The Vedanta Kesari - January 2015 issue

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102 Year

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The Vedanta Kesari

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Publication

THE LION OF VEDANTA

A Cultural and Spiritual Monthly of the Ramakrishna Order since 1914

Swamiji’s statue at RKM Institute of Culture, Kolkata

J anuary 2015

India's Timeless Wisdom

It is not possible to change one’s own nature through instructions. Water although it is heated, becomes cold once again.

—Traditional Saying

Editor: Swami Atmashraddhananda Managing Editor: Swami Gautamananda Printed and published by Swami Vimurtananda on behalf of Sri Ramakrishna Math Trust A R Y 2 0 1 5 h e V e d a n t a KMath e s aRoad, r i ~ 2Mylapore, ~ J A N U Chennai fromT No.31, Ramakrishna - 4 and Printed at Sri Ramakrishna Printing Press, No.31 Ramakrishna Math Road, Mylapore, Chennai - 4. Ph: 044 - 24621110

The Vedanta Kesari VOL. 102, No. 1

ISSN 0042-2983

102

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A CULTURAL AND SPIRITUAL MONTHLY OF THE RAMAKRISHNA ORDER

Started at the instance of Swami Vivekananda in 1895 as Brahmavâdin, it assumed the name The Vedanta Kesari in 1914.

For free edition on the Web, please visit: www.chennaimath.org

CONTENTS JANUARY 2015

Gita Verse for Reflection

1

Editorial  The Eternal Relation

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Articles  ‘I Have Wings, I Will Fly and Fly’ APJ Abdul Kalam  From the River of Time into Timelessness Pravrajika Virajaprana  Vedantic Idea of Civilization: In the Light of Swami Vivekananda’s Teachings Swami Durgananda  ‘But for Me, Mother and I—That is All’ Swami Sudarshanananda  A Few Women Disciples of Swami Vivekananda Prema Nandakumar Sanskrit Composition  Shri-Vivekananda-Dashakam: Ten verses in praise of Swami Vivekananda Brahmachari Bhudevachaitanya New Find  Unpublished Letters of Swami Saradananda

8 13 19 25 31

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An Inspiring Story 

Kiran, the Light Alpana Ghose

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Compilation  Insights into Some Keywords: In Swami Vivekananda’s Words 35 The Order on the March 36 Book Reviews 39 Feature  Simhâvalokanam (The Mystic Path) Cover Story: Page 6

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The Vedanta Kesari Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004 h (044) 2462 1110 (4 lines) Fax : (044) 2493 4589 Email : thevedantakesari@chennaimath.org Website : www.chennaimath.org TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS

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N Cover Story N Swamiji’s Statue, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata Installed at the initiative of the Citizens’ Committee formed on the occasion of the Birth Centenary Celebrations of Swami Vivekananda in 1963, the marble statue (sculpted by famed artist Sri G. Pal of Kolkata) of Swami Vivekananda was unveiled by Swami Madhavananda, the 9th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. The statue is impressively placed in the courtyard of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, a premier institute under the Ramakrishna Mission in south Kolkata. The Institute was established in 1938 elsewhere and shifted finally to its own commodious building in 1961. From a modest beginning, the Institute has now grown into a centre of learning and research, recognized by the Universities of Calcutta, Burdwan and Jadavpur. It has drawn the interest of the public as well as many leading scholars of India and other countries. o

T he V edanta K esari P atrons ’ S cheme We invite our readers to join as patrons of the magazine. They can do so by sending Rs.2000/- or more. Names of the patrons will be announced in the journal under the Patrons' Scheme and they will receive the magazine for 20 years. Please send your contribution to The Manager, The Vedanta Kesari by DD/MO drawn in favour of Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai with a note that the enclosed amount is for the Patrons' Scheme. (This scheme is valid in India only).

DONORS Mr. Mr. Ms. Mr.

