In company with great souls

IN COMPANY WITH SOME GREAT SOULS

In Company with Some Great Souls SWAMI DAMODARANANDA

T

he supreme Satchidànanda is worshipped as ‘Shiva’ by the Shaiva Siddhàntins, as ‘Brahman’ by the Vedantins, as ‘Buddha’ by the Buddhists, as ‘Kartyà’ by the Nyàya philosophers (Naiyàikas), and as ‘Arhat’ by the Jainas.

The Karma Kàndins or ritualistic Mimàmsakas worship the Supreme as ‘Karma’. Of course, nowadays we can even add that the same Supreme Being is worshipped as ‘Christ’ by the Christians, as ‘Allah’ by the Muslims and in thousand other ways all over the world. This fact shows that the same Supreme Divine essence can be reached through all these modes of worship. This truth has been very beautifully explained by Shankaràchàrya in his ‘Pàndurangam Ashtaka’ where he says that he worships the Supreme Pànduranga as a symbol of Parabrahma.

Sri Shankaràchàrya has composed verses on almost all gods and goddesses with the single intention to enable us to understand that we are to reach the Supreme through various denominations, through our Ishtadevatàs, whatever that may be. In other words, his suggestion is that the Supreme can be attained through diverse ways.

In this modern age Sri Ramakrishna has demonstrated this truth by worshipping various gods and goddesses and always experiencing the same Supreme Being. Out of his profound and extensive spiritual experiences, he preached the beautiful maxim—‘jato mat tato path’. Sri Krishna also says in the Bhagavadgità (4. 11) ‘Ye 2015

yathà màm prapadyante tàmstathaiva bhajàmyaham / Mama vartmànuvartante manushyàh pàrtha sarvashah.’ ‘Whosoever worships Me, O Pàrtha, through whatsoever path, I verily accept and bless them that way.

Men everywhere follow My path.’ So, this Supreme Divine, who is already within us, is being approached by all the devotees in various ways. The purpose of all prayers and spiritual practices is to realize the Supreme Divinity that is already within us. Why should we do that? What is the need for that realization? To attain the highest and everlasting peace and bliss—that is the answer given by the Upanishads. When one attains this realization, one becomes the instrument of the Supreme Being. Then, he has no personal will. The individual will has then merged into the Supreme Will. Sri Ramakrishna often says: ‘If Mother so wishes, it will happen.’ So, in that way they become the greatest instruments of love and service to humanity, both in the physical world and in the spiritual world. They try to help humanity in so many ways. The very purpose of attaining the supreme awareness is that. One who has attained the highest, what will he do? His only work then is to lead others to the highest divine awareness.

So, that society is blessed indeed which has such divine beings.

Sri Ramakrishna, who got his ego dissolved in the Supreme Divinity, had himself become the Supreme Divine manifestation who was one with humanity, one with everything that exists. As we read

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his life we find that because of this phenomenal spiritual awareness, he could not stand people walking on the tender grass; he could not bear to see flowers being plucked. Why? Because he was one with the Universal Consciousness. Such persons can only become the greatest symbol of love and service.

Eknàth Swami

Eknàth Swami of Maharashtra was a great siddhapurusha (saint). He used to discourse on the Bhàgavata and the throng of listeners would savour his nectar-like words with rapt attention. Thieves used to take advantage of this. One day three of them went to his house and bundled up everything the poor Brahmin had. But it so happened that when they were about to leave the house, they found they had become blind. So they could not go out of the house.

They kept moving inside. Now, after the class of Eknàthji was over, the whole family came back to the house and found three people with bundles on their heads moving about aimlessly. Eknàth Swami saw this and asked: What is the matter? Why don’t you go? You wanted these things, please take them. ‘No, sir, we have become blind. We can’t find our way. Please pray to the Lord that we may regain our eyesight’, said the thieves in one voice. Then Eknàth Swami prayed and, by the will of the Lord, they got back their eyesight. Afterwards Eknàthji said to them: ‘Now you are my guests. Please be seated.’ Then he asked his wife to cook for them. When the food was ready, he fed them lovingly and requested them to take the bundles. But he added: Please do not do it in other places because in that case you will be beaten up.

