of pramáîa is op er a tive and dom i nant. Inthe field of sight, the eyes are the au thor ity,and in the sphere of sound, the ears. The onecan not do the job of the other. There is no con -tra dic tion be tween the knowl edge given bythe ears, say fine mu sic, and the knowl edgegiven by the eyes, say the beauty of the song -stress, though both are dif fer ent and are givenby dif fer ent in stru ments (senses) of knowl -edge. Sim i larly, man gains dif fer ent types ofknowl edge and ex pe ri ence, ma te rial and spir -i tual, through his dif fer ent fac ul ties, such asthe senses, the in tel lect, in tu ition, trance andmys tic per cep tion. Sense ex pe ri ence can not be a valid au thor ity on the tran scen den tal planeof mys tic ex pe ri ence. There is day and nightfrom the stand point of the earth, but there isno such thing from the stand point of the sun,which is ever shin ing. So, for knowl edge ineach field one has to re sort to rel e vant au thor i -ties and the re lated meth od ol ogy—and not tosome world-fa mous per son or sys tem in an -other field and their meth od ol ogy.13

Vedanta Not Contradictory to Science

In In dia, in the past, nei ther did Vedantacon sider it self con tra dic tory to the em pir i calsci ences, nor did those sci ences con sider them -selves con tra dic tory to Vedanta; rather all thesci ences ac cepted and adopted rel e vant Ve-dan tic con cepts in their own sys tems. The ayur-veda sys tem of med i cine, for ex am ple, con sid -ers man as a spir i tual be ing liv ing in as so ci a -tion with a phys i cal body and mind. Hence itstreat ment of the pa tient is in te gral and ho lis tic,



There is day and night from the standpoint

of the earth, but there is no such thing from

the standpoint of the sun, which is ever

shining. S o, for k nowledge in each field one

has to resort to relevant authorities and the

related methodology.

whereas mod ern West ern med i cine con sid ersman as a psy cho-chem i cal con glom er ate, andits treat ment of the pa tient is of an ad hoc na -ture. Dr Jagadis Chandra Bose, the il lus tri oussci en tist, did not find his great dis cov er ies inbi ol ogy and bot any con trary to Vedanta,though they were ar rived at ac cord ing tomod ern sci en tific meth ods; rather he de claredin ec stasy that they sup ported the great con -clu sions of Vedanta as to the one ness of lifeand ex is tence at all lev els, from min er als toman.14 Com menting on Dr Bose’s ex per i -ments, The Times of Lon don wrote, ‘While wein Eng land were still steeped in the rude em -pir i cism of bar baric life, the sub tle East ernerhad swept the uni verse into a syn the sis andhad seen the One in all its chang ing man i fes ta -tions.’

Two Aspects of Total Knowledge

We must keep in mind that equally validal ter na tive sci en tific for mu la tions are pos si ble as an other model. Vedanta does not have togive up its own for mu la tions be cause sci encehas dif fer ent for mu la tions in its own field. Bi -ol ogy does not give up its ideas of chro mo -somes and genes just be cause phys ics hasfound ev ery thing to be cer tain sub atomic,van ish ing fun da men tal par ti cles. More over,Ve danta does not ask sci ence to give up its for -mu la tions and ac cept its own em pir i cal for -mu la tions. Sci en tific for mu la tions are ac cept -ed by Vedanta as valid, as far as they go, in thefield of sci ence, with its own meth ods. Sim i lar -ly, Vedantic for mu la tions, with its own meth -ods, also should be ac cepted as valid in theem pir i cal and spir i tual fields, as far as they go.As pointed out ear lier while dis cuss ing the ju -ris dic tion of pramáîas, one sys tem can not bean au thor ity for an other, but both are valid intheir own way. They both form as pects of theto tal knowl edge gained by man. ~

Notes and References

1. Bhagavadgita, 13.2-6.

2. For a de tailed study of the Vedantic point of

view in this re spect, re fer to the au thor’s book

Ve danta— The Sci ence of In te gral Re al ity vis-à- vis M od ern Sci ence (Kolkata: Advaita Ashra-

ma, 1998).

3. Acharya Shankara says:

The mind that has been made calm and

well re fined, and ren dered sub tle by the

study of the shastras (scrip tures and works

deal ing with spir i tual sci ence) and the

guid ance of a com pe tent spir i t ual mas ter

(acharya), and is well dis ci plined by the six

ethico-spir i tual vir tues of tran quil lity of

mind (ùama), con trol of the senses (dama),

for ti tude and per se ver ance (ti ti k øá), with -

drawal from ex tro vert de sires and ten den -

cies (uparati), dil i gent con vic tion (ùrad dhá)

and con stant con cen trated ap pli ca tion to

re al ize the Truth (samádhána), is the in stru -

ment for the re al iza tion of the in ner ver i ties

and the Self (At man-Brah man im ma nent in

all be ings).

4. Vivekachudamani, 281.

5. The Gita points out, ‘The un real has no ex is -

tence, the Real never ceases to be; this truth

about the na ture of both is known by those

who per ceive the real na ture of things.’ (2.16)

6. Brahma Sutras, 1.1.2.

7. Ibid.

8. The method in volves the fol low ing:

(a) The cul ti va tion of four es sen tial pri -

mary qual i fi ca tions (sádhana-catuøôaya): (i) dis -

crim i na tion be tween the Real and the unreal;

(ii) non-at tach ment to the re sult or fruits of en -

quiry by per sonal de sires, worldly or other-

worldly; (iii) cul ti va tion of the six psy cho- eth i -

cal vir tues such as calm ness of mind, con trol

of the senses and for bear ance of all dif fi cul ties

on the way with out ag i ta tion or re ac tion (for

de tails see note 2 above and Viveka chudamani,18-26); and (iv) in tense de sire to be free from

all bond ages, ma te rial and spir i tual (mumuk-øu tva).

(b) Ùravaîa-ma nana-nididhyásana. ‘The At -

man is to be re al ized by hear ing about the

Truth from the scrip tures and com pe tent spir -

i tual au thor i ties, deep re flec tion on it ra tio -



nally and re sort ing to nec es sary con cen trated

meditational prac tices.’ (Brihadaranyaka Upa -ni shad, 2.4.5)

(c) The Brihadaranyaka and ChandogyaUpa nishads ex hort, ‘Yat sákøát aparokøát brahmaya átmásarvántaraë; The At man, which is the

di rectly per ceived and im me di ate Brah man

within the in most core of all be ings [is to be

searched for.]’ (3.4.1-2); ‘Sa anveøôavyaë, sa viji -j ðá sitavyaë; It must be thor oughly en quired

into and sought af ter.’ (8.7.1)

(d) The Taittiriya Upanishad urges, ‘Tapa sábrahma vijijðásasva; Re al ize Brah man through

the con cen trated ef fort of the mind and the

senses.’ (3.1.2)

(e) The M undaka Upanishad points out,

‘Sat yena labhyas-tapasáhyeøa átmásamyak- jðá -ne na brahmacaryeîa nityam; The At man is re al -

ized through de vo tion to Truth, con cen trated

ef fort of the mind and senses, per fect knowl -

edge at tained through sub li ma tion of the sex

in stinct and firm con trol of all ex tro vert de -

sires.’ (3.1.5)

9. See M andukya Upanishad and the M andukyaKa rika of Gaudapada, Sri Shankara’s guru.

10. In his book The Eye of Shiva: East ern M ys ti cismand Sci ence, the well-known French his to rian

Amaury de Reincourt points out, ‘From its

mod ern awak en ing with Sri Ramakrishna and

Swa mi Vivekananda, East ern mys ti cism has

be gun to adapt its rev e la tions to the en tirely

dif fer ent cul tural frame work pro vided by sci -

ence and tech nol ogy, with out in any way sac -

ri fic ing what is valid in its tra di tional un der -

stand ing of the phe nom e non it self.’ (190)

11. Sir Monier-Wil liams, the great Sanskritist,

point ed out in a speech in 1894, ‘In deed the

Hin dus were Spinozists two thou sand years

be fore the birth of Spinoza, Dar win ians cen -

tu ries be fore the birth of Dar win, and evo lu -

tion ists many cen tu ries be fore the doc trine

of evo lu tion had been ac cepted by the

Huxleys of our time, and be fore any word

like evo lu tion ex isted in any lan guage of the

world.’

12. Quoted in Yuva Bharati (Ma dras: Vivekanan -

da Kendra), De cem ber 1979, 33. Jawaharlal

Nehru has pointed out in his Dis cov ery of In dia:Sci ence has dom i nated the West ern

world and ev ery one pays trib ute to it,

and yet the West is still far from hav ing

de vel oped a real tem per of sci ence. It has

still to bring the spirit and the flesh into

cre ative har mony. In In dia, in many ob vi -

ous ways, we have a greater dis tance to

travel, and yet there may be fewer ma jor

ob struc tions in our way, for the es sen tial

ba sis of In dian thought for ages past,

though not its later man i fes ta tions, fits in

with the sci en tific tem per and ap proach,

as well as with in ter na tion al ism. It is

based on a fear less search for Truth, on

the sol i dar ity of man, even on the di vin ity

of ev ery thing liv ing, and on the free and

co op er a tive de vel op ment of the in di vid -

ual and the spe cies to ever higher stages

of hu man growth.

13. See Sri Shankara’s com men tary on Brihadaran -ya ka Upanishad, 2.1.20, for a lengthy and il lu -

mi nat ing dis cus sion on pramáîas and their ju -

ris dic tion.

14. On 10 May 1901, Dr Bose ad dressed a sci en -

tific au di ence at the Royal So ci ety in Lon don,

and pointed out:

I have shown you this eve ning autographic

re cords of the his tory of stress and strain in

the liv ing and the non-liv ing. How sim i lar

are the writ ings; so sim i lar that you can not

tell one apart from an other. … It was when

I came upon the mute wit ness of these

self-made re cords, and per ceived in them

one phase of a per vad ing unity that bears

within it all things … it was then that I un -

der stood for the first time a lit tle of the mes -

sage pro claimed by my an ces tors on the

banks of the Gan ges thirty cen tu ries ago:

‘They who see but One, in all the chang ing

man i fes ta tions of the uni verse—unto them

be longs eter nal peace—unto none else!

(Katha Upanishad, 2.2.13)



Manifestations of the Goddess

DR ALAN HUNTER

The main pur pose of the ar ti cle is to re -view var i ous be liefs in god desses in an -cient and re cent cul tures. I take the op -

por tu nity to just raise the ques tion of the de i fi -ca tion of Sri Sarada Devi: has Sarada be come anew god dess of an old kind, or is she the age- old God dess in a new guise, or a new phe nom -e non al to gether? When we wor ship thisunique in di vid ual in the twenty-first cen tury,what ex actly are we do ing? De veloping an ex -ist ing tra di tion, trans form ing it, tran scend ingit or start ing some thing en tirely new?

Why is it use ful to look back at othertimes or to look out at other cul tures? Apartfrom in trin sic in ter est, I be lieve it broad ensone’s knowl edge base and gives a sense of per -spec tive to see a phe nom e non as the prod uctof a long his tor i cal de vel op ment. It is alsomean ing ful some times to re al ize that whatone may have thought of as a lo cal mode of be -hav iour or be lief is, in fact, wide spread, evenglobal in scale.

Re searching this ar ti cle, I was sur prisedto find how sim i lar are the sym bol ism andcon cepts as so ci ated with the God dess in dif -fer ent cul tures.1 Peo ple through out the world—men as well as women—have been wor -ship ping the God dess for tens of thou sands ofyears. The God dess has a name, form and rit -ual in al most ev ery an cient cul ture of whichwe have re cords, as well as in many con tem -po rary so ci et ies. It was even more sur pris ingto dis cover that some of the at trib utes of theGod dess are re mark ably sim i lar even across atime span of tens of thou sands of years, andacross con ti nents.

How could this co her ency arise? Schol ars of fer var i ous ex pla na tions for a phe nom e nonlike this. One pos si bil ity is trans mis sionthrough mi gra tion. No body knows for sure

how the early peo ples—say be fore 3000 BCE—moved around the earth. Some track ing isdone, for ex am ple, by ex am in ing artefacts,and by DNA anal y sis. But quite pos si bly wewill never know ex actly when and how dif fer -ent ideas, tech nol o gies and lan guages werecar ried from one part of the world to an other.It is quite pos si ble that the wor ship of a de itywas car ried by groups of peo ple from one con -ti nent to an other.

A more imag i na tive set of the o ries is thatof ‘ar che types’, as pro posed, for ex am ple, bythe psy chol o gist Jung. These the o ries gen er -ally sug gest that cer tain pat terns of think ingare in her ent in hu man ity it self, ir re spec tive oflo cal cul tures. So, for ex am ple, the wor ship ofthe sun is al most uni ver sal to all hu man cul-tures. Studies of com par a tive my thol ogy mademost fa mous by Jo seph Camp bell in his works like The Hero with a Thou sand Faces and TheM asks of God prove con clu sively that im por -tant mo tifs are found in al most ev ery con ti -nent, prob a bly be yond the pos si bil ity of trans -mis sion by con tact. Camp bell him self be -lieved that my thol o gies orig i nate in mys ti calex pe ri ences of a cul ture’s sages; they are thenusu ally cod i fied and ma nip u lated by lo cal rul -ers; and used by un ed u cated peo ple as the ba -sis for re li gious be lief. Thus it may be that themany com mon fea tures of gods and god -desses through out the world can be tracedback to a com mon al ity of vi sion shared bysages of dif fer ent lands and times. One uni ver -sal fea ture that we find in most re li gions is thesi mul ta neous vi sion of, on the one hand, awise, lu mi nous, for giv ing, pro tect ing, nur tur -ing Mother De ity; and on the other, a moream biv a lent Fe male Power as so ci ated withdan ger, death, cos mic con flict and re newal.

A more typ i cally In dian way of ap proach -


ing the ques tion might be to sug gest that thereis in deed a di vine Fe male Power in the cos -mos, which man i fests as the var i ous god -desses of dif fer ent cul tures through out theworld. The San skrit term devi seems to en cap -su late this po si tion. In that case, the ac tivepower of re veal ing Her self would be the de ci -sion of the Devi. If She hap pens to en joy man i -fest ing with var i ous par tic u lar at trib utes acrossthe mil len nia, She will surely do so. De spitethe deep hu man ig no rance, some one mayeven tu ally no tice it! As a style of writ ing, I find it con ve nient to re fer to the God dess as if She is es sen tially one, man i fest ing var i ously. But I am sure that the truth about Her isfar more com plex and mul ti fac -eted than that sim ple par a digm.

Early Manifestations ofthe Goddess

Im ages of the God desssur vive from an cient cul tures in South Amer ica, Sumeria, Egypt,Tur key, In dia, China and many other lands.The God dess is usu ally closely as so ci atedwith wa ter, to such an ex tent that one may saythat it is Her char ac ter is tic el e ment. Most cre -ation myths of early cul tures use the im age of‘dark wa ters’ or ‘pri me val wa ters’ to re fer tothe state of the cos mos from which the MotherDe ity evolves the world as we know it. Fur -ther, many cul tures had es pe cial rev er ence fortheir great rivers, which were seen as wa tery,flow ing forms of the God dess Her self. Theseriver forms of the De ity are some times as so ci -ated with cows: for ex am ple, in early Norsemyth, a cow-god dess licks the salty wa ters ofthe pri mor dial flux, and thereby cre ates fourgreat fresh wa ter rivers which sus tain hu manlife. And Hathor, one of the old est fe male de i -ties of Egypt, was wor shipped both in cow- form and as the River Nile. In ci dentally, themale con sort of the God dess is rep re sented inmany an cient cul tures as a bull: per haps be -cause the God dess was first en vis aged as acow.

Equally ev i dent is the link be tween theGod dess and the oceans. Most of the god -desses of the world are de scribed in my thol -ogy as hav ing been born from the sea. One ofthe most fa mous paint ings of the Re nais sanceis called The Birth of Ve nus by the Ital ian art istBot ti celli. It de picts the emer gence of Ve nus,the god dess of love, from a calm sea—a myththat has its ef fects to this day, since the tour istau thor i ties on the is land of Cy prus pro motethe spot where this mi rac u lous birth tookplace. Here the link is easy to see: women’smen stru a tion cy cle and the tides are bothclosely as so ci ated with the moon. More over,

the cres cent horns of the cow are a sym bol ofthe moon in many Indo-Eu ro pean cul tures.Women bring forth chil dren; and as the an -cients had no doubt in tu ited, the oceanbrought forth the first life-forms. The nexusseems to be fer til ity-mother-wa ters-cow.

One could find many other im por tantsym bols, but an other cen tral theme is the earth it self, Mother Earth. All over the world, peo -ple have wor shipped dif fer ent as pects of theearth as as pects of the Mother De ity. For ex -am ple, in early cul tures, mounds may rep re -sent preg nancy and hence fer til ity; caves, thewomb; veg e ta tion, re newal and re birth. Insim ple terms, the God dess was per haps es sen -tially seen as the force that pre sided overgrowth of crops and hence over hu man sur -vival.

Many more im ages have come down tous through artefacts and my thol ogy, but un -for tu nately, we do not have much idea aboutwhat con cepts lay be hind them. Sim ple ex pla -na tions are some times mis lead ing. For ex am -


Manifestations of the Goddess 29

A more typically Indian way of approach ing

the question might be to suggest that there

is indeed a divine F emale P ower in the

cosmos, which manifests as the various

goddesses of different cultures throughout

the world.

ple, early Eu ro pean Egyptologists noted thatmany pyr a mids have pic tures of women hold -ing their own breasts. They as sumed thatthese pic tures de picted some kind of as so ci a -tion with sex u al ity or child-rear ing. How ever,when the hieroglyphs were fi nally de ci -phered, they stated that this pos ture is pre -scribed for women in mourn ing, which is whythey ap pear like this on the gi ant tombs.

Some of the ear li est ico nog ra phy al readyas so ci ates the God dess closely with the lion.Lions are de picted on what is thought to be agod dess al tar in one of the fa mous dec o ratedcaves in France, dated to the mid dle-Pal eo -lithic era, around 16,000 BCE; and close bythere is an un usual red fig ure known as theLion Queen. Later im ages of fe male de i tieswith lions’ heads, or with lions as com pan -ions, are ex tant from Hittite, Bab y lo nian andEgyp tian civ i li za tions dat ing from 3000 BCE orear lier. It is strange to think, when we seeMother Durga on her lion in the twenty-firstcen tury, that we are heirs to a tra di tion of per -haps 20,000 years. Per haps the as so ci a tionwith lions is a hint at the fierce as pect of theGod dess, con ceiv ably de rived from ob ser va -tion of any mother’s fight ing in stinct when her off spring are threat ened? Yet al though it is un -doubt edly a tre men dously im por tant part ofhu man ity’s re li gious her i tage, it serves lit tlepur pose to spec u late about the mean ing of allthese im ages from pre his toric times. The GreatMother, pre sid ing over birth and sur vival isun doubt edly one as pect of the mean ing; butthere are surely many oth ers.

In more re cent times, two fe male de i ties,Mary and Guanyin, are to day cen tral to thecul tures of two im por tant parts of the world’spop u la tion: Ro man Cath o lics and Chi nese, re -spec tively. Since they both evolved within lit -er ate cul tures, we have a rather clear idea ofwhen, where and why they are wor shipped:what a god dess means to her dev o tees. We no -tice an evo lu tion of un der stand ing. The ear lier sym bols which ap pear, at least su per fi cially,to be re lated to phys i cal pro cre ation and fer til -

ity, give way to a more re fined, spiritualizedun der stand ing of a mother deity.

The Virgin Mary

The Vir gin Mary is heir to West Asian tra-di tions of God dess wor ship that pre-dateChris tian ity by cen tu ries. Sumer ian, Egyp tianand Greek my thol o gies—all tell of a male de -ity, like Je sus Christ, who is killed for the sal -va tion of hu man ity, but who mi rac u louslysur vives death af ter a three-day stay in the un -der world, and who re turns to im prove the lotof a suf fer ing world. This myth is pre sum ablylinked to the veg e ta tion cy cle in early ag ri cul -ture. The hero-god ev i dently sprang from aDi vine Fe male, at the same time vir gin andmother, who was known as Demeter in Greeceand Isis in Egypt. Cults were formed aroundthis Di vine Mother Her self. In pop u lar re li -gion, She is the one who may pro vide pro tec -tion, heal ing or off-spring. To more re flec tivedev o tees, She was seen as vir ginal yet life-giv -ing; im bued with wis dom and com pas sion;the Creatrix of the uni verse; God dess, Con sort and Mother of God.

The cult of the Vir gin Mary in the Chris -tian tra di tion is as sur edly not based on anybib li cal text. In the whole of the Chris tian Bi ble there are only per func tory ref er ences to Mary.Af ter her mi rac u lous im preg na tion and var i -ous sto ries as so ci ated with the birth of Christ,she vir tu ally dis ap pears from the nar ra tive ofthe Gos pels. From time to time the Ro manCath o lic hi er ar chy tried to re strict the wor ship of Mary but with no suc cess at all. Ev i dentlythe wor ship of a god dess was pro foundlystruc tured within the re li gious con scious nessof the Med i ter ra nean area, and the Cath o licChurch even tu ally de cided to in cor po rate itrather than strug gle against it. Hence fromabout 400 CE we find theo lo gians start ing to‘dis cover’ that the Vir gin Mary her self waswith out sin, her self born from a vir gin mother, and her self an in ter me di ary be tween hu mansand God.

The Vir gin Mother soon gained a rep u ta -



tion for per form ing mir a cles. Relics werefound to please the faith ful; new scrip tureswere com posed, new hymns writ ten, newforms of wor ship pre scribed. As can be seento day in many Cath o lic coun tries, the cult ofMary ri vals, if not out strips, that of her son Je -sus. By the elev enth cen tury, St Anselm couldas cribe to her the fol low ing vir tues: ‘By you[Mary] the el e ments are re newed, de mons aretram pled down and men are saved, even thefallen an gels are re stored to their places. OWom an, so full and over flow ing with grace,plenty flows from you to make all crea turesgreen again.’

Still to day, Mary in spires mas sive pil -grim ages, out breaks of heal ing and gen eralde vo tional fer vour through out the Ro manCath o lic world. In 1954 the Cath o lic Churchof fi cially de clared Mary to be ‘Queen ofHeaven’: this des ig na tion is used, for ex am -ple, in the ves pers when she is ad dressed as‘Queen of Heaven … whence the light of theworld has arisen’. She is per haps pleased withthis an cient ti tle, which in ear lier eras wasgiven to both Isis the Egyp tian God dess andIshtar the Bab y lo nian one.

Re cently I vis ited Malta, an in tensely Ro -man Cath o lic coun try. The fol low ing prayer, a typ i cally sim ple yet heart felt plea, is used inhomes there:

Sweet and gen tle Lady, Im mac u late Mother ofGod, we choose Thee this day as the Mis tressand Lady of this house. Guard it, dear Mother,from pes ti lence, fire, light ning and tem pest,from schisms and her e sies and from the mal iceof en e mies. Pro tect its in mates, sweet Mary,watch over their go ing out and their com ing inand pre serve them from sud den death. Keepfrom us all sin and harm, and pray to God for usthat we may live in His Ser vice and de part thislife in His Grace. Amen.

Guanyin

It is per haps strange that in China, at thefar end of Asia, a par al lel cre ation was tak ingplace: a hith erto un known fe male im age be -came en throned in the Chi nese con scious ness

to such an ex tent that to day she is un ques tion -ably the main deity of the Chi nese peo ple: thebo dhi satt va Guanyin. Al most ev ery whereone trav els in China to day, one finds im ages,stat ues, paint ings, tem ple art and ar chi tec turede voted to Guanyin. When the Je su its firstreached China and be gan to learn about herthey found it rather dis con cert ing that a fe -male de ity with at trib utes ap par ently verysim i lar to that of the Vir gin Mary was al readywell es tab lished there. They even dubbed herthe ‘God dess of Mercy’, a name that is stillsome times used by Eu ro pe ans to re fer to her.In fact, the name Guanyin lit er ally means‘observer of sounds’, a com pres sion of a lon -ger name mean ing ‘the one who hears/ob -serves the cries of the world’.

Sinological re search has elu ci dated theback ground of this great goddess.2 Her or i ginlies in the Mahayana wor ship of the Bo dhi satt -va Avalokiteshvara, whose name was trans -lated as Guanyin in Chi nese. Un til about thetenth cen tury CE, this bo dhi satt va was de -picted, as were most Bud dhist de i ties, as amale, in fact some what like a hand someyoung In dian prince. In ico nog ra phy, thisbodhisattva of ten car ries a lo tus in one handand a wa ter flask in the other. He also fre -quently ap pears wear ing white clothes, seated on a rock sur rounded by flow ing wa ter, thescene il lu mi nated by a full moon. One of hismain at trib utes is com pas sion for the suf fer -ing: he is a pro tec tor and healer. He will alsosave dev o tees from pain ful af ter-death ex pe ri -ences and free them from re birth. On a morephilo soph i cal level, the moon and wa ter werewidely used to symbolize the ephem eral na -ture of phe nom ena; the idea is per haps thatthe bo dhi satt va will lead to sal va tion thosewho do not cling to maya.

An im por tant el e ment in the for ma tion of the Guanyin cult was the es tab lish ment ofBud dhist wor ship at the is land of Putuo, asmall is land in the East China Sea not far frompres ent-day Shang hai. By about 900 CE, itseems that Chi nese Bud dhist au thor i ties had



iden ti fied this is land with the scrip tural Pota-laka, the abode of Avalokiteshvara. It was ev i -dently a place vi brant with the de vo tion ofhun dreds of thou sands of pil grims, and theabode of many monks and nuns. The im age ofa white-robed sav iour, as so ci ated with themoon and wa ter, was well es tab lished.

Then in 1080 a cru cial in ci dent oc curred.A Chi nese court em is sary on his way to Ko rea, Wang Shunfeng, came dan ger ously close toship wreck dur ing a storm near the is land. Infear, he prayed to Guanyin. Sud denly he had a re mark able vi sion of a bril liant golden light.Guanyin ap peared be fore him, first in hu manform wear ing a pearl neck lace, then in theform of a golden moon. The ship and its crewwere saved; Wang re lated the in ci dent to hisfel low trav el lers. From about this time, lo calBud dhist art ists ap pear to have painted andsoon af ter wards sculpted the im age in fe maleform. Over the next cen tury, pil grims were in -creas ingly blessed with vi sions of a fe male de -ity, clothed in white, and as so ci ated with wa -ter and the full moon. For ex am ple, in 1148 CE

an other gov ern ment of fi cial, Shi Hao, had aclear vi sion where he could see her eyes andeye brows, and bril liant white teeth. The god -dess Guanyin was born.

Soon, other in ci dents in Chi nese re li gious tra di tion were ab sorbed into the im ag ery. One of the most fa mous was the story of Prin cessMiaoshan. Around 1100 CE, the ab bot of a tem -ple and a lo cal of fi cial in the dis trict ofXiangshan in the in land prov ince of Henanjointly started to pro mote the cult of Guanyin.The model here was not, how ever, the moon--and-wa ter god dess of the ocean is land. Rather,they re lated an in ci dent orig i nally re corded ina text that seemed to mi rac u lously come intotheir hands. It told of a lo cal prin cess who waswon drously pure, who prac tised Bud dhism,and who re fused to marry. Her fa ther be camevery ill, with a par a lysed arm and a blind eye.With out hes i ta tion the prin cess cut off herown arm and plucked out her eye to give tohim: he was cured. She passed away, but im -

me di ately man i fested in a heav enly form withone thou sand arms and one thou sand eyes,be fore re vert ing to a two- armed god dess-likeform. She en tered a stu pa that be came a ma jorpil grim age cen tre. Still to day, the white- robed,two-armed form and the thou sand- eyed, thou -sand-armed form are the two most pop u laricons. Putuo and Xiang shan are to day des ti na -tions for mil lions of pil grims.

An other el e ment in the for ma tion of thecult was prob a bly the low so cial sta tus of Chi -nese women in the then pa tri ar chal so ci ety. As in many cul tures, a woman was al waysblamed, of ten beaten and abused, for fail ing to pro duce male off spring. One of the most ear -nest prayers of a young wife was that sheshould bear sons. Yet Chi nese women of somesec tors of so ci ety at least were vir tu ally pro -hib ited from con tact with non-fam ily males.On an in ti mate topic like pro cre ation, per hapsthe idea of com mu ni cat ing with a strange male—even if he was a bodhisattava—was dif fi -cult. At the very least, the male god mightseem re mote and for bid ding. So the idea of afe male de ity to which one could pray for sons,and on other in ti mate mat ters, was ev i dentlyvery ap peal ing; and to this day, one sees thou -sands upon thou sands of Chi nese women indeep com mu nion at the im ages of Guanyin.

Mar tin Palmer, a Brit ish Sin olo gist, hasnoted that ‘Guan yin is the most im por tant ofall the de i ties [in China]. … She in spires a de -vo tion and af fec tion which is with out par al lelin Chi nese so ci ety, and her mir a cles are count -less.’ Palmer even re counts a con tem po rarymir a cle. A Chi nese friend of his had drunk toomuch al co hol one night and cre ated a di sas terfor him self and oth ers by caus ing a car ac ci -dent. As he lay par a lysed in hos pi tal, he re -mem bered Guanyin and started to pray ear -nestly. Some nights later, he saw her en terthrough the hos pi tal win dow and touch hisarms and chest: he re gained the use of historso, al though not of his legs. He in ter pretedthe heal ing as ‘Guanyin gave him back asmuch as she could. But be cause he had caused



death and suf fer ing through his own stu pid ity and pride, she could not or would not re storehim com pletely. He has to live with the con se -quences of his ac tions, but she gave him backthe pos si bil i ties of a life again.’3

How ever, Guanyin does not func tiononly at the level of pop u lar prayer. She is thede ity pre sid ing over the most ab struse philo -soph i cal texts in Chi nese Bud dhism and re -vered by learned monks and nuns as the es -sence of tran scen den tal wis dom. Like the Vir -gin Mary, she is a mul ti fac eted god dess whopro vides so lace to the dis tressed and down -trod den but equally brings de vo tion andknowl edge to those who seek them.

Sarada Devi

The Vir gin Mary and Guan-yin are rel a tively re cent de i ties,at least com pared to the an cientmother god desses of ear lier civ -i li za tions. By the mod ern age,they have be come the ob jects ofwor ship of two of the larg est,nu mer i cally speak ing, de vo -tional cults in the world. Thede i ties them selves have many at trib utes. Per -haps out stand ing among them are tran scen -den tal wis dom, in ter ces sion with God, com -pas sion, nur tur ing and power. They are ob -jects of de vo tion for the gen eral pop u la tionsand also for mo nas tics, priests and re li gioushi er ar chies. In their hon our thou sands ofprayers and hymns are com posed, tem plesand churches built, stat ues erected and cer e -mo nies en acted. For many Chi nese and al -most all Ro man Cath o lics, re li gious life with -out these de i ties would be al most un think -able.

I have avoided men tion of the Hindugod desses in this ar ti cle, be cause I am surethat read ers know them far better than I do.The par al lels, per haps some dif fer ences, withthe var i ous forms of the Devi may be ap par -ent. But how does the above ac count tie inwith what we know of Sri Sarada Devi? Is she,

too, heir to an an cient tra di tion, or a fresh newphe nom e non? Does it make sense at all to ap -proach her as the lat est link in a long his tor i calchain, or would it be better sim ply to ig norethe past and take her as we find her in bi og ra -phies and oral tra di tion?

On one level, it seems that the pow ersand qual i ties as cribed to Sri Sarada Devi byher dev o tees are sim i lar to those of the Vir ginMary and Guanyin: moth erly com pas sion, tran-scen dent wis dom and the power to save—toname but a few. She is seen as a gen tle and all- em brac ing mother who at the same time canhelp to give re lease from re birth through di -vine Wis dom; one who has im mense power inboth ma te rial and spir i tual mat ters; one who

can in ter cede with the male de ity—and the su -preme God head—on be half of her dev o tees.

The wor ship of Sarada con forms more orless to the pat tern of wor ship that Hin dus ac -cord to their god desses in gen eral. For ex am -ple, tem ple wor ship would in clude rit ual of -fer ings of flow ers, food, in cense, light andother items, some times ac com pa nied by de -vo tional sing ing. Men tal wor ship would becon ducted by ded i cated dev o tees. The abovemodes of wor ship are in ci den tally rather sim i -lar in many Chris tian and Chi nese Bud dhisttra di tions, where dev o tees are also ex pectedto use a ro sary to help with rec i ta tion of the de -ity’s name. The ba sic func tion of the rit u als—to es tab lish an in tense per sonal re la tion shipwith the de ity, to in voke her through rit ualprac tices in an icon, pho to graph or men tal im -age—seems to me to have an el e ment of con ti -nu ity with tra di tion, and a link with global



S ri S arada D evi is seen as a gentle and

all- embracing mother who at the same time

can help to give release from rebirth

through divine W isdom; one who has

immense power in both material and

spiritual matters.

pat terns of re li gi os ity.How ever, one unique point of this his -

tor i cal phe nom e non is the wor ship as de ity of a woman who ac tu ally lived in the re centpast, and whose life story is rel a tively welldoc u mented. As we have seen above, the per -son al i ties and forms of Guanyin and Mary (as well as Sita, Radha or Durga) are ba si cally acul tural ac cre tion of vi sions, ar tis tic in spi ra -tion, lo cal cults and re li gious imag i na tion.The fig ure of Sarada arises from the ‘real’world: like that of Bud dha or Sri Ramakri sh -na.4 I won der if this is the first time in his torythat a real woman has been se ri ously ac cord -ed the sta tus of a de ity, of a god dess. Mostlikely there have been short-lived at temptswith other women/ de i ties, but the wor shipof Sarada has been con tin u ing for many years and shows no sign of abat ing: on the con -trary, through the ef forts of the Rama krishnaMis sion, Sarada Math and nu mer ous pri vateor ga ni za tions, it is cur rent ly grow ing ratherrap idly.

Per haps even more im por tant is the fur -ther pu ri fi ca tion of the ideal. Some dev o teesmay doubt less pray to God dess Sarada forhealth and wealth, but the ide ol ogy of themove ment strongly emphasizes a purely spir -i tual ap proach: if one asks for any thing, itshould be spir i tual prog ress, knowl edge andde vo tion. We are far away from any prim i tivesym bol ism re lated to cow-horns, lions, ocean-births. The woman Sarada was very clear thatshe would not have phys i cal sons or daugh -ters, but in stead have mil lions of spir i tual chil -dren.