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G.V. Naidu, USA Rs. 10000 Anila Gupta, New Delhi Rs. 10000 Vijayalakshmi Yerramilli, AP Rs. 1000 Aspi Tavadia, Ahmedabad Rs. 1500

Rs. 5001

PATRONS 702. Mr. Shantanu Dey, Hyderabad 703 Mr. Anand Vardhan Singh, Lucknow

The Vedanta Kesari Library Scheme SL.NO. NAMES OF SPONSORS

AWARDEE INSTITUTIONS

5821. Mr. Ramakrishna Babu Poludasu, Hyderabad 5822.

-do- 5823. Mr. Y.V. Purnachandra Rao, Visakhapatnam 5824. Mr. A.N. Kagalkar, Mysore 5825.

-do- 5826. Ms. P.K. Bhuvaneswari, Madurai 5827.

-do- 5828.

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Hindu College, Pattabiram, Chennai - 600 072 Meenakshi College, Kodambakkam, Chennai - 600 024 Sarada Ramakrishna Vidyalaya, Vijayawada, A.P. - 520 003 Valluvar Gurukulam Girls Hr. Sec. School, Chennai - 600 045 MOP Vaishnav College, Chennai - 600 034 Dr. Nallikuppuswami Vivekananda Vidy., Korattur, Ch.-600 080 Bharani Swathi College, Medavakkam, Chennai - 600 100 Sree Balaji College, Pallikaranai, Chennai - 600 100 To be continued . . .

The Vedanta Kesari VOL. 102, No. 1, JANUARY 2015 ISSN 0042-2983

E ACH

SOUL IS POTENTIALLY DIVINE.

T HE GOAL IS TO MANIFEST THE DIVINITY WITHIN. 7

Gita Verse for Reflection Tr. by Swami Tapasyananda

—Bhagavad Gita, 12-2

The Blessed Lord said: Those I consider as the most perfect in Yoga, who, with their minds fixed intently on Me in steadfast love, worship Me with absolute faith.

B Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right? If your wives and children are against you, if all your money goes, your name dies, your wealth vanishes, would you still stick to it? Would you still pursue it and go on steadily towards your own goal? As the great King Bhartrihari says, ‘Let the sages blame or let them praise; let the goddess of fortune come or let her go wherever she likes; let death come today, or let it come in hundreds of years; he indeed is the steady man who does not move one inch from the way of truth.’ Have you got that steadfastness?. . . You need not write in the newspapers, you

The Vedanta Kesari wishes all its readers and well-wishers A Happy and Fulfilling 2015

need not go about lecturing; your very face will shine. If you live in a cave, your thoughts will permeate even through the rock walls, will go vibrating all over the world for hundreds of years, maybe, until they will fasten on to some brain and work out there. Such is the power of thought, of sincerity, and of purity of purpose. —Swami Vivekananda, CW, 3: 226

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Editorial

The Eternal Relation Life is Relation-based We live in a world of relations. To live is to be related. The very act of birth relates us to someone—mother, father, siblings, relatives, neighbours, language and gender group, nationality and so on. And as long as we live, we interact with others based on our relations. Even though death seems to annul all our relations, we still continue to be referred to as someone who is related to so-and-so.

‘Relativity’ thy name, life!

We relate ourselves with others at different levels—social, financial, educational, professional, international, and so on. Whatever be the form of our relation, we need to have healthy, mature and meaningful relations and this demands understanding, sacrifice and right action. Pursuit of meaningfulness in relations has been, and is, one of the central quests of life and even more so in present times.

Not only at the visible, mundane plane, we are ‘related’ at the spiritual plane too. It is relation all the way. Swami Vivekananda defined1 religions as ‘the eternal relation between the eternal soul and the eternal God’. In other words, religion is not about a temporary relation between a temporary soul and a temporary God! It is a relation based on eternal truths or entities.

In Sanskrit it is called achara, conduct and practices peculiar in certain places, times and situations. It is also called lokachara, deshachara and kalachara. For instance, among Hindus it is considered necessary to remove footwear before entering their temples. Or taking bath and being physically clean in order to perform worship. While these are necessary and have a definite role to play, they are not the ultimate truth of Hinduism—or in some other religion, some other such practice. These practices may be of little value in another geographically and culturally different milieu. Religion, however, is not all about achara; there is another side, a deeper side of religion, which deals with more profound issues than the external and rather ‘adjustable’ truths of practice and rituals. Says Swami Vivekananda,2

Two ‘Types’ of Truths Often while speaking of ‘religious books’, we refer to things which are of day-to-day relevance—‘what to do, not to do, when not to do, how to do’ and so on—set of observations, festivals, rituals and such external actions.