So, you see, people who have attained the highest do not make any difference between the good and the bad. Whoever 18

comes to them, they get his unstinted love and sympathy. In that way we find that the great ones are the greatest blessings to society.

Pàvhàri Bàbà

In Pàvhàri Bàbà’s life, quite a similar incident had happened. Bàbà was a yogi.

Naturally he possessed very little. It is said that a thief entered his cave when he was not there. The thief bundled those few things.

When he was about to flee, Bàbà returned.

Frightened naturally, the thief threw the bundle away and started running. Bàbà took up the bundle and ran after him saying: O, Nàràyana! You wanted these things. So please take the bundle. It is my great privilege to offer this to you.

How do you explain this exceptional behaviour of Pàvhàri Bàbà, or Eknàth or Holy Mother Sarada Devi? The rationale behind such sublime response is their divine vision that sees the same Supreme Being everywhere, in everybody—in the good person as well as in the so-called bad person.

In her dealings Sarada Devi made no distinction between a dacoit and a sannyasin.

She considered everyone her children.

Pàvhàri Bàbà’s compassionate behaviour so much touched the thief that he gave up the world and became a seeker of God. Swami Vivekananda had met him in the Himalayas when he had progressed a lot in spiritual life. By way of conversation he told Swamiji that he was the same thief who tried to steal things from Pàvhàri Bàbà’s cave. Mark the transformation! And this is possible for anyone of us.

The purpose of spiritual life is to attain the highest peace and bliss and to transmit that to others in every way possible. Swami Vivekananda had started the Ramakrishna Mission for that purpose. He went to the Himalayas and had all sorts of experience.

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He found many monks who did not spend their time in meditation, prayer and studies that they were supposed to do. Instead they took opium and dozed off or misused their time in idle talks. That was the kind of ‘spiritual’ life they led. He saw all this and thought: No, the seekers who will come in future in the name of the great ones should not behave like this. That is why he started the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission the purpose of which will be to develop spiritual life through service to the society along with the practice of monastic disciplines or inner sàdhan-bhajan. He put this idea beautifully in the motto— ‘àtmanomokshàrtham jagaddhitàya ca’.

Realization of the divinity within is the sàdhan-bhajan of the monks of the Ramakrishna Order and the rest of the time we serve the community, we serve the living Nàràyanas in so many ways—but everything done in the spirit of worship. Maybe we are giving them education, medicines, building houses for them or it may be spiritual lessons. So that is what the Mission has been doing all along. It is a worship for us, it is the worship of the Supreme in so many ways. That is our sàdhanà, the external sàdhanà.

Training the youngsters

Now this sort of spiritual life begins in different religious communities in diverse ways. For example, every community has a method of transferring spiritual knowledge to the younger people. In Hinduism we have our upanayana ceremony when the youngster is given the sacred thread along with the Gàyatrimantra which he is supposed to chant at least three times a day.

He thus becomes a dvija or twice-born. He gets a second birth, as it were, a spiritual birth. In Christianity and Islam, they also have baptism and all that. The Parsees too 2015

have what they call the Navjyot ceremony.

The Parsees worship ‘fire’. So, through this ceremony they seek to instil the divine light into the youngsters.

When I was in Burma I found that the Buddhists have got the same tradition. Both boys and girls shave their heads and, on an appointed day, they are given the ochre cloth and made to sit on the horse, while their family-members follow them for about one furlong with various gifts in hand. The ceremony used to take place on the road. In the case of a girl, I found, she was being taken to a nunnery, while a boy was taken to a monastery. The purpose of that ceremony was to give them the highest idea which Buddha preached long ago. This is the ideal of human life—to get the highest spiritual knowledge or bodhi. So the boy and the girl, they must stay for three days in a monastery or in a nunnery. If they liked they could stay there for three weeks or three months. If they decided that they would spend their lives there, they could also do that. So, every major religion has got this sort of elementary training for the youngsters, though methods may differ.