In fact, she is per haps the first de ity en vi -sioned purely as the em bodi ment of spir i tualprin ci ples, one might say Vedantic prin ci ples,rather than as an ac cre tion of older needs andyearn ing. Why has she ap peared at this junc -ture in his tory? Is it per haps be cause only nowa rather large num ber of peo ple have be comefa mil iar with Vedanta, will ing to forego thetra di tional so laces in fa vour of a more aus tereap proach to re li gion? And yet it is a strange

thing, which per son ally I find rather heart en -ing, that some of the mov ing sto ries about Sa-ra da’s life on earth are still re lated to tra di -tional ways of the God dess: we read in manyac counts of her love of rivers and tanks, the life of the coun try side, the moon. There is even acharm ing pho to graph of hers on a bull ockcart. When we imag ine her lila at Jayrambati,we are still per haps heirs to gen er a tions of im -ag ery, al beit with a pu ri fied or re fined in tent.

I would sug gest then that our Sri SaradaDevi is a new kind of god dess, as far as worldre li gious his tory goes. At the level of rit ualtech niques, the wor ship of Sarada shares some -thing with tra di tional wor ship of Hindu andeven non-Hindu god desses; but there hasbeen a sig nif i cant shift to wards a more so phis -ti cated conceptualization of her at trib utes andpow ers, and the pur pose of the wor ship. Sheshares with Lord Bud dha or Sri Ramakri sh nathe rare qual ity of be ing a his tor i cal fig ure be -com ing a de ity; but un like them she is, ofcourse, fe male. She is a unique cre ation, orper haps one should say unique creator: Ve-dan tic God dess sprung from hu man fe maleform. ~


1. Two use ful stud ies are Shahrukh Husain, TheGod dess: Power, Sex u al ity and the Fe male Di vine(Lon don: Duncan Baird, 2000); and Dev dutt

Pattanaik, Devi: The M other God dess (Mum bai:

Valiks, Feffer & Simons, 2000).

2. See for ex am ple Chun-Fang Yu, ‘Guanyin:

The Chi nese Trans for ma tion of Avalokitesh -

va ra’ in Lat ter Days of the Law: Im ages of Chi neseBud dhism 850-1859, ed. Mar sha Weidner (Ho-

no lulu: Uni ver sity of Ha waii Press, 1994), 151-

83.

3. Martin Palmer, Travels through Sa cred China,

(Lon don: Thorsons, 1996), 91-2.

4. One could of course add Rama, Krishna and

Je sus here, but con tem po rary schol ar ship can -

not de fin i tively state whether these men were

his tor i cal or leg end ary fig ures.



India’s Rejuvenation: Swami Vivekananda’s Vision

SWAMI ATMAPRIYANANDA

1. Pre am ble

Swami Vivekananda en vi sioned a re ju ve -nated In dia: ‘… a won der ful, glo ri ous, fu -ture In dia will come. I am sure it is com -

ing—a greater In dia than ever was. … Arise,awake and see her seated here on her eter nalthrone, re ju ve nated, more glo ri ous than sheever was—this moth er land of ours.’1 Seeingthe de gen er a tion and deg ra da tion all around—moral and spir i tual pov erty, value ero sion,cor rup tion, self ish ag gran dize ment, un abasheddis hon esty, glo ri fi ca tion of mus cle and money power and lack of in dig e nous cul tural moor -ings, one nat u rally heaves a deep sigh and won -ders if Swamiji was car ried away by his in natepre di lec tion for ori en tal hy per bole. When willsuch a glo ri ous In dia come, if at all? Or is itmere wish ful think ing?

We be lieve that Swamiji was not only aprophet and a seer—one who could see intothe fu ture, a trikálajða rishi (a sage who hadfirst- hand knowl edge of the past, pres ent andfu ture); he was also a sci en tific vi sion ary, onewho had made a thor ough, in-depth and sci -en tific study of world his tory with spe cial ref -er ence to In dia. His ca pa cious and lu mi nousmind could move at will over the en tire gamut of world cul ture and civ i li za tions, world re li -gions and thought cur rents. But in all this, thespe cial ref er ence point was al ways In dia. Moth -er In dia was the God dess of his ad o ra tion andany thing con cern ing her stirred him al ways to an im pas sioned eu logy of her past glory. Thenwould fol low a tear ful de scrip tion of her pres -ent state of ut ter deg ra da tion and help lesspros tra tion be fore the glam or ous West. Thefit ting fi nale would be a pro phetic en vi sion ing of In dia’s glo ri ous fu ture, when his so no rousvoice would an i mate ex traor di nary pic tures

of her re ju ve na tion. Sis ter Chris tine’s re mark -able rem i nis cences are wor thy of rec ol lec tionhere:

Our love for In dia came to birth, I think, whenwe first heard him say the word, ‘In dia’, in thatmar vel lous voice of his. It seems in cred i ble thatso much could have been put into one smallword of five let ters. There was love, pas sion,pride, long ing, ad o ra tion, trag edy, chiv alry, heim-weh, and again love. Whole vol umes could nothave pro duced such a feel ing in oth ers. It hadthe magic power of cre at ing love in those whoheard it. Ever af ter, In dia be came the land ofheart’s de sire. Ev ery thing con cern ing her be -came of in ter est—be came liv ing—her peo ple,her his tory, ar chi tec ture, her man ners and cus -toms, her rivers, moun tains, plains, her cul ture,her great spir i tual con cepts, her scrip tures. And so be gan a new life, a life of study, of med i ta -tion. The cen tre of in ter est was shifted.

2

When Swamiji spoke of In dia, it was notna tion al ism or pa tri o tism of the nar row type—mycoun try, right or wrong. From his deepstudy of world his tory and the rise and fall ofworld civ i li za tions, Swamiji un der stood therole that In dia was des tined to play in the co -mity of na tions. His pro found in sight re vealed to him that in the great econ omy of God, In diahad been as signed the spe cific and par tic u lartask of spir i tu al iz ing hu man kind. In or der thatIn dia may de liver this great gift of spir i tu al ity,per form this all-im por tant task, the vi tal ity ofthe race ought to be pre served: a vig or ous,pow er ful In dia, ‘re ju ve nated, more glo ri ousthan she ever was’, should emerge. In his firstpub lic lec ture at Co lombo, soon af ter his tri -um phal re turn from the West, Swamiji ar tic u -lated his vi sion, born of med i ta tive in sight:

Thus, ev ery one born into this world has a bent,


a di rec tion to wards which he must go, throughwhich he must live, and what is true of the in di -vid ual is equally true of the race. Each race, sim -i larly, has a pe cu liar bent, each race has a pe cu -liar rai son d’etre, each race has a pe cu liar mis sion to ful fil in the life of the world. Each race has tomake its own re sult, to ful fil its own mis sion.Po lit i cal great ness or mil i tary power is neverthe mis sion of our race; it never was, and, markmy words, it never will be. But there has beenthe other mis sion given to us, which is to con -serve, to pre serve, to ac cu mu late, as it were,into a dy namo, all the spir i tual en ergy of therace, and that con cen trated en ergy is to pourforth in a de luge on the world, when ever cir -cum stances are pro pi tious. … In dia’s gift to theworld is the light spir i tual.

3

This was why Swamiji felt so em phat i -cally that a new In dia, re ju ve nated and fullyawak ened to her spir i tual re spon si bil ity, wasan ur gent ne ces sity. For Swamiji be lieved thatIn dia and In dia alone could dis charge this vi -tally im por tant re spon si bil ity: ‘to con serve, topre serve, to ac cu mu late, as it were, into a dy -namo, all the spir i tual en ergy of the race’, forthe good of the world (jagat-hitáya), ‘for thegood of the many, for the hap pi ness of themany’ (bahujana hitáya, bahujana sukháya), asBuddha said.

The ur gency of this mes sage can not befelt more poi gnantly at any time than now,when the whole world is in a state of panic and anx i ety. No amount of sci en tific and tech no -log i cal ad vance ment has been able to re movethe ter ri fy ing, fright ful mon sters of in se cu rityand fear, ter ror and trep i da tion from thehearts of war ring na tions. Years ahead of theWorld Wars, Swamiji pre dicted that the wholeof the West ern world was sit ting on a vol cano,which needed to be quenched by the wa ters ofIn dian spir i tu al ity:

Up, In dia, and con quer the world with yourspir i tu al ity! Ay, as has been de clared on this soil first, love must con quer ha tred, ha tred can notcon quer it self. Ma te ri al ism and all its mis er iescan never be con quered by ma te ri al ism. Armies when they at tempt to con quer ar mies only mul -ti ply and make brutes of hu man ity. Spir i tu al ity

must con quer the West. Slowly they are find ingout that what they want is spir i tu al ity to pre -serve them as na tions. They are wait ing for it,they are ea ger for it. Where is the sup ply tocome from? Where are the men ready to go outto ev ery coun try in the world with the mes sages of the great sages of In dia? Where are the menwho are ready to sac ri fice ev ery thing, so thatthis mes sage shall reach ev ery cor ner of theworld? Such he roic souls are wanted to help thespread of truth. Such he roic work ers are want -ed to go abroad and help to dis sem i nate thegreat truths of Vedanta. The world wants it;with out it the world will be de stroyed. Thewhole of the West ern world is on a vol cano,which may burst to mor row, go to pieces to mor -row. They have searched ev ery cor ner of theworld and have found no re spite. They havedrunk deep of the cup of plea sure and found itvan ity. Now is the time to work so that In dia’sspir i tual ideas may pen e trate deep into theWest. … We must go out, we must con quer theworld through our spir i tu al ity and phi los o phy.There is no other al ter na tive, we must do it ordie. The only con di tion of na tional life, of awak -ened and vig or ous na tional life, is the con questof the world by In dian thought.

At the same time we must not for get thatwhat I mean by the con quest of the world byspir i tual thought is the send ing out of life-giv -ing prin ci ples, not the hun dreds of su per sti -tions that we have been hug ging to our breastsfor cen tu ries. These have to be weeded out evenon this soil, and thrown aside, so that they maydie for ever. (277-8)

This, then, is the back ground of Swami-ji’s con stant em pha sis on the re ju ve na tion ofIn dia. This was his fa vour ite theme and hewould re turn to it again and again. It movedhim, on the one hand, to heights of el o quenceas seen in the pas sages above; and, on theother, stirred him to the in most depths of hissen si tive soul, cry ing with im pa tient long ingfor the early rise of an awak ened In dia, pra bud -dha bharata. For he felt that if such an In diafailed to rise, then all spir i tu al ity and highmoral val ues would van ish from off the face of the earth. ‘Such a thing can never be,’ he said:

Shall In dia die? Then from the world all spir i tu -



al ity will be ex tinct, all moral per fec tion will beex tinct, all sweet-souled sym pa thy for re li gionwill be ex tinct, all ideality will be ex tinct; and inits place will reign the du al ity of lust and lux uryas the male and fe male de i ties, with money as

its priest, fraud, force, and com pe ti tion its cer e -mo nies, and the hu man soul its sac ri fice. Such athing can never be. (4.348)

2. Sci en tific Re ju ve na tion

2.1 The Inner versus Outer Sciences— Lopsided Growth?

As we have seen above, Swamiji was ea -ger to wipe out all the encrustationsthat had ac cu mu lated over the ages in

the pure and sci en tific re li gion of Vedanta,which our In dian rishis and think ers had pro -pounded. He wanted to prop a gate a sci en tific, ra tio nal and dy namic sys tem, im per sonal inna ture, and there fore ac cept able to mod ernminds. He re dis cov ered the an cient theme ofour rishis, that the phys i cal, men tal and spir i -tual sci ences form one co her ent whole. Thespir i tual sci ence, the sci ence through whichthe In fi nite and the Ab so lute, the Im per ish -able (akøara) is re al ized was called parávid yá,while the study of the phys i cal and men tal sci -ences were clas si fied as aparávidyá. The clas si -fi ca tion of knowl edge into pará and apará didnot in di cate their su pe ri or ity or in fe ri or ity. Atbest it in di cated a sense of pri or ity and at theworst a hint that the aparávidyá need not (andper haps should not) ab sorb too much of one’sat ten tion, for it does not de serve to be pur sued with avid ity, be ing ephem eral in na ture. Onthe other hand, a pur suit of the parávidyá con -fers im mor tal ity, eter nal Free dom and Bliss.How ever, the parávidyá and the apa rávidyáformed one col lec tive and co her ent whole,with the same de ity Sarasvati pre sid ing overboth. In fact, the Bhagavadgita cat e gor i callystates that com plete knowl edge con sists in theknowl edge of the outer as well as the in ner:Køetra-køhetrajðayor-jðánaó yat-tat jðá naó ma -taó mama.4 Køhetra re fers to the outer, lit er ally,‘the field of man i fes ta tion of the Spirit’; andkøetrajða re fers to the in dwell ing Spirit, lit er -ally, ‘the Knower of this køetra’. Swa mi ji, there -fore, wanted that In dia should make ad vances

in all these sci ences—and more par tic u larly inthe sphere of phys i cal sci ences, which hadbeen ne glected for ages thanks to an ex ces siveand per haps lop sided pre oc cu pa tion with themen tal and spir i tual sci ences. Even the studyof men tal sci ence was largely eclipsed by thatof spir i tual sci ence, for the lat ter ex er cised anover whelm ing in flu ence on the de vel op mentof the for mer; in ves ti ga tions into the mindwere car ried out in so far as they proved help -ful in the in-depth un der stand ing of the se -crets of the spir i tual realm. These in ner sci -ences—men tal and spir i tual—be ing more fas -ci nat ing to the con tem pla tive In dian mind, theouter sci ences—phys i cal sci ences—suf feredquite a bit of ne glect. The best brains of thecoun try came to be en gaged in re searches intothe in ner sci ences. Var i ous schools of thoughtemerged, and de bates and dis cus sions—whatwe now call sym po sia, col lo quia, sem i nars andcon fer ences—pro lif er ated among these schools; so much so that il lu min ing re sults emerged andwere clear ly doc u mented. The Upanishadsare glo ri ous ex am ples of such doc u men ta tion. Com men taries (bháøyas) on these texts came to be writ ten; glosses (ôækás) were writ ten to ex -plain these com men tar ies; and ex plan a torynotes (ôippaîæs) were added to these glosses.There was such an up surge that men tal andspir i tual wis dom be came an in te gral part ofthe na tional psy che. Even the so-called il lit er -ate per son with no for mal ed u ca tion could di -late with ease and deep un der stand ing onmany of these in ner sci en tific dis cov er ies. Butall this flurry of ac tiv i ties was at a goodlyprice: the ut ter ne glect of the outer, phys i cal,sci ences. Ex plaining this ab sorp tion of the en -tire race with things spir i tual and there forevery sub tle, Swamiji said:


India’s Rejuvenation: Swami Vivekananda’s Vision 37

There is no end to the power a man can ob tain.This is the pe cu liar ity of the In dian mind, thatwhen any thing in ter ests it, it gets ab sorbed in itand other things are ne glected. You know howmany sci ences had their or i gin in In dia. Math e -mat ics be gan there. You are even to day count -ing 1,2,3, etc. to zero, af ter San skrit fig ures, andyou all know that al ge bra also orig i nated in In -dia, and that grav i ta tion was known to the In -dian thou sands of years be fore New ton wasborn.

You see the pe cu liar ity. At a cer tain pe riodof In dian his tory, this one sub ject of man andhis mind ab sorbed all their in ter est. And it wasso en tic ing, be cause it seemed the eas i est way to achieve their ends. Now, the In dian mind be -came so thor oughly per suaded that the mindcould do any thing and ev ery thing ac cord ing tolaw, that its pow ers be came the great ob ject ofstudy. Charms, magic, and other pow ers, andall that were noth ing ex traor di nary, but a reg u -larly taught sci ence, just as the phys i cal sci ences they had taught be fore that. Such a con vic tionin these things came upon the race that phys i calsci ences nearly died out. It was the one thingthat came be fore them. Dif fer ent sects of Yogisbe gan to make all sorts of ex per i ments. …

The whole idea was to get at the ba sis, toreach the fine parts of the thing. And some ofthem re ally showed most mar vel lous pow ers.… It is the ex treme be lief of the race. Whatpower is there in the hand or the sword? Thepower is all in the spirit.

If this is true, it is temp ta tion enough for themind to ex ert its high est. But as with ev ery other sci ence it is very dif fi cult to make any greatachieve ment, so also with this, nay much more.Yet most peo ple think that these pow ers can beeas ily gained. How many are the years you taketo make a for tune? Think of that! First, howmany years do you take to learn elec tri cal sci -ence or en gi neer ing? And then you have towork all the rest of your life.5

While ap pre ci at ing and ap plaud ing thein ner sci en tific dis cov er ies—ad vances in themen tal and spir i tual sci ences—Swamiji realiz -ed that the time was come to cor rect this lop -sided growth. Ig no rance of the phys i cal sci -ences en gen dered any num ber of su per sti -tions, which in turn ad versely af fected thepris tine con clu sions of the men tal and spir i -

tual sci ences.Fur ther, Swamiji un der stood and felt

that the In dian mind was rich in sci en tific tem-per and out look. If only this tem per was broughtto bear upon the phys i cal sci ences, In diawould make a pro found ad vance in theseouter sci ences too, as much as in the in ner sci -ences of mind and the spirit. In dian mindslead ing the com puter soft ware de vel op menttech nol ogy all the world over is a case in point.

2.2 The Guiding Scientific Principles ofIndian Thought and Their RejuvenatedApplication

Swamiji iden ti fied cer tain dis tinc tive char -ac ter is tics of In dian sci en tific thought that en -abled the In dian mind to in ves ti gate into thein ner sci ences; he was con vinced that theseself same sci en tific prin ci ples, when ap plied tothe outer sci ences, could un ravel many a mys -tery of the uni verse—both in the mi cro scopicrealm of the atom and the nu cleus as well as inthe mac ro scopic do main of the outer space,mas sive plan ets and so on. Swamiji en vis ageda re ju ve nated ap pli ca tion of these prin ci ples—hith erto used by In dian spir i tual sci en tists(rishis) only in the in ner sci en tific realm—toin ves ti ga tions in the phys i cal sci ences also.Since the pass ing away of Swamiji, these prin -ci ples have in deed been suc cess fully ap plied in the phys i cal sci ences.

We shall now dis cuss some of these prin -ci ples and in fact show spe cif i cally how thephys i cal sci ences—twen ti eth- cen tury ‘newphys ics’, in par tic u lar—have, in fact, madebreathtak ing dis cov er ies through the ap pli ca -tion of these prin ci ples. All of them, how ever,are sub sumed in the prin ci ple of unity, thatthere is an un der ly ing unity in the midst of theap par ent di ver sity, which may be con sid eredas noth ing but man i fes ta tions of the fun da -men tal Unity.

2.2.1 The Generalization Principle

Swamiji dis cov ered a re mark able char ac -ter is tic of the In dian mind in its ca pac ity to



gen er al ize—that is, to draw gen er al ized con -clu sions from par tic u lars. Swamiji in factcalled such a mind ‘cou ra geous and won der -fully bold’; in be ing able to make an in tu itiveleap from the par tic u lar to the gen eral, def i -nitely and boldly. Elab o rating his the sis, Swa -miji said in his ‘Jnana Yoga’ lec tures:

Com ing to the prin ci ples, we find these Ve dicthink ers very cou ra geous and won der fullybold in pro pound ing large and gen er al ized the -o ries. Their so lu tion of the mys tery of the uni -verse, from the ex ter nal world, was as sat is fac -tory as it could be. The de tailed work ings ofmod ern sci ence do not bring the ques tion onestep nearer to so lu tion, be cause the prin ci pleshave failed. If the the ory of ether failed in an -cient times to give a so lu tion of the mys tery ofthe uni verse, work ing out the de tails of thatether the ory would not bring us much nearer tothe truth. If the the ory of all-per vad ing lifefailed as a the ory of this uni verse, it would notmean any thing more if worked out in de tail, forthe de tails do not change the prin ci ple of theuni verse. What I mean is that in their in quiryinto the prin ci ple, the Hindu think ers were asbold, and in some cases, much bolder than themod erns. They made some of the grand est gen -er al iza tions that have yet been reached, andsome still re main as the o ries, which mod ern sci -ence has yet to get even as the o ries. For in stance, they not only ar rived at the ether the ory, butwent be yond and clas si fied mind also as a stillmore rar efied ether. Be yond that again, theyfound a still more rar efied ether. Yet that was no so lu tion, it did not solve the prob lem. Noamount of knowl edge of the ex ter nal worldcould solve the prob lem. ‘But,’ says the sci en -tist, ‘we are just be gin ning to know a lit tle: waita few thou sand years and we shall get the so lu -tion.’ ‘No,’ says the Vedantist, for he has proved be yond all doubt that the mind is lim ited, that itcan not go be yond cer tain lim its—be yond time,space, and cau sa tion. As no man can jump outof his own self, so no man can go be yond thelim its that have been put upon him by the lawsof time and space. Ev ery at tempt to solve thelaws of cau sa tion, time, and space would be fu -tile, be cause the very at tempt would have to bemade by tak ing for granted the ex is tence ofthese three. What does the state ment of the ex is -

tence of the world mean, then? ‘This world hasno ex is tence.’ What is meant by that? It meansthat it has no ab so lute ex is tence. It ex ists only inre la tion to my mind, to your mind, and to themind of ev ery one else. We see this world withthe five senses but if we had an other sense, wewould see in it some thing more. If we had yetan other sense, it would ap pear as some thingstill dif fer ent. It has, there fore, no real ex is tence;it has no un change able, im mov able, in fi nite ex -is tence. Nor can it be called non-ex is tence, see -ing that it ex ists, and we have to work in andthrough it. It is a mix ture of ex is tence and non- ex is tence. (2.90-1)

Within a few years of Swamiji’s pass ingaway, Ein stein’s rel a tiv ity the ory, bas ing it selfon the fa mous Michelson-Morley ex per i ment,dealt a death blow to the ether the ory. Our com -mon-sense con cep tions of space and time un -der went a rad i cal change. Ein stein suc cess fullyap plied the Equal ity Prin ci ple to dis cover thenow fa mous prin ci ple of spe cial rel a tiv ity the -ory that there is no pref er en tial frame in na tureso that all laws of phys i cal phe nom ena must bein vari ant when re ferred to dif fer ent frames ofref er ence. This Equal ity Prin ci ple is a par tic u lar ap pli ca tion of a more gen eral prin ci ple, namely the Sym me try Prin ci ple. There is an un der ly ing sym me try in na ture, which gives rise to the fol -low ing string of char ac ter is tics: sym me try àim par tial ity à impersonality à equal ity(samatva). In its ap pli ca tion to in ves ti ga tioninto the na ture of mat ter, the Sym me try Prin -ci ple has led to some star tling dis cov er ies,which we will dis cuss pres ently. It is worth -while to note here that the Gen er al iza tionPrin ci ple and the Sym me try Prin ci ple are re -lated to an other im por tant prin ci ple, namelythe Uni fi ca tion Prin ci ple.

2.2.2 The Unification Principle

The Gen er al iza tion Prin ci ple is about try -ing to see the par tic u lar as a spe cial case of thegen eral. One sim ple ex am ple that school phys -ics would give you is that of the neu tron andthe pro ton. These are the well-known con stit -u ents of an atomic nu cleus. The neutron, as the



name im plies, is neu tral while the pro ton ispos i tively charged. In ter est ingly, both of them are al most of the same mass. Taking this same -ness as the key to gen er al iza tion, we could saythat these two par ti cles are just two man i fes ta -tions—two dif fer ent charge states— of a sin -gle par ti cle called the ‘nu cleon’. A nucleon,then, can ex ist in two charge states: in its pos i -tive charge state, it is called a pro ton and in itsneu tral state, the same par ti cle is a neu tron.Two is thus re duced to one—rather, the twopar ti cles are uni fied into one. This can beviewed in terms of the Sym me try Prin ci ple asfol lows: there is an un der ly ing sym me try intowhich these two par ti cles could be sub sumedand the man i fes ta tion as two par ti cles is sim -ply that the same nu cleon ex ists in two dif fer -ent charge states. We could then en large thiscon cept to ac com mo date more par ti cles (witha com mon key, like mass in the case of the pro -ton and the neu tron) and sub sume them into alarger sym me try. Since this sym me try is quitedif fer ent from the kind of sym me try we or di -narily see in space, we could call it some kindof in ter nal sym me try. Such sym met ric schemesare well known in el e men tary par ti cle clas si fi -ca tion. Larger and larger uni fi ca tions havebeen at tempted over the years by de vel op ingsuper- sym met ric schemes. The hope is that ul -ti mately all par ti cles could per haps be con sid -ered as the man i fes ta tion of one par ti cle.

A sim i lar at tempt has been made in re -gard to forces or in ter ac tions found in na ture.We now know that na ture ad mits of four types of in ter ac tions: weak, elec tro mag netic, strongand grav i ta tional. While the first three haveap pli ca tions in the mi cro-world, grav i ta tionalforce is felt pre dom i nantly only in the mac ro- world. Now, the hu man mind seeks a gen er al -iza tion, a uni fi ca tion, by ask ing the fol low ingques tion: Is it pos si ble to sub sume all theseforces into a sin gle force and con sider thesedif fer ent forces as man i fes ta tions of that oneforce? En cour ag ingly, we have come a fairlylong way: we have been able to unify the firstthree—weak, elec tro mag netic and strong.

These are called the Grand Uni fied The o ries(GUTs). Un for tu nately, there is this loner: thegrav i ta tional force, which still eludes our uni -fi ca tion at tempt. As we said ear lier, whereasthe first three are quan tum me chan ics-de -pend ent, ow ing al le giance to the Un cer taintyPrin ci ple, grav ity is a ‘clas si cal’ the ory—a dif -fer ent spe cies al to gether! Supergravity the o -ries that came up were at one time be lieved tobe the right an swer to the uni fi ca tion of grav -ity with other forces, but they have not provedsat is fac tory. At tempts at quan tum grav itythe o ries are un der way, but the prob lem ap -pears very com plex. But for nearly two de -cades, the so-called String The ory has heldsway, in which the ba sic ob jects are not par ti -cles, but strings that have length but no otherdi men sion.

De fining the goal of sci ence, Swamiji said more than a hun dred years ago: ‘The end andaim of all sci ence is to find the unity, the Oneout of which the man i fold is be ing man u fac -tured, that One ex ist ing as many.’ (1.133)

And again:

Sci ence is noth ing but the find ing of unity. Assoon as sci ence would reach per fect unity, itwould stop from fur ther prog ress, be cause itwould reach the goal. Thus Chem is try couldnot prog ress far ther when it would dis coverone el e ment out of which all oth ers could bemade. Phys ics would stop when it would beable to ful fil its ser vices in dis cov er ing one en -ergy of which all the oth ers are but man i fes ta -tions, and the sci ence of re li gion be comes per -fect when it would dis cover Him who is the onelife in a uni verse of death, Him who is the con -stant ba sis of an ever-chang ing world. (1.14)

In mod ern times, phys i cists are vig or -ously pur su ing the very same idea to find aUnified The ory. Ein stein at tempted it yearsago, but in vain. This The ory of Ev ery thing(ToE) is the Holy Grail of phys ics in this cen -tury. In the words of Ste phen Hawking, ‘Theeven tual goal of sci ence is to pro vide a sin glethe ory that de scribes the whole uni verse. …And our goal is noth ing less than a com pletede scrip tion of the uni verse we live in.’6



2.2.3 The Symmetry Principle

The Sym me try Prin ci ple, based onceagain on the principle of unity, has con trib -uted con sid er ably to the rev o lu tion of our con -cept of mat ter at the be gin ning of the twen ti eth cen tury. Quan tum me chan ics owes its or i ginto this prin ci ple. The relativity the ory andquan tum me chan ics to gether wrought athought rev o lu tion un matched in its pro fun -dity and power.

We would con sider two re mark able ap -pli ca tions of this prin ci ple: (a) wave-mat tersym me try, lead ing to the de vel op ment ofquan tum me chan ics or wave me chan ics, and(b) mi cro cosm-mac ro cosm unity, which is theba sis of many a dis cov ery—for ex am ple, thedis cov ery of the Rutherford atom model (with plan e tary elec trons) and the Gen eral The oryof Rel a tiv ity as the the ory of grav i ta tion basedon Mach’s prin ci ple, lead ing to rad i cal changesin our con cepts of space and mat ter and theirin ter re la tion.

2.2.3 (a) Wave-particle Dualism and theDevelopment of Wave/Quantum Mechanics

The dawn of the twen ti eth cen tury sawthe birth of a re mark able the ory that rev o lu -tion ized our con cept of mat ter and ra di a tion.Max Planck pro pounded the Quan tum The -ory of Ra di a tion, ac cord ing to which ra di a tion oc curs not as waves, but in dis crete en ergypack ets (which are like par ti cles) called ‘quanta’.The en ergy con tent of each quan tum, how -ever, is pro por tional to the fre quency of the ra -di a tion—the par ti cle con cept is thus wed dedto the wave con cept. The quan tum the ory wasap plied with re mark able suc cess to a largenum ber of phe nom ena like pho to elec tric ef -fect, Compton ef fect and Bohr atom model.Thus quan tum the ory came to be es tab lishedon a firm foot ing as the the ory of ra di a tion.Now, these two, namely mat ter and ra di a tion,be ing the two fun da men tal man i fes ta tions ofna ture, the Sym me try Prin ci ple (and the con -cepts aris ing there from (sym me try à im par -tial ity à impersonality à equal ity) im me di -

ately forces us to the fol low ing con clu sion: Ifra di a tion has a par ti cle as pect as a quan tum, itshould nat u rally fol low that mat ter should have awave as pect.

Ar guing from this prin ci ple, de Broglieenun ci ated his star tling the ory of ‘mat ter- waves’, which says that a mov ing par ti cle be -haves as a wave, with a def i nite wave lengthde riv able from the par ti cle mo men tum—once again wed ding the wave con cept (wave -length) with the par ti cle con cept (mo men -tum).

Sev eral ques tions im me di ately came up:What is the na ture of this wave? How is thiswave to be in ter preted? What is its phys i calsig nif i cance? Two great phys i cists, Schrödin -ger and Heisenberg, started from two pointsof view and then for mu lated a me chan ics ofthese waves, called wave me chan ics andquan tum me chan ics, re spec tively. These twowere found to be iden ti cal ex cept for the lan -guage. It is now well es tab lished that all phys i -cal phe nom ena in the mi cro-world (of theatom, nu cleus, sub-nu clear par ti cles and soon) are gov erned by quan tum me chan ics.Soon, Dirac and oth ers made suc cess ful at -tempts to wed this to rel a tiv ity; relativisticquan tum me chan ics was thus born.

This threw us back to the fun da men talques tion: What then is a par ti cle? In place oftalk ing about a par ti cle, one then talked aboutfields. These fields were then quantized to findthe par ti cle—a re cov ery, as it were. Very re -cently, phys i cists started talk ing about stringsrather than par ti cles. Thus the ex cite mentabout what a par ti cle is in the first place, con -tin ues un abated in all its fury! On the ap pli ca -tion level, these mat ter-waves were found toun dergo dif frac tion and so on like any otherphys i cal waves, lead ing to the in ven tion ofelec tron mi cro scopes with stag ger ingly highen larg ing ca pa bil i ties. Med i cal sci ence couldprog ress by leaps and bounds thanks to thesein stru ments. The guid ing prin ci ple of all thisex er cise, how ever, is the Sym me try Prin ci ple.



2.2.3 (b) The Microcosm-Macrocosm Unity

One of the ear li est prin ci ples of the an -cient In dian rishis in their at tempt to probe na -ture’s mys tery was the mi cro cosm-mac ro -cosm unity. By ap ply ing the pro jec tion prin ci -ple, pro ject ing mi cro cosm on mac ro cosm,they were able to for mu late their the o ries aboutthe cos mic phe nom ena. This, once again, is the well- known psy cho log i cal prin ci ple of pro -ject ing from the known to the un known: themi cro cosm is within our grasp, and since mi -cro cosm and mac ro cosm are built on the sameplan, pro ject ing the former on the latter couldun ravel the se crets of the mac ro cosm. Sev eralex am ples could be cited.

Na ture of the cos mic Per son: What is thena ture of the su preme, cos mic Per son? This isa ques tion that has been en gag ing the at ten -tion of think ing in di vid u als since time im me -mo rial. The projection principle was ap pliedsuc cess fully by our an cient rishis to an swerthis ques tion: pro jec tion from the in di vid ual(rel a tively more known) to the cos mic (un -known). You study the in di vid ual, the mi cro- per son; ana lyse him thor oughly; then pro ject,as pect by as pect, to the macro-level. You thenhave a pic ture (or, more cor rectly, model) ofthe cos mic Per son.

In ana lys ing the in di vid ual per son, ouran cient rishis dis cov ered three lev els: the gross,the sub tle and the causal. The mi cro-as pect ofeach of these lev els was then re lated to thethree states of wak ing, dream and deep (dream -less) sleep. The cor re spond ing macro- as pectswere then ob tained by the mi cro-mac ro pro -jec tion prin ci ple. An im por tant case in point:pro jec tion of the macocosmic Viráô, Hiraî ya -gar bha and Æù va ra from the microcosmic viù va,tai jasa and prájða, cor re spond ing re spec tivelyto the gross (wak ing), sub tle (dream) and causal (deep sleep) levels.

