7 minute read
Leaf of Harmony
The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it. Does the seed become the earth; or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant, it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant.
Similar is the case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.
Advertisement
If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance: "Help and not Fight," "Assimilation and not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension."
-Swami Vivekananda
The Stalwarts of our Order - II
Swami Shuddhananda
It was Friday, February 19, 1897 that Swami Vivekananda arrived at Sealdah railway station at Kolkata. About 20,000 enthusiastic people came to see the Swami. Sudhirchandra was one of them.
Swamiji was to be given a grand reception at Ripon Collage. Some enthusiastic youth unharnessed the horses and pulled the chariot which carried their hero. Though Sudhir had to be satisfied by walking alongside of the horse carriage. Sudhir was already in touch with other direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna by his frequent visits to Baranagar Math. Sudhir along with four other friends dedicated their life in the pursuit of leading a traditional monastic life and for service of the poor as his practical spiritual practice.
Sudhirchandra Chakravarty took the monastic vows and became Swami Shuddhananda. Later he was elected 5th president of Ramakrishna Order. He was an erudite scholar and an able administrator. He was the first to take helm of the order in his hands after the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. The monks found an ideal combination of all the four Yogas (Jnana, Bhakti, Yoga and Karma) in him.
Romain Rolland on Sri Ramakrishna
Romain Rolland on Sri Ramakrishna
Romain Rolland (1886-1944), was a French man of letters. He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1915.
Allowing for differences of country and of time, Ramakrishna is the younger brother of our Christ…
I am bringing to Europe, as yet unaware of it, the fruit of a new autumn, a new message of the Soul, the symphony of India, bearing the name of Ramakrishna. It can be shown that this symphony, like those of our classical masters, is built up of a hundred different musical instruments emanating from the past. But the sovereign personality concentrating in himself the diversity of these elements and fashioning them into a royal harmony, is always the one who gives his name to the work, though it contains within itself the labour of generations. And with his victorious sign he marks a new era.
The man whose image I here evoke was the consummation of two thousand years of the spiritual life of three hundred million people. Although he has been dead forty years, his soul animates modern India. He was no hero of action like Gandhi, no genius in art or thought like Goethe or Tagore. He was a little village Brahmin of Bengal, whose outer life was set in a limited frame without striking incident, outside the political and social activities of his time. But his inner life embraced the whole multiplicity of men and Gods. It was a part of the very source of Energy, the Divine Sakti, of whom Vidyapati, the old poet of Mithila, and Ramaprasada of Bengal sing.
Very few go back to the source. The little peasant of Bengal by listening to the message of his heart found his way to the Inner Sea. And there he was wedded to it, thus bearing out the words of the Upanishads,
“I am more ancient than the radiant Gods. I am the firstborn of the Being. I am the artery of Immortality.”
It is my desire to bring the sound of the beating of that artery to the ears of feverstricken Europe, which has murdered sleep. I wish to wet its lips with the blood of Immortality.”
(From: The Life of Ramakrishna (Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta, 1979), pp.1114.)
Charles Freer Andrews on Swami Vivekananda
C F Andrews on Swami Vivekananda
Charles Freer Andrews (1871-1940), was an English priest who was an ardent admirer of Tagore and Gandhi. He spent a considerable amount of time in Santiniketan with Tagore and also worked in the Indian Civil Rights Struggle in South Africa and in the Indian Independence Movement.
I would refer in the first place to that greater word Advaitam…The word Advaitam really means namely, the oneness of all spiritual life, to see (as the Upanishads tell us), the Universal Self in all things and all things in the Universal Self. I feel the greatest of all debts the youths of modern India owe to Swami Vivekananda is the renewal in practical life of this faith in Advaitam.
"How Sri Ramakrishna taught Them"
(During this quarter we observed birthdays of the following direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. These small notes are our humble and devotional tribute to the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. All the pictures in section are the drawings of late Shri Sanatbhai Thakkar of Rajkot, Gujarat, India. All the originals are permanently displayed in Sri Ramakrishna temple at Rajkot. We are thankful to Shri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Rajkot for giving their kind permission to use these photographs.)
Swami Subodhananda Childlike nature and guilelessness are gift of God. Those who realized God had all the Godly qualities. When these Godly qualities start manifesting in our life then only, we can say that we have started moving towards God or we are becoming spiritual. Cunning and calculating people may be successful in the worldly life. Success which makes or keeps you humble is the real success as the tree full of fruits always lean down in the same way heart that is full of Godly qualities reap the real success which is their blissfulness and simplicity. All these are manifested in the life of Swami Subodhanandaji Maharaj or ‘khoka maharaj’ as he was lovingly addressed. ‘Khoka’ means a little child.
Swami Vijnanananda An incarnation can transmit spirituality with a touch or even with a glance. Sometimes an idea changes the course of life of a person. Sri Ramakrishna once said about Swami Vijnananandaji: ‘He wrestled with Krishna in his previous incarnation; he is not an ordinary person’.
When Hariprasanna (pre-monastic name of Swami Vijnananandaji) first met Sri Ramakrishna, the latter asked him ‘can you wrestle? come, let me see how you wrestle!”. “I thought to myself”, Hari Prasanna recalled, “What kind of Holy man is this?” But he replied “Yes, of course, I can wrestle”. Hariprasanna was the well build, strong physique, young man. When both started wrestling, though physically Hariprasanna could push Sri Ramakrishna to the wall but he felt an incredible spiritual experience by the touch of Sri Ramakrishna. Hariprasanna later said “That touch made me completely helpless. I lost all my physical strength. I went into ecstasy… Wave after wave of bliss engulfed my whole being. … For days the spell of that intoxicating joy lingered, and I realized that he had transmitted spiritual power to me.” Swami Premananda Spiritual life starts with the pursuit of purifying one’s mind and ends with the realization that ‘I am the Atman, eternally pure, eternally awakened and eternally free’. The Bible also says, ‘Blessed are the pure at heart because they shall see God’. Purification of mind is the only condition for knowledge as Bhagavad Gita also says, ‘there is nothing purer than knowledge’. Baburam (premonastic name of Swami Premanandaji Maharaj) was such a pure soul. Once Sri Ramakrishna said about him, ‘In this (ecstatic) mood I cannot allow other to touch me’. Once Sri Ramakrishna said to ‘M’ (the recorder of ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’) … “His (Baburam’s) body is pure. Only a very little effort will awaken his spiritual consciousness … He is pure, pure to the very marrow of his bones”