As a primary school boy, I used to live in a village off Mangalore called Gurupur.

We had a temple there—the temple of Venkateshwara. Ven means ‘sin’ and kata means ‘to kill’. So Venkateshwara is the killer of sins, one who changes our life.

Indeed, the name of God removes our negative tendencies and gives us positive tendencies. Anyway, I used to go to that temple and we had bhajans and all that; but mostly I used to go for prasàda or the sacramental food of the Lord. By the way, I then heard of a tradition according to which the Divine used to possess one noble and good devotee living in the town. As soon as he was possessed he used to come to the temple and torture himself to show that he

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was then above all physical and mental pains because he was possessed by the Lord.

Surprisingly his powers were then greater than what is found in average person. When that person would pass away, the Divine would take hold of another. One such devotee who was possessed by the Divine was spiritually very much advanced. When he passed away, his things were thrown away in a nearby river. Everything sank but a danda (a stick) kept moving against the current. Everyone who witnessed the spectacle was amazed to see the power of the stick! So, you see, many varieties of inspiration we get in our own religion, maybe in our own towns and even villages.

Ramana Maharshi

Then I came to Mangalore for higher studies. When I was studying I came across in 1939 the living saint, Sri Ramana Maharshi. Then I did not know anything about Ramana or Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda—nothing. I was just a student. When I read Sri Ramana’s life I was instantaneously transformed as it were, and the impressions that I could gather therefrom pushed me to the spiritual life. So there was a sudden change. All my past was awakened by the living life of a holy man. I read his life. I found how he ran away from the house in Madurai and went to Arunachala, the sacred hill in Tiruvannamalai at the age of 17 to meet his ‘Father in accordance with His command’, how he realized the Self in a miraculous manner in July 1896, and so on.

Before I describe my first-hand experience of the saint, let me touch upon his exemplary life of austerities, meditation, simplicity and love for all beings.

Maharshi continuously lived for 54 years on or near the Arunachala hill including 17 years in the Virupàksha cave named after the 13th century saint 20

Virupàkshadeva. Most of the time he remained absorbed in meditation caring little about cleanliness and physical comforts.

When he used to feel hungry he used to come down to the streets, stand quietly and beg some food. The old grannies, who came from the villages to sell idli and other simple things, gave the boy some idlis and the boy would go away. Afterwards Maharshi got so much engrossed in prayer and meditation that he would forget to come down for begging. About this time one of the grannies used to go up in search of the boy and ask: ‘Where is my boy? Why he has not come today?’ She used to search for him in the adjoining forest where she will find him meditating. She would be sitting near him without disturbing him and when he opened the eyes, she used to implore: ‘My child!

Please accept a little food.’

You see the Lord looks after His devotees. Didn’t he promise in the Gità— ‘. . . yoga-kshemam vahàmyaham’? Thus Ramana’s body was looked after like that, sometimes by a sadhu and sometimes by a devotee. From that day onwards he did not go down; the food used to come to him.

Wild animals used to live there. One day a tiger was found drinking from one side of a water-hole while the Maharshi kept drinking from the other side. In his cave sometimes there used to be serpents. One day he went to the cave and found the devotees sitting there. But their faces wore an anxious look because they saw a cobra there. When Ramana came, he said to the cobra: ‘Please come, let’s go out, this is not your place; they will harm you.’ The cobra just followed him and went out and he said: ‘Don’t come this way again.’ Similarly, a wild animal, probably a tiger cub or something, once moved into the cave. He just called the animal and said, ‘Please come, go out and stay there; these people

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will harm you.’ And the animal silently left the cave. It may sound incredible, but such things happen because when there is no enmity within you towards other beings, be they animals or human beings, they will behave with you in the same manner. We read in the Ràmàyana that inside Vàlmiki’s ashrama the tiger and the dear lived together in peace because its atmosphere was surcharged with love and tenderness. There was no vibration of enmity at all. The Yogashàstra also says, for such a person there will be no enemy because he loves all.