The fa mous ‘Purusha Sukta’ gives a vivid de scrip tion of this cos mic Per son, whose bodyis the macrocosmic coun ter part of the in di vid -ual body, whose mind is the macro- mind (cos -mic Mind)—in short, whose con scious ness is

the cos mic Con scious ness. In Vedanta, the mi cro-macro equa tion

has come to be ap plied only at the high estspir i tual level. The other two lev els, the phys -i cal and men tal, have found very lit tle ap pli -ca tion. Per haps for the first time in the mod -ern age, Swamiji wanted a re vival of this equa -tion even at the phys i cal and men tal lev els. Thus,apart from the spir i tual mo nism which Ad -vai ta Ve danta pro pounded, Swamiji spokeabout two other kinds of mo nism: mo nism atthe phys i cal level and mo nism at the men tallevel. In his fa mous ‘Pa per on Hin du ism’ atthe Par lia ment of Re li gions in Chi cago in1893, he called these two lev els of mo nism as‘ma te ri al is tic mo nism’ and ‘philo soph i calmo nism’.7 This re vival of phys i cal as well asmen tal one ness has pro found im pli ca tionsfor mod ern so ci ety. In fact, phys ics hadshown clearly the re al ity of phys i cal one nessand Swamiji was aware of this. Very soon af -ter Swamiji’s pass ing away, Ein stein pro -pounded his Spe cial Rel a tiv ity The ory, fol -lowed by the Gen eral Rel a tiv ity Theory. Thelat ter the ory was also a the ory of grav i ta tion.In for mu lat ing this the ory, Ein stein drewgreat in spi ra tion from the philo soph i calthought of the Ger man phi los o pher ErnstMach. In his au to bio graph i cal sketch, Ein -stein men tioned that his read ing of Mach’sphilo soph i cal writ ings de ci sively fur theredthe crit i cal rea son ing re quired for the rel a tiv -ity the ory. He fur ther said that his whole di -rec tion of think ing was along the lines ofMach’s thought, so that if one con sid eredMach to be a pre cur sor of the Gen eral Rel a tiv -ity The ory, one would be per fectly jus ti fied.Mach’s thoughts reflect noth ing but the phys -i cal mo nism that Swamiji spoke about. Infact, Swamiji force fully de scribed this in hislec ture on ‘The Mis sion of the Vedanta’:

The other great idea that the world wants fromus to day, the think ing part of Eu rope, nay, thewhole world—more, per haps, the lower classes than the higher, more the masses than the cul -tured, more the ig no rant than the ed u cated,more the weak than the strong—is that eter nal



grand idea of the spir i tual one ness of the wholeuni verse. I need not tell you to day, men fromMa dras Uni ver sity, how the mod ern re searches of the West have dem on strated through phys i -cal means the one ness and the sol i dar ity of thewhole uni verse; how, phys i cally speak ing, youand I, the sun, moon, and stars are but lit tlewaves or wave lets in the midst of an in fi niteocean of mat ter; how In dian psy chol ogy dem -on strated ages ago that, sim i larly, both bodyand mind are but mere names or lit tle wave letsin the ocean of mat ter, the Samashti; and how,go ing one step fur ther, it is also shown in theVedanta that be hind that idea of the unity of thewhole show, the real Soul is one. There is butone Soul through out the uni verse, all is but OneEx is tence. This great idea of the real and ba sicsol i dar ity of the whole uni verse has fright enedmany, even in this coun try. It even now findssome times more op po nents than ad her ents. Itell you, nev er the less, that it is the one greatlife- giv ing idea which the world wants from usto day, and which the mute masses of In diawant for their up lift ing, for none can re gen er atethis land of ours with out the prac ti cal ap pli ca -tion and ef fec tive op er a tion of this ideal of theone ness of things. (3.188-9)

Swamiji’s vi sion of mi cro cosm-mac ro cosmuni ty: Swamiji had a vi sion of this mi cro- mac -ro iden tity when he was med i tat ing un der apeepul tree in Almora. Arising from this pro -found med i ta tive aware ness, he re corded hisex pe ri ence in his di ary. An Eng lish ren der ingof what he noted down in Ben gali runs as fol -lows:

In the be gin ning was the Word etc.The mi cro cosm and the mac ro cosm are

built on the same plan. Just as the in di vid ualsoul is en cased in the liv ing body, so is the uni -ver sal Soul in the Liv ing Prakriti [Na ture]— theob jec tive uni verse. Shivá [ie Kali] is em brac ingShiva: this is not a fancy. This cov er ing of theone [Soul] by the other [Na ture] is anal o gous tothe re la tion be tween an idea and the word ex -press ing it: they are one and the same; and it isonly by a men tal ab strac tion that one can dis tin -guish them. Thought is im pos si ble with outwords. There fore, in the be gin ning was theWord etc.

This dual as pect of the Uni ver sal Soul iseter nal. So what we per ceive or feel is this com -bi na tion of the Eter nally Formed and the Eter -nally Form less. (9.291)

This sci en tific prin ci ple of mi cro-macropro jec tion that Swamiji ac tu ally saw in an in tu -itive vi sion, he was boldly ap ply ing even inthe socio-pol i tic realm. We re fer to his state -ment quoted at the very be gin ning: ‘Thus, ev -ery one born into this world has a bent, a di rec -tion to wards which he must go, throughwhich he must live, and what is true of the in -di vid ual is equally true of the race.’

Swamiji was here re ly ing upon this sci en -tific prin ci ple of pro jec tion, which has been re -spon si ble for many a path-break ing dis cov eryin phys i cal sci ence. We see here two more ex -am ples.

Rutherford atom model: It is well known inthe his tory of atomic phys ics how Ruther foldar rived at his nu clear atom model. From large-an gle scat ter ing of al pha par ti cles, he hadcome to a def i nite con clu sion that the en tirepos i tive charge of the atom is con cen trated ina very min ute re gion in side it. This he calledthe ‘nu cleus’. The next ques tion was, how arethe neg a tive charges dis trib uted around thenu cleus? When no amount of spec u la tionworked, he ap plied, in a stroke of in tu itive ge -nius, the above mi cro- mac ro pro jec tion prin ci -ple, al beit in the re verse or der. He pro jectedthe sun onto the nu cleus, and then the var i ousplan ets re volv ing round the sun in el lip ti calor bits au to mat i cally got pro jected on to theneg a tively charged elec trons. This pro jec tiongave him im me di ately the ‘plan e tary elec -trons’, with the elec trons re volv ing round thenu cleus very much like the plan ets round thesun. On ap pli ca tion of Planck’s quan tum the -ory, the ex per i men tal match was im me di ateand more or less ac cu rate. When the fine struc -ture of spec tral lines was dis cov ered, Som-mer feld once again used the pro jec tion prin ci -ple with suc cess: these plan e tary elec tronswere re volv ing in el lip ti cal or bits, and rel a tiv -is tic vari a tion of their mass with ve loc ity need -



ed to be ap plied. When the hyperfine struc ture of the spec tral lines came up, the the ory wasfur ther re fined: once again the pro jec tion prin -ci ple—look at the mac ro cosm and pro jectback ward to the mi cro cosm. The con cept ofelec tron spin, like the in ter nal ro ta tion of theplan ets, was in tro duced and the ex per i men talmatch ob tained. Then came space quantiza -tion by the ap pli ca tion of the same prin ci ple,and so on.

The pro jec tion principle is used above asan anal ogy to un der stand the un known fromthe known. The other ex am ple is the nu clearstruc ture. We briefly dis cuss it be low.

Liq uid drop model/Shell mod el of nucleus:The an swer to the ques tion of what the nu clear struc ture was like came once again from ananal ogy: from the known to the un known.Two mod els of the nu cleus are well known:the liq uid drop model and the shell model.The liq uid drop model came from draw ingthe anal ogy of the liq uid drop to the nu -cleus—each force in the liq uid drop was cor re -spond ingly pro jected. From this, Weis zac kerar rived at a for mula called the ‘semi- em pir i cal mass for mula’. In ter est ingly, it was this for -mula that gave the pre cise rea son ing and in -for ma tion about nu clear fis sion and the con se -quent re lease of enor mous amounts of nu clear en ergy. This phe nom e non of nu clear fis sionwas used to man u fac ture atomic and nu clearbombs for de struc tive pur poses on the onehand, and to make nu clear re ac tors for con -struc tive pur poses on the other. It is in ter est -ing how this sim ple prin ci ple of pro jec tion(anal ogy) could be come re spon si ble for the re -lease of as tound ing amounts of nu clear en -ergy due to fis sion. Such is the power ofthought!

It is in ter est ing to note that this pro jec tion prin ci ple was known to and used by the an -cient In dian rishis ages ago. And Swamiji waskeen to re vive the sci en tific tem per of our an -cients and bring about a re ju ve nated ap pli ca -tion of this tem per.

2.2.3 (c) Symmetry and ConservationPrinciples

We could briefly men tion here the cru cial role played by what is known as the prin ci pleof con ser va tion and dis cuss its re la tion tosym me try. Con ser va tion of cer tain well- known phys i cal quan ti ties is the bed rock ofsci ence; con ser va tion of mass-en ergy and con -ser va tion of lin ear and an gu lar mo men tumare too well known. Now, there ex ists an in ti -mate con nec tion be tween sym me try and con -ser va tion (invariance) laws. This con nec tion is em bod ied in what is known as Noether’s The -o rem. In the mi cro-world—the sub-atomicrealm of el e men tary par ti cles—the charge (C)con ser va tion, left-right (par ity) sym me try (P)and time-re ver sal sym me try (T) have played a vi tal role in our un der stand ing, lead ing towhat is called the CPT the o rem.

Swamiji has tried to ap ply the prin ci pleof con ser va tion to socio-po lit i cal sit u a tionsand tried to de rive some re mark able con clu -sions. The in ti mate con nec tion be tween sym -me try and con ser va tion could be in voked tore in force his the ses and enun ci ate gen er al izedthe o rems in the socio-po lit i cal sphere. While ade tailed dis cus sion of this topic is be yond thescope of this pa per, we men tion this just toshow how Swamiji wanted sci en tific prin ci -ples to be ap plied to so ci ety as well: for all hu -man ex is tence forms one co her ent whole.

3. Con clu sion

The sci en tific re ju ve na tion in Swamiji’s vi -sion of a re ju ve nated In dia, there fore, is

two fold: (1) the re viv i fi ca tion of the fun da -men tal sci en tific prin ci ples dis cov ered by our

an cient rishis, and (2) the prac ti cal ap pli ca tionof these prin ci ples to ev ery de part ment of hu -man ac tiv ity and ev ery sphere of hu manendeavour—in one word, their ap pli ca tion in



ev ery day life, for uni ver sal well-be ing.Swamiji has iden ti fied some of these fun -

da men tal prin ci ples, like the ones men tionedabove, the most fun da men tal, ac cord ing him,be ing the sol i dar ity or one ness of the uni verse. Hecalled these ‘life-giv ing prin ci ples’. It be hovesus, then, to: (1) discover what these prin ci plesare (apart from the ones Swamiji him self men -tions spe cif i cally); (2) reverentially con tem -plate them to find out how they could be ap -plied to ev ery de part ment of hu man ac tiv ityand to ev ery sphere of hu man endeavour, forthe wel fare of the en tire hu man kind; and (3)Test their ef fec tive ness by ac tual ap pli ca tion,in di vid u ally and col lec tively.

If we, as a na tion, ap ply our selves to thisno ble task, re al iz ing the power of thought inbring ing about in di vid ual and col lec tive wel -fare, so cial change and up lift, In dia couldhope, in the not-too-dis tant fu ture, to be comea su per power—not for bul ly ing other na tionsor for bull doz ing them to ac cept our ownways of think ing or to dom i nate over them,but for es tab lish ing a reign of peace and bless -ed ness. The great trea sures in the form of ‘life- giv ing prin ci ples’ and pow er ful ideas that wehave in her ited from our fore fa thers in thisblessed land should be spread broad cast allover the world. Swamiji’s pro phetic ut ter ancein this con text should fill us with fresh zealand re dou bled en ergy to ac com plish this task:

For a com plete civ i li za tion the world is wait ing,wait ing for the trea sures to come out of In dia,wait ing for the mar vel lous spir i tual in her i tanceof the race, which, through de cades of deg ra da -tion and mis ery, the na tion has still clutched toher breast. The world is wait ing for that trea -sure; lit tle do you know how much of hun gerand of thirst there is out side of In dia for thesewon der ful trea sures of our fore fa thers. We talkhere, we quar rel with each other, we laugh atand we rid i cule ev ery thing sa cred, till it has be -come al most a na tional vice to rid i cule ev ery -

thing holy. Lit tle do we un der stand the heart- pangs of mil lions wait ing out side the walls,stretch ing forth their hands for a lit tle sip of thatnec tar which our fore fa thers have pre served inthis land of In dia. (3.317)

If only we could deeply share this ag onythat Swamiji felt, and awaken with out de lay to this enor mous na tional re spon si bil ity, a re ju -ve nated In dia of Swamiji’s dreams would be -come a re al ity. The en tire world is wait ingwith bated breath, anx i ety and panic writ largein its wrin kled fore head, for peace and bless -ed ness. It is In dia, and only In dia, that can cre -ate such an at mo sphere of peace and bene dic -tion. For it is from In dia that no ble ideas, pow -er ful thought cur rents, ex pres sive of joy andim mor tal ity, have em a nated since time im me -mo rial: ‘… ideas af ter ideas have marched outfrom her, but ev ery word has been spo kenwith a bless ing be hind it and peace be fore it.’(3.106)

May we endeavour tire lessly to ac tu al izeSwamiji’s dream of a re ju ve nated In dia; andmay the en tire world be de luged with thewaves of love, peace and bene dic tion flow ingout from this re ju ve nated, glo ri ous In dia, asfrom an eter nal spring. ~

References



1997), 3.154.

2. His East ern and West ern Ad mirers, Rem i nis -cences of Swami Vivekananda (Cal cutta: Ad vai -

ta Ashrama,1999), 151.

3. CW , 3.108-9.


5. CW , 2.20-2.

6. Ste phen W Hawking, A Brief His tory of Time(Lon don: Ban tam, 1989), 10, 13.

7. CW , 1.8.



A man should be like his tea: his real strength ap pear ing when he gets into hot wa ter.

—The Irish D igest

An Embodiment of Universal Motherhood

PROF AMALENDU CHAKRABORTY

Pages of In dian his tory through out themil len ni ums are il lu mined by the livesof saintly men and women ra di at ing

their bril liance from dif fer ent spheres of ac -tion. It may be no ticed that one com mon el e -ment in their make-up is spir i tual strength.Pu rity, hu mil ity, de vo tion, self-con trol, self -less love—in fact, all that go to adorn spir i tuallife have al ways been val ued in In dia morethan ma te rial gains and sense-en joy ments.The ideal of dis cov er ing one’s real Self andthus man i fest ing the di vin ity ly ing within thein di vid ual has been glued to the na tionalmind from the Ve dic age. Af ter all, hu man lifeis mean ing less with out the pur suit of ide als,be cause ide als of fer unity and di rec tion to hu -man ex is tence and pro pel man kind from alower to a higher level of spir i tual evo lu tion.

Uniqueness of Indian Culture

One of the loft i est ide als de vel oped fromearly Ve dic times is the ideal of moth er hood,which adds dis tinc tive ness to In dian cul ture.While the West wor ships women fore most fortheir youth and beauty, the ideal woman re-vered and wor shipped in In dia is the mother—the un self ish, lov ing, mag nan i mous, sac ri fic -ing, all-for giv ing mother—and to this end sheded i cates her life. From the Hindu stand point,

a woman may be a mother, a wife, a sis ter, adaugh ter or some thing else, but ba si cally sheis a mother. As Swamiji said, ‘… in In dia thewoman was the vis i ble man i fes ta tion of Godand that her whole life was given up to thethought that she was a mother, and to be a per -fect mother she must be chaste.’1 The motherim age is the sym bol of per fect chas tity anddesirelessness, and it is love, pure and sim ple,that re mains at the pin na cle of fem i nine ide alsof spir i tual In dia.

An Overarching Feminine Ideal

Sri Sarada Devi, our Holy Mother, is rec -og nized with rev er ence by most Hin dus as the quint es sen tial role model of the over arch ingfem i nine ideal of moth er hood in mod erntimes. Her moth er hood de rives greater rel e -vance be cause it re kin dled the im age of theideal Hindu woman at a time when In dia wasex pe ri enc ing a ter ri ble cri sis of the spirit. Atthis crit i cal junc ture came Sri RamakrishnaParamahamsa and Sri Sarada Devi. Soon thelat ter’s di vin ity and spir i tu al ity en shrined heras an in car na tion of the Mother of the Uni -verse. It also pro vided spir i tual strength andre gen er a tion to a num ber of dev o tees whomshe em braced as her very own chil dren. SriSarada Devi dem on strated through out her life

that real eman ci pa tion ofwomen lay not in the cru sadefor sex ual equal ity but in thebuild ing of a fem i nine char ac -ter, which would form the es -sence of fe male power. So wecan say with out hes i ta tion thather life and mes sage will re -main for ever the ful fil ment ofthe fem i nine ideal, which willelicit male rev er ence as wor thy


H er divinity and spirituality enshrined her

as an incarnation of the M other of the

U niverse. … S he demonstrated throughout

her life that real emancipation of women

lay not in the crusade for sex ual equality

but in the building of a feminine character,

which would form the essence of female

man i fes ta tions of the Eter nal Fem i nine.This most pow er ful in flu ence be hind the

con cep tu al iza tion of di vine moth er hood wasgiven pro found sig nif i cance and brought tore al ity by Sri Ra m a krishna. He taught theworld that to wor ship God as Mother rep re -sented the fi nal stage of spir i tual evo lu tion,and that by con sid er ing ev ery wo man, savehis wife, as a mother, man could free him selffrom the snares of car nal ity and im pu rity. Hedem on strated that God and the Self, or At -man, are sex less, thus per ceiv ing man andwoman to be re ally one and com ple men tary.He also taught that the high est ex pe ri ence ofGod is not com pat i ble with the en joy ment ofthe flesh. Just as a man can sub due his lust bysee ing in a woman the sym bol of the Di vineMother, so too a woman can con tain her sex u -al ity by re gard ing ev ery man, ex cept her hus -band, as her child. She is, in es sence, themother of all men, no mat ter what other re la -tion ship so ci ety may sanc tion. Sri Ramakri -shna made all women the man i fes ta tions andex ten sions of the Di vine Moth -er. By ac tu ally wor ship pingGod as Mother, he trans formedthe the o ret i cal con cept of theMoth er hood of God into a liv -ing re al ity.

A Primary Receptacle ofthe Divine Shakti

Sri Ramakrishna con se -crated Sri Sarada Devi as themor tal em bodi ment and sym -bol of the Di vine Mother onearth. He wor shipped her as the liv ing God dess and saw no dif -fer ence be tween her, his earthly mother andKali, his Di vine Mother. Through the Shoda-shi Puja, which Sri Rama krishna per formeddur ing Sri Sarada Devi’s first visit to Dakshi-ne swar, the lat ter was en throned on the al tarcon se crated to the di vine De ity, and the di vine pres ence of the Uni ver sal Mother was in -voked in her. Sri Ramakri shna prayed, ‘O Di -

vine Mother! Thou eter nal vir gin, the mis tressof all pow ers, and the abode of all beauty!Deign to un lock for me the gate to per fec tion.Sanc tifying the body and mind of this woman, do Thou man i fest Thy self through her and dowhat is aus pi cious.’2 The sig nif i cance of thiswor ship for Sri Sarada Devi was that it awak -ened in her the re al iza tion of her di vin ity asthe man i fes ta tion of the Eter nal Fem i nine forall hu man ity to wor ship. We come to knowfrom Swami Gambhiranan daji, Sri SaradaDevi’s chief bi og ra pher, that when she de -scended to her nor mal self af ter the spir i tualawak en ing, she never lost sense of the iden titywith the Di vine and re tained it through out her life. In ad di tion, the wor ship sym bol ized herpar tic i pa tion in Sri Ramakri shna’s life and inhis spir i tual min is try. By vir tue of her pu rityand sim plic ity, Sri Sarada Devi be came thepri mary re cep ta cle of the di vine Shakti, whichman i fested through her to the full est cul mi na -tion in mod ern times. In a word, SriRamakrishna left be hind Sri Sarada Devi, the

Holy Mother, as the liv ing ideal of wom an -hood. ‘To me it has al ways ap peared,’ wroteSis ter Nivedita, ‘that she (Sri Sarada De vi) isSri Ramakrishna’s fi nal word as to the ideal ofIn dian wom an hood. But is she the last of anold or der, or the be gin ning of a new?’3 Per -haps the ex pla na tion is that Sri Sarada Devicon sti tuted the bridge be tween the past andthe pres ent, be tween the old and the new.


An Embodiment of Universal Motherhood 47

S ri R amak rishna also taught that the

highest ex perience of G od is not compatible

with the enjoyment of the flesh. Just as a

man can subdue his lust by seeing in a

woman the symbol of the D ivine M other, so

too a woman can contain her sex uality by

regarding every man, ex cept her husband,

as her child. S he is, in essence, the mother

of all men.

Mother of AllThe var i ous fac ets of Sri Sarada Devi’s

life would ap pear to be like the sun’s rayspass ing through a prism, ra di at ing mul ti plepoints of bril liance. Pu rity, ho li ness, love andquiet suf fer ing are some of the at trib utes ofideal moth er hood that lie em bed ded in theheart of ev ery woman. Al though she could not ex pe ri ence the joys of moth er hood (be ingmar ried to the as cetic Sri Ramakrishna), hermoth erly af fec tion flowed un re mit tingly and

im par tially to wards all. She was the mother ofthe hard ened Mus lim brig and Amjad, just asshe was the mother of the no ble monk SwamiSaradananda and that gifted Irish lady, Sis terNivedita. Out of the abun dance of her heart,she of fered love to one and all, with out dis -tinc tion of caste, creed, col our or race. Hun -dreds of thou sands of dev o tees thronged toher in an end less pro ces sion day and night.She once said that ‘the ex ces sive man i fes ta tion of Di vin ity cre ates fear in the minds of dev o -tees; they can not feel in ti mate.’4 For the wholeof the thirty-four years of her wid ow hood, she con tin ued to prop a gate Sri Ramakrishna’smes sage that God is not merely an ob ject offaith, but has to be re al ized in one’s own lifethrough the prac tice of re nun ci a tion and ser -vice. Thus her life be came an ex am ple of thees sen tial char ac ter of wom an hood—a beau ti -ful blend ing of work with wor ship—earn ing

for her the ev er last ing, en dear ing ep i thet ‘Ho -ly Mother’.

An Eternal Beacon for Women

In our liv ing mem ory, we do not knowwhether any di vine in car na tion was wor -shipped, while liv ing, in the way Sri SaradaDe vi was. Her life and moth er hood has beenglow ing as a bea con for women ev ery where.The most in spir ing el e ment in her life was herun con di tional love for ev ery thing. Here lies

Sri Sarada Devi’s sig nif i cance to mod ern wom an hood. She wasin deed a liv ing bo dhi satt va, of -fer ing her life and love as oneun in ter rupted si lent prayer ofre nun ci a tion and ser vice. ‘Youhave not yet un der stood thewon der ful sig nif i cance of Moth-er’s life …’ wrote Swami Vive -ka nanda from Amer ica. ‘…With out Shakti (Power) there isno re gen er a tion for the world.… Mother has been born to re -vive that won der ful Shakti inIn dia; and mak ing her the nu -

cleus, once more will Gargis and Maitreyis beborn into the world.’5 The great be gin ning ofthis fem i nine re nais sance was marked by thead vent of Sri Sarada Devi, who man i fested tothe world the la tent and ki netic di vin ity ofwomen as sym bols of fem i nine vir tue through her uni ver sal moth er hood.

An Icon ofTrium phant Womanhood

To day, at the fore front of the twenty-firstcen tury, fe male educationists, hu man ists, hu -man rights ac tiv ists and fem i nists are hold ingsem i nars and con fer ences, and de clar ing theirright to equal ity, free dom, power and pres -tige. One should not for get that it was SriSarada Devi who of fered them the vi sion andun der stand ing of their real iden tity as theman i fes ta tions of the Moth er hood of God, asMa don nas, as Shakti. Let us not for get her



A lthough she could not ex perience the joys

of motherhood, her motherly affection

flowed unremittingly and impartially

towards all. … O ut of the abundance of her

heart, H oly M other offered love to one and

all, without distinction of caste, creed,

colour or race. H undreds of thousands of

devotees thronged to her in an endless

procession day and night.

prayer, ‘O Lord, there is staineven in the moon, but let therenot be the least trace of stain inmy mind!’6 It is no won der thatspir i tual gi ants like Swamijiand Swami Brahmananda trem -bled with height ened spir i tualemo tion and rev er ence in herpres ence. In this light, the con -cept of gen der lib er a tion runs much deeper and is thus toocom plex to be ex plained awayin terms of in di vid ual au ton -omy. ‘Ev ery pro found truth,’wrote Sis ter Ni vedita, ‘waits for the life that shall be all its voice,and when that is found, it co -mes within the reach of the mul -ti tude to whom it would havere mained in ac ces si ble.’7 In deed,Sri Sa ra da Devi’s il lus tri ous life re mains themir ror in which the eter nal soul of In dia is re -flected. She re mains im mor tal to us not sim ply for what she did, but for what she stood for:tri um phant wom an hood be yond the creeds of the world. In the ra di ant aura of her mag neticmoth er hood, Sri Sara da Devi stands in com pa -ra ble as one of the most com pel ling and evo ca -tive spir i tual and cul tural icons of hu man civ i -li za tion. What ever as pect of Sri Sara da Devione re flects upon and em braces, one will sim -ply find that to be some thing only a HolyMother can be stow. Whether we are dead oralive, she will con tinue to pro tect us all. So letme con clude my dis ser ta tion with the fol low -ing hymn com posed by Swami Abheda nan -da, one of the ear li est mo nas tic dis ci ples of SriRa makrishna: ‘O Sarada, God dess pro pi tious,de stroyer of mis ery in souls re signed,/ Sav -iour of re li gion in ev ery age,/ … O Motherkind,/ Givest Love and Wis dom Thou,/Grace In car nate! To thee I bow.’8 ~

References



1997), 3.506.

2. The Gos pel of the Holy M other (Chennai: Sri Ra-

ma krishna Math, 2000), xvii.

3. Quoted in Swami Hiranmayananda, ‘Sarada

Devi: Sri Ramakrishna’s Fi nal Word as to the

Ideal of In dian Wom an hood’ in Sri SaradaDevi: The Great W on der (Cal cutta: Advaita

Ash ra ma, 1994), 202.

4. Swami Nikhilananda, Holy M other (New

York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Cen ter,

1962), 289.

5. CW , 7.484.

6. Gos pel, xii.

7. Quoted in Swami Hiranmayananda, ‘The Life

of the Holy Mother and Its Sig nif i cance’ in TheGreat W on der, 17.

8. Quoted in Swami Yatiswarananda, ‘Sarada

Devi and Her Di vine Moth er hood’ in TheGreat W on der, 138.


An Embodiment of Universal Motherhood 49

S he remains immortal to us not simply for

what she did, but for what she stood for:

triumphant womanhood beyond the creeds

of the world. In the radiant aura of her

magnetic motherhood, S ri S arada D evi

stands incomparable as one of the most

compelling and evocative spiritual and

cultural icons of human civilization.

W hatever aspect of S ri S ara da D evi one

reflects upon and embraces, one will

simply find that to be something only a

H oly M other can bestow.

If you love a hu man be ing, you will have to suf fer for it. H e is blessed, in deed, who can love God

alone. There is no suf fer ing in lov ing God. — H oly M other

Awakening India

DR A P J ABDUL KALAM

I am de lighted to par tic i pate in the in au gu -ra tion of the Cul tural Cen tre built in andaround Swami Vivekananda’s An ces tral

House. I con grat u late the Ramakrishna Mis -sion for hav ing con ceived of and im ple ment -ed this pro ject. I un der stand that the an ces tralhouse of Swamiji has been re stored with outdis turb ing the orig i nal struc ture. My pranamsto the swamijis here and greet ings to the or ga -niz ers, mem bers of the Ramakrishna Mis sion,educationists, dis ci ples of Vivekananda, stateand cen tral gov ern ment func tion ar ies and dis -tin guished guests on this his toric oc ca sion.

Vision of Vivekananda

Friends, when I am in this beau ti ful en vi -ron ment, the an ces tral house of Swamiji, letme re call an event that took place in a ship thatwas sail ing from Japan to Canada in 1893. Two great hu man be ings were trav el ling in it. Theyin tro duced them selves to each other. Theywere Swa miji and Jamshedji Nusser wan jiTata. Swamiji asked Tata where he was go ingand what was his mis sion. Tata said, ‘Swamiji,I am go ing with a mis sion to bring steel in dus -try to our coun try.’ Friends, that was in 1893,when In dia was ruled by the Brit ish. Swamijisaid, ‘It is in deed a beau ti ful mis sion. My bestwishes. How ever, I would like to give you asmall cau tion. What ever amount you spend to get steel, si mul ta neously you should learn themet al lur gi cal sci ence of mak ing steel also. Iwould pre fer you to start an in sti tute, a lab o ra -tory to do ad vanced re search on the sub ject.’What a pro phetic state ment! Many thingshap pened af ter that. Jamshedji NusserwanjiTata could not get the tech nol ogy for man u -fac tur ing steel from the UK. How ever, hecould get the know- how of man u fac tur ingsteel from the US and es tab lished the Tata Iron

and Steel Com pany (TISCO) at Jamshedpur. Abig plan ning fol lowed. It had two parts: thefirst part was to start a steel man u fac tur ingplant at Jamshed pur. Si mul ta neously, he do -nated one sixth of his prop erty for es tab lish ing an in sti tute for ma te rial re search in Bangalore.

I vis ited Jamshedpur some time back and saw the fruits of Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata’sla bour: four mil lion tons of steel a year be ingpro duced by TISCO. Due to his fore sight, In diais to day self-re li ant in steel tech nol ogy. Wealso see that the seed ing for the re search lab o -ra tory has now been trans formed into a greatlearn ing cen tre: the In dian In sti tute of Sci ence.This in ci dent dem on strates the vi sion of thegreat per son al ity Swamiji. His vi sion was tohave a strong and de vel oped In dia. He clearlyfore saw the role of sci ence, tech nol ogy and in -dus try. It is Swamiji who made Jagdis Chan -dra Bose get a pat ent for his in ven tion. His callfor the awak en ing of In dia was not mere ly inthe spir i tual field, but for its all- round eco -nomic and so cial prog ress.

Strong Bonds among Religions

Friends, when I was a pro fes sor at theAnna Uni ver sity in Tamil Nadu, I had in vi ta -tions from many in sti tu tions in Rajkot. One in -vi ta tion was from the Bishop of Rajkot, theRev er end Fa ther Greg ory Karotemprel, CMI,who asked me to in au gu rate the Christ Col -lege. On the same day, I ad dressed a gath er ingof nearly one lakh stu dents at a func tion togive the ‘Vi sion of Life’ or ga nized by SwamiDhar ma bandhu. Later, I was to go to Por ban -dar to par tic i pate in the stu dents’ meet or ga -nized by the Ramakrishna Mis sion cen trethere. I was also en riched by my visit to Al fredSchool, Rajkot, where Ma hatma Gan dhi hadhis early ed u ca tion. I would like to share with


you two in ci dents that oc curred in the aboveen vi ron ment on the same day.

Be fore the in au gu ra tion of Christ Col -lege, I was in vited to the bishop’s house in Raj -kot. When I en tered his house I felt as if I wasen ter ing a holy place. There was a uniqueprayer hall, where all re li gions were rep re -sented, re spect ing each re li gious sen ti ment.When the reverend father was ex plain ing tome the sig nif i cance of his cre ation of theunique prayer hall, there was a call from thenearby Swaminarayan temple re quest ing meto visit their tem ple. When I told this to the rev -erend father, he said he would also ac com -pany me. When we en tered the tem ple andreached where the im age of Lord Krishna wasen shrined with splen dour, it was a unique ex -pe ri ence. It was noon, when the tem ple is nor -mally closed, but it was spe cif i cally kept openfor us on that day. We were all re ceived withthe of fer ing of tilak on our fore head. It was agreat sight with the reverend father, Ab dulKa lam and Sri Y S Rajan hav ing the shin ing ti-lak on their fore heads. This in ci dent dem on -strated the strength of con nec tiv ity of sev eralre li gions in our coun try lead ing to a uniquespir i tual ex pe ri ence. Cu mu la tive ac tions fol -low ing that event led to the Surat Spir i tualDec la ra tion in Oc to ber 2003, in which the Ra -ma kri shna Mis sion also played a great role.

The Power of Prayer

The next was a beau ti ful event. The swa-mi ji of Ramakrishna Ashrama, Rajkot, re quest-ed me that I must visit his cen tre for a few min -utes on my way to the air port. When I reachedthere, I found a spir i tual dis course in prog resson Ramakrishna’s teach ings and Swamiji’s mis -sion of life. The dis course was fol lowed by aprayer call. Spir i tual sing ing en gulfed the hallwith rhyth mic mu si cal notes. I joined theprayer along with hun dreds of dev o tees. Thespir i tual en vi ron ment and the in ten sity ofprayer put me onto a dif fer ent plane. To thesur prise of my friends and the swamiji ac com -pa ny ing me, the prayer took me to a dif fer ent

plane, and that day I found that time be camein de ter mi nate. This can be the ef fect of an in te -grated spir i tual en vi ron ment. Now when I am in Swami Vivekananda Her i tage Build ing, my mind is ex pe ri enc ing a spir i tual feel ing sim i lar to the one I ex pe ri enced in Rajkot.

Digital Library Initiatives in India

I un der stand that this cen tre has planneda text book li brary as a part of its activities. Iwould like to dis cuss the dig i tal li brary ini tia -tive in In dia, which can be use ful for the text -book li brary and the re search cen tre of thiscam pus.

There is a mis sion called ‘Dig i tal Li brary Ini tia tive’ to cre ate a por tal for dig i tal li brar -ies in In dia, pi loted by the Min is try of Com -mu ni ca tions and In for ma tion Tech nol ogy(MCIT), with the In dian In sti tute of Sci ence(IISc) and the Car ne gie Mellon Uni ver sity,USA, as part ners for fos ter ing cre ativ ity andfree ac cess to all hu man knowl edge. As a firststep, this dig i tal li brary will cre ate in In dia afree-to-read search able col lec tion of one mil -lion books by 2005. So far we have dig i tized80,000 books in In dia, out of which 45,000books are avail able on line in nine re gionallan guages. The text book li brary au thor i ties ofthis Cul tural Cen tre can seek the help of ProfN Balakrishnan, IISc, for digitization of theirbooks and other re lated ac cess soft warethrough the Dig i tal Li brary Ini tia tive. The stor -age ca pac ity is dou bling ev ery year. To dayone can get 300 GB disks, of a few grams ofweight, for around $100. This disk can holdmore than 30,000 books. In ten years’ time, adisk of the same size will hold 30 mil lionbooks, larger than the larg est li brary in theworld—a li brary on your palm. The dig i tal li -brary of this Cul tural Cen tre can be in te -grated with the Visva- Bharati Uni ver sity andother uni ver si ties in Kolkata, which will fa cil -i tate re search ers to study Ra ma kri shna- Vive -kananda lit er a ture, com par a tive re li gion andIn dian cul ture.


