Reminiscences
Lessons from Swamis
September 2021
The Dec 2020 Special Issue of The Vedanta Kesari was on the topic ‘Lessons from Swamis’. New content on this topic is being serialised this year.
The Vedanta Kesari
36
C
Swami Atulananda
.J.Heijblom born in Amsterdam, Holland, received his mantra-diksha from Sri Sarada Devi and his sannyasa-diksha from Swami Abhedanandaji, one of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Popularly known as Gurudas Maharaj, Swami Atulananda was closely associated with and deeply influenced by Swami Turiyanandaji, another direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. He joined the Order at the New York centre in 1898. During the last period of his life, he was at Barlowgunj in Uttarkhand in a cottage called Sarada Kutir. He attained mahasamadhi in 1966 aged 97 with his last words ‘Om Ma’, and ‘Hari Om’.
Selfless Forbearance All through my life, I longed for the holy company of the elderly sadhus. Hence, I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with many great sadhus. One such Swami was Gurudas Maharaj or Swami Atulanandaji.
I went to meet him at Barlowgunj where he spent the final period of his life. I was fortunate to enjoy his company for quite a few days. There was no end to my queries. He too would respond with a smile on his face. One day, I asked him, “Maharaj! I’ve heard that you were initiated by Holy Mother. I am curious to know if you faced any difficulty at the time of initiation, as neither you nor Mother knew each other’s language.” Maharaj was a Dutch and he spoke English also. But at the time of initiation, he didn’t know Bengali at all. He replied with a smile, “You’ve seen that an infant lies on his mother’s lap and goes on making noises. His mother too goes on speaking to him in her own language. See, the mother doesn’t know his infant language. The infant too hasn’t learnt his mother’s language yet. But both understand each other and interact smoothly. The same happened between Mother and me. She didn’t know my language. Neither did I know her language. But there was no difficulty in our communication. We understood each other without any problem.” I was astounded! One evening, I was chatting with him. It was time for his supper. The attendant served him food. I wanted to take my leave, but Maharaj stopped me. “Sit here. We’ll talk while eating.” I found that there were 2 dry rotis and a little curry on his plate. The rotis were so dry that it was difficult