So monkeys, birds, serpents and other animals used to come to Ramana as he was the friend of all. For thirteen years Ramana did tapasyà without talking to anybody.

I have already mentioned that I met this great soul, Sri Ramana, in 1939. I went to him and did pranàm. He was then sitting in the hall of the Ramanasramam that developed later around his mother’s samàdhi. There were only a few people, all sitting on the floor, while Maharshi was sitting on his small bed. Having offered my pranàm I stepped back and kept leaning against the wall. I remember I was so hungry at that time because I had not eaten anything for several hours. He just looked at me as I was also looking at him. I can say that was the first time I received his grace. He was just looking at me continuously and I too was looking at him. There was no exchange of words. And finally I found he got lost in divine absorption. He was in samàdhi! With half-closed eyes he was sitting still. It was my first encounter with Sri Ramana.

It was at his ashrama that I had the opportunity to read for the first time the life of Sri Ramakrishna. I was also introduced to the lives of the Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda. There, at the library, I used to read how Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna used to enter into samàdhi now and then and I had 2015

the great opportunity to see Sri Ramana in that great transcendental state. Reading about samàdhi is one thing and seeing that in a person is another. There is an enormous difference. Reading does not give us so much of inspiration as we get in the example of the living sage. So, in that way I was very much inspired.

Every evening we used to gather together and did Vedic chanting and all that.

At that time Maharshi would sit quietly and after sometime enter into divine absorption.

Meanwhile, singing and all those things would go on. Sometimes somebody would come and ask him some question, but there was no answer from him. Then that person spoke a little louder. Then also no answer came from him. Now, when that person shouted loudly, Maharshi would come out slowly from inside and say: ‘Hah! Hah! or yes, yes; what do you want?’ So like that he used to say. He talked very little. He would say a few words only if was required, otherwise he would not. Mostly he would transmit spiritual power to those who earnestly sought it and that too in silence.

His most effective way of imparting instruction was through the unspoken word.

One day I happened to ask him a question. I was looking for such an opportunity. I did pranàm and asked: ‘Bhagavan! What is the best method and the easiest method of reaching the Highest?’ He just looked at me and said: ‘Sit down.’ I sat down. The hall was then filled with about 200 people who came there after lunch.

Maharshi didn’t speak a word. I was shy. So I thought I am the luckiest, for he is not answering me. He was famous for that.

Sometimes he would answer, sometimes not.

So I was sitting and meditating before him.

After sometime, when the hall was packed, he said to a devotee sitting nearby, ‘This boy [pointing at me] wants to go back, go

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somewhere, and he is asking “What is the easiest way?” Where does he want to go, he is asking me!’ A professor, I think of the Andhra University, who was sitting close to me said: ‘You have closed your eyes and he is referring to you.’ I said: ‘Oh! Yes, I asked him a question.’ Maharshi asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ I replied: ‘To Krishnaparamam pada—to the highest spiritual awareness.’ He knew the answer; yet perhaps he wanted others to listen to the answer he was about to give. Then he asked me: ‘What are you doing?’ I replied: ‘I do japam in my own humble way and pray to the Lord. Also I try to meditate.’ Then, referring to japam, he said: ‘That is the best and the easiest way.’ Then he quoted the Bhagavadgità: ‘Yajnànàm japa-yajnah asmi . . .’ (10.25) and added: See how beautifully Sri Krishna says that of all the methods of approaching spiritual life He is the easiest— the method of visualizing the Supreme Being by repeating the Holy name.

True, rituals often involve killing of animals. But japa is free from such injury and hence it is the best. Whenever you want, wherever you want, you can switch on and do japa. Mahaprabhu Sri Krishna Chaitanya says emphatically that ‘No particular time has been specified or fixed for remembering the Lord’—‘niyamitah smarane na kàlah’.