Awakening India 51

PURA (Providing Urban am enitiesin Rural Areas)

I also un der stand that the Cul tural Cen -tre is plan ning a rural and slum developmentcen tre for ren der ing ser vice to poor peo ple invil lages and slums. I thought of shar ing withyou the con cept of PURA, which may be use fulfor ren der ing ad vice and sup port to ru ralmasses.

PURA will min i mize the mi gra tion of peo -ple from ru ral to ur ban ar eas. Our plan is tomake the ru ral en vi ron ment so at trac tive thatthere can be a re verse flow from ur ban to ru ralar eas. This will cer tainly help in re duc ing thema jor con ges tion tak ing place in a small num -ber of big cit ies, lead ing to in ad e quate in fra -struc ture, pol lu tion, crime, dis eases and poorqual ity of life in these cit ies.

Rural Prosperity through Connectivity

In our coun try nearly 700 mil lion peo pleare liv ing in 600,000 vil lages. Con nec tiv ity ofvil lage com plexes pro vid ing eco nomic op por -tu ni ties to all seg ments of peo ple is an ur gentneed in or der to bridge the ru ral-ur ban di vide, gen er ate em ploy ment and en hance ru ral pros -per ity. The es sen tial needs of the vil lages to -day are wa ter, power, roads, san i ta tion, health care, ed u ca tion and em ploy ment gen er a tion.

The in te grated meth ods that will bringpros per ity to ru ral In dia are as fol lows: (1)Phys i cal con nec tiv ity of vil lage clus ters throughqual ity roads and trans port; (2) Elec tronic con -nec tiv ity through tele com mu ni ca tion withhigh-band width fi bre-op tic ca bles reach ingru ral ar eas from ur ban cit ies and through In -ternet ki osks; (3) Knowl edge con nec tiv itythrough ed u ca tion, vo ca tional train ing forfarm ers, ar ti sans and crafts men, and en tre pre -neur ship programmes—thereby lead ing to (4)Eco nomic con nec tiv ity by en hanc ing the pros -per ity of vil lage clus ters in the ru ral ar eas bystart ing en ter prises with the help of banks and mi cro-cred its, and mar ket ing prod ucts. TheCul tural Cen tre can make use of this con ceptand adopt a few vil lage clus ters near Kolkata

and fa cil i tate cre ation of PURAs in part ner shipwith NGOs, phi lan thro pists and banks for en -rich ing the lives of the ru ral masses. That willbe a fit ting trib ute to the mem ory of Swamiji.

Conclusion

Dear friends, I am re minded ofSwamiji’s ex hor ta tion to our peo ple: ‘Teachyour self, teach ev ery one his real na ture. Callupon the sleep ing soul and see how itawakes. Power will come, glory will come,good ness will come, pu rity will come, andev ery thing that is ex cel lent will come, whenthis sleep ing soul is roused to self-con sciousac tiv ity.’ Swamiji’s call for evo lu tion ofself-con scious ac tiv ity is in deed the evo lu tionof righ teous ness in the heart. When there isrigh teous ness in the heart, there is beauty inchar ac ter. When there is beauty in char ac ter,there is har mony at home. When there is har -mony at home, there is or der in the na tion.When there is or der in the na tion, there ispeace in the world. Hence let us work for theevo lu tion of the en light ened cit i zen, which isthe mis sion of Swamiji. Such en light ened cit i -zens should have a strong body and in dom i -ta ble spirit as ad vo cated by Swamiji in or derto ‘Arise, awake and stop not till the goal isreached.’ The goal is a pros per ous In dia withpeace in it self and giv ing it to the whole world. Let this com plex be an im por tant fo cal pointfor ra di at ing such thoughts and ac tions! Itgives me a great plea sure to in au gu rate theCul tural Cen tre. I am sure that the peo plewho visit this place will draw im mense in spi -ra tion from here. I have a de sire that the in -spi ra tion and hap pi ness of vis it ing this placeshould also be felt and en joyed by those whoare not for tu nate enough to visit this place. Isug gest that the Ramakri shna Mis sion andthose who main tain this her i tage com plexshould cre ate a dig i tal ar chive and a high- res -o lu tion, vir tual walk- through and make itavail able to the whole world, for Swa miji isone of the most cher ished lead ers who be long to the whole world. ~



Politics, Religion and Vivekananda

SWAMI SANDARSHANANANDA

The Pale of Politics

Swami Vivekananda could not be held inthe cru ci ble of pol i tics. His heart ex pand -ed lim it lessly be cause of his spir i tual ac -

com plish ments. There fore, the idea of con tain -ing him within the pale of pol i tics is friv o lous.Pol i tics plays of fen sively, and of ten, re ducesmen to brutes, who, ac cord ing to Swa miji, ‘inthe name of pol i tics rob oth ers and fat tenthem selves by suck ing the very life blood ofthe masses’.1 This op pro bri ous re mark is un -de ni able, given the wide spread plun der ofpol i tics per cep ti ble to day. In fact, it is the same old story of strug gle be tween the haves andthe have-nots re peated pe ren ni ally, thoughthe for mer are only a hand ful yet enor mouslypow er ful be cause of their wealth. Con trarily,though the lat ter are nu mer ous they are as -tound ingly weak be cause of their pov erty. Pol -i tics thrives on this di vide. But Swa miji en vis -ages its ex tin guish ment by ef fect ing ref or ma -tion in man’s at ti tude to wards his broth er.Swa mi ji loses faith in pol i tics as he con sid ers itpar tial as well as per fid i ous. Hence, he sed u -lously re pu di ates this du bi ous sport, whichin fuses a con temp tu ous con test, in duc ing man -kind to a nasty race that gen er ally ends up inpan de mo nium and peril.

Swamiji ex presses his angst thus: ‘To there form ers I will point out that I am a greaterre former than any one of them. They want tore form only lit tle bits. I want root-and-branchre form. Where we dif fer is in the method.Theirs is the method of de struc tion, mine isthat of con struc tion.’ (3.213) Need less to men -tion, he in cludes pol i ti cians also among his‘re form ers’ who are play ing havoc un der thepre text of do ing good to oth ers. How hor rificis the sit u a tion cre ated by them now is a mat -ter of com mon knowl edge when the hob gob -

lins of ter ror are re lent lessly gy rat ing to theirhearts’ con tent in broad day light, turn ing thisbeau ti ful earth into a hell. Si mul ta neously, thepo lit i cal pro cess adopted to stem their atroc ity is sim i larly abom i na ble and re pul sive. Is thereany thing wrong then if one ab hors such aghastly scene and counts pol i tics om i nous?Swa miji is for the awak en ing of good ness andal le vi a tion of diabolism. He be lieves that there can not be any pros per ity giv ing short shrift toour moral de vel op ment, and that the so-called ‘Learning and wis dom are su per flu ities, thesur face glit ter merely, but it is the heart that isthe seat of all power.’ (6.425) ‘One must ad mitthat law, gov ern ment, pol i tics are phases, notfi nal in any way. There is a goal be yond themwhere law is not needed.’ (5.193)

It is not, how ever, dif fi cult to draw Swa-mi ji in a pro file and bor row from his thoughtto feed po lit i cal ide ol o gies, for his is an all-en -com pass ing phi los o phy put to prac tice by hisown or ga ni za tion, which has, ev i dently, fetchedpro pi tious re sults. For in stance, when he saysthat his ‘mis sion is for the des ti tute, the poor,and the il lit er ate peas antry and la bour ingclasses, and if, af ter ev ery thing has been donefor them first, there is spare time, then only forthe gen try’ (6.427) he some what re sem bles theso cial is tic idea that pre scribes a vi o lent rev o -lu tion for the achieve ment of its goal, which,of course, he re fuses to ac cept. His method isquite the op po site as his choice lies in a pro cess of the in ner growth of man. And he is con -vinced that there is a sci ence for the im prove -ment of the lot of man which is avail able in re -li gion, ‘the great est and the health i est ex er cisethat hu man mind can have’ (2.66) since it is his‘con sti tu tional ne ces sity’. (1.318) Swamiji deemsre li gion a ‘prac ti cal sci ence’ be cause ‘it is be ing and be com ing, it is re al iza tion’. (2.43) He


wants to uti lize the truth of equal ity preachedin the Vedanta, for it alone, he thinks, can re -move dis crim i na tion be tween man and man.Ac cord ingly, he has given us a Uni ver sal Re li -gion on the ba sis of its al tru is tic prin ci ple thatcan es tab lish an egal i tar ian so ci ety in an am bi -ence of love, ‘the only law of life’, (6.320)which is mis er a bly miss ing from our midst be -cause of the foul play of pol i tics, where mandoes not hes i tate even to cut his brother’sthroat for pelf and prof li gacy.

Religion Is No Mystery

An in-depth study of his tory re veals toSwa miji that ‘there is no mys tery in re li gion’,(3.278) and it ‘is of deeper im por tance thanpol i tics since it goes to the root, and deals withthe es sen tial of con duct’. (5.200) Thus he givesvent to his feel ing:

Now, in my lit tle ex pe ri ence I have col lectedthis knowl edge—that for all the dev ilry that re -li gion is blamed with, re li gion is not at all infault: no re li gion ever per se cuted men, no re li -gion ever burnt witches, no re li gion ever didany of these things. What then in cited peo ple todo these things? Pol i tics, but never re li gion; and if such pol i tics takes the name of re li gion whosefault is that? (4.125)

‘Man is a com pound of animality, hu -man ity, and di vin ity.’ (5.417) The pur pose ofre li gion is to man i fest the di vin ity, do ing awaywith the other two de bil i tat ing traits in himthat usher jeal ousy ‘so mys te ri ously’. (6.145)There is no rid dle in re li gion; it ‘per me ates thewhole of man’s life, not only the pres ent, butthe past, pres ent, and fu ture’. (4.209) His ideal, the strength of which lies in its re al ity, ‘is to see God in ev ery thing’, who is the high est evolvedstate of man’s moral and spir i tual ex is tence.Swamiji there fore says, ‘God has cre ated meand I have cre ated God.’ (7.29) He de fines both com pen di ously in one sin gle sen tence: ‘Man is an in fi nite cir cle whose cir cum fer ence is no -where but the cen tre is lo cated in one spot; and God is an in fi nite cir cle whose cir cum fer enceis no where, but whose cen tre is ev ery where.’

(2.33) He thus draws a strik ing iden tity be -tween man and God, as crib ing sub jec tiv ity tothe for mer and ob jec tiv ity to the lat ter, bothbe ing one Re al ity. He is not ready to call us re -li gious un less we re al ize this and ‘be gin to seeGod in men and women’, (2.326) ex tend ing our ser vices to wards the poor and down trod den inan at ti tude of wor ship.

The sub li ma tion of work in this man neris Swamiji’s sig nal con tri bu tion to hu man cul -ture, which could be shared by all peo ples. Heis ex tremely cath o lic and freely dis trib utes forour wel fare the gems of his in valu able re flec -tion with an un bri dled pas sion. He com ments:

In In dia we have so cial com mu nism, with thelight of Advaita—that is spir i tual in di vid u al ism—play ing on and around it; in Eu rope you areso cially in di vid u al ists, but your thought isdual istic, which is spir i tual com mu nism. Thusthe one con sists of so cial is tic in sti tu tions, hedgedin by in di vid u al is tic thought, while the other ismade up of in di vid u al ist in sti tu tions, withinthe hedge of com mu nis tic thought.’

2

Such an im pec ca ble as sess ment is pos si bleonly by in tel lec tual gi ants of his at tain ment asthey can rise above all worldly pre di lec tionsand see things in their right per spec tive.

The Ill Plaguing Society

Any gov ern ment, whether lib er ally dem -o cratic or con ser va tively to tal i tar ian, is foundto have achieved only lim ited suc cess vis-à-vis the ac tual need. Why? Be cause the pol i ti ciansin volved in it revel in cor rup tion and show ablithe lack of con cern for the peo ple at grass- roots level. Fi nan cial dis hon esty is al most en -demic now. The in fight ing fu elled by the greedfor more power and au thor ity also turns themaway from a lit tle good ness left in them. Andwhat to speak of cun ning criminalization ofsome lead ers at the helm, bla tantly con donedby the jugglery of sup port of the ma jor ity inpar lia ment. Swamiji ex horts us, ‘Give up thathate ful mal ice, that dog-like bick er ing andbark ing at one an other, and take your stand on good pur pose, right means, righ teous cour age



and be brave. When you are born a man, leavesome in del i ble mark be hind you.’3 He urgesus to un der stand if man makes laws or lawsmake man, whether money makes man or manmakes money. He says, ‘This life is a tre men -dous as ser tion of free dom; and this obe di enceto law, car ried far enough, would make ussim ply mat ter—ei ther in so ci ety, or in pol i tics, or in re li gion. Too many laws are a sure sign ofdeath.’ (5.287)

The ‘pol i tics of re li gion’ is born of priest -craft. Per haps, such sub tle and cruel per se cu -tion is not pos si ble by any other means! Swa -mi ji’s ab hor rence to wards it is trace able to thefact that it per pet u ates the worst kind of ex -ploi ta tion. An in or di nate en joy ment of priv i -lege turns priests into dev ils. He was there foreel o quent against them since so ci ety dur ing histime was badly rid den with castes, a few brah-mins op press ing the ma jor ity be long ing tolower castes. For that, they had de vised meth -ods to mo nop o lize power and au thor ity. Hiscru sade was, in fact, against an evil prac ticethat was weak en ing the so cial fab ric very fast.If we look at it from the an gle of a con cept, wewill ob serve that it is uni ver sally ap pli ca ble interms of ex ploi ta tion as well as cor rup tion. Asfor ex am ple, some pres ent-day pol i ti cians,who are very well com pa ra ble with the priestsof ear lier days. They are, so to say, cler ics intheir new avataras. An in cur sion by them intothe realm of re li gion and a tricky han dling ofits be liev ers win them fab u lous fa vours, about which oth ers can hardly imag ine. And, in thepro cess, the ca tas tro phe courted by the dev ilsin them is ir rep a ra ble. The stream of in vec -tives they let loose with po lit i cal mo tives ex -erts an in tense psy che delic in flu ence on theirfol low ers. Their sloppy and self- serv ing speech -es never fail to in cite ter ror ism among the im -ma ture youth of their herds, who in dulge inself-im mo la tion in a fren zy of ob fus ca tion,with out car ing much what it is for.

Swamiji says that ‘the idea of priv i lege isthe bane of life’. (1.423) Then he pro ceeds withan anal y sis:

Two forces, as it were, are con stantly at work,one mak ing caste, and the other break ing caste;in other words, the one mak ing for priv i lege,and the other break ing down priv i lege. Andwhen ever priv i lege is bro ken down, more andmore light and prog ress come to a race. Thisstrug gle we see all around us. Of course there isfirst the bru tal idea of priv i lege, that of thestrong over the weak. There is the priv i lege ofwealth. If a man has more money than an other,he wants a lit tle priv i lege over those who haveless. There is a still sub tler and more pow er fulpriv i lege of in tel lect; be cause one knows morethan oth ers, he claims more priv i lege. And thelast of all, and the worst, be cause the most ty -ran ni cal, is the priv i lege of spir i tu al ity. If someper sons think they know more of spir i tu al ity, of God, they claim a su pe rior priv i lege over ev ery -one else. (1.423)

Re li gion in the real sense teaches equal ity.Swamiji be lieves that if we are all es sen tiallyone there is no room in it for be ing ‘high’ and‘low’. Priests can not make much of a church,preach ing this idea of one ness of man. Hencethey place them selves on a high ped es tal andcast their spell of su pe ri or ity on the rest.Swamiji’s re mark is com par a tively more in ci -sive about them. He con demns them say ing,

And, above all, if the pride of spir i tu al ity en tersinto you, woe unto you. It is the most aw fulbond age that ever ex isted. Nei ther can wealthnor any other bond age of the hu man heart bindthe soul so much as this. … In what sense areyou pure? The God in you is the God in all. Ifyou have not known this, you have knownnoth ing. How can there be dif fer ence? It is allone. … If you can see that, good, if not, spir i tu al -ity has yet to come to you. (1.429)

He wanted to re lease us from the curse ofcaste and com mu nity, and es tab lish a so cialor der com fort ably poised on the prin ci ple ofdem o cratic dis tri bu tion of ma te rial re sourcesas well as priv i leges. Un for tu nately, the cardof caste and com mu nity is still be ing vig or -ously played by pol i ti cians in or der to winelec tions, un der min ing the unity of the na tion. Even those who al ways chant the man tra ofequal ity, the Marx ists, are cul pa ble of this short -


Politics, Religion and Vivekananda 55

com ing. To de fine so cial ism is in deed dif fi -cult. So it has been un der stood in var i ousways by var i ous peo ple. The cor rup tion it iscon cerned about, ac cord ingly, could not be re -moved in spite of the ap pli ca tion of ab so luteau thor ity in con for mity with its ide ol ogy. Itsweak ness lies in the fact that it is ab sorbedonly in the eco nomic de vel op ment of man,with out both er ing the least about hu manmind and spirit. Pro fes sor Subodh ChandraSen Gupta, a well-known scholar, makes astudy of this con di tion:

So cial ism, made pop u lar in the mod ern worldby Saint Si mon (1760-1825), Fou rier (1772-1832) and Rob ert Owen (1804-1892), is a tricky con -cept of which no one has been able to give an ac -cept able def i ni tion. ‘From each ac cord ing to hisabil ity and to each ac cord ing to his needs,’ saidMarx, but Le nin re placed it by ‘From each ac -cord ing to his abil ity, to each ac cord ing to hiswork.’ Ber nard Shaw re jects both the for mu las.‘To each ac cord ing to his needs’ would pro duce the man of whom Shaw drew a typ i cal por traitin Al fred Doolittle, who rep re sents the ‘un de -serv ing poor’; he eats as much as any de serv ingper son and drinks a lot more. The ob jec tion toLe nin’s for mula is that it is im pos si ble to makean eq ui ta ble as sess ment of work; sec ondly, itwould mul ti ply classes and sharpen class dis -tinc tions. Shaw ar gues that the only al ter na tiveleft is that all should be paid equally in a so cialstate. But as this ten dency is gain ing ground, we find that it is a ‘dis in cen tive’, and pro duc tion islikely to suf fer if en ergy and ini tia tive are notad e quate ly re warded.4

Swamiji was aware that the world waschang ing based on the phi los o phy of so cial -ism through ex per i men ta tion, but it was not to be the ul ti mate rem edy since it har boured de -fi ciency in its very foun da tion. He there forecalled it ‘half a loaf’ and asked us to re main onthe alert so that hu man cul ture did not slidedown from the sub lime to the ri dic u lous be -cause of a sud den rise of the long de prived.

The Search for Remedy

More than a hun dred years ago, in 1897,Swa miji vi su al ized thus:

Even in pol i tics and so ci ol ogy, prob lems thatwere na tional twenty years ago can no more besolved on na tional grounds only. They are as -sum ing huge pro por tions, gi gan tic shapes.They can only be solved when looked at in thebroader light of in ter na tional grounds. In ter na -tional or ga ni za tions, in ter na tional com bi na -tions, in ter na tional laws are the cry of the day.

5

But, the much vaunted glob al iza tion ofto day does not seem to be poor-friendly ei -ther. Al though its aim is eco nomic in te gra tionof the world, it has, nev er the less, failed to re -duce the gap be tween the rich and the poor.The poor are found to be where they were be -fore while the rich have be come richer as its re -sult, ever wid en ing the hi a tus among the twoand, thereby, fail ing to pull out mil lions (350mil lion in this coun try alone) from be low thepov erty line. Ev ery fourth farmer in the worldis an In dian who is sink ing into deg ra da tionbe cause of wrong pol icy and di min ished feel -ing of con cern for him. Thus all our endea -vours and vi sions are fad ing away be cause we are not yet able to come to grips with a use fulmeans of eco nomic ref or ma tion. Un less the con -di tion of this es sen tial sec tion of so ci ety im -proves there is no hope for our true prog ress.Swamiji was in fa vour of giv ing a lift to thepoor from where they are sta tioned in so ci ety.He fixed a stan dard of as sis tance to them thatis in versely pro por tional to the amount of help pro vided to the priv i leged. That is, the for mershould be given more suc cour than the lat terfor the un told mis er ies they have gonethrough for cen tu ries. Con tinuing in this man -ner for some time, he hoped to bring aboutuni for mity in the en joy ment of priv i leges, an -ni hi lat ing all sorts of dis tinc tion.

Here it may be re mem bered that Je sus ofNaz a reth too, like any other mor tal, was con -fronted by temp ta tion af ter his spir i tual en-light en ment, dur ing his forty days in the desert.He fought ‘all the crafty skill of the Power ofEvil’ within and emerged vic to ri ous, ap ply ing his strength of di vine re straint. He was ter ri -bly fam ished be cause of the prac tice of se vereaus ter ity. He could have con ve niently used the



oc cult power he had achieved to pro cure foodto ap pease his phys i cal ap pe tite. But he de lib -er ately avoided it, set ting the ex am ple that tohave mas tery over the tyr anny of flesh is to bemor ally strong. He served a very sig nif i cantles son to hu man ity say ing, ‘Man shall not liveby bread alone, but by ev ery word that co mesfrom the mouth of God.’6 He proved that manis not an in stinc tive be ing to get stuck in themire of the senses, and that the priv i legesgiven him by the Al mighty to en joy are not ex -clu sively for his per sonal use. His re voltagainst priest craft in Je ru sa lem is a phe nom e -non that es tab lished re li gion above the massof rit u als once more af ter Bud dha. Swa mijisays that the his tory of man kind is the his toryof a few men of ex traor di nary cour age andcon fi dence like Je sus, Bud dha and Rama kri -shna, who re al ized God and laid the foun da -tion for hu man prog ress by their life’s es sence. We suf fer most when we lose sight of it, be ingobliv i ous of the cul ture of our spirit.

The fash ion of the day is to re main ag nos -tic and sec u lar. This type of be hav iour doesnot add to our ra tio nal ity. Sec u lar ism does notmean ig no rance of re li gion. Rather, it means tobe truly re li gious and not mak ing re li gion apo lit i cal tool for abuse. Swamiji’s pro phetic vi -sion in this re gard leads him to de clare:

Yet it seems to be true that the sol i dar ity of thehu man race, so cial as well as re li gious, with ascope for in fi nite vari a tion, is the plan of na ture; and if the line of least re sis tance is the true lineof ac tion, it seems to me that this split ting up ofeach re li gion into sects is the pres er va tion of re -li gion by frus trat ing the ten dency to rigid same -ness, as well as the clear in di ca tion to us of theline of pro ce dure.

7

Pol i tics is ex pected to mit i gate the mis er -ies of the dis ad van taged and the dis pos sessed. Ironically, it has mul ti plied con fu sion, com -plex ity and con flict in stead. It has made ussub mit be fore mat ter and put our free dom atstake at the al tar of phys i cal sci ence. We havebeen made slaves to tech no log i cal op u lence.Swamiji points out at the event of this cri sis:

‘Great in deed are the man i fes ta tions of mus -cu lar power, and mar vel lous the man i fes ta -tions of in tel lect ex press ing them selves throughma chines by the ap pli ances of sci ence; yetnone of these is more po tent than the in flu ence which spirit ex erts upon the world.’ (3.137) Aper fect teacher is an in vin ci ble war rior. Hemoves against the cur rent and gives a vig or -ous shake to man and so ci ety. His need is feltmostly ‘when money co mes to be wor shippedas God, when might is right and men op pressthe weak’. Ear lier there was no hu man so ci ety, and maybe there will not be any even later.Hence the pres ent is a pass ing phase to wards a higher evo lu tion. There fore, any law ‘de rivedfrom so ci ety alone can not be eter nal’. Serv ingthis idea, Swamiji prods our con science andsays, ‘Your talks of pol i tics, of so cial re gen er a -tion, your talks of money-mak ing and com -mer cial ism—all these will roll off like wa terfrom a duck’s back. This spir i tu al ity, then, iswhat you have to teach the world.’ (3.149)

But how could we do good to our selvesin our own na tion? To Swamiji ev ery speck ofdust of this coun try is holy, not be cause it is his moth er land, but be cause it is the land of re li -gion and in tro spec tion. He be lieves that if In -dia dies all ra tio nal and no ble think ing willdis ap pear from earth, all life-giv ing ideas willbe lost for ever and the world will be come astill worse place to live in. He wants our coun -try to be flooded with the ‘won der ful truths’con tained in our an cient lit er a tures, so thatpeo ple could build their char ac ter in theirlight. He says, ‘Be fore flood ing In dia with so -cial is tic or po lit i cal ideas, first de luge the landwith spir i tual ideas.’ (3.221) The gift that ouran ces tors have left for us in the leg acy of theirthoughts is the most covetable trea sure, if only we are able to judge its real value. They neverboth ered about com mu ni ties and colours whileof fer ing their wis dom in the Upa nishads. Any -one who is com pe tent may in cul cate it at hiswill and be blessed. Swamiji cher ishes the de -sire of mak ing it the com mon prop erty of all.As he tries to do so in the East, so also does he



endeavour to ac com plish it in the West. Hesays from his own ex pe ri ence:

I could not preach re li gion in Eng land with outshow ing the won der ful po lit i cal changes the Ve -danta would bring. So, in In dia, so cial re formhas to be preached by show ing how much morespir i tual a life the new sys tem will bring; andpol i tics has to be preached by show ing howmuch it will im prove the one thing that the na -tion wants—its spir i tu al ity.’ (3.220-1)

He has first-hand knowl edge of the men -tal as well as the phys i cal con di tion of our peo -ple, from which he knows that their life line isre li gion and re li gion alone, of which love ofGod is the ba sic con stit u ent, and he urgesthem to re al ize its truth in man. He him selfwor ships the only God whom the ig no rant call man. He holds that ‘no amount of force, orgov ern ment, or leg is la tive cru elty will changethe con di tion of a race, but it is spir i tual cul -ture and eth i cal cul ture alone that can changewrong ra cial ten den cies for the better’. (3.182)His ev ery word is sur charged with in spi ra tion for eman ci pa tion. We ought to know how tobe nour ished by the es sence of his mes sage.

The Pathfinder

Many be lieve that Swamiji’s ideas canchange the world. For in stance, Chris to pherIsher wood asks us to note the fact that ‘Vive -ka nanda’s rev o lu tion, Vivekananda’s na tion -al ism, were not the kind of rev o lu tion, not thekind of na tion al ism, which we as so ci ate withother great lead ers, ad mi ra ble and no ble asthey may be. Vivekananda was far greaterthan that. In fact, when one sees the full rangeof his mind, one is as tounded.’8 He says, more -over, that Swamiji’s ‘was not na tion al ism inthe smaller sense, it was a kind of super nation -al ism, a kind of in ter na tion al ism sub li mated’.(53) Like wise, the well-known Indologist ProfA L Basham makes a se ri ous study of Swami -ji’s works and ob serves that ‘in cen tu ries tocome he will be re mem bered as one of themain mould ers of the mod ern world’. (59) Ap-praisals such as these will not go fu tile, for Swa -

miji’s in flu ence is un ob tru sively and speed ilyper co lat ing through the crusts of coun tries,com mu ni ties and cul tures as a bless ing un -seen. He was a re al ized soul. Hence his knowl -edge was of the high est or der, which, whenap plied, is bound to fruc tify. In his own words,‘spir i tual knowl edge can only be given in si -lence like the dew that falls un seen and un -heard, yet bring ing into blos som masses ofroses.’9 The in sane con trol of hu man and fi -nan cial re sources by pol i tics is con dem nable.If we choose to fol low Swamiji we are sure tohave a to tal trans for ma tion of our na ture un -der his tu te lage and be come free of the blem -ishes in fused into us by pol i tics.

Pol i tics is not, how ever, an out-and-out abad thing, es pe cially while its prac ti tio nersgive it a mean ing ful turn, re sort ing to true re li -gion and pathfinders like Swamiji. How couldwe, oth er wise, get stal warts like Ashoka, Lin -coln, Gandhiji, Netaji, Mar tin Lu ther King and Nel son Mandela within its fold, who cared solit tle about them selves but so much for themass es?

‘One’s Own Salvation andthe Welfare of the World’

Swamiji never wanted monks to par tic i -pate in ac tive pol i tics, for non- re sis tance is theprin ci ple on which their life is laid down. Butnever did he like that the same thing should be fol lowed by house hold ers. He ex pected thatthey should re sist the in jus tice and harm doneto them. If pol i tics is pur sued with a view todo ing good to hu man ity, with pure and cleanhearts, his heart goes with the pol i ti cians.When pol i tics har bours com pas sion by dint ofthe spir i tual qual i ties of its pro po nents, it de -liv ers the goods in spite of the has sle of its in -her ent com plex ity. The world will, for sure,change if we sin cerely try to ‘man i fest the Di -vin ity within by con trol ling [our] na ture, ex-ter nal and in ter nal’, adopt ing what ever meanswe deem suit able for us, know ing that ‘doc -trines, or dog mas, or rit u als, or books, or tem-ples, or forms are but sec ond ary de tails’. (1.124)



That is how one be comes re li gious in the realsense, makes re nun ci a tion and ser vice one’smotto of work and ben e fits so ci ety. ‘No amountof pol i tics would be of any avail un til themasses in In dia are once more well ed u cated,well fed, and well cared for. They pay for oured u ca tion, they build our tem ples, but in re -turn they get kicks. They are prac ti cally slaves. If we want to re gen er ate In dia, we must workfor them.’ (5.222-3)

The Ideal for India’s Regeneration

The in dom i ta ble pas sion for pos ses sionis the di sas trous ill that is strongly act ing overpol i tics as a men ace of at tri tion. In or der to getit free from this ar cane mal ady we re quire anin tense ex er cise of our souls, which is avail -able in true re li gion, which is eter nal and in de -pend ent of time and space. And this is thewhole con ten tion of Swamiji’s work and mes -sage. But, to re gen er ate the na tion, he thinkswe have to rally round a life that has per son i -fied the es sence of such a re li gion:

Po lit i cal ide als, per son ages rep re sent ing po lit i -cal ide als, even so cial ide als, com mer cial ide als,would have no power in In dia. We want spir i -tual ide als be fore us, we want en thu si as ti callyto gather round grand spir i tual names. Ourheroes must be spir i tual. Such a hero has been

given to us in the per son of Ramakrishna Para -ma hamsa. If this na tion wants to rise, take myword for it, it will have to rally en thu si as ti callyround this name. … One thing we are to re -mem ber [is] that it is the pur est of all lives thatyou have seen, or let me tell you dis tinctly, thatyou have ever read of. And be fore you is the fact that it is the most mar vel lous man i fes ta tion ofsoul-power that you can read of, much less ex -pect to see. (3.315) ~

References



1997), 5.461-2.

2. Sis ter Nivedita, The M as ter As I Saw Him (Cal -

cutta: Udbodhan Of fice, 1972), 204.

3. CW , 5.462.

4. Subodh Chandra Sen Gupta, Swami Viveka -nan da and In dian Na tion al ism (Cal cutta: Rama -

kri shna Mis sion In sti tute of Cul ture, 2001),

159- 60.

5. CW , 3.241.

6. Ba sil Mathews, A Lit tle Life of Je sus (Lon don:

Ox ford Uni ver sity Press, 1940), 58.

7. CW , 4.376.

8. W orld Thinkers on Ramakrishna-Vivekananda,

ed. Swami Lokeswarananda (Cal cutta: Rama -

kri shna Mis sion In sti tute of Cul ture, 1983), 52.

9. CW , 3.222.



Astudent goes to Mulla Nasruddin, a Sufi mas ter, with a bun dle of dresses and says, ‘O di vine

mas ter, I want hap pi ness.’ Mulla looks at the young man, slowly gets up, snatches his bun dle

and starts run ning. Per plexed, the stu dent runs af ter him to re trieve the bun dle. Mulla swiftly

runs through the lanes and by-lanes of the place, while the un happy stu dent help lessly runs af -

ter him. Mulla re turns to the orig i nal spot and sits down in no cently, with a bun dle be side him.

Shortly, the stu dent co mes pant ing af ter him. Mulla gives him back the bun dle and says, ‘H ere is

hap pi ness.’

The stu dent came to Nasruddin in search of hap pi ness. Nasruddin made him mis er a ble by

snatch ing his bun dle. H e gave it back to him af ter a while, which made the student hap py. W hat

was the real cause of his hap pi ness? The bun dle? That is how we feel in life: hap pi ness co mes

from this or that ob ject. But true hap pi ness co mes from within.

—from cyberspace

SWAMI TATHAGATANANDA

‘With the Hin dus … the old ques -tions of whence, why and whitherfas ci nate and enthral their thoughts

from the time of the Ve dic Rishis to the pres ent day. Re mark able as this may sound, we havere ally no re cord of any pe riod of Hinduthought of which we can say def i nitely that itwas want ing in the high est and most stren u -ous thought, from the time of the rid dle-hymnof Dirghatamas and the cre ation-hymn, to themod ern Vedantins and Paramahamsas of thetype of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.’ —Mau rice Bloomfield1

Eter nal, im mor tal and in fi nite Truth isthe all-tran scen dent Be ing. It is the un re lated,un at tached sub stra tum of all vis i ble ob jects.Hu man lan guage is fit ted to the world of dif -fer ence and rel a tiv ity. The same Im per sonalRe al ity when seen through time, space and cau -sal ity is known to us as the all- per vad ing Per -sonal God. With re gard to the In dian tem per a -ment that dwells on the Im per sonal En tity,Max Müller says, ‘The tran scen dent tem per a -ment ac quired no doubt a more com plete su -prem acy in the In dian char ac ter than any -where else.’2

India’s Supreme Knowledge Is Olderthan Her Revealed Sacred Literature

The Rig Veda marks the dawn and ze nithof eter nal wis dom. It is the root of the Tree ofKnowl edge. As Max Müller says, ‘There isnoth ing more an cient than the Hymns of theRig veda.’ The Vedas rep re sent a body of su -preme Knowl edge, re vealed from time to time in the minds of very pure souls called rishis, or seers. In dia’s sa cred lit er ary trea sures ver ilyhint at an en tire body of knowl edge more an -

cient than the sa cred scrip tures them selves:the shruti. The word shruta means, ‘what washeard from the im me di ately pre ced ing teach -ers’. Shruti is re vealed tran scen dent Knowl -edge (apaurusheya), trans mit ted orally over along line of suc ces sion from teacher to dis ci -ple, which is traced to Brah man, the Ab so luteRe al ity. In other words, this suc ces sion ofmem ory is traced to the Su preme Be ing Him -self or the eter nally ex ist ing shabda. The au -thor ity of the shruti is there fore par a mount.

‘The uni verse, con sist ing of gods andoth ers arises from the Word,’ it has been de -clared by the Vedas from the ear li est days.3

‘The Word pre cedes cre ation.’4 ‘Vák (the Word)is co ex ten sive with Brah man.’5 Ac cord ing toAd vaita Vedanta, Brah man is the ma te rial aswell as the ef fi cient cause of the uni verse. Assub sid iary to the ef fi cient cause, the Word isin cluded in the in stru men tal cause. As the im -me di ate source of cre ation vák is called ùabdaBrah man or náda Brah man (lit er ally, ‘Sound- Brah man’), which is also an ep i thet of theVedas.6 Swami Vivekananda says:

Cre ation pro ceeded out of the Vedas. … Vedameans the sum to tal of eter nal truths; the Ve dicRishis ex pe ri enced those truths; they can be ex -pe ri enced only by seers of the supersensuous.… Veda is of the na ture of Shabda or of idea. It is but the sum to tal of ideas. Shabda, ac cord ing tothe old Ve dic mean ing of the term, is the sub tleidea, which re veals it self by tak ing the grossform later on. So ow ing to the dis so lu tion of thecre ation the sub tle seeds of the fu ture cre ationbe come in volved in the Veda. … All the cre atedob jects be gan to take con crete shape out of theShab das or ideas in the Veda. For in Shabda oridea, all gross ob jects have their sub tle forms.Cre ation had pro ceeded in the same way in all


A Brief Introduction to

India’s Sacred Oral Tradition

pre vi ous cy cles or Kalpas. This you find in theSan dhyá Man tra of the Vedas: ‘The Cre atorpro jected the sun, the moon, the earth, the at -mo sphere, the heaven, and the up per spheres in the same man ner and pro cess as in pre vi ous cy -cles. …

The Shabda-state of ev ery ob ject is its sub tlestate, and the things we see, hear, touch or per -ceive in any man ner are the gross man i fes ta -tions of en ti ties in the sub tle or Shabda state.Just as we may speak of the ef fect and its cause.Even when the whole cre ation is an ni hi lated,the Shabda, as the con scious ness of the uni verse or the sub tle re al ity of all con crete things, ex istsin Brah man as the cause. At the point of cre ative man i fes ta tion, this sum to tal of causal en ti tiesvi brates into ac tiv ity, as it were, and as be ing the sonant, ma te rial sub stance of it all, the eter nal,pri mal sound of ‘Om’ con tin ues to come out ofit self. And then from the causal to tal ity co mesout first the sub tle im age or Shabda-form ofeach par tic u lar thing and then its gross man i fes -ta tion. Now that causal Shabda, or word- con -scious ness, is Brah man, and it is the Veda. …

Even if all … in the uni verse were to be de -stroyed, the idea or Shabda … would still ex ist… [and] must be re vealed if the idea of it rises inBrah man, which is per fect in Its cre ative de ter -mi na tions. … At the point of cre ation Brah manbe comes man i fest as Shabda (Idea) and then as -sumes the form of ‘Náda’ or ‘Om’.7

The Gram mar ians, who adored lan gu -age, ac cepted an im per ish able, eter nal sub stra -tum of sound, which was called sphoôa, out ofwhich per ish able ut ter ances and sounds em a -nate. The au thor ity of the shruti is there forepar a mount. It is re vealed knowl edge and di -vine in its source. Max Müller says:

As we can feel that there is elec -tric ity in the air, and that therewill be a storm, we feel, onread ing the Upanishads, thatthere is phi los o phy in the In -dian mind, and that there willbe thun der and light ning to fol -low soon. Nay, I should even go a step fur ther. In or der to beable to ac count for what seemto us mere sparks of thought,mere guesses at truth, we are

driven to ad mit a long fa mil iar ity with philo -sophic prob lems be fore the time that gave birthto the Upanishads which we pos sess.

8

Hinduism, The Sublim e and VariegatedResult of India’s Mnemonic andOral Traditions

Hin du ism, there fore, may also be thoughtof as the spir i tual and philo soph i cal re sult of apow er ful, eter nal, viv i fy ing force of in spi ra -tion that has im mor tal vi tal ity. From her vast,com pos ite cul ture emerged In dia’s sa credtrea sures of spir i tual thought: the Upani -shads, Buddhistic phi los o phy, Hindu the ismand the bha k ti re li gious or ders, along with In -dia’s in sight of the sa cred ness of all life. Bud -dhism, Jainism and most forms of Brah man -ism gave great em pha sis to this un der stand ingof ahim sa, non- vi o lence, which was so am plyex pressed in ac tive char ity that it re in vig o -rated the with ered soul of in hab it ants through -out the greater part of Asia.

No other cul ture has ap proached the sub -lime na ture and spec u la tions of Hindu thought.Hu man ity con tin ues to live in the end lesswake of a huge swell of cu ri os ity on the part ofthe an cient Ary ans. They were im pelled withan ir re press ible spir i tual urge to dis cover thatwhich gives rise to ex is tence and mean ing tolife’s endeavours. They were equally im pelled to dis sem i nate abroad the truths that were re -vealed to them in their in ner search. Hinducul tural ex pan sion took place not by con questbut by as sim i la tion and in clu sive ness basedon the spirit of har mony. The evo lu tion ofman kind rests upon the re sponse of In dia’s


A Brief Introduction to India’s Sacred Oral Tradition 61

The Vedas represent a body of supreme

K nowledge, revealed from time to time in

the minds of very pure souls called rishis,

or seers. India’s sacred literary treasures

verily hint at an entire body of k nowledge

more ancient than the sacred scriptures

themselves: the shruti.

hoary saints and sages to the eter nal call of theDi vine: ‘Arise! Awake! Seek the goal and befree.’ In dia has ever sought to civ i lize theworld by con quer ing it with spir i tual force.This spir i tual out look of Hin du ism is nur -tured by ‘the vi sion of the seers, the vigil of thesaints, the spec u la tion of the phi los o phers and the imag i na tion of the po ets.’

There are three most prom i nent char ac -ter is tics of In dia’s var ie gated cul ture and so -cial life. First, In dia is a mul ti ra cial, mul ti lin gualand multi-re li gious coun try. De spite its ap par -ent and baf fling di ver sity, In dian cul ture hasor ganic unity. The great his to rian Vin centSmith ob served in his Ox ford His tory of In dia,‘In dia be yond all doubt pos sesses a deep, un -der ly ing fun da men tal unity, far more pro -found than that pro duced ei ther by geo graph -ical iso la tion or by po lit i cal su pe ri or ity. Thatunity tran scends the in nu mer a ble di ver si tiesof blood, col our, lan guage, dress, man ners,and sect.’9

Pro fes sor Clem ent Webb no ticed the over -all unity as well. In a tidal wave- like ex pres sion, Webb also noted that uni ver sal ity and ut terlysub lime de tach ment are rec on ciled in Hin du -ism:

With its tra di tions of pe ri od i cally re peated in -car na tions of the De ity in the most di verseforms, its ready ac cep tance of any and ev ery lo -cal di vin ity or founder of a sect or as cetic dev o -tee as a man i fes ta tion of God, its tol er ance ofsym bols and leg ends of all kinds, how ever re -pul sive or ob scene, by the side of the most ex -alted flights of world-re nounc ing mys ti cism, itcould per haps more eas ily than any other faithde velop, with out loss of con ti nu ity with itspast, into a uni ver sal re li gion which would seein ev ery creed a form suited to some par tic u largroup or in di vid ual, of the uni ver sal as pi ra tionaf ter one Eter nal Re al ity, to whose true be ing

the in fi nitely var i ous shapes in which it re vealsit self to or con ceals it self from men are all alikein dif fer ent.

10

Sec ond, it has a tre men dous in ner vi tal itythat al lows it to as sim i late and ad just. Third, itpos sesses the un imag in able, in her ent power to con -tinue to with stand with re newed vig our in nu mer -a ble ob sta cles that pres ent them selves as In diamarches on ward to ful fil its des tiny. The In dianmind, its aims and as pi ra tions, its thought andthe lit er a ture it has pro duced have been pow er -fully in flu enced by the spir i tual wis dom re -corded in the San skrit lan guage. For un der ly -ing the San skrit lan guage is the sin gu lar truththat San skrit is more than merely a lan gu age: itis the ac tual em bodi ment of Pure Con scious -ness. Each char ac ter, each mark, is a mark ofthe spir i tu ally mo ti vat ing power of the Di vinecon tained within it. This en ables San skrit tocon vey and im part the an cient spir i tual truthsto the hu man in tel lect and to awaken that in -tel lect with its pure ra di ance. Ver ily, San skritpos sesses In dia’s en tire phi los o phy and cul -ture of Truth. The life and de vel op ment of theSan skrit lan guage is unique and un par al leledin the world. Long be fore it came into be ing,its seeds lay deep in the Aryan soil of In dia.Fol low ing an era of great spir i tual and in tel -lec tual fer ment In dian thought be gan to ap -pear as the six philo soph i cal sys tems that arerec og nized to day.

In Three Lec tures on the Vedanta Phi los o -phy, Max Müller writes:

It was this trea sure of an cient re li gious thoughtwhich the sages of the Upanishads in her itedfrom their fore fa thers, and we shall now have to see what use they made of it, and how they dis -cov ered at last the true re la tion be tween whatwe call the Di vine or the In fi nite, as seen ob jec -tively in na ture, and the Di vine or the In fi nite as

per ceived sub jec tively in the soulof man. We shall then be better ableto un der stand how they erected onthis an cient foun da tion what wasat the same time the most sub limephi los o phy and the most sat is fy ingre li gion, the Vedanta.

11



H induism, therefore, may also be thought

of as the spiritual and philosophical result

of a powerful, eternal, vivifying force of

inspiration that has immortal vitality.

The dis cov ery of In dian lit er a ture, and morepar tic u larly of In dian re li gion and phi los o phy,was like wise the re cov ery of an old and the dis -cov ery of a new world; and even if we canthrow but a pass ing glance at the trea sures ofan cient thought which are stored up in San skritlit er a ture, we feel that the world to which webe long has grown richer, nay, we feel proud ofthe un ex pected in her i tance in which all of usmay share.

12

India’s Spiritually MotivatedOral Tradition

The most re mark able fact that gives us an in sight into the pro fun dity and power of In -dian spir i tual cul ture is the foun da tion of herlit er ary tra di tion upon an oral tra di tion thatex isted for over three thou sand years prior tothe writ ten San skrit works.13 Be fore the ad -vent of Bud dhism, writ ing for lit er ary pur -poses was vir tu ally un known in In dia. Yet, allthe valu able wis dom con tained in the Vedas,the Upanishads and the ep ics, as well as otherSan skrit works, was trans mit ted by a spe cialclass of ded i cated schol ars through the oraltra di tion. This great tra di tion was me tic u lous -ly main tained by a long line of teach ers andtheir sin cere, ad ept dis ci ples. The Ramayanaand the M ahabharata, the two In dian ep ics,were prob a bly writ ten dur ing the Buddhisticpe riod.

The pris tine in flu ence of San skrit lit er a -ture reaches into the pres ent. In ‘Hu man In ter -est of San skrit Lit er a ture’, a lec ture he de liv -ered at the Uni ver sity of Cam bridge, Max Mül-ler said:

Let us look at the facts. ‘San -skrit lit er a ture’ is a wide andvague term. If the Vedas, suchas we now have them, werecom posed about 1500 BC, andif it is a fact that con sid er ableworks con tinue to be writ ten in San skrit even now, we have be -fore us a stream of lit er ary ac -tiv ity ex tend ing over threethou sand four hun dred years.With the ex cep tion of China

there is noth ing like this in the whole world.It is dif fi cult to give an idea of the enor mous

ex tent and va ri ety of that lit er a ture. We are only grad u ally be com ing ac quainted with the un toldtrea sures which still ex ist in manu scripts, andwith the ti tles of that still larger num ber ofworks which must have ex isted for merly, someof them be ing still quoted by writ ers of the lastthree or four cen tu ries. The In dian gov ern ment… or dered a … bib lio graphic sur vey of In dia …where col lec tions of San skrit manu scripts areknown to ex ist. … Some … cat a logues havebeen pub lished, and we learn from them thatthe num ber of sep a rate works in San skrit, ofwhich manu scripts are still in ex is tence, amountsto about 10,000. This is more, I be lieve, than thewhole clas si cal lit er a ture of Greece and It alyput to gether. … The true his tory of the worldmust al ways be the his tory of the few; and as we mea sure the Himalaya by the height of MountEv er est, we must take the true mea sure of In diafrom the po ets of the Veda, the sages of the Upa -ni shads, the found ers of the Vedanta and San-kh ya phi los o phies, and the au thors of the old est law-books.14

In A His tory of In dian Phi los o phy, Dr S NDasgupta writes of the unique an tiq uity of theVedas, which be long to no age or au thor, forthe or i gin of the Ve dic Age is lost in ob scu rity,en shrouded in the dim, dis tant past:

When the Vedas were com posed, there wasprob a bly no sys tem of writ ing prev a lent in In -dia. But such was the scru pu lous zeal of theBrah mins, who got the whole Ve dic lit er a tureby heart by hear ing it from their pre cep tors,that it has been trans mit ted most faith fully to us



The Indian mind, its aims and aspirations,

its thought and the literature it has produced

have been powerfully influenced by the

spiritual wisdom recorded in the S ansk rit

language. F or underlying the S ansk rit

language is the singular truth that S ansk rit

is more than merely a langu age: it is the

actual embodiment of P ure C onsciousness.

through the course of the last three thou sandyears or more with lit tle or no in ter po la tions atall.

15

Dasugpta’s com ments were long ago au -then ti cated by A A MacDonnell in A His tory ofSan skrit Lit er a ture in 1899: ‘The Vedas are stilllearnt by heart as they were long be fore the in -va sion of Al ex an der, and could now be re -stored from the lips of re li gious teach ers if ev -ery manu script or printed copy of them werede stroyed.’16

It is not the an tiq uity of the Vedas buttheir pe ren nial ap peal and ef flo res cence in theIn dian mind that is im por tant. For it is re ally awon der that this vi tal tra di tion has never beendis turbed by for eign in va sions, in ter nal po lit i -cal up heav als, changes in the lan guage, ra cialad mix ture and many other im ped i ments ofso cial, eco nomic and po lit i cal life.

The sub tle-most form of Spirit is moresub stan tially real to the hu man mind than anyma te rial form, more tan gi ble than any idea.That is what the Ve dic sages knew. Con tem -po rary au thor and trans la tor Prof Jean Le Méere cords his great ap pre ci a tion of the im mor talVe dic lore:

Pre cious or du ra ble ma te ri als—gold, sil ver,bronze, onyx, or gran ite—have been used bymost an cient peo ples in an at tempt to im mor tal -ize their achieve ments. Not so, how ever, withthe an cient Ary ans. They turned to what mayseem the most vol a tile and in sub stan tial ma te -rial of all—the spo ken word—and, out of thisbub ble of air, fash ioned a mon u ment whichmore than thirty, per haps forty, cen tu ries laterstands un touched by time or the el e ments. Forthe Pyr a mids have been eroded by the desertwind, the mar ble bro ken by earth quakes, andthe gold sto len by rob bers, while the Veda re -mains, re cited daily by an un bro ken chain ofgen er a tions, trav el ling like a great wave

through the liv ing sub stance of the mind.17

The Four Vedas

The Rig Veda came into be ing when all themantras and hymns com posed by the early Ve -dic seers, with their un usual power and graceof ex pres sion were gath ered to gether in greatcol lec tions or Samhitas, namely, the Rig VedaSam hita, the Yajur Veda Samhita, the Sama VedaSamhita and the Atharva Veda Samhita. Theseare known as the four Vedas:

1. The Rigveda, di vided into ten books (man-da la) hav ing 1,028 hymns (in clud ing 11 sup ple -men tary hymns) and con sist ing of 10,552 stan -zas (in clud ing 80 sup ple men tary stan zas).

2. The Yajurveda (Vajasaneyi Samhita, Madh-yandina text) di vided into 40 chap ters, hav ing1,975 stan zas and prose-units.

3. The Samaveda, con sist ing of 1,875 stan zas—di vided into two main sec tions (arcika).

4. The Atharva Veda, di vided into 20 books(kan das) hav ing 730 hymns in 5,987 stan zas andprose-units.18

The chant ing of the Vedas has al waysbeen one of care fully re pro duced sound mod -u la tions re cited in a strictly tra di tional man ner to main tain the cor rect mean ing. Ve dic schol -ar ship re ly ing on the com pre hen sive ex po si -tion of the four teenth-cen tury In dian scholarSayana re veals much about them.

The Rig Veda is es sen tially the foun da tion of the other three Vedas and has been de -scribed by the Brit ish Ve dic scholar JeanineMil ler as ‘a highly im por tant re li gious and lit -er ary doc u ment’, as well as ‘a work of art anda source of in spi ra tion and ed i fi ca tion’.19 InVe dic In dia, Renou wrote of the sub lime Ve dicSam hitas, the hymns of the Rig Veda that areunique in world lit er a ture: ‘Very many of thehymns are merely strings of for mu lae, butsome, de spite all the con straints which weigh

upon them, show re mark ablevigour and orig i nal ity, and clas -si cal In dia never at tained the in -ten sity of ex pres sion of some ofthese old po ems.’20

The lesser-known French



The chanting of the Vedas has always been

one of carefully reproduced sound

modulations recited in a strictly traditional

manner to maintain the correct meaning.

phi los o pher M Leon Delbos had the ge nius toun der stand the im mor tal and uni ver sal sig nif -i cance of Ve dic lit er a ture, which by vir tue ofits pe ren nial source of in spi ra tion to peo pledown the ages made him re mark, ‘There is nomon u ment in Greece or Rome more pre ciousthan the Rg- Veda.’ Pro fes sor A A MacDonnellwrites in his His tory of San skrit Lit er a ture that‘Since the Re nais sance, there has been noevent of such world-wide sig nif i cance in thehis tory of cul ture as the dis cov ery of San skritlit er a ture in the lat ter part of the eigh teenthcen tury.’ The Vedas, the great store house ofim mor tal spir i tual wis dom, in deed give us aglimpse of the spir i tu ally ori ented so cial life of the Ve dic civ i li za tion. MacDonnell wrote,‘The com plete ness of the pic ture they give ofso ci ety as well as of re li gious thought has nopar al lel.’ Max Mü l ler (1823-1900), the Ger man phi los o pher and Sanskritist, trans lated the en -tire Rig Veda. He wrote that the Ve dic hymns‘are to us unique and price less guides in open -ing be fore our eyes tombs of thought richerthan the royal tombs of Egypt. … They havetheir own unique place and stand by them -selves in the lit er a ture of the world.’21

~

References

1. Maurice Bloomfield, The Re li gion of the Veda(New York: O P Putnam, 1908), 228-9.

2. The Col lected W orks of the Right Hon M ax M üller(Lon don: Longmans, Green, 1899), 13.106.

3. Ùabdát devádikaó jagat prabhavati . —Shanka -

ra’s com men tary on Brahma Sutras, 1.3.28.

4. Ùabdapérvikásìøôië. —Ibid.

5. Yávat brahma viøôhitaó távatævák. —Rig Veda,10.10.114.8.




1997), 6.496-8 pas sim.

8. Max Müller, The Six Sys tems of In dian Phi los o -phy (Lon don: Long mans, Green, 1899), 5. Max

Müller’s In tro duc tion to this work ex pands on

the sub ject of the Mne monic Pe riod in In dia’s

philo soph i cal de vel op ment.

9. Vin cent Smith, Ox ford His tory of In dia (1919), x.

Cited from S Radhakrishnan, The Hindu Viewof Life (Lon don: George Al len & Unwin, 1948),

14.

10. Needham, Sci ence, Re li gion and Re al ity (1926),

334-5. Cited from The Hindu View of Life, 48.

11. Max Müller, Three Lec tures on the Vedanta Phi -los o phy (Lon don: Long mans, Green, 1894), 29.

12. Ibid., 111.

13. Abinash Chandra Bose, Hymns from the Vedas(Bom bay: Asia Pub lishing House, 1966), 1.

14. Col lected W orks, 83-4.

15. S N Dasgupta, A His tory of In dian Phi los o phy, 5

vols. (Cam bridge: Cam bridge Uni ver sity

Press, 1922), 1.10.

16. A A MacDonnell, A His tory of San skrit Lit er a -ture (New York: D Appleton, 1900), 8.

17. Jean Le Mée, Hymns of the Rig Veda (Fremont:

Jain Pub lishing, 2004), 10. Mat ter re pro duced

with pub lisher’s per mis sion.

18. Hymns from the Vedas, 1-2.

19. Jeanine Miller, The Vedas: Har mony, M ed i ta tionand Ful fill ment (Lon don: Rider, 1974), ix.

20. Louis Renou, Ve dic In dia (1957), 8. Cited from

Hymns from the Vedas, 3.

21. Six Sys tems, 34-5.



Goodness

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can

In all the ways you can, in all the places you can

At all the times you can, to all the peo ple you can

As long as you ever can.

—John W esley

Towards Enlightened Citizenship

SWAMI SATYAMANANDA

An in di vid ual is the ba sic so cial unit.Actually, we can not think of an in di -vid ual be reft of so cial bag gage. The

mind of each in di vid ual has two as pects: ob -jec tive and sub jec tive. The ob jec tive as pect iscalled so ci ety and the sub jec tive is the real per -son. Truly speak ing, the streams of in di vid ualand so cial con scious ness blend finely and al -most in dis tin guish ably. This blend ing is pres -ent not just in man but in ev ery liv ing be ing.

Individual and Social Forces

There are many ac tive forces in the in di -vid ual that go into shaping so ci ety. Like wisethere are many so cial forces in ces santly work -ing on the in di vid ual and also trans form inghim. It can equally be urged that when mag ni -fied, dis torted and col oured, the in di vid ualforces be come so cial forces. And when fo-cused, the so cial forces make an in di vid ual.All this makes the in di vid ual con stantly shiftand as sume dif fer ent as pects ac cord ing tochang ing so cial sce nar ios. Hence the so-calledin di vid u al ity keeps grow ing all the time. Thesame can be said of so ci ety. The ques tion thenarises: what is the goal of all these changes andgrowth?

Interrelationship am ong Individuals

The in stinct to form so ci et ies and live in agroup is in grained in the in di vid ual psy che orrather in in di vid ual bi ol ogy. But this very in -stinct or ge netic fac tor throws us against eachother to com pete for ev ery thing. Each in di vid -ual has a bun dle of char ac ter is tics that com -bine to bring out his unique ness. Even so a so -ci ety has nu mer ous el e ments that give it a dis -tinct in di vid u al ity.

An in di vid ual is re lated to his fam ily,clan, class or caste, econ omy, ed u ca tion, pro -

fes sion, race, lan guage, re li gion, cul ture, pol i -tics, hob bies, na tion al ity, hu man ity and so on.It is not nec es sar ily in this or der or all of these,but it must also be re mem bered that vices andvir tues also lump peo ple to gether. A per son isthus a part of a group, which is a part of alarger group, and so on. The mo ment a per sonis born he is born into a group or a sub group.As the in di vid ual grows, the num ber ofgroups clus ter ing around him also in creases.Thus an in di vid ual has grow ing cir cles of sub -groups and groups around him that act as apro tec tive shell around him, si mul ta neouslyhem ming him in. It is like a stone thrown in aplacid pool. The con cen tric rip ples moveaway, one giv ing rise to an other. They spreadout far and they re turn af ter reach ing the outer lim its (banks). Each con cen tric cir cle is agroup in which that in di vid ual lives and withwhich he iden ti fies him self.

Sup pose this pool does not have just onestone thrown in (an in di vid ual) but many. Allthese con cen tric rip ples now clash with onean other as they emerge to spread, and againclash when they re turn from the outer lim its(of so ci ety). All this makes the wa ter choppyand un sta ble. Then the rel a tive sizes of stones(in di vid u als) vary, mak ing their re spec tiverip ples varied. Some rip ples get strength ened,some im pelled, oth ers con tained and manyde stroyed.

Active and Silent Influences

There are times in the lives of in di vid u alswhen a kind of frenzy tight ens its stran gle hold on them and threat ens their san ity and ex is -tence. Ev ery na tion and so ci ety also un der -goes this kind of up heaval in its his tory. Somena tions, like some in di vid u als, en dure it lon -ger, oth ers briefly, yet oth ers fre quently and


still oth ers di sas trously. The var i ous forcesthat are in volved are be yond our con trol andcom pre hen sion. This de scrip tion fits when the forces are man i fest and their ef fects can be per -ceived, but mostly these press ing cir cum -stances are si lently work ing on the in di vid ualand so ci ety, mak ing for con stant low-in ten sity strug gle and de spair. From one stand pointthese strug gles are nec es sary to make the so ci -ety strong. Again, par a dox i cally, this saps ourstrength and with it our hap pi ness and peace.

Group Clashes

So ci ety be ing a con glom er a tion of dif fer -ent groups and sub groups, ide ally all theseshould work in uni son, but they don’t. Just asthere are dif fer ent groups there are dif fer entforces op er at ing within groups, mould ing and then scat ter ing them broad cast. This causesthe in ev i ta ble pal pa ble and im pal pa bleclashes with other groups. No so ci ety is freefrom such clash of forces. Some times the clashof var i ous forces in dif fer ent in ten si ties raisessome groups, lets down oth ers and crushessome oth ers. But these forces do not ab so lutely de stroy. They frag ment a group and cast itaway. From these rem nants rises yet again an -other group that com bines with the pre-ex ist -ing ones or as serts its old iden tity. The dis rup -tive forces thus be come co he sive forces. Thesegroup wars, man i fest and non- man i fest, are anec es sary com po nent in ev ery so ci ety, safe -guarding and diffusing group strength allover it. Thus, an in di vid ual is a mere straw inthe im men sity of these move ments that con -stantly tra verse so cial realms.

No Man is an Island

We have got into a maze. Rather, we areal ready in it. What do we mean when we talkof en light ened cit i zen ship, if we keep theabove de scrip tion of so ci ety in mind? The an -swer is ob vi ous: no man is an is land. Be ing anis land might be po etry but bad po etry. Thewords mo nas ti cism and monk come from mono,‘one’. But monks also form mo nas tic com mu -

ni ties and go out for beg ging their daily bread.A per son who is re ally alone is an in sane per -son. He has gone be yond san ity and also so ci -ety. Yet this very sane so ci ety is seen to makesome of its mem bers in sane. Where is theground we stand on? It is all the time shift ing.Is this con cept of be ing alone true or false?This con cept it self would not have arisen inour minds if it were to tally base less. Here isthe other ar gu ment: be ing all the time in acrowd has given rise to an op po site no tion ofbe ing alone. Gen erally, peo ple can en dureeven third-de gree tor ture but not sol i tary con -fine ment.

Who Is a Leader?

If an in di vid ual as serts too much he isdis liked and most likely de stroyed. If one ac -com mo dates one self to oth ers’ wills andwhims, one ends up not be ing one self. Yet wefind in di vid u als who are as ser tive and still ac -com mo da tive. They ac com mo date a group’shopes, as pi ra tions and strug gles and then as -sert them selves. This kind of in di vid ual hasgrown out of lim ited in di vid u al ity and hasreached the higher so cial con scious ness of thegroup or groups. Such in di vid u als em body inthem selves both as pects of as ser tion and ac -com mo da tion in a large mea sure. They arenat u ral lead ers.

It can also be urged that the play of so cialforces them selves give rise to such in di vid u -als. These in di vid u als are the re sult of thosevery forces they typ ify and em body. It is seenthat as the par tic u lar goal of the group is at -tained, this leader’s pur pose is served and heis no lon ger needed. As a new prob lem cropsup, those very forces that strug gle against thatprob lem will throw up a new leader. Are suchper sons en light ened cit i zens? The an swer is,not nec es sar ily; for it is seen in many cases that ‘lead ers’ are self ish, ego tis ti cal, ty ran ni cal andpara noid about power. Is an in di vid ual, then,tucked away in some ob scure cor ner liv ing asmall life as an en light ened cit i zen? The an -swer again is in the neg a tive. Yet, be ing an en -


Towards Enlightened Citizenship 67

light ened cit i zen does not de pend uponwealth, brains, power, cul ture, ed u ca tion, sec -tar ian be liefs or any other fac tor.

Maintaining Poise by Living for an Ideal

If any one ob served closely how bal letdanc ers or gym nasts man age to keep their bal -ance and not feel giddy while whirl ing rap -idly, he would re al ize that their eyes are riv-eted on a dis tant spot on the wall or the ceil ing. This elim i nates the dis ori en ta tion and keepsthem bal anced.1 Sim i larly when an in di vid ualkeeps his sight on the ideal, far above so ci ety’stur bu lence, he is not top pled by the nat u raland sor did so cial forces that try to dis turb hisequa nim ity and poise. This ideal has to bespir i tual, for only the spir i tual is above the ma -te rial forces and is not sub ject to them. As thein di vid ual keeps his vi sion on the ideal, theori en ta tion to wards it com mences and thenin ex o ra bly im pels him to wards it. For it is or -di narily seen that our eyes lock into an ob jectand im pel the body to fol low.

Those who are not in clined to wards aspir i tual ideal can an chor them selves to a less -er yet no ble ideal: look ing upon peo ple gen er -al ized as hu man ity. Hu man ity is nat u rallyabove par tic u lar so ci et ies. As peo ple strive fortheir rights and du ties and a de cent life, theywill in ev i ta bly learn that in or der to rise high -er, hu man ity must at one point be able to tran -scend hu man bonds. The At man, which is thedi vine core of hu man per son al ity and ‘theTruth of truth’ (sat yasa satyam),2 then be comesour ideal. Its high ex pres sion is in hu man ityand the high est is in all cre ation.

It is this ideal, the At man, that is faintlyre flected and per ceived in our sub jec tive andob jec tive con scious ness of in di vid u al ity andso ci ety. This At man is ac tu ally the mo tivepower, the real force above all the other forcesthat toss us about in or der to guide us to Itspor tals.

True Individuality in the Atman

It is not that we shall go about star ing upat the skies, as that would er ro ne ously meanwe are di rect ing our vi sion above so ci ety. Itwill be ac tu ally hav ing our men tal vi sion di -rected in side, for the Spirit, our Soul, is in side.It is on this per ma nence that we shall standand view the shift ing ground and the play offorces in so ci ety. This will be a first step to -wards see ing the re al ity within us and then asre sid ing in all be ings. We shall then see in di -vid u als and so ci ety, in fact all of cre ation, inthe won der ful un chang ing light of the At man. Only then will we be per fectly en light ened in -di vid u als and per fectly en light ened cit i zens.Ev ery thing will then be har mo ni ous, whole,healthy and mean ing ful. The small est to thelarg est ac tion, in di vid uals, groups and sub -groups will be found to be un con sciously pur -su ing the spir i tual ideal. We shall then workharder, not only for hu man ity but also for thewhole world. Oth ers will then em u late us. The goal of true in di vid u al ity, the At man, hav ingbeen reached, we shall iden tify with all thecen trif u gal and cen trip e tal so cial rip ples, andgrow and help oth ers to grow in the light ofthe At man. ~


1. Dis ori en ta tion of any kind is due to the kin es -

thetic and ves tib u lar sys tems. The for mer is

due to nerves spread all over the body and the

lat ter, which works with the for mer, also de -

tects the po si tion of the head and is es sen tial

for main tain ing bal ance. The brain mon i tors

these move ments along with those from the

eyes to con trol bal ance and co or di nate move -

ments. The eyes and other senses can com pen -

sate to a cer tain de gree for bal ance. See ABC’sof the Hu man M ind, ed. Alma Guinness (New

York: Reader’s Di gest, 1990), 134.

2. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 2.1.20.



It is better to sleep on what you in tend to do than stay awake over what you have done.

A W onder Triangle

N HARIHARAN

Atriangle is a per fect model of con cord,co op er a tion and com pat i bil ity. The tri -an gle col lapses the mo ment the three

sides vi o late the geo met ri cal rule and go theirown way. The three an gles that con sti tute thetri an gle have to re spect the rules of the game.The ag gre gate of their an gles should al waysbe equal to 180 de grees. This is a geo met ri calim per a tive. This im per a tive can be floutedonly at the peril of en dan ger ing the tri an gle tothe point of ex tinc tion.

There is, how ever, a unique tri an gle thatbreaks this mas ter rule and still man ages tosur vive as a tri an gle. This tri an gle is the tri an -gle of the life of Holy Mother. The sides of thisun-math e mat i cal tri an gle arewife hood, nun hood and moth -er hood. Nunhood flies in theface of wife hood and is in com -pat i ble with moth er hood. Tospeak of a nun as be ing, at once,a wife and a mother is as ri dic u -lous as to speak of a bar renwoman as hav ing brought forth a son. The co ex is tence in awoman of nunhood, wife hoodand moth er hood at one and the same time is afac tual im pos si bil ity, an ar rant non sense. Butthe tri ple -hoods ad mi ra bly har mo nize andpro tect the in teg rity of the unique tri an gle ofHoly Mother’s life.