That is to say, He can be remembered all the time. Whenever your mind desires to do that, whenever you have the time—morning, evening, afternoon—you can just switch on to that.

So that was what he told me about japam. He said, when we progress in doing japam we become pure-minded. Then we are able to control the body, the senses, and the mind and all that. Then the Bhakta (devotee), Bhàgavata (holy scriptures) and Bhagavàn—they all get tuned into one supreme divine realization. In that way he 22

meant to say that japam is the best method.

I had the great opportunity of living with him for some time. In his ashrama, I was given duty in the kitchen. I would get up at 5 a.m. and grind materials for preparing chutney. Maharshi too used to come to the kitchen at that time. He used to wear mostly a loin cloth and nothing else. He came, saw me and then sat down and began pushing the chutney that was getting out of the container.

Then he would put salt, chillies and other things just like an ordinary person. When grinding was over, he would go inside and bring the seasoning materials, put them into the chutney and give all of us, little, little chutney. Then he would ask: ‘How is the chutney?’ Everybody kept quiet. Then he himself said: ‘Is it bitter?’ Then he would start laughing. He was very humorous sometimes just like any ordinary person, very humble. So that was all about Sri Ramana Maharshi.

At the feet of Swami Virajananda

Afterwards, in 1939, I came to know about the Ramakrishna Mission. I was then studying engineering in Madras. I used to go to the Mission library in Madras, take books and read about Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works and all that. In one place of the Works Swamiji says to the effect that we have offered so many lives as a householder; why don’t we offer one life entirely to spiritual pursuits?

These words inspired me so much that I gave up everything and went to Bangalore to join the ashrama. From ’40 to ’46 I was there learning Sanskrit, the Upanishads, the Gità and so on. Fortunately, very able swamis were there at that time. I had then the occasion to go out and meet many noble people. I had to go out for collecting funds. I used to go to the Indian Institute of Science where I saw Sir C. V. Raman. One day at

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lunch time he said: ‘Swami, you seek truth in your temple and I seek truth in my temple—the research studio.’ I was a brahmachari then, wearing white cloth. Very interesting conversations we used to have then.

Later on I came to Belur Math and had the great chance of getting initiated by Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj. He was the President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission at that time. At that time I had the great privilege of having some conversation with him regarding spiritual practices.

After some preliminary talks Maharaj said: ‘When you meditate on the Supreme Being, your Ishta Devatà, you just visualize Him as sitting on the divine, illuminous lotus in your heart and repeat the mantra mentally. Close your mouth and then try to have a simple method of breathing slowly to control the mind lapsing into a sort of unconscious level.’

So Swamiji told me to have that awareness, that breathing must be slow. If you keep breathing like that your mind will get concentrated and it would not lapse into that ‘sleepy’ condition. When the mind gets completely concentrated, the breath stops. It is from that standpoint that prànàyàma has been developed. So simple prànàyàma helps, but not the various other intricate prànàyàmas. If you don’t care for that simple prànàyàma and just sit and do your japam, you may lose your hold on the mind and you cannot visualize Him within and you go to sleep slowly. However much tired you may be, if you have the hold on your mind by slow breathing, this simple method will keep you awake. Every action of the body and the mind has a rhythm of breathing. In morning when you jog, breathing is quicker. When you see something interesting on TV, you are 2015

intensely eager to know what comes next and your breathing stops. Why? Because your mind is concentrated on it. So in every action of the body and the mind there is a rhythm which is associated with pràna. So that is another great sage, Swami Virajananda, whom I met and we had so many discussions.

Swami Sadashivananda

Another great soul I met was Swami Sadashivanandaji Maharaj, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda. I met him in Benares in 1946, and again when I was going to Lahore. The swami was very kind, very loving, an embodiment of love, as it were!

He explained how he got initiated by Swami Vivekananda as a young brahmacharin. Swami Vivekananda, he told me, asked him one day: ‘You want to get initiated? Ok, come at such-and-such time to the shrine.’ So he went there and made pranàm and sat down. Swamiji was already sitting and meditating. After sometime Swamiji told him: ‘You have already been initiated!’ Sadashivananda said: ‘Yes, yes, I had been initiated by the family guru.’