Wife and Nun in One

How is Holy Mother able to per form thever i ta ble feat of har mo niz ing the dis pa rate tri -ple an gles and craft ing out of them an im pec -ca ble tri an gle of life? Of the three an gles thatmake the won der tri an gle, the two an gles ofwife hood and nunhood are im pla ca bly hos tile to each other. They are con sti tu tion ally in ca -

pa ble of co ex is tence and co op er a tion. If youare a wife, well, you can not be a nun. It is assim ple as that. Holy Mother knows it fullywell. But she knows one more se cret that is un -known to the com mon run of wom en folk. Themys tic se cret is that a wife can be a nun if thecar nal el e ment in wife hood is elim i nated. Byher im mac u lately pure life, Holy Motherproves that the es sence of wife hood con sistsnot so much in car nal in dul gence as in lov ingser vice to the spouse. By strip ping wife hoodof the toxic el e ment of car nal ity, she in vests itwith a spir i tual di men sion and har nesses it for spir i tual ends. Wife hood mi nus car nal ity ex -presses it self in her case as a sub lime life of in -

tense pen ance and self-ab ne gat ing ser vice. Byher as sid u ous and sin cere ser vice of the Mas -ter in his spir i tual ex pe di tion, by her con scious con cep tion and ad o ra tion of him as an em -bodi ment of the Su preme, by her un cannyknack of an tic i pat ing even the small est needand wish of the Mas ter and min is ter ing to itwith ex em plary so lic i tude, and by her to talself-ded i ca tion to his lofty spir i tual cause andideal, Holy Mother makes the em phatic pointthat she is a model wife par ex cel lence. The re -marks of Swami Tapasyanandaji in this con -text are very re mark able: ‘To be of ser vice tothe Mas ter was her high est de light. What pained


H ow is H oly M other able to perform the

veritable feat of harmonizing the disparate

triple angles and crafting out of them an

impeccable triangle of life? O f the three

angles that mak e the wonder triangle, the

two angles of wifehood and nunhood are

implacably hostile to each other.

her some times was that she could not get suf fi -cient op por tu nity to at tend on him.’1

Holy Mother tell ingly makes the pointthat she is an un com pro mis ing nun by firmlysay ing no to a pos si ble call of car nal ity. To thepointed ques tion of the Mas ter whether shehad come to drag him into the ugly pit of car -nal ity and the meshes of maya, Holy Mothersaid em phat i cally that she had come not topull him down but to be of ser vice to him. Theap par ent antinomy be tween wife hood andnunhood is only a fic ti tious one and is largelycaused by the mis con cep tion that suc cess fulmar ried life is de pend ent on the phys i cal re la -tion ship be tween the cou ple. The puz zlingpar a dox of the com bi na tion of wife hood andnunhood can not be placed in the right per -spec tive ex cept by quot ing in full the rel e vantpas sages from Swami Tapasyanan daji’s book:

And withal the most won der ful thing is thatthis holy cou ple could set so per fect an ex am pleof mar ried love, and yet free from the least taintof cor po real pas sion. In fact, it is the great les son of their lives that in the high est spec i mens of hu -man ity, love is not de pend ent on sex or any con -sid er ation of phys i cal in ti macy. Many a mod -ern thinker on ques tions of sex-life is dis posedto sep a rate the life of love from the func tion ofpro cre ation and in vest the for mer with an in de -pend ent value in it self, in spite of the as so ci a -tion one finds be tween them in na ture. Even aChris tian writer like Nich o las Berdyaev ar guesthat to make love de pend ent on, or sub or di nate

to, pro cre ation is to trans fer the prin ci ple of cat -tle breed ing to hu man re la tion. Many who holdthe cul ti va tion of ho li ness as the high est ideal oflife might have agreed with this view if suchthink ers had ad mit ted the pos si bil ity of tran -scend ing the in stinc tive side of sex in a per fectun ion of souls. But they are par tic u lar in in sist -ing that love be tween the sexes can never beper fect with out phys i cal ex pres sion. For ex am -ple, Ed ward Car pen ter re marks on this sub ject[The Dream of Love and Death]: ‘But equally ab -surd is any at tempt to limit (love) … to the spir i -tual with a some what lofty con tempt for thema te rial—in which case it tends … to be cometoo like try ing to paint a pic ture with out the useof pig ments. All the phases are nec es sary, or atleast de sir able—even if … a quite com plete andall-round re la tion is sel dom re al ized.’

The con ju gal life of the Holy Mother and SriRa ma krishna con tra dicts this view and sets an -other norm, at least for the no blest of man kind.For those in whom con scious ness is yet cen tredin the body, love with out sex may be like paint-ing with out pig ment. But there are men andwom en who tran scend the body-con scious nessand re al ize the Self be hind it. If they hap pen topaint the life of love as an ex am ple for hu man -ity, the pig ment they use is not sex but the Self.…

In their case [in the case of the Mas ter andHoly Mother] both stood for a com mon ideal ofgreat sub lim ity, each helped to elicit the bestthat was in the other, and both found per fectsat is fac tion in mu tual ser vice, with out the aid of any cor po real pas sion to hold them to gether in

love and am ity. If one enquires asto what con sti tuted the ce ment ingprin ci ple in this per fect un ion, onear rives at the Self, of which ev ery -thing else is but a re flec tion.’ (64-6)

No Offspring, yet a Mother

We have seen that of thetri ple an gles, it is the an gle ofnunhood that mainly skews thetri an gle. Once it falls in place,the tri an gle ac quires sense. Butthe an gle of moth er hood, thoughnot as in con gru ous as the an gleof nun hood, causes its own



True, H oly M other has no claims to

motherhood if we associate it with the

physical procreation of children. B ut her

claims to the title of M other rest on surer

foundations than the mere physical

begetting of offspring. The progeny of H oly

M other are not a few countable ones born

of physical union but an army of them won

by her all-embracing, universal love.

prob lem of rec on cil i a tion. Theprob lem, in its stark na ked ness, is this: How can Holy Mother, anun at the core, al beit a wife, bea mother, if by mother we mean a woman who phys i cally pro -duces chil dren? True, HolyMoth er has no claims to moth -er hood if we as so ci ate it withthe phys i cal pro cre ation of chil -dren. But her claims to the ti tleof Mother rest on surer foun da -tions than the mere phys i cal be get ting of off -spring. The prog eny of Holy Mother are not afew count able ones born of phys i cal un ion butan army of them won by her all-em brac ing,uni ver sal love. Re gard ing the unique moth er -hood of Holy Mother, the Mas ter’s words arepro phetic. Let us hear again what Swami Ta-pas yanandaji says in this con text:

There have been peo ple who have ex pressedsym pa thy for the Holy Mother on ac count ofwhat they con sider the bar ren ness of her mar -ried life. For did not the very great ness of herhus band stand in the way of her ex pe ri enc ingthe sub stance of mat ri mo nial life, and what ismore, the great est priv i lege of a woman, name -ly, moth er hood? In deed, her own mother, Sya-ma sundari Devi, seems to have felt in this wayat one time, and re marked in the hear ing of SriRa makrishna, ‘My Sarada has been mar ried to a lu na tic. She has not known fam ily life. She hasno chil dren. She will never know the hap pi nessof be ing ad dressed as “mother”.’ At this Sri Ra -ma krishna re marked, ‘Well, mother, you need

not worry about that. Your daugh ter will haveso many chil dren that she will be tired of be ingad dressed day and night as “Mother”.’ (28)

~ ~ ~

To sum up, Holy Mother’s life is an ab-sorb ing saga of pic tur esque par a doxes. First,she is an in tensely lov ing wife with out the in ti -macy of phys i cal un ion with her godly spouse.Sec ond, she is a true nun with out the tag ofnon-mar riage. Third, she is a mother with outany off spring in the usual sense. It is these tri -ple par a doxes that lend an ethe real charm toher di vine life. The tri ple par a doxes re solvethem selves into an abid ing rec on cil i a tion andcon cord, once we grasp the ba sic truth that her holy life, like that of her di vine spouse, is fun -da men tally an chored in the Spirit. ~

References

1. Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Sarada Devi: The Ho -ly M other (Ma dras: Sri Ramakrishna Math,

1969), 53.


A Wonder Triangle 71

H oly M other’s life is an absorbing saga of

picturesque paradox es. F irst, she is an

intensely loving wife without the intimacy

of physical union with her godly spouse.

S econd, she is a true nun without the tag of

non-marriage. Third, she is a mother

without any offspring in the usual sense.

Some of H oly Mother’s dis ci ples were im pressed by her moth erly so lic i tude, some by her abil -

ity as a teacher to dis pel their doubts, and some by her un shake able re as sur ance re gard ing

their ul ti mate sal va tion, which can be given only by D i vin ity. But these fea tures must not be

com part men tal ized. W hen ever she ap peared as mother, one saw be hind her moth er hood the

power of a teacher, the trans mit ter of spir i tual wis dom. Again, when she acted as a teacher,

she was not aloof or se vere; she at tracted her dis ci ples by her moth erly love. Finally, her di vine

na ture sup plied the foun da tion of the other two.

—Swami N ikhilananda

From the Life of Swami Vivekananda by hisEast ern and West ern dis ci ples we learnthat Swamiji was in Khandwa to wards

the end of June 1892.1 He had stayed there forabout three weeks with Babu Hari das Chat ter -ji, a pleader. From his talks with his host there,we come to know of Swamiji’s se ri ous in ten -tion to at tend the Par lia ment of Re li gions inChi cago, to be held the fol low ing year. Ear lier,Swamiji had heard of this re li gious con ven -tion when he was in Kathiawar. The book onthe life of Thakur Saheb Jaswant Singhji ofLimbdi, which was writ ten in Guja rati andpub lished in 1896, men tions that it was theMaharaja of Limbdi who gave Swa miji theidea of go ing to the West to preach Vedanta.We learn fur ther from the Life that when Swa-mi ji was in Porbandar, Pandit Shan kar Pandu-rang, the dewan of the state, told him, ‘Swami-ji, I am afraid you can not do much in this coun -try. Few will ap pre ci ate you here. You oughtto go to the West, where peo ple will un der -

stand you and your worth. Surely you canthrow great light upon West ern cul ture bypreach ing the Sanatana Dharma!’ Swamijiwas glad to hear these words, for they co in -cided with his own thoughts, which he had ex -pressed to C H Pandya of Junagadh, thoughvaguely.2

Dur ing this pe riod Swamiji ex hib ited in -tense spir i tual power, which was cor rob o -rated by Swami Akhandanandaji. The lat terhad met Swamiji around this time in Mandvi,Gujarat. He said that he was as ton ished to seethe change in Swamiji’s face, which had a sub -lime, di vine ra di ance.

Now we can un der stand why Swamijitold Haridas Babu that if some one helped himwith the pas sage money, he was pre pared togo to Amer ica. Haridas Babu rec og nized Swa -mi ji’s great per son al ity and wanted him to ex -tend his stay in Khandwa. But Swamiji had tomake his pil grim age to Rameswaram. So hecould not ex tend his stay, nor could he keep

halt ing at other places. SeeingSwa miji’s re solve, Haridas Babugave a let ter of in tro duc tion tohis brother in Bom bay and toldSwa miji that his brother wouldin tro duce him to Seth RamdasChabildas, a well- known bar -ris ter there. He then bought forSwamiji a train ticket to Bom -bay.

The House Where SwamijiStayed in Bombay

Swamiji reached Bom bayin the last week of July 1892.There, Haridas Chatterjee’s broth -


Swami Vivekananda’s First Hosts in Bombay:

RamdasChabildas and ChabildasLalubhai

SWAM I SHUDDHARUPANANDA

Samudra Villa, house of RamdasChabildas

er in tro duced Swamiji to Ramdas Chabil das, whore ceived him cor dially and re quest ed him to be his guest. Swamiji agreed.

In his ‘Dis courses on Jnana Yoga’ Swa mi -ji says, ‘The higher un der stand ing is ex treme -ly dif fi cult. The con crete is more to most peo -ple than the ab stract.’3 And he cites an il lus tra -tion in which he gives the de scrip tion of thehouse of Ramdas Chabildas, his first host inBom bay. He talks about two men, one a Hin du and the other a Jain, who were play ing chess in the rich mer chant’s home, which was near thesea. (We in tro duced the above sub ject to givethe reader an idea of the house and its lo ca tion. For the whole story the reader may re fer to thesaid lec ture.)

In Jan u ary 2003 the pres ent au thor lo -cated the house of Ramdas Chabildas with thehelp of two de scen dants of Chabildas Lalu-bhai. It stands on Dorab Shaw Lane, NapeonSea Road, Bom bay.4 Some pho to graphs of thebuild ing are in cluded in this ar ti cle along withtheir de scrip tion.

The au thor found the house in ex tremelydi lap i dated con di tion. Only the front porchwas in use, by se cu rity guards, who were man -ning the place on be half of its pres ent owner, Sri Bilasrai Mahavir Prasad Badri pra sad. Thehouse is a three-storeyed build ing, known asSa mudra Villa. Ex cept for the porch all otherar eas of the house are un safe for hu man hab i ta -tion. Sit u ated be side the sea, ithas long bal co nies on the firstand sec ond floors and matchesSwamiji’s de scrip tion of it. Af tera lot of coax ing, the guards al -lowed the au thor in side to have alook. The au thor has some knowl -edge of ar chi tec ture and build ing con struc tion. Af ter ana lys ing thestyle of con struc tion and the ma -te ri als used, he feels that the houseis more than 150 years old. Theground floor has sta bles that canac com mo date six to eight horses. Sta bles in a res i den tial build ing

speak of the owner’s wealth. At the rear areutil i ties like toi lets and ser vants’ quar ters in asep a rate three-storeyed build ing. The mainhouse is con nected with the util i ties at ev eryfloor.

This house be longed to Seth ChabildasLa lu bhai, who was one of the wealthy mer -chants of Bom bay. We have the sale doc u ment of the Samudra Villa, dated April 1916, ex e -cuted be tween Kesarbai, wife of Chabildas La-lubhai, and the pur chaser, Dorab Shaw Bo man-


Swami Vivekananda’s First Hosts in Bombay 73

Samudra Villa: front view

’Samudra Villa’ engraved on façade

jee Dubash, a Parsee. That ex plains how thelane got its name.

It would be a good idea if, with per mis -sion from the head quar ters, the lo cal Rama kri -

shna Math ar ranges to put up asmall mar ble tab let near thisbun ga low to com mem o rateSwamiji’s stay there dur ingJuly-August 1892.

Ramdas Chabildas

In 1875 Ramdas Chabildaswas a stu dent of ElphinstoneSchool, which has all alongbeen a pres ti gious in sti tu tion.5

Later he went to Eng land andearned his post grad u ate de gree in arts around 1884 and then his law de gree. On his re turn to In -dia the gov ern ment hon oured

him with a walk ing stick with a gold-and-sil -ver han dle, for be com ing the first In dian bar -ris ter. Ramdas Chabildas was also a San skritscholar, well grounded in the Vedas and theUpanishads. Apart from Swamiji, he hadhosted at his bun ga low em i nent spir i tual per -son al i ties like Swami Dayananda Saras wa ti.So his house must have res o nated with re li -gious de bates and dis cus sions.6 He was astaunch Arya Samajist and a founder mem berof its Bom bay branch. From Swami Da ya nan -da Saraswati he re ceived train ing in ba sic San -skrit and in com pos ing kavyas. On DayanandaSaraswati’s de mise in 1883, he com posed atwenty-one-verse trib ute to him in San skrit. Itis sig nif i cant that the Arya Samaj of Bom bayhad about 100 founder mem bers in 1875.Among them Chabildas Lalubhai was prom i -nent.

Dur ing Swamiji’s two-month stay in hisbun ga low, Ramdas had nu mer ous dis cus -sions with him, one of which has come to lightfrom Mahapurush Maharaj’s con ver sa tions atthe Bom bay ashrama on 19 Jan u ary 1927. Ma-ha purush Maharaj told the monks that Swa-mi ji had stayed in Ramdas Chabildas’ houseand vis ited many places in Bom bay. He fur -ther said, ‘Ramdas Chabildas be longed to theAr ya Samaj and was against the wor ship ofGod with form. He had much dis cus sion with



Samudra Villa: view of stable

Samudra Villa: dilapidated staircase

Swamiji con cern ing it. One day he said toSwamiji, “Well, Swamiji, you say that wor ship of God with forms, idol-wor ship and suchother doc trines are true. If you can prove thesedoc trines by ar gu ments quoted from theVedas, I shall leave the Arya Samaj, I prom iseyou.” Swamiji re plied em phat i cally, “Yes,surely, I can do that.” And he be gan to ex plainto Chabildas the Hindu doc trine of im agewor ship and such other doc trines in the lightof the Vedas. Ramdas Chabildas was con -vinced and made good his prom ise by leav ingthe Arya Samaj.’

It seems Ramdas Chabildas was only afew years older than Swamiji; so they gelled. More over, they had con verg ing in ter ests: scrip -tures and San skrit. On 22 Au gust 1892, Swa mijiwrote to the Dewan of Junagadh, ‘I have gothere some San skrit books and help, too, toread, which I do not hope to get else where,and I am anx ious to fin ish them.’7

It ap pears Swamiji could not visit theElephanta caves be cause the mon soon had al -ready set in, pre vent ing launches from ply ingto Elephanta Is land. Dur ing the mon soon theAra bian Sea is very rough, choppy and fe ro -cious. How ever, Swamiji did visit the Kanhericaves near Borivili, a de scrip tion of which willbe given later on in the ar ti cle. In his un pub -lished let ter dated 22 May 1893 from Bom bay,he writes to the Maharaja of Khetri, ‘At Bom -bay I went to see my friend Ramdas, bar ris -ter-at-law. He is rather a sen ti men tal gen tle -man and was [so] much im pressed with yourhigh ness’ char ac ter that he told me that had itnot been mid sum mer he would rather fly tosee such a prince.’

From Bom bay Swamiji went to Poona. At the rail way sta tion he was in tro duced to there nowned scholar and pa triot Lokamanya BalGangadhar Tilak, who was his fel low pas sen -ger. Tilak says in his rem i nis cences, ‘At Vic to -ria Ter mi nus a sannyasin en tered the car riageI was in. A few Guja rati gen tle men were thereto see him off. They made the for mal in tro duc -tion and asked the sannyasin to re side at my

house dur ing his stay at Poona.’8 We cansafely as sume that among the group of Guja -rati gen tle men were Ramdas Chabildas andShyamji Krishna Verma, his friend and broth -er- in-law.

Ramdas Chabildas’ Family

Af ter get ting his law de gree, Ramdas Cha-bildas started his prac tice in Bom bay. Later, inthe late 1880s, he be gan his prac tice as bar ris -ter in Nagpur.9 He pur chased a two-acreprop erty at Civil Lines from the Baxi fam ilyand built a large bun ga low, Jamna Villa, namedaf ter his wife Jamnabai.10 The Baxis were neigh -bours of Ramdas Chabildas. Ramdas Cha bil -das had two sons, Suryakant and Jaisen, bothbar ris ters. Suryakant died when he was aboutforty, leav ing be hind three sons and twodaugh ters. Jaisen prac tised as a bar ris ter in



Samudra Villa: crumbling roof

Nagpur and was elected mayor of the city. The Cor po ra tion of Nagpur hon oured him bynam ing one of the city’s neigh bour hoods asRamdas Peth, af ter his fa ther. Suryakant’s el -dest son Janak was a com mander in the In dianNavy.

At pres ent, Ram das Chabildas’ prop ertyis all sold and his de scen dants are liv ingmainly in Bom bay, ex cept for one in Nagpur.On the said prop erty there still ex ists a me mo -rial that preserves the rel ics of Ramdas Cha bil -das and his wife. Two mar ble tab lets on theme mo rial say Ramdas Chabil das died on 22Oc to ber 1920 and Jamnabai on 10 Jan u ary1914.

Chabildas Lalubhai (Ramdas’ Father)

Chabildas Lalubhai was born in Bom bayin 1839. He was a Suryavanshi Guja rati, a ksha-triya be long ing to the Chevali Bhansali com -

mu nity. Bhansalis are de scen dantsof King Bha nusal, who ruled in thenorth-west ern part of In dia. Theirfam ily de ity is Mother Hinglaj. Hing-laj is a place in Baluchistan (now inPa ki stan) pop u larly known as Ma-ru bhumi Hing laj (‘desert Hinglaj’).It is one of the ùakti-pæôhas of Moth -er Sati. A jour ney to Hinglaj is verydif fi cult due to its hos tile ter rain.Swa mi Tri gu natitananda had vis -ited this place on pil grim age.

In later times, the Bhansalicom mu nity came fur ther downfrom the north-west, and some ofthem set tled in Kutch, Sorath (Ka -thi a war), Surat, Sindh and Che val.So they are called Kutchi, Sorathi,Sin dhi and Chevali Bhansalis. Be-ing Gujaratis, the Bhansali com -mu nity pre ferred to do busi nessand trade. Cha bil das Lalubhai’s fa -ther was Lalubhai Jai ram das; hewas in the Brit ish Army.

Chabildas Lalubhai As aBusinessman and Builder

At the young age of thir teen years Cha-bil das Lalubhai joined Messrs Cullar Palmer& Co at their Bom bay branch for Rs 15 a month.From the be gin ning his mind was set on start -ing his own busi ness. So af ter gain ing someex pe ri ence he gave up his sal a ried job, pur -chased some big coun try-boats and used them for car ry ing freight to and from for eign steam -ers at Bhavcha-Dhakka (Bom bay sea port).This en ter prise of his was highly suc cess ful.Grad ually he be came one of the fore most busi -ness mag nates and owned his own steam shipnamed Ga li leo for do ing busi ness with for eigncom pa nies. Ga li leo was in sured for Rs 5 lakh.At that time Eng lish cloth was hugely pop u larand much sought-af ter through out the world.Chabildas Lalubhai took ad van tage of thisbusi ness boom. He im ported Eng lish clothand amassed huge wealth by sell ing them to



Four Generations: (r-l) ChabildasLalubhai (father), RamdasChabildas

(son),SuryakantRamdas (grandson) and JanakRamdas

(great-grandson)

whole sale trad ers in Bom bay. He also hada fac tory in Jamnagar, Saurashtra, wheredec o ra tive goods were made from ivory.He ex ported these and other prime goodsto Brit ain and France. Since he was the firstvis it ing In dian trader to France, the Frenchgov ern ment hon oured him with a let ter ofrec og ni tion.

Chabildas Lalubhai was also highlysuc cess ful in ob tain ing build ing con tractsfrom the gov ern ment and pri vate par ties.Along the Bom bay-Poona rail line, from Kar-jat to Lona vla, where the Khandala Ghatsare sit u ated, he se cured works con nectedwith the rail way line. In Bom bay he built anum ber of build ings. The build ings he erect -ed and owned still ex ist in Dadar.11

Chabildas Lalubhai’s Borivili Bungalow

When Swamiji vis ited Bom bay in1892 there were trains ply ing be tween Co-la ba and Andheri. Since the Kanheri cavesare about 22 km from Bom bay it can be pre -sumed that along with Ramdas Chabildas and Chabildas Lalubhai Swamiji may have takenthe train from Grant Road (which is nearer totheir bun ga low) to Andheri and then pro -ceeded to Bo ri vili by horse car riage, or theymight have used an eight-horse shigram car -riage from the Napeon Sea Road bun ga low.Chabil das La lubhai had a spa cious bun ga lowin the west ern part of Borivili, a sub urb 20 kmaway from the city, along Lokamanya TilakRoad and west of Fac tory Lane. He had pur -chased it from Seth Jay ram Bhatia. At this bun -ga low, he used to en ter tain his Brit ish friendsand busi ness con tacts. From Borivili, theKanheri caves are very near. When ever guestsar rived, about forty peo ple were hired to lightthe bun ga low with Petromax (gas o line) lightsin the eve nings and also to carry de li ciousfood to Kan heri, where some sort of pic niclunch was usu ally ar ranged. Gamavati Seth,one of the de scen dants, gave us this in for ma -tion. It is quite pos si ble that Swamiji too mayhave been lodged in this bun ga low for a few

days and sim i larly en ter tained.This Borivili bun ga low of Chabildas La-

lu bhai had mar ble stat ues and a gar den. It be -ing a Guja rati’s bun ga low, there was also ahuge swing for peo ple to sit on. In the eve ningmany peo ple from sur round ing places vis itedSwamiji to lis ten to his talks on re li gion. Chan-drakant, a young man who used to come therewith his fa ther, was quite in spired. Even af terSwamiji’s de par ture, he con tin ued to visit thehouse daily to pay obei sance to the mem ory ofSwamiji; and this prac tice he kept up un til hewas ripe old. When in quis i tive peo ple askedhim why he sa luted the bun ga low, he wouldnar rate that when he was young he had hadthe good for tune of meet ing and talk ing with a ra di ant, pow er ful and lov ing swami.12

Af ter Chabildas Lalubhai’s death, hiswife Kesarbai and their two sons Janmeyjayand Bhadrasen and their fam i lies lived in thishouse. The build ing does not ex ist any more.Some two de cades back, Hansaben Goragan-dhi, daugh ter of Janmeyjay, in her ited the prop -erty and de mol ished the bun ga low to raise a



ChabildasLalubhai

multi-storeyed apart ment build ing.

Swamiji’s Visit to Kanheri Caves

It is highly un likely that Swamiji and hishost would have re turned to the Napeon SeaRoad bun ga low when the lat ter had a big, spa -cious bun ga low in Borivili. More over, Swa mi -ji was no ca sual vis i tor. He would have mi -nutely ob served and stud ied each and ev erycave. He had a deep in ter est in rock-cut ar chi -tec ture. These caves, num ber ing more than100, are among the larg est Bud dhist caves inwest ern In dia. Swamiji must have been fas ci -nated to see Caves 1, 2 and 3 for their mas sivepil lars, sculp ture and stu pa. Per haps the chait-ya hall in Cave 3 and the as sem bly hall in Cave10 gave him the idea that the natmandir (prayerhall) of the fu ture Ramakrishna tem ple should have such a de sign con cept. Swami Vijnana-nan daji in cor po rated this and other ideas ofSwamiji in his draw ings and plan of theRamakrishna tem ple at Belur Math, whichwas com pleted in 1938. So it is rea son able topre sume that Swamiji might have re turned tothe caves more than once to study them indepth, be cause all their de tails do not lendthem selves to se ri ous study in a sin gle visit.They made such a deep im pres sion on himthat many years af ter he had vis ited the caves,Swamiji spoke of them to his dis ci ples who

had gath ered at Thou sand Is -land Park, USA. The wealth ofde tails Swamiji stud ied at theKan heri caves is ev i dent fromSis ter Chris tine’s rem i nis cences of him:

While he was at Thou sand Is landshe made plans for fu ture, not onlyfor his dis ci ples in In dia and thework there, but also for those of hisfol low ers in Amer ica, who werehop ing some time to go to In dia. Atthat time we thought these planswere only day-dreams. One day hesaid, ‘We shall have a beau ti fulplace in In dia, on an is land with the ocean on three sides. There will be

small caves which will ac com mo date two each,and be tween each cave there will be a pool ofwa ter for bath ing, and pipes car ry ing drink ingwa ter will run up to each one. There will be agreat hall with carved pil lars for the As sem blyHall, and more elab o rate Chaitya Hall for wor -ship. Oh! It will be lux ury.’ It seemed that hewas build ing cas tles in the air. None of usdreamed that this was some thing which couldever be re al ized.

13

Sister Christine’s Visit to Kanheri Caves

Many years later, when Sis ter Chris tinevis ited Bom bay, she vis ited the Kanheri caves.It is in ter est ing to read what she has to sayabout her visit. She took a train to Borivili andthen hired a bull ock-cart. When the road hadended, she and the bull ock-cart driver had togo on foot. She says:

We went only a short dis tance and then came toa stream which at that sea son was al most driedup. On the other side was a small hill. Here wefound carved stone steps lead ing to the top.And what a view there was from the crest of thehill! The ocean on three sides, a for est lead ing tothe wa ter, carved seats on which to rest, sculp -tured halls of mag nif i cent pro por tions. Here itall was—the is land with the ocean on threesides, a great sculp tured As sem bly Hall, theChaitya Hall, … the small cells, con tain ing twostone beds each, pools of wa ter be tween thecells, even the pipes to carry wa ter! It was as if a



ChabildasLalubhai with second wife Kesarbai and son Janmeyjay

dream had un ex pect edly come true.Com ing upon this aban doned site,which an swered in de tail to the fairytalewe had heard long be fore in Amer ica, Iwas pro foundly af fected. (217)

When Sis ter Chris tine nar rated toSwami Sadanandaji her visit to the de -serted is land of 109 caves, he told her:

Yes, Swamiji in his wan der ings in west -ern In dia be fore he went to Amer ica,found these caves. The place stirred himdeeply; for it seems that he had a mem -ory of a pre vi ous life in which he livedthere. At that time, the place was un -known and for got ten. He hoped thatsome day he might ac quire it and makeit one of the cen tres for the work whichhe was plan ning for the fu ture. (218)

Swamiji might have eas ily ac -quired the Kan heri caves be cause heknew that if he asked RamdasChabildas to give them to him for hisfu ture work, both Ram das Chabildasand Chabildas Lalubhai would havereadily agreed, be cause it was then oneof their prop er ties.

Chabildas Lalubhai’s Generosity

Even though Chabildas Lalubhaihad amassed im mense wealth, he was ade voted and be nev o lent per son at heart.Dur ing the plague of 1874, he built shel -ters on his own land in Goregaon, a sub urb ofBom bay, for the ben e fit of the peo ple, whowere flee ing the city. Later, dur ing a fam ine, hepro vided food, cloth ing, shel ter and ev ery kind of ne ces sity to hun dreds of or phans for a whole year. There are around forty-three Ram tem -ples in Bom bay built by rich Guja rati busi ness -men; the one in Gulalwadi was built by Cha-bildas Lalu bhai.14 In his last will Chabildas La-lu bhai men tions the con struc tion of (a) hos pi tal open to all, (b) a san a to rium for Hin dus, (c) alodge for poor Hin dus, (d) in dus trial and tech -ni cal schools and col leges, and (e) schol ar shipsfor stu dents of all com mu ni ties.

Swamiji and Chabildas Lalubhai

The Life has mis taken Ramdas Chabildasand Chabildas Lalubhai for the same per son,though they were son and fa ther, re spec tively. Swamiji re fers to Ramdas Chabildas as Mr Ram-das and to Chabildas Lalubhai as Mr Chabil-das. The book says Seth Ramdas Chabildaslater ac com pa nied Swamiji to Chi cago fromYo ko hama.15 But, in fact, it was Chabildas La-lu bhai who trav elled with Swamiji to Ja panand then to Chi cago and Boston. In the Life, we find that ‘Mr Chabildas, who had been one ofSwami’s hosts in Bom bay, sailed for Ja pan bythe same ship [Pen in su lar].’16 In his un pub -lished let ter dated 22 May 1893 to the Maha ra -



Samudra Villa: sea view

ja of Khetri from Bom bay, Swamiji writes, ‘His (Ramdas’) fa ther in tends go ing to Chi cago on31st (May 1893); if so we could go to gether forcom pany.’

In his let ter dated 20 Au gust 1893 to Ala -sin ga Perumal from Metcalf, Mas sa chu setts,Swa mi ji writes, ‘Mr Lalubhai was with me upto Boston. He was very kind to me.’17 In thesame let ter he con tin ues, ‘Ramdas’s fa ther hasgone to Eng land. He is in a hurry to go home.He is a very good man at heart, only Baniyarough ness on the sur face.’18

In his let ter of 6 Oc to ber 1893 writ tenfrom Bom bay to Sri Jagmohanlalji, Dewan ofKhetri, Akshay Kumar Ghosh says, ‘In con tin -u a tion of my last let ter I am glad to en lightenyou on var i ous news about Swamiji. Just nowI re turned from Mr Chabildas, where I went inthe morn ing to get ex haus tive in for ma tionabout him. Mr Chabildas was al ways with hisho li ness un til he sep a rated at Boston in Amer -ica.’ The let ter con tin ues:

On sep a rat ing, Mr Chabildas en quired what ac -tual sum Swamiji had with him, when it was as -cer tained that Swamiji had only £100 with him,which in Mr Chabildas’ idea is too pal try a sumto live upon in Chi cago for a pe riod lon ger thanthree or four days, as the coun try is five times asmuch dear as Eng land. Swamiji en ter tains theidea, if pos si ble, of com ing in Eu rope and spend

a lon ger pe riod in the con ti -nent, say about a year. Butat Boston Mr Chabildas re-quested him to tele graph his Lon don firm when ever hewanted any pe cu ni ary help, and has on his way backhim self ad vised his Lon donagent to re spond to him.From New York Mr Cha bil -das wired Swamiji twicebut was given no re ply.Then again from Lon don Gu-ru ji was asked if he was will -ing to join him to come backto In dia. The re ply that wasre ceived was this, ‘Don’twait, will go back a long pe -riod hence.’

19

In his let ters to his friends and dis ci ples,Swamiji spurred them on to en gage in somekind of busi ness, like sell ing In dian goods inthe United States, rather than ca jole their whitemas ters to give them jobs. The story of Chabil-das Lalubhai’s suc cess, his rise from rags toriches by do ing busi ness very much agreedwith Swamiji’s think ing. Swamiji ap pre ci atedhis en ter pris ing na ture.

Chabildas passed away in Bom bay on 5De cem ber 1914, at the age of sev enty-seven. ~

Thanks

1. To the de scen dants of Chabildas Lalubhai: (a)

Smt Gamavati Seth, daugh ter of Sri Janmeyjay

Chabildas and his first wife; (b) Smt Hansaben

Goragandhi, daugh ter of Sri Janmeyjay Chab-

il das and his sec ond wife. She gave us Chabil -

das Lalubhai’s pho to graph; (c) Sri Suryakant

Seth, son of Smt Gamavati Seth, who iden ti -

fied Chabildas Lalubhai’s Napeon Sea Road

bun ga low; (e) Sri Harishbhai Khot, son of Sri

Bhadrasen Chabildas. He was the sec ond de -

scen dant who iden ti fied Chabildas Lalubhai’s

bun ga low on Napeon Sea Road and gave us a

copy of the sale deed of the said bun ga low and

also its pho to graph.

2. To the late Sri Mahendra Seth, son of Smt Ga-

ma vati Seth. He helped us by get ting most of



Samudra Villa: another front view

the news pa per ref er ences and the will of Cha-

bildas Lalubhai.

3. To (a) Sri H L Ganjawala, cor po rate ar chi tect

and char tered en gi neer, for ac quir ing the lay -

out plan of the Napeon Sea Road bun ga low;

and (b) Sri Manesh Ganjawala, ar chi tect and

in te rior de signer, for tak ing pic tures of the

bun ga low.