Swamiji said: ‘Yes, that is your mantra.

Stick to it. Now sit and meditate.’ And he began to meditate. Swamiji gave him so much power that day that he got engrossed in meditation. ‘That day Swamiji gave me everything that was to be given’, the swami added.

Later on the swami explained how bhakti (devotion) in day-to-day life is to be practised by quoting a verse from the Nàradiya Bhaktisutra (19): Nàradastu tadarpita-akhila-àcàratà / tat-vismarane parama vyàkulatà iti. That is, he said, day and night, in and through all our activities, whenever we get a little chance we should remember God and hold this attitude: ‘O God! I am Your servant and You are my

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Master, and I am doing everything for Your sake.’ ‘I’ and ‘mine’ have to be offered to the feet of the Lord. Nàrada says, tadarpitaakhila-àcàratà. Tat means the Supreme Being; arpita-akhila-àcàratà—offering all mental and physical activities to the Supreme Lord. And if you forget Him for a while you suffer a terrible agony and feel: ‘My God, I have forgotten You! My puny ego is functioning now!’ This sort of anguish is ‘Tad vismarane parama vyàkulatà’. The anguish is due to the fact that my ego has been functioning so long, and not the Lord.

Then the question comes naturally: Are there examples of such yearning? The Nàradiya Bhaktisutra says, ‘Astyevamevam’ —Yes, there are—‘Yathà vrajagopikànàm’ —‘for example, the Gopis of Vrindàvan’.

All their lives were dedicated to Sri Krishna.

They had no separate existence, as it were.

They used to do all household work, they went to the market for selling their milk products, but all the while they remembered their Beloved Krishna. Their cittavrittis (feelings and inclinations) were completely offered to Krishna. Sometimes their minds were so overpowered by the Lord’s presence, that instead of shouting—‘here is milk’, ‘here is curd’, they said, ‘here is Govinda, here is Màdhava, here is Dàmodara—you purchase whatever you want.’ . . .

Swami Achalananda

Then of course, I had the great privilege of meeting another disciple of Swami Vivekananda. He was Swami Achalanandaji Maharaj. He was in Benares when I saw him. He was then in his 90s.

When we used to go to him, he felt very *

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happy and he would describe to us how Swamiji was one with the divine consciousness. Achalanandaji said one day that even when Swamiji was wandering throughout India, Bal Gangadhar Tilak happened to meet him in Bombay. He noticed Swamiji’s brilliance and said: ‘Swamiji you must join my Swarajya Party.’

Swamiji replied: ‘I don’t want to join any of your parties. Your party wants branch reform, I want root-and-branch reform.’

Swamiji’s consciousness, Achalanandaji said, was always tuned to the Supreme. He was always feeling for the people, thinking what he could do for the poor people.

One day, Swamiji was sleeping in his room at Belur Math. And in the next room Swami Vijnananandaji was there.

Vijnananandaji used to get up at 2 o’clock in the night. That day also he woke up and saw Swami Vivekananda moving about in the Verandah feeling so much of uneasiness. He asked: ‘Swamiji! What is the matter? You are not sleeping!’ Swamiji said: ‘Something has happened in this world, some natural calamity. Many people have been killed.’

Vijnananandaji was surprised. Nowadays we have got computers and everything. But Swamiji was the human supercomputer. His consciousness was one with the divine consciousness. As a result, he was awakened by the impact of that tremor that rocked distant Fizi or some such island. Next day Swami Vijnanananda read in the newspaper that really such a catastrophe had taken place and many people died. Vijnanananda was amazed. That was Swami Vivekananda!

The consciousness of these great ones is always one with the divine consciousness and their whole being is an offering to the humanity.

This article is based on the synopsis of a talk delivered by Swami Damodarananda, a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order, at the Institute on 4 October, 2001. The Swami has passed away recently.

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