Acknowledgments

1. Mulchand Verma, ‘Both Mira Road and Bha yan -

der Owned by Guja rati Seth Chabildas La lu bhai’

(Guja rati) in M umbai Samachar, 14 May 1991.

2. Hemchandra Narsi, ‘On Sri Ram Tem ples in

Bom bay’ (Guja rati).

3. Chabildas’ will dated 12 Au gust 1914.

4. Sale deed of Chabildas Lalubhai’s bun ga low

on Napeon Sea Road to Dorab Shaw Dubash,

dated 1 April 1916.

5. ‘Dar ing Busi ness man Chabildas Lalubhai’

(Ma ra thi) in UpanagarDhvani, 14 Au gust 1979.

6. A M Khadilkar, A Brief In tro duc tion on Chabil -dasLalubhai (Mara thi pam phlet). The au thor is

head mas ter of Chabildas Lalubhai Boys’ High

School, Dadar, Mumbai 400 028.

7. ‘Cen te nary Cel e bra tion of Chabildas School’

(Mara thi) in Navkal.8. Sri Prakash Bhandari, ‘Let ters Re cord ing Vi ve-

ka nanda’s Trou bles in the US’ in The Times ofIn dia, 6 March 1999.

9. ‘Out line of Chabildas Lalubhai’ in Bom bayChron i cle, 7 De cem ber 1914.

10. Kishore A Hursh, ‘To Work for the Free dom

of In dia Be came His Duty’ (Guja rati) in Sap ta -hik Dastan, 22 De cem ber 1955.

11. Vishnu Pandya, ‘The Last Will of Shyamji Kri -

sh na Verma’ (Guja rati) in Janmabhumi, 12 Jan -

u ary 1994.

12. Mangal Bhanushali’s Gujarati ar ti cle in Sma ra -na njali.


1. His East ern and West ern Dis ci ples, The Life of

Swami Vivekananda, 2 vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita

Ashrama, 1, 2000; 2, 2001,), 1.302.

2. Ibid., 1.295.



1997), 8.13.

4. In 1973, the au thor’s mother, Smt Lilavati,

and Sri mat Swami Gautamanandaji Maha-

raj, Pres i dent, Sri Ramakrishna Math,

Chen nai, had gone to Mansen Kursandas’

house to find out the let ters of Swamiji writ -

ten to Ram das Cha bil das and his fa ther Cha-

bildas Lalu bhai, but they could not find any.

Man sen was Ramdas Cha bildas’ nephew

and lived in Tin Batti, Wal kheshwar, Bom -

bay.

5. His tory of Arya Samaj (Hindi), 1982, 1.262-4.

6. UpanagarDhvani (see item 5, ‘Ac knowl edg -

ments’).

7. CW , 8.289.

8. His East ern and West ern Ad mirers, Rem i nis -cences of Swami Vivekananda (Cal cutta: Advai -

ta Ashrama, 1994), 20.

9. Re ported by Mulchand Verma in M umbai Sa -ma char, 14 May 1991.

10. The au thor gath ered this in for ma tion in Au -

gust 2003 from Smt Motabai Baxi, who is now

ninety-five years old.

11. UpanagarDhvani.12. Heard from Smt Hansaben Goragandhi.

13. Rem i nis cences, 215.

14. From the afore-men tioned Guja rati pa per by

Hemchandra Narsi (see item 2, ‘Ac knowl edg -

ments’).

15. Life, 1.304.

16. Ibid., 1.391.

17. CW , 5.12.

18. Ibid., 5.19.

19. Akshay Kumar Ghosh’s un pub lished let ter to

Sri Jagmohanlalji, Dewan of Khetri; by cour -

tesy of Swami Vivekananda Com plete Works

Com mit tee, Belur Math.



Why should the phrase ‘It’s none of my busi ness’ be al ways fol lowed by ‘but’?

DR C S SHAH

First M eet ing

Spir i tual his tory is full of ep i sodes whereseek ers af ter Truth came in con tact withthe knower of Truth by chance, co in ci -

dence or in strange cir cum stances. The waysof spir i tual en coun ter be tween a teacher (gu -ru) and a dis ci ple (sadhaka) are of im mensesig nif i cance to spir i tual as pi rants. We shallstudy three such meet ings in the life of Ma hen-dranath Gupta, com monly known as M, Ma nior Mas ter Mahashay. His first meet ing withSri Ramakrishna was in Feb ru ary 1882.

M aster and Disciple

Hav ing scaled the sum mit of spir i tual ex -pe ri ence through all paths, Sri Ramakrishnawas liv ing the last few years of his life in theDa k shineswar temple com plex, wait ing forhis cho sen dis ci ples to ar rive. Many seek ers af -ter Truth, dev o tees, cu ri ous peo ple and layper sons vis ited this tem ple. A few of themcame to Sri Ramakrishna to seek so lu tions totheir spir i tual prob lems. In his sim ple and lu -cid lan guage, from his first-hand knowl edgeof ev ery as pect of spir i tu al ity, Sri Ramakrish -na sat is fied the vis i tors with his an swers, il lus -trat ing spir i tual truths with par a bles and an -ec dotes, or by sing ing songs that con tained so -lace and so lu tions for their trou bles. We arefor tu nate that M chron i cled these say ings,teach ings, par a bles and an ec dotes in the formof his mon u men tal work, The Gos pel of Sri Ra -ma kri sh na. But for such re li able doc u men ta -tion, sin cere as pi rants would have re mainedobliv i ous to the sub tle ties and nu ances of spir -i tual truths and God-re al iza tion.

Mahendranath Gupta was an ed u cated

young man and head mas ter of a school run bythe great Ben gali phi lan thro pist Ishwar chan -dra Vidyasagar. Lib eral and pro gres sive inout look, M was equally well ori ented in the re -li gious trends of his time. He was an ac tivemem ber of the Brahmo Samaj of Keshab Chan -dra Sen. He had stud ied Hindu phi los o phy tosome ex tent and was per haps des tined to leada spir i tual life. His mar ried life was some whatdis turbed, so he had led a frus trated andstress ful life. Oc ca sionally, even thoughts of sui -cide arose in his mind.

With such a frame of mind, M reachedDakshineswar with his friend Sidhu. It wasthe pleas ant spring sea son. The Kali templehad its own ma jes tic beauty and im pres sion;many dev o tees pre ferred to stroll along thetem ple gar den af ter of fer ing wor ship to MaKa li. The sa cred Gan ges flowed along side thetemple com plex. There were beau ti ful gar -dens around the tem ple, which at tracted vis i -tors in tend ing to spend time en joy ing thebeau ti ful trees and flow ers.

Sidhu stayed in a lo cal ity nearby, andknew that a paramahamsa lived at Dakshi nes -war. Of course, he was re fer ring to Sri Rama -kri shna. On that par tic u lar day he said to M,‘There is a charm ing place on the bank of theGan ges where a paramahamsa lives. Shouldyou like to go there?’1 M con sented and theyreached the tem ple gar den. They went straightto Sri Ramakrishna’s room. M de scribes thefirst en coun ter thus: ‘There they found himseated on a wooden couch, fac ing the east.With a smile on his face he was talk ing of God.The room was full of peo ple, all seated on the


Implications of the First Three Meetings

between Sri Ramakrishna and M

floor, drink ing in his words in deep si lence.’(77)

Clouds of de jec tion vanished from M’slife un der the il lu min ing light of Sri Ra ma kri -shna’s words. That marked a new phase inM’s life. He re gained his self-con fi dence, grad -u ally un der went spir i tual trans for ma tion un -der the Mas ter’s lov ing care and grew to writethe Gos pel, a work that has been trans lated into many lan guages all over the world and hasbeen a so lace to many. In deed, the Gos pel hasper ma nent ly en graved his name in the his toryof Ra makrishna movement.

What were the fac tors that changed a de -pressed M into a self-con fi dent, wise man? We get some glimpses of one im por tant fac tor intheir first meet ing. De spite so may at trac tions—the tem ples, the gar den and the Gan ges—Mwent straight to Sri Ramakrish na’s room. Thisshows his in ten tion to seek spir i tual in struc -tion di rectly from the per son whom his friendhad de scribed as a parama ham sa. M was wiseenough to dis crim i nate be tween things of pri -mary and sec ond ary im por tance. Rather, Mknew his pri or i ties well. The les son a spir i tualas pi rant can learn from this ap par ently in sig -nif i cant act is this: he should be sin cere andone-pointed in his search; rather than get tingat tracted by sec ond ary de tails, he should tryto seek the truth from the main source.

Words of Nectar

Sri Ramakrishna was talk ing to the dev o -tees seated in front of him:

When, hear ing the name of Hari or Rama once,you shed tears and your hair stands on end,then you may know for cer tain that you do nothave to per form such rit u als as the sandhya anymore. Then only will you have a right to re -nounce rit u als; or rather, rit u als will drop awayby them selves. Then it will be enough if you re -peat only the name of Rama or Hari, or evensim ply Om. (77)

Con tinuing, he said, ‘The sandh ya mergesin the Gayatri, and the Gayatri merges in Om.’(77)

M was highly im pressed as he lis tened tothose words of deep spir i tual im port. He stoodspeech less and looked on. It was as if he waslis ten ing to Shukadeva, the great rishi of an -cient In dia, son of the fa mous seer Veda Vya-sa, and who nar rated the Bhagavata to King Pa-rik shit); or as if Sri Chaitanya Deva was sing -ing the name and glo ries of the Lord with hisdev o tees. M felt the pu rity and sa cred ness ofthe place; spir i tu al ity was per vad ing the en tire at mo sphere. He felt an ir re sist ible de sire tostay there lis ten ing to the words of the mostcharm ing man he had ever seen.

Then M de cided to go round and get fa -mil iar with the sur round ings. He heard thesweet mu sic of eve ning wor ship aris ing fromthe di rec tion of the Kali tem ple. The gong, thebells, the cym bals, the drums, all add ed to thespir i tual mood. The eve ning prayer was on.‘The sounds trav elled over the Gan ges, float -ing away and los ing them selves in the dis -tance. A soft spring wind was blow ing, ladenwith the fra grance of flow ers; the moon hadjust ap peared. It was as if na ture and man to -gether were pre par ing for the eve ning wor -ship.’ (77-8)

Sidhu told his friend about the his tory ofthe Kali tem ple and how at a very high costRa ni Ras mani had built the tem ple in 1855.Later M came to know how Sri Ramakrishnawas in volved as a priest and how he broughtMa Kali’s stone im age to life! Soon both Sidhuand M were back at Sri Ra makrishna’s room.This time the door was closed but not locked.As an act of et i quette, M asked the maid,Brinde, if it would be all right for them to seethe paramahamsa. Would she be kind enoughto an nounce their ar rival? M was also cu ri ousto know whether Sri Rama kri shna read manybooks and asked Brinde about it.

M M eets the M aster

The maid re plied, ‘Books? Oh, dear no!They’re all on his tongue. … Go right in, chil -dren. Go in and sit down.’ (78) M was amazedto hear that Sri Rama kri shna did not read any

Implications of the First Three Meetings between Sri Ramakrishna and M 83


books. Then how could he talk of such greattruths! Soon the two friends en tered the roomand found Sri Ra makrishna deeply ab sorbedwithin him self, as if un aware of any out sidehap pen ings. With folded hands M sa luted theMas ter. The Mas ter made a few pre lim i nary in -quires about M: where he stayed, where heworked and so on. It was found that even dur -ing such a short pe riod of time Sri Ramakri -shna was seen to get lost in the thought of God. He was in a pe cu liar mood which M knewnoth ing about. In a sub se quent (third) meet -ing, M would ob serve Sri Ramakrishna in thestate of sam adhi, the state of ab sorp tion in di -vine Con scious ness.

Un able to find a topic to pur sue the talksfur ther, M sim ply said, ‘Per haps you want toper form your eve ning wor ship. In that case,may we take our leave?’ Still in his high spir i -tual mood, Sri Ramakrishna re plied, ‘No, it isnot ex actly like that.’ Af ter a lit tle con ver sa tion

M once again sa luted the saint and left theroom. Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Come again.’ (78)

We all know how sub se quently M con -tin ued his vis its to the Mas ter and be came oneof his most de voted dis ci ples; how the guruex plained to the sadhaka the in tri ca cies ofspir i tual life. It is no won der that his de pres -sion and sui cidal ten dency be came things ofthe past. When one drinks nec tar it de stroys all ideas of de fect and de fi ciency. The guru hadfound a true dis ci ple and the dis ci ple a trueguru. Such rare oc cur rences tell us about theIn dian spir i tual tra di tion. A sin cere andyearn ing seeker af ter Truth, af ter grop ing inthe dark ness of ig no rance for long, sud denlyco mes in con tact with Light and the spark ofspir i tu al ity kin dles in his heart. The mag net at -tracts the iron filings. The spir i tual cur rent un -leashed by a man of God en dures for de cades,and il lu mines many sadhakas in the pro cess.

Sec ond M eet ing

Mdid not wait for long for his sec ondmeet ing with Sri Ramakrishna. Thenext day he vis ited him at 8 am. We

ana lyse the im pli ca tions and im por tance ofthis sec ond meet ing.

Image Worship

Af ter some ini tial en qui ries, Sri Ramakri -sh na asked M, ‘Well, how is Keshab now? Hewas very ill.’ M was an Eng lish-ed u catedteacher. This fact might have led Sri Ramakri -sh na to con clude that M must have been as so -ci ated with the Brahmo Samaj. Sri Ramakri sh -na was quick to guess the pre vail ing ten den -cies in the youth of his time to join the BrahmoSamaj and par tic i pate in its meth ods of wor -ship. This Brahmo move ment had caught theimag i na tion of many young col lege stu dentsand in tel lec tu als by prop a gat ing re vi sion isttrends in or tho dox Hindu re li gion. The Brah-mo Samaj be lieved in novel and pro gres sivecon cepts like wor ship of God with at trib utes

but with out form (saguîa nirákára bháva). Brah-mos were wary of wor ship of God with form(sáká ra upá saná), through metal, clay or stoneim ages.

It is in this con text that Sri Ramakrishna’scon ver sa tion with M as sumes im por tance.The en quiry about Keshab’s health out wardlyap pears a rou tine mat ter, but one should re -mem ber that Sri Ramakrishna was meet ing Monly for the sec ond time, and ap par ently didnot know much about his faith. With out break -ing the thread of con ver sa tion, Sri Ra ma kri sh -na vol un teered, ‘I made a vow to wor ship theMoth er with green co co nut and sugar on Ke -shab’s re cov ery. … I would … cry be fore her:“Moth er, please make Keshab well again. IfKe shab does n’t live, whom shall I talk withwhen I go to Cal cutta?” And so it was that I re -solved to of fer Her the green co co nut andsugar.’ (79)

These talks give us some in sight into SriRa makrishna’s think ing. It was nat u ral for



him to say what he be lieved; there was neveran iota of hy poc risy in his speech, nor any de -lib er ate at tempt to teach oth ers. He al waysmeant what he spoke and spoke what he knew.For him ev ery form of wor ship was true, for,ac cord ing to him, to re mem ber and wor shipGod with form or with out form was but a stepto wards true re li gi os ity. His cath o lic ity,broad ness of vi sion and knowl edge had madehim aware of the ne ces sity of the crud est aswell as the most re fined form of wor ship andspir i tual dis ci pline, de pend ing upon the na -ture and ap ti tude of the sadhaka. Nay, for SriRamakrishna ev ery hu man be ing was a sa-dha ka in his own right, al beit some were notcon scious of this fact.

As a log i cal con clu sion to such thoughts, Sri Ramakrishna asked M: ‘Well, do you be -lieve in God with form or with out form?’ (80)In this ques tion we see the link with the Mas -ter’s pre vi ous state ment (that he had of feredco co nut and sugar to the Di vine Mother forKe shab’s re cov ery). It was as if Sri Ramakri -sh na knew be fore hand the ten dency ofyoung peo ple to try to show off their su pe ri -or ity in wor ship ping God with out form andto look down upon the wor ship of God withform.

Now M got puz zled: can both sákára andnirákára be true? The ring of truth ful ness inthe words of Sri Ramakrishna had by nowdawned upon M, forc ing him to con tem platethus. How ever, with out ap pear ing de featedor con fused, M said, ‘Sir, I like to think of God as form less.’ (80)

Sri Ramakrishna re spond ed by dis play -ing sat is fac tion and told him that it was allright to think of God ei ther way. More over, hesug gested to M to stick to his be lief; for anykind of be lief in God is wor thy of re spect, nev -er to be de spised. Sri Ramakrishna thus ad -vised M to cling to his faith, but not to thinkthat oth ers who did not hold sim i lar viewswere wrong. For Sri Ramakrishna all the rit u -als and kinds of wor ship prev a lent in Hindulife were true. This point par tic u larly helps us

even to day to tread on our path to God with -out caus ing hurt to oth ers, or cre at ing dis cor -dant notes in their hearts, or tear ing the so cialfab ric. The seed of the har mony of re li gionsseems to be sown here, as one needs to make abe gin ning by ac cept ing all Hindu re li gioussects as equally true paths lead ing to wardsGod.

None the less, it was not easy for M to ac -cept this truth eas ily. As is our wont, M tooen tered into ar gu ments with Sri Ramakri sh -na, say ing, ‘Sir, sup pose one be lieves in Godwith form. Cer tainly He is not the clay im -age!’ And even though Sri Ramakrishna in -ter rupted by say ing, ‘But why clay? It is anim age of Spirit’, M con tin ued with his ar gu -ment: ‘But, sir, one should ex plain to thosewho wor ship the clay im age that it is not God,and that, while wor ship ping it, they shouldhave God in view and not the clay im age. One should not wor ship clay.’ (80)

Weary of peo ple who de spised im agewor ship, Sri Ramakrishna sharply re actedagainst peo ple try ing to teach oth ers with outfirst ac quir ing knowl edge them selves. This is a nat u ral ten dency among the ed u cated. Theythink that by their knowl edge of sci ence andarts they have au to mat i cally be come con ver -sant with spir i tual knowl edge as well. Theytake ‘right ful’ pride in teach ing oth ers aboutre li gion. How ever, sooner than later a sin cere as pi rant re al izes that re li gion, spir i tu al ity orthe sci ence of knowl edge of God is some thing to tally dif fer ent from em pir i cal knowl edge.

By way of sim ple ex am ples Sri Ramakri -sh na ex plained to M that all forms of wor shipare valid, and nec es sary. It is God who Him -self has ar ranged for ev ery form of wor shipto suit dif fer ent men in dif fer ent stages ofknowl edge. For in stance, ‘The mother cooksdif fer ent dishes to suit the stom achs of herdif fer ent chil dren. If there is a fish to cook, she pre pares var i ous dishes from it—pilau, pick -led fish, fried fish, and so on—to suit their dif -fer ent tastes and pow ers of di ges tion.’ (81)



What Is Knowledge?Peo ple re main ig no rant of the sci ence of

spir i tu al ity de spite be ing ed u cated oth er wise.In learn ing the sci ence of spir i tu al ity, one hasto start from the ba sic prem ise that the studyof re li gion is to tally dif fer ent from phys i calsci ences and arts. Ig no rance of this fact leadsto in flated egos and claims to re li gion by learn -ed pro fes sors, in flu en tial lead ers and wealthyaris to crats on the ba sis of their priv i leges.

In this con nec tion it is per ti nent to re fer to the ini tial dis cus sion be tween Sri Ramakrish-na and M. Af ter in quir ing about his mar i talsta tus, Sri Ramakrishna put a very un usualques tion to M: ‘Tell me, now, what kind ofper son is your wife? Has she spir i tual at trib -utes, or is she un der the power of avidya?’ Not

re al iz ing the im pli ca tion of this ques tion, Mre plied, ‘She is all right. But I am afraid she isig no rant (for she was il lit er ate).’

Not pleased with this re ply, Sri Rama kri -shna re proached M: ‘And you are a man ofknowl edge!’ (79-80) We do not eas ily un der -stand the spir i tual im pli ca tion of knowl edgeand ig no rance. By knowl edge Sri Ramakrish nameant here the Knowl edge of God. To re al izeor to ex pe ri ence di vine Con scious ness is trueknowl edge; all else is ig no rance. As SriKrishna says in the Bhagavadgita, ‘Con stancyin Self-knowl edge and an in sight into the ob -ject of true Knowl edge, that is, God—this isde clared to be knowl edge; what is con trary tothis is called ig no rance.’2

Third M eet ing

Enquiry Regarding the M ethod

We saw how with the help of sim plelan guage and anal o gies Sri Ramakri-sh na made M aware of his su per fi cial

knowl edge about God, spir i tu al ity and re li -gion. M vowed never to ar gue with the Mas terfrom then on. In stead, he now en quired aboutthe ways and means for the re al iza tion of God. He asked four ques tions to Sri Ramakrishna:(1) How may we fix our mind on God? (2)How should we live in the world? (3) Is it pos -si ble to see God? (4) Un der what con di tionsdoes one see God?

From here start the won der ful and il lu -min ating les sons for house holder dev o tees:how to lead a spir i tual life while liv ing in theworld. In re sponse, ini tially, Sri Ramakrishnataught four ba sic things, punc tu at ing themwith sim ple anal o gies, par a bles and an ec -dotes. He never tired of re peat ing these teach -ings: (1) Re peat God’s name and sing His glo -ries. (2) As so ci ate with holy men and visitGod’s dev o tees now and then. (3) Con tem -plate and med i tate on God in sol i tude. (4)Practise dis crim i na tion and dispassion, andde velop love for God.

Sri Ramakrishna em pha sized the needfor holy com pany. Who is holy? He is holy inwhose as so ci a tion one be comes tran quil andde vel ops the de sire to seek God. Our mind isin flu enced by our sur round ings. Tamasiccom pany leads to in fat u a tion and leth argy; ra-ja sic com pany to ac tiv ity, pas sion and am bi -tion; while sattvic com pany in stils pu rity andyearn ing for God.

M’s sec ond ques tion to Sri Ramakrishnawas, ‘How should we live in the world?’ Andthe com pas sion ate Mas ter told him to live inthe world even as a maid ser vant lives in thehouse of a rich man. She per forms all her du -ties. She cares for the rich man’s chil dren,cooks for his fam ily, but is not at tached to anyof them. She knows for sure that noth ing in her mas ter’s house be longs to her. The things sheuses, the chil dren she dresses up, the food shecooks and all the small and sun dry work shedoes—she does it all with out any claim on anyof them. If she quits her job for any rea son, sheis not al lowed to take any thing from thathouse. And sec ond, while she does all thework of her mas ter, her at ten tion is al ways fo -cused on her small hut far away, where she



would re tire af ter her daily chores; and onlythat hut she will be able to call her own.

By this ex am ple Sri Ramakrishna em pha -sized the need to cul ti vate non-at tach ment andto have a fo cused vi sion on one’s goal in life.This whole world can be com pared to the richman’s house where we ‘maid ser vants’ work.Noth ing be longs to us here. Our only claim isto the work—the work we have cho sen or theone that has fallen to our lot. If we get at tachedto it, that would be in vi ta tion to grief. Again, itwould make us un happy at the time of death,since at that time we will be forced to leave be -hind ev ery thing of this world. This world is al -ways full of both sor row and joy. Un mixed joy or sor row is a de lu sion. The best pol icy, then,is to work with out at tach ment; love and hate(rága and dveøa) are both at tach ments. Only de -tach ment can help us free our selves from sor -row. To con stantly fo cus our at ten tion on our‘far- off hut’ im plies con stantly think ing ofGod. He is our true abode, our true rest ingplace and our goal. None can dis lodge us from God, nor can any thing hurt us. God is our firstand last re sort, our only ref uge.

In the early stages, thanks to its fickle na -ture, the mind does not eas ily dwell on God.And there are many ex tra ne ous forces al waysready to sway the mind and make it rest less.Sri Ramakrishna taught that we should hedgeour selves with the di vine name to be free from world li ness even as we hedge a ten der plant to pro tect it from cat tle.

He fur ther ad vo cated re tire ment into sol i -tude now and then: one should re tire to a for estor an ashrama, and if this is not pos si ble, try tomed i tate in the cor ner of a room or in the pri -vacy and si lence of the mind it self.

Sim i larly, sing ing the glo ries of the Lordand rep e ti tion of His name keep the mind fo-cused on God. As a bo nus, the com pany of like-minded peo ple in such de vo tional groupsgreatly helps in over com ing de spon dencyand fear.

More over, in the si lence of sol i tude onefinds fa vour able con di tions to dis crim i nate

be tween the real and the un real, the per ma -nent and the ephem eral. Sri Ramakrishna toldM, ’”Woman and gold” is im per ma nent. Godis the only Eter nal Sub stance. What does a manget with money? Food, clothes, and a dwell ing place—noth ing more. You can not re al ize Godwith its help. There fore money can never bethe goal of life. That is the pro cess of dis crim i -na tion.’3

In the ab sence of this di vine love we getmore and more en tan gled in worldly af fairs.The con se quent prob lems of life, grief and suf -fer ing rob us of our peace of mind, mak ing itdif fi cult to think of any thing higher. Sri Rama -krishna used sim ple but ef fec tive anal o gies toun der line the im por tance of cul ti vat ing loveof God. He taught that just as a per son rubs hishands with oil be fore break ing open a jack-fruit so that they do not get smeared with itssticky milk, even so one must ‘first se cure theoil of di vine love, and then set your hands tothe du ties of the world’. (82)

An other strik ing anal ogy of his re lates tosol i tude. One al lows the milk to set into curdbe fore churn ing out but ter from it. Now thisbut ter can be kept in wa ter, on which it wouldfloat; there is no fear of its get ting mixed withwa ter like milk. In the same way the dev o teeof God needs to live in sol i tude for some timeand cul ti vate di vine love and de tach ment.

All these prac tices are vi tal for de vel op ingpu rity of mind, love of God, dis crim i na tion anddispassion. Un der lining the im por tance of in -tense yearn ing for God, Sri Ramakrishna said,‘God re veals Him self to a dev o tee who feelsdrawn to Him by the com bined force of three at -trac tions: the at trac tion of worldly pos ses sionsfor the world ly man, the child’s at trac tion for itsmother, and the hus band’s at trac tion for thechaste wife.’ (83)

Conclusion

Thus we see Sri Ramakrishna’s ut mostsim plic ity in elu ci dat ing pro found prin ci plesof re li gion and spir i tu al ity. If we are sin cereand our goal of life is God-re al iza tion, as Sri



Ra makrishna main tains it should be, theseteach ings should cer tainly in spire us. His teach -ings are use ful not only for those as pi rantswho have in tense de sire and yearn ing to ad -vance to wards this goal, but also for a lay per -son; for know ingly or un know ingly ev ery per -son is a seeker af ter Truth. If we can sur ren derto the will of God and call on Him prayer fully,He will come to help us, even as the moth er cat co mes to her kit tens when they cry ‘mew,mew’.

We learn some im por tant les sons fromthese first few meet ings be tween M and SriRa ma krishna.

(1) Sri Ramakrishna put for ward newertruths of Vedanta that had re mained hid denob scure so far. He rec on ciled the quar rel lingVedantic sects by go ing be yond all the rigidpo si tions held by their pro po nents. One of myfriends in the US who was a pro fes sor of com -par a tive re li gion, had in fact asked me, ‘DoesSri Ramakrishna preach the Qual ified Mo -nism of Ramanuja or the Monism of Shan ka -ra?’

I am un able to com ment with any au thor -ity, but I feel Sri Ramakrishna goes be yondboth of these great saint-schol ars. With thecon fi dence and ease of a knower of God, hecould speak of the Per sonal-Im per sonal es -sence of Re al ity. In his unique state of bhava-mu kha, he had tra versed the do main of bothBrah man and Shakti, both nitya and lila: the‘fire and its power to burn’, the ‘milk and itswhite ness’, and the ‘coiled snake and thesnake in mo tion’.

(2) To ex pe ri ence these spir i tual truthsthe best ap proach in to day’s world of in tel lec -tual prog ress is to com bine jnana (dis crim i na -tion and dispassion), yoga (med i ta tion) andbhakti (love of God). This point of spe cial im -por tance was picked up by his fore most dis ci -ple, Swami Vivekananda, when he ad vised us

to draw en ergy from all the forces at our dis -posal: Re al ize God, he said, ‘ei ther by work, orwor ship, or psy chic con trol, or phi los o phy—by one, or more, or all of these—and be free’.4

(3) Re li gion is re al iza tion of our di vinena ture. Getting es tab lished in spir i tual Con -scious ness is the goal of hu man birth. M learntthat such di vine moods, or bhávas, were com -mon in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Even abrief men tion or mi nor sug ges tion of Godbrought about such changes in Sri Rama kri sh -na’s con scious ness. In his third meet ing withthe Mas ter, in the pres ence of Narendra (laterSwami Vivekananda), M saw the Mas ter nowsing ing and danc ing and now go ing into thehigh est state of sam adhi. M was over whelmed with what he saw. These ep i sodes of al teredstates of con scious ness, com pris ing vi sions,bháva and sa m a dhi, formed the ba sis of re li -gion in Sri Ra makrishna’s life. Such ex pe ri -ences of higher Con scious ness brought theknowl edge of Di vin ity to this mor tal world.That is why any one who came in con tact withSri Rama kri shna was im pressed by his ca pac -ity to re veal spir i tual truths. To seek holy com -pany, to med i tate on higher Con scious ness insol i tude, to dis crim i nate be tween the Real andthe un real, to have dispassion to wards world -ly life (par tic u larly re gard ing ‘lust and greed’)and to lead a sim ple and moral life—these, theMas ter taught, are the means to re al ize God. ~

References

1. M, The Gos pel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami

Nikhilananda (Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna

Math, 2002), 77.


3. Gos pel, 82.



1997), 1.124.



By tak ing ref uge in Sri Ramakrishna you have re ceived a new light. M ould your life in his cast

and let peo ple see your ex em plary lives. — Swami Premananda

For review in PRABUDDHA BHARATA

publishers need to send two copies of their latest publications.


& Reviews &

Pos i tive Psy cho ther apy.Nossrat Peses ch -kian. New Dawn, L-10 Green Park Ex ten -sion, New Delhi 110 016. E-mail: [email protected]. 2000. xviii + 442 pp. Rs 250.

At last a real book on men tal health that does notde ride the hu man spirit of be ing seedy and

base. It ac knowl edges that men tal ill nesses arepres ent in man and also ac knowl edges his ca pac ityto erad i cate them. The sub ti tle of the book is ‘The-ory and Prac tice of a New Method’. Neu rol ogy, psy-chi a try, psy chol ogy, psy cho ther apy; psy cho an a lysts,prac tis ing psy chol o gists, be hav iour ther a pists,child psy chol o gists—all claim to con tain the com -plex hu man mind within their own dis ci plines. Aper son al ity is com plex, and when some thing goeswrong the com plex ity in creases. Though the above- men tioned dis ci plines over lap, they have tai loredthem selves to look for only sim ple an swers and strait jacket the prob lem in stead of lib er at ing thehu man mind. This book takes a re fresh ing viewand is a trans la tion from the orig i nal Ger man.

The new trend in men tal-health dis ci plines is tolook be yond the set par a digms and take a ho lis ticview of a per son and his in ter ac tions in var i ous so -cial set tings. The au thor re ally dares to look be yond and shows that folk psy cho ther apy, ju rid i cal ther -apy, eco nomic ther apy, as tro log i cal ther apy, med i -cal ther apy, sci en tific ther apy and so on have theirplace and in flu ence on the in di vid ual soul. NossratPeseschkian also con cedes that cul tural and fam ilyfac tors are now more im por tant than earlier.

Nossrat Peseschkian was born an Ira nian and iswork ing in the West. The im por tance of cul turalfac tors in men tal ill nesses had come early to histrained at ten tion while deal ing with pa tients. He isa spe cial ist in psy chi a try and neu rol ogy and has re -ceived his train ing in Swit zer land and the UnitedStates. In Pos i tive Psy cho ther apy he has il lus tratedthe o ries and ac tual sit u a tions by us ing an cient ori -en tal wis dom in the form of short sto ries. The ex cel -lent pref ace by Prof Shridar Sharma ad mi ra bly clearsthe way for the au thor.

The au thor’s ‘new method’ is called ‘dif fer en ti -a tion anal y sis’. He has been work ing on it from1968. ‘While in the psychotherapeutic and ped a -gogic lit er a ture it is cus tom ary to take into ac countonly func tional and dy namic con nec tions, dif fer en -ti a tion anal y sis goes sys tem at i cally and crit i callyinto the con tents of up bring ing and in ter per sonalcon flicts. It looks at the ac tual ca pac i ties in an in di -vid ual and their ex pres sions in fam ily and pro fes -sional life. (47) Ac tual ca pac i ties are fur ther di vided into pri mary and sec ond ary. This ‘new method’ isnoth ing but what Vedanta calls viveka, or dis crim i -na tion. It is a hu man ca pac ity that takes shape notonly phys i cally but also psy cho log i cally and so -cially. Thus the au thor takes the reader down thelength of his the ory, which he says is the re sult ofyears of ob ser va tion and prac tice by him and manyoth ers in Wiesbaden, Ger many. It has the usualcase his to ries that any book on psy cho ther apyabounds in. The book touches upon old the o ries inpass ing but lu cidly ex plains the new ap proach sothat the reader can re late to it eas ily and be gin tosolve his prob lems.

This book must find its place not only with pro -fes sion als and teach ers but also with as pir ing pro -fes sion als and pa tients. It is also rec om mended toany body in ter ested in main tain ing men tal health.

Swami SatyamayanandaAdvaita Ashrama, Kolkata

Karma and Re in car na tion; Sci ence, Con s -cious ness and Swami Vivekananda (2VCDs). Con cept and de sign by Swami M e dha -nanda; voice by Swami Atmashraddha nan da.Sri Ra ma krishna Ashrama, Ya dava giri, My -sore 570 020. E-mail: vivekaprabha @eth.net.Rs 75 each.

The the ory of karma and re birth, the di vin ity ofman and the unity and sol i dar ity of ex is tence

are the three pil lars of Vedanta phi los o phy. Thesetwo VCDs ven ture to pres ent these truths in the light



of mod ern thought.1. Karma and Re in car na tion: This VCD deals with

the the ory of karma and re birth. It spe cially in vitesthe at ten tion of those ea ger to un ravel the mys teryof life and death, which finds its first faint rum -blings in the ques tion ‘Is death the end of all or dowe sur vive it?’ Re birth is an ac cepted the ory in theEast, but is still in trigu ing for many in the West.This video con vinc ingly en light ens the view ers aboutthe fact of re birth by in fer en tial, sci en tific and his -tor i cal ev i dences. Swami Vivekananda’s pow er fular gu ments, the dis cus sions on the DNA fac tor, thecon clu sions of psy chi a try and psy chol ogy, the phe -nom e non of re gres sion, the fa mous Bridey Murphy case, the Dead Sea Scroll ev i dences—are all enoughstim u lants to pro voke the viewer, even if sceptical,to in tro spec tion. If a be liever, he is sure to con fi -dently march ahead on the right path to wards thegoal of per fec tion. Be gin ning with Swamiji’s role incon vey ing these ideas to the West, this 33-min utevideo briefly eval u ates this im por tant the ory in thehis tor i cal back ground of Chris tian ity. With its mas -terly script and graph ics, it also briefly and charm -ingly cap tures some time less Vedantic truths forthe mod ern world.

Man shapes his own des tiny in the light ofkarma and re in car na tion. Ev ery ac tion of his thenbe comes an op por tu nity to un leash more of his hid -den di vine po ten tial and pre pares him for the cli -mac tic ex pe ri ence of the un lim ited Con sci ous ness,which forms the sub ject mat ter of the other VCD.

2. Sci ence, Con scious ness and Swami Vivekananda:This VCD pres ents the Vedantic truth of Con scious -ness vis-à-vis sci ence and Swamiji’s thoughts.Though tar geted at seek ers of knowl edge in gen eral,the VCD is of par tic u lar in ter est to stu dents of Ve -dan ta, sci ence and Swamiji—sev er ally or jointly. Iten light ens us about mukti, the ul ti mate goal of allhu man pur suits, at tained by the knowl edge of thesu preme Truth. Ac cord ing to Ve dan ta, Con scious -ness is that ul ti mate Truth, and it finds the high estex pres sion in man’s pure self- aware ness as ‘I’.

On the one side, sci ence com pletely missed un -til re cently this da tum from its in ves ti ga tions, and,on the other, it stands to day on the fron tiers of mat -ter, ques tion ing its very ex is tence. With all itsboasted, in tel lect-based in ge nu ity, its ig no rance ofits fu ture course is ev i dent from its in ca pac ity to fillin the blank. Vedanta steps in to do that task, asSwa miji fore saw long back. In this mod ern pe riod,he was the first to unify these two streams of knowl -

edge, one ful fill ing the other.Pro posing this truth, the video pro ceeds to

show how Con scious ness man i fests in the uni versethrough an evo lu tion ary pro cess, a con cept so dearto mod ern as tro phys i cists and bi ol o gists, in whoseevo lu tion ary the ory Con scious ness played sec ondfid dle to mat ter, or rather, none at all. The Big Bang,evo lu tion at the cos mic, or ganic and hu man stages,rel a tiv ity the ory, quan tum phys ics—the video brief -ly broach es these top ics in the light of Con scious -ness and Swamiji’s re veal ing, al though star tling,thoughts. With catchy an i ma tion, sim ple and yet en light en ing script, and charm ing nar ra tion, this24-min ute video ad mi ra bly pres ents a pro foundand highly tech ni cal sub ject.

Both these VCDs are highly rec om mended for all seek ers of knowl edge, and a must for stu dents.They can be played on both PCs and VCD play ers.

Swami ShuddhidanandaAdvaita Ashrama, Kolkata

Encyclopaedia of Vedánta. Prof Ram M ur-ti Sharma. Motilal Banarsidass, 41-UABun ga low Road, Jawahar Nagar, NewDelhi 110 007. E-mail: [email protected]. 2002.xi + 224 pp. Rs 295.

What is un der re view is the sec ond edi tion ofthe book. The main body of the work is di vid -

ed into three parts. The first part deals with some ofthe im por tant Vedantic terms. The sec ond part, en-ti tled ‘Prom i nent West ern Schol ars Who Have Con -trib uted to the Vedantic Studies’, is re ally an ad mi -ra ble ef fort at giv ing an idea of the ex ten sive ser -vices ren dered by nu mer ous West ern Sans krit ists,Indologists and phi los o phers to the study andprop a ga tion Vedanta dur ing the last two cen tu ries.The third part, which is a much less re mark able ef -fort, con sists of brief de scrip tions of some In dianschol ars and phi los o phers of Vedanta. The vol umecar ries two ap pen di ces, the first deal ing with thepres ent Shankaracharyas of the four Maths (here,for some mys te ri ous rea son, the au thor lists fiveMaths, in clud ing the Kanchi Ka makoti Pitha, which,ac cord ing to tra di tional sources, was not foundedby Adi Shankaracharya).

The work af fords in ter est ing read ing and oc ca -sion ally re veals the im print of sound schol ar ship.Ev ery teacher or stu dent of Vedanta who pe rusesthis book will find it ex tremely in for ma tive. But


Reviews 91

there are cer tain un pleas ant fea tures which are tooglar ing to be ig nored by dis cern ing stu dents.

A strik ing draw back of the work is the dis pro -por tion ate al lo ca tion of space to the var i ous head -ings. A more glar ing ex am ple can not be point edout than the sec tion de voted to Adi Shan ka ra char -ya. There is not even a brief de scrip tion of his life,im por tant works, main con tri bu tions to Advai taphi los o phy or his fa mous ref u ta tions of the otherschools of phi los o phy like the Bud dhist Shunya-vada, the Mimamsa or the Sankhya. More than that, here is what the au thor has to say in his half-pageen try un der the ti tle ‘Shankara char ya’: ‘Al thoughhe is known as the Advaitin, his main con tri bu tionis found in his doc trine of Maya.’ (113) Prof Sharmais not alone in call ing Adi Shan ka ra just a máyá vá -din. There are writ ers and schol ars who con siderVal labha as a brahmavádin and Shan kara as a mayá-vá din!

Any pri mary stu dent of In dian phi los o phyought to know that Adi Shankaracharya was thecon sol i da tor of Advaita phi los o phy. It was he whoes tab lished, through his com men tar ies on the tri ple foun da tions, the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras andthe Bhagavadgita, that Advaita is the ul ti mate syn -the sis of thought un der ly ing the dif fer ent schoolsof In dian phi los o phy. To es tab lish his Advaita view he had to show that ev ery thing ex cept Brah man isan ap pear ance. So it is maya, the power of the Lordfrom which the world springs, ‘the di vine power inwhich names and forms lie in volved and which weas sume to be an te ced ent con di tion of that state ofthe world in which names and forms are evolved;daivæùaktiëavyákìtanámarépánámarépayoëprág ava s -thá’. (Shankara’s com men tary on Brahma Sut ras,1.4.9) In short, Shankara should pri mar ily be con -sid ered the great est ex po nent and con sol i da tor ofAdvaita phi los o phy, of which máyáváda was an im -por tant as pect. In other words, it is best to re frainfrom the de scrip tion of Shankara’s Advaita asmáyáváda. Rather it should be termed advaitaváda orbrahmaváda.

Since the vol ume is called Encyclopaedia of Ve-dánta one would also ex pect de scrip tions of at leastsome of the most im por tant tech ni cal terms per -tain ing to the other two schools of Vedanta: Ram-anuja’s Vishishtadvaita and Madhva’s Dvaita. Buta stu dent of com par a tive phi los o phy who wants touse this book for such a ref er ence will be to tally dis -ap pointed. The au thor seems to have con fined hisin ter est to the Advaita view point of Shan kara char -

ya. Even within this limit, it is very doubt ful if hehas done full jus tice. Of the three im por tant the o -ries per tain ing to the re la tion be tween Brah manand jiva the au thor has men tioned only the avac che -da váda of Vachaspati Mishra and the ábhá sa váda ofSureshvaracharya, omit ting the equal ly im por tantpratibimbaváda of the Vivarana school pro poundedby Prakashatman, Sarvajnat man and oth ers.

More im por tance could have been at tached toex plain ing the im por tant tech ni cal terms and wordsused in Vedanta phi los o phy. As it is, only abouthalf the book (1-118) is de voted to this pur pose. There sult is easy to imag ine. To take but one in stance,upakrama is ex plained as ‘be gin ning, com mence -ment’, fol lowed by a small quo ta tion from the Ve-dantasara (15). The au thor should also have givenhere the more fun da men tal Mimamsa view of upa -krama as used in the Tátparyanirîaya, which, in agen eral sense, is ac cepted by Vedantins as well.

The work would have been com pre hen sive and tech ni cally more mean ing ful had the au thor beeneco nom i cal with his nar ra tion of the his tory of theMaths in his ap pen di ces that, by any stan dard, is far out of pro por tion to the size of the whole work.

And fi nally, an encyclopaedia is not about giv -ing de tails about some prom i nent in di vid u als inap pen di ces; it is about help ing a stu dent in the un -der stand ing the ba sics of im por tant top ics re latedto the cen tral theme. Judging by this yard stick, itcan only be said that Prof Sharma’s work is a re-minder of the need of better works along these lines.

With slightly more mod er a tion and a sense ofbal ance in the se lec tion of en tries, dis tri bu tion ofspace and de scrip tions of sub-top ics, and with akeen eye for ac cu racy of cer tain plain facts, the au -thor could have con sid er ably en hanced the use ful -ness of the work. A mind-bog gling case in point isthe in clu sion of a fifth ‘Sri Sanka ra charya of Kan chiKamakoti Pitha’ un der Ap pen dix I, ti tled ‘The Pres -ent Sankaracharyas of the Four Maths’, (‘Con tents’and 220) with a dis pro por tion ate ly elab o rate de -scrip tion.

Prof Ram Murti Sharma has de tailed a long listof his pub li ca tions, the num ber of works he has ed -ited, be sides giv ing an elab o rate de scrip tion of hisvar i ous ac a demic achieve ments—all run ning intono less than four pages (in ci den tally, one of the lon -gest en tries in the whole book!), and which formsan im por tant part of the sec tion ‘Some In dianScholars and Phi los o phers of Vedanta’. And this incon trast to the less than half a page de voted to Adi



Shankara and about half a page to Swami Viveka -nan da!

Such glar ing defects not with stand ing, ProfShar ma’s work serves an im por tant pur pose: itcould make many en ter pris ing schol ars of ourtimes aware of the need of a re ally se ri ous and com -pre hen sive encyclopaedia of Vedanta. As Dr Shan -kar Dayal Sharma writes in his brief, but ad mi ra blefore word, the prep a ra tion of an encyclopaedia ofVedanta is an ex tremely chal leng ing task.

Swami TattwamayanandaEditor, Prabuddha Keralam

Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Thrissur

Skill ful M eans: The Heart of Bud dhistCom pas sion.John W Shroeder. Uni ver sityof Ha waii Press, 2840 Kolowalu Street,Ho no lulu, Ha waii 96822-1888. 2001. xx +176 pp. $ 19.

The ad vent of Bud dhism is an ep och in spir i tualhis tory. In dia, where Bud dhism was born, sup -

plied its spir i tual ideas to many coun tries in theEast and the Far East.

This book is an in-depth anal y sis of the Bud -dhist no tion of upaya, mean ing ‘skil ful means’. Thecon cept has a sig nif i cant place in Bud dhism, spe -cially the Mahayana tra di tion. This mono graphpres ents the theme from the philo soph i cal and re li -gious an gles, be gin ning with Bud dha’s vi sion in the M ahavagga, and the de vel op ment of the theme inthe Mahayana sutras, and Ch’an and Pure Land tra -di tions. The au thor has quoted from the writ ings of a num ber of schol ars, mostly West ern, and ar gueshow Bud dha’s teach ings were in the spirit of ‘skil -ful means’; Bud dha gave a method, not a creed, nordoc trines. Bud dha exhorted his dis ci ples to fol lowthe ‘mid dle path’ he showed and at tain nirvanathem selves.

Bud dha was aware of the need to be ‘sen si tiveto the kar mic dif fer ences of hu man be ings’, and outof com pas sion, adapted his les sons to the level ofun der stand ing of the au di ence. Ex pe di ency there -fore dic tates that in stead of a uni form code, a blendof ‘wis dom’ and ‘com pas sion’ is nec es sary to ef fec -tively com mu ni cate dharma. The au thor ex plores‘this link be tween wis dom and com pas sion, calledskill-in-means (upaya-kaushalya) in the Mahayanatra di tion’.

Bud dha’s teach ings are not to be mis taken forany in con sis tency, as ‘wis dom is not bound by any

sin gle doc trine, prac tice or meta phys i cal view.’Upa ya is not con cerned with meta phys i cal is sues.‘Skill ful means,’ says the au thor, ‘will coun ter actthis “meta phys i cal” ap proach by ar gu ing that thema jor de bates in Bud dhism sur round is sues ofpraxis and the prob lem of jus ti fy ing a fixed prac tice for all peo ple.’ The au thor con cludes with the ad -vice given by Vimalakirti to Purna, a dis ci ple ofBud dha, that ‘those who do not know the thoughtsor in cli na tions of oth ers, are not able to teach theDharma to any one’.

The sub ject has been pre sented in five chap ters.The first, ‘The Bud dha’s Skill-in-Means’ is a his tor i -cal re view which de vel ops the idea that his teach -ings are pri mar ily re li gious tools or de vices ratherthan meta phys i cal truths. The sec ond chap ter on‘Abhi dharma Bud dhism’ is de voted to the the o riesof the prin ci pal Abhidharma schools and the de-bate in the post-Bud dha pe riod re sult ing in schisms.In the third chap ter, ‘Mahayana Bud dhism’, thesub ject has been ex ten sively dis cussed in the lightof the Vimalakirti’s nirdesha. The role of Nagarjuna,a pow er ful ex po nent of the Mahayana ‘Mid dleWay’ tra di tion oc cu pies the next chap ter. The fifthis de voted to the role of upaya in the Ch’an and PureLand tra di tions.

A gen er ous ap pli ca tion of upaya tech niques re -sulted in some un eth i cal prac tices and de vi a tionsfrom the moral code of con duct. The dif fer ences be -tween the main sects in in ter pret ing Bud dha’s mes -sage are not merely on the sur face but go deeper.The con cept of ‘dependent orig i na tion’, Bud dha’s‘no ble si lence’ (fourteen un an swered ques tions),shunyata and the dif fer ences be tween Abhi dharmaand Mahayana schools, are among the top ics which have ma te rial for de bate.

The au thor must be com pli mented for his deepstudy of the doc trine of upaya. Some con fu sionseems to pre vail over the ques tion of Hin du ism ver -sus Bud dhism, spe cially, At man and non-At man(anat man). He ob serves, ‘Bud dha pro posed theskandhas against the Hindu view of eter nal self.’Then, Bud dha’s ad vice to two brah mins sound‘more Hindu than Bud dhist’ and ‘he seems to con -tra dict the doc trine of non-self (anatman), whichmany schol ars see as the Bud dha’s real philo soph i -cal po si tion.’ The au thor, how ever, ex plains: ‘When the Bud dha changes his “view” he is sim ply re -spond ing to the unique kar mic for ma tions of hu -man be ings.’

In this con text, one may re fer to Swami Ran ga -

Reviews 93


nathanandaji’s Eter nal Values for a Changing So ci ety.He quotes Rhys Davids (a scholar re lied upon byShroeder) and holds that Gautama was no en emyof Hin du ism; he was ‘born and brought up andlived and died a typ i cal In dian. … And he had butlit tle quar rel with the re li gion that did pre vail.’ An -other scholar, Edmund Holmes, has been quotedthus: ‘Bud dha ac cepted the ide al is tic teach ings ofthe Upanishads—ac cepted it at its high est level and in its pur est form.’ Re gard ing Bud dha’s ex pe ri enceof il lu mi na tion, the re vered swamiji ob serves, ‘Thisques tion has been left un an swered by Bud dha. Ithas not been an swered by his im me di ate dis ci plesei ther. … and this si lence re gard ing the na ture ofthe un con di tioned, im per sonal state and its de -scrip tion in neg a tive terms or even through si lenceis per fectly Vedantic.’ Again, ‘With re gard to the ul -ti mate Re al ity re al ized in nir vana, Bud dha did notsay that it also is im per ma nent and in sub stan tial.He did not say any thing about it at all.’ SriRamakrishna held the view that Bud dha’s teach -ings were on the lines of the jnana yoga of theUpanishads. The Bud dhist scrip tures’ crit i cism ofthe Vedas ap plies to the karma káîõa, not the jðánakáîõa. (Eter nal Values, 146, 158, 159, 164)

This book pro vides valu able ma te rial for scho -las tic de bates.

P S SundaramMumbai

Swami Brahmananda in Pic tures.Rama-kri shna Math, Bull Tem ple Road, Banga -lore 560 019. E- mail: [email protected]. 100 pp. Rs 150.

Each of the di rect dis ci ples of Sri Ramakrishnahad some def i nite role to ful fil in the di vine mis -

sion of Sri Ramakrishna. In its in fancy the Ramakri-sh na Or der needed care ful nur tur ing and spir i tualori en ta tion. This it got from the spir i tual gi ant Swa -mi Brahmanandaji when he steered the Or der as itsPres i dent for twenty-two long years (1901- 22). Hewas the heir to the spir i tual leg acy of Sri Rama kri -sh na. The Mas ter said he had the keen in tel li genceof a king. Thus Brah manandaji came to be knownas ‘Ra ja Maha raj’ in the Ramakrishna Or der. By aglance or touch or by his mere pres ence he couldraise the minds of the dev o tees to a high level andchange their lives.

This book is a pic to rial bi og ra phy of this greatspir i tual son of Sri Ramakrishna, pub lished first as

his birth cen te nary sou ve nir in 1964, by Swami Vi-re swaranandaji, then Gen eral Sec re tary, Rama kri -sh na Math and Ramakrishna Mis sion. The book re -mained out of print for long. Now, ow ing to itsclose as so ci a tion with Raja Maharaj, RamakrishnaMath, Bangalore, has brought out this sec ond edi -tion of the im por tant book.

The book be gins with a short life sketch of Brah-ma nandaji by Chistopher Isherwood, cov er ing hisbirth, child hood and as so ci a tion with Sri Ramakri -sh na; Swami Vivekananda and other young dis ci -ples of Sri Ramakrishna; the found ing of the Rama -kri shna Or der; a brief ac count of his ten ure as Pres i -dent of the Or der; how he ruled with ease, love andspir i tual power; and fi nally, his mahasamadhi.

The pho to graphs are ar ranged chro no log i callyas far as pos si ble with short ex plan a tory notes foreach. They are clas si fied un der four chap ters, eachdeal ing with par tic u lar pe ri ods of Raja Maharaj’slife and pref aced by a short in tro duc tion. The firstchap ter re lates to his early life and as so ci a tion withSri Ramakrishna. The sec ond deals with his life atthe Baranagore mon as tery and his med i ta tive lifeas a wandering monk. The third cov ers the pe riodfrom his re turn to the mon as tery, mean while shift -ed to Alambazar, to the found ing of Belur Math, the head quar ters of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ra -ma krishna Mis sion. The last chap ter deals with hislife as Pres i dent of the Ramakrishna Or der, con sol i -dat ing its ex pand ing ac tiv i ties and al ways main -tain ing a proper bal ance be tween work and wor ship in the life of his fol low ers; his prop a ga tion of SriRamakrishna’s mes sage all over In dia; and his spir -i tual min is try. There is a short glos sary at the end.

The bi og ra phy be comes more in ter est ing andab sorb ing with the help of the pho to graphs, print -ed on art pa per. The pho tos give us an idea of how aGod-man looks. One can dis cern an other- world lylook on Brahmanandaji’s calm, se rene face andhave an in kling of his in drawn, ab stracted moods.He looks like a real raja of the spir i tual do main. Thebook also has pho tos of the other di rect dis ci ples ofthe Mas ter. Those who are a lit tle close to the Ra ma -kri shna Or der would love to see the pho tos ofyoung Swamis Sankaranandaji, Vireswaranandaji,Sarvanandaji, Amriteswara nan da ji and Ambika -nan daji. (78) Also fea tured in the book are pho tos of some cen tres of the Ramakri sh na Or der like Banga -lore, Ma dras, Bhubaneswar, Kankhal and Allaha -bad, and of pil grim age cen tres like Omkarnath,Dwarkanath, Har d war, Vrindaban, Va ranasi, Tiru -



pa ti, Madurai, Ayo dhya and Ra mes waram—places sanc ti fied by Maha raj’s visit. In the epiloguethere are pho to graphs of the Ramakri sh na tem pleand Swa mi Brahmananda tem ple at Be lur Mathand the hall at Balaram Mandir, Kol ka ta, dear toBrahmananda ji.

We are in debted to Swami Harshanandaji forbring ing out this edi tion of the pic to rial bi og ra phy.It is sure to glad den the dev o tees of the Great Mas -ter. The qual ity of pho to graphs is very good.

DrChetana M andaviaAssociate Professor (Plant Psychology)

Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh

A Sym phony in Ar chi tec ture: Ramakri -sh na Tem ple, Belur M ath. Swami Tattwa-jna nananda. Ramakrishna Mis sion Shilpa-mandira, 313 G T Road, Belur Math, How -rah, 711 202. 36 pp. Rs 75.

Sri Ramakrishna was a spir i tual phe nom e non.He drew the best from the past, syn the sized

them through his ex pe ri ences and re leased them ina unique method for the fu ture not only of In dia but also of the world. In his ‘Karma Yoga’ lec tures,Swa mi Vivekananda ex plains this: ‘Man is, as itwere, a cen tre, and is at tract ing all the pow ers of the uni verse to wards him self, and in this cen tre is fus -ing them all and again send ing them off in a big cur -rent. Such a cen tre is the real man—the al mighty,the om ni scient—and he draws the whole uni verseto wards him. … And out of them he fash ions themighty stream of ten dency called char ac ter andthrows it out wards.’

Sri Ramakrishna’s tem ple at Belur Math en -shrines his sa cred rel ics and is suf fused with his spir i tual pres ence. The tem ple was con cep tu al izedby Swamiji and was later concretized by Swami Vij-na nananda, an other di rect dis ci ple of Sri Ramakri-sh na. Dur ing his itin er ant years in In dia Swamijihad stud ied the land, the peo ple, the his tory, thecul ture and also the var i ous ar chi tec tural stylesprev a lent then. Thus what we be hold of the Ra ma -krishna temple is a blend ing of an cient and media -eval styles of Hindu, Bud dhist, Is lamic and alsoChris tian ar chi tec ture. As the au thor says, the tem -ple is a sym phony of ideas, of tra di tions, of re li -gions, of ide als, of sub lim ity—in stone.

Il lus trated with pic tures and line draw ings, thisis a handy booklet that shows by com par i son the

ar chi tec tural as pects of the Ramakrishna temple,mir ror ing the styles of dif fer ent tra di tions, tem plesand stu pas. The book let is also in ter spersed withsome pow er ful say ings of Swamiji along with hispic tures. There is a help ful site plan of the tem pleand the ad join ing area at the end.

With the spread of Sri Ramakrishna’s ideas allover In dia and the world, the tem ple has be comethe cy no sure of eyes and minds. A Sym phony in Ar -chi tec ture is a brief yet help ful booklet that suc cess -fully cap tures the symbology, sig nif i cance andsym phony un der ly ing the Ramakri shna tem ple atBe lur Math.

PB

Life and Its M ean ing.K P M enon. Bha ra ti -ya Vidya Bhavan, Kulapati Mun shi Marg,Mumbai 400 007. E-mail: brbhavan@ bom7.vsnl.net.in. 2003. xii + 52 pp. Rs 45.

From time im me mo rial ques tions like ‘Who amI?’ ‘Does God ex ist?’ and ‘What is my re la tion -

ship with God or this world?’ con tinue to puz zlemany a sin cere seeker af ter Truth as well as lay peo -ple. There are no sim ple an swers to these ques tions, be cause their an swers de pend on cul tural, spir i -tual, re li gious and philo soph i cal per cep tions andbi ases of the so ci ety one is born in. From su per sti -tious be liefs to ad vanced sci en tific anal y ses, var i -ous ex pla na tions are of fered as an swers to the aboveques tions. Faith plays a sig nif i cant and im por tantrole in spread ing these thoughts and be liefs. Ev eryex pla na tion of fers some sat is fac tion to the be liever;for ev ery con cept about Self, God and Uni versecon tains a par tial truth.

In his pref ace to the book un der re view the au -thor be gins with the same theme: ‘The usual ques -tions about life and world that arise in ev ery think -ing mind have been trou bling me too for manyyears. My strug gle to solve them has led me to cer -tain find ings and con clu sions.’ The au thor wants toshare his thoughts with oth ers, and thinks ‘they will be of some help to those who are search ing for an -swers to the eter nal ques tions’. There is a trend, afash ion, to try to re late or cor re late spir i tu al ity withmod ern sci ence. We try to ‘ana lyse the spir i tualprob lems in the light of mod ern sci ence’ as if to talkof spir i tu al ity with out ref er ence to mod ern sci enceis not al lowed, or would be a gross mis take! The au -thor is a highly learned sci en tist (a grad u ate in me -chan i cal en gi neer ing and as so ci ated with BARC, L&T

Reviews 95


and Cochin Ship Yard), which ex plains his nat u ralten dency to mix phys i cal sci ence and spir i tu al ity inthis book.

This slim volume of fifty-two pages con tainsten chap ters or es says. The first chap ter has anunusual ti tle: ‘What Am I?’ in stead of the moreusual and ex pected ti tle ‘Who Am I?’ The au thortries to re late ‘I’ with a men tal state that changeswith ex ter nal en vi ron ment. In a pe cu liar lan guage,he writes, ‘(1) Con sume some al co holic drink insmall doses. At some point, de pend ing upon thetol er ance limit of the body, one will start feel ing dif -fer ently about one self. The “I” grad u ally changes.(2) In hale chlo ro form gas. “I” dis ap pears com -pletely. The au thor could have eas ily said, ‘If onein hales chlo ro form gas or any other an aes theticagent, as seen dur ing sur gi cal op er a tions, it is no -ticed that his or her “I”-sense dis ap pears for thetime be ing.’

No one can ob ject if the au thor wants to bringforth his own def i ni tion of the ‘I’-sense or ego. Butthere must be an es tab lished ref er ence point to be -gin with. He could have based his dis cus sion on ei -ther mod ern psy chol ogy or one of the six In diansys tems of phi los o phy (like the Sankhya), wherethe con cept of ‘I’ is dis cussed in de tail.

The dis cus sion in the sec ond chap ter, ‘Mind—An Over view’, has sim i lar lim i ta tions. With lit tlecon cern about the im pli ca tions of such words as‘ma te rial’ and ‘im ma te rial’, the au thor says, ‘Thuswe may con clude that mind is non-ma te rial andthere fore in de fin able by the meth ods used to de -scribe mat ter.’ This is to tally op posed to the San kh -ya phi los o phy, which de fines mind as mat ter. Andas ‘this book is an anal y sis of spir i tual prob lems inthe light of mod ern sci ence’, one ex pects at least acom par i son of notes between spir i tual and phys i cal sci ences.

The re main ing es says are sim i larly hazy aboutor tho dox con cepts of Brah man, God and other spir -i tual terms. There is no ob jec tion if one were to dis -card God and re li gion and ex plain the world on theba sis of sci ence alone, but one ex pects a ra tio nal dis -cus sion and ar gu ment from the au thor in mak inghis point.

Spir i tu al ity can be stud ied as an in de pend entsci ence—‘sci ence of spir i tu al ity’, as Swami Ranga-na thanandaji Maharaj calls it. Then the ten dency tode pend on phys i cal sci ence for an swers to ques -tions re lated to God, self and the world will giveway to sin cere and hon est study of the Upanishads

and re lated scrip tures.Dr C S Shah (late)

Medical Consultant, Aurangabad

A Chal lenge for M od ern M inds.Pravra ji -ka Vivekaprana; ed. Edith D Tip ple. Sri Sa-rada So ci ety, P O Box No. 38116, Al bany,New York 12203. 2002. E-mail: info@ srisarada.org. vii + 107 pp. $ 10.95.

Ever since the man i fested world came into be ing(Big Bang? In vo lu tion?), it has been un de ni ably

en gaged in a pro cess of up ward evo lu tion. With the blos som ing of the hu man mind on earth, dif fer entseg ments have been tak ing a va ri ety of path waysto wards the unity within, and this has re sulted in amind-bog gling list of cul tures. It is also ob vi ousthat all these seg ments are mov ing, how ever un -con sciously, to wards global unity. Set ting aside thecyn ics, psy cho paths and asuric power-mon gers,Pra vrajika Vivekaprana pres ents a clear phi los o -phy of this ideal of hu man unity that can be reached by us ing the pow ers within us in a cre ative man ner.

Yet, A Chal lenge for M od ern M inds has nothing to do with dry con cepts. The pravrajika gives pre ce -dence to ‘ex pe ri ence’ (it could be a young teacherdis ci plin ing a child, Bud dha ques tion ing his char i -o teer, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa speak ing toKali), and this is as it should be when deal ing withcul ture. Cul ture, East or West, is the prod uct of in -nu mer a ble ex pe ri ences in the life of hu man ity gath -ered dur ing all our yes ter days. As for the con cept of cul ture, it is like the en cir cling chalk line drawnaround a child to frighten him. He does not dare tocome out of the cir cle and keeps weep ing at thisimag ined im pris on ment that will not al low him towalk out free.

So what is this free dom we are try ing to get?Free dom from hun ger, eco nomic free dom, po lit i cal in de pend ence, eman ci pa tion from rit u al ism—oh,there are so many! But a sin gle in stru ment can helpus achieve a multifaceted free dom. Ac cord ing tothe au thor, a con stant get ting back to one selfthrough med i ta tion can set us free. For we wouldgain dis crim i na tion, which will help us dis tin guishbe tween what is real and what is un real. But med i -ta tion is be com ing in creas ingly im pos si ble in day- to- day life. A med i ta tive mood in volves an abil ityto con cen trate, an abil ity that is de te ri o rat ing pro -gres sively in the tech no log i cal night mare of to day:‘What we have done with space and time is to make



such a mul ti plic ity of im ages, a world so con fusedand so fast that the at ten tion span is be com ingshorter and shorter and shorter. As an ex am ple,tele vi sion ad ver tis ing is so very ex pen sive that each ad ver tiser tries to cut time to the short est pos si blenum ber of sec onds or min utes nec es sary to con veythe mes sage. Im ages flash one af ter an other. Whatis de manded of the viewer is to make sense out offleet ing im ages.’ (31)

The as pi rant thus finds him self in an un en vi -able po si tion. What is all this puz zling play about?How to free our selves from this un sat is fac tory hu -man con di tion? How to free our selves from thiscon stant iden ti fi ca tion with the body and mind?How to re al ize the At man, to be the true ‘I’, and getat the ra ti o ci na tive con clu sion that ‘At man is Brah -man’ and so ‘I am Brah man’? The pravrajika saysthis is made pos si ble by be ing aware of Brah manthrough a golden bridge like an ishtadevata: like theHeav enly Fa ther of Je sus Christ, the Di vine Motherof Ra ma krishna Paramahamsa. To put it in sim pleterms, the nirguna Brahman is re al ized through asa guna Form, which helps us draw our at tach mentsaway from the hu man con di tion.

Read ing this book is mean ing ful be cause thelearned au thor does not turn away any thing as use -less for the spir i tual view. Even the mind has its vi -tal place in this world view. Make the mind yourfriend! Draw ing sig nif i cant thoughts from the Gita,the pravrajika teaches us to be mas ters of our fate:stop the dis persal of en ergy, con trol it and movefrom mul ti plic ity to the unity of Be ing (as Bud dhaand Ein stein did) through con cen tra tion. Once thatunity is achieved in all its to tal ity, one at tains thestate reached by Ramakrishna Para ma hamsa, which he de scribed as an il lu mi na tion: ‘Light. There waslight ev ery where. I was swim ming in this light. Iwas part of it. There was no dis tinc tion be tween meand the sur round ing uni verse.’

This Advaitic re al iza tion is not eas ily at tainedby all. But sin cere at tempts do not fail ei ther. Theau thor underlines the im por tance of icons in thissearch for Advaitic il lu mi na tion in a Shankara-like

link age (satsangatve nissangatvam): ‘Ein stein, Bud -dha and Ramakrishna con cen trated all their en ergy in one di rec tion and dis cov ered the an swer to theirsearch. Seeing their suc cess en liv ens faith in us andfaith leads to un der stand ing. Un der stand ing leadsto one-pointed con cen tra tion. One-pointed con cen -tra tion af fords spon ta ne ous med i ta tion. Med i ta -tion si lences the tur moil go ing on within. When thetur moil is over, we are il lu mined.’ (62)

Since these chapters were talks de liv ered toAmer i can au di ences, the learned author has usedap pro pri ate im ages (chiefly the per son al ity of Je sus Christ) to help her lis ten ers re late to the sub ject. Shehas also dealt with the vexed prob lem of gen der inspir i tu al ity and has given a sim ple and clear ac -count of the Purusha-Prakriti du al ity of the Su -preme, and how the du al ity be comes the mul ti plic -ity of man i fested cre ation. At the hu man level, it istrue, wom en have been set aside as not ca pa ble ofab stract think ing, and this has been ‘the great est in -sult pos si ble’. Things are chang ing, but then, in tel -lec tual in tel li gence alone can not solve hu man prob -lems. Be it man or woman, we face a tre men douschal lenge. Are we pre pared to ac cept it? We haveto, if we seek prog ress.

Con cludes this im por tant pub li ca tion, ‘It (thechal lenge) asks of us no less than to reach for thenext level of spir i tual in teg rity—a level that de -mands less emo tional re ac tion on our part. The task of in te grat ing new gen der roles with the old can notbe worked out sub con sciously. It can only be metby tre men dous use of con scious en ergy at the high -est level.’ (91)

DrPrema NandakumarResearcher and Literary Critic, Srirangam

Book Received

Devæ M áhátmyam (mélam). Sri Rama kri -sh na Math, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004.E-mail: [email protected]. 2004. 94 pp. Rs15.

It is sur pris ing how many per sons go through life with out ever rec og niz ing that their feel ings

to wards other peo ple are largely de ter mined by their feel ings to wards them selves. If you’re

not com fort able within your self, you can’t be com fort able with oth ers.

— Sydney J H arris

traditional wisdom - home - advaita ashrama · the vedas are called ‚shruti™, meani ng that...

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