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There are two sorts of truth we find in our Shastras, one that is based upon the eternal nature of man—the one that deals with the eternal relation of God, soul, and nature; the other, with local circumstances, environments of the time, social institutions of the period, and so forth. The first class of truths is chiefly embodied in our Vedas, our scriptures; the second in the Smritis, the Puranas, etc. We must remember that for all periods the Vedas are the final goal and authority, and if the Puranas differ in any respect from the Vedas, that part of the Puranas is to be rejected without mercy. We find, then, that in all these Smritis the teachings are different. One Smriti says, this is the custom, and this should be the practice of this age. Another one says, this is the practice of this age, and so forth. This is the Achara which should be the custom of the Satya Yuga, and this is the Achara which should be the custom of the Kali Yuga, and so forth. Now J A N U A R Y

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this is one of the most glorious doctrines that you have, that eternal truths, being based upon the nature of man, will never change so long as man lives; they are for all times, omnipresent, universal virtues. But the Smritis speak generally of local circumstances, of duties arising from different environments, and they change in the course of time. This you have always to remember that because a little social custom is going to be changed you are not going to lose your religion, not at all. . .

In plain words, we have first to learn the distinction between the essentials and the nonessentials in everything. The essentials are eternal, and non-essentials have value only for a certain time. . .

The most important characteristic of these essentials is ‘the eternal relation between the eternal soul and eternal God.’ What is, first of all, the idea of soul and God that Swamiji speaks of?

The Eternal Soul One thing, according to Vedanta, about ourselves, the human personality, is that we are not just bodies and minds but body + mind + atman. While body and mind are not eternal, the atman is. What is atman? In his famous lecture given in Lahore in December 1897, Swami Vivekananda expounded the word atman, and how it is different from body and mind, thus3:

Etymologically the term Atman means that which is eternal (from the Sanskrit root word att, ‘that which exists always’). So, eternal soul means Atman. Is there also noneternal soul? In a way, yes, and that is called Jiva which is Atman plus body and mind (so it becomes jivatman). While Atman is never born or grows or decays and dies, in its embodied state it seems to undergo change, and the most expressive manifestation of this change is birth and death. In reality, however, Atman is the birthless, deathless, eternal core of human personality.

The Eternal God What about God? Of course, God and eternity are a synonyms. Never was God born and never therefore He or She or It (in whichever way one may describe that Eternal Reality) ever dies. It is, always. Of course, what is, is not fully known, not even little known. In fact, we live surrounded by the unknown! God is infinite, much more than the sense-world that we live in.

But this idea of God is not about an inert, inanimate source of creation! God, according to Vedanta, is of the nature of Existence, Knowledge and Bliss. Explains Swami Vivekananda,4

I will not translate this word to you in English, because the idea does not exist in Europe; it is untranslatable. The modern attempt of German philosophers is to translate the word Atman by the word ‘Self’, and until that word is universally accepted, it is impossible to use it. So, call it as Self or anything, it is our Atman. This Atman is the real man behind. It is the Atman that uses the material mind as its instrument, its Antahkarana, as is the psychological term for the mind.

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Blessedness, eternal peace, arising from perfect freedom, is the highest concept of religion underlying all the ideas of God in Vedanta— absolutely free Existence, not bound by anything, no change, no nature, nothing that can produce a change in Him. . . God is still, established upon His own majestic changeless Self. You and I try to be one with Him, but plant ourselves upon nature, upon the trifles of daily life, on money, on fame, on human love, and all these changing forms in nature which make for bondage. When nature shines, upon what depends the shining?

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moon, nor the stars. Wherever anything shines, whether it is the light in the sun or in our own consciousness, it is He. He shining, all shines after Him.

The stories about God creating this world for some end or other that we imagine are good as stories, but not otherwise. It is all really in sport; the universe is His play going on.

God, further, can be conceived or worshipped as a Being with form or without form. All contradictions are subsumed in the Ultimate Truth called God. He, She or It, with and without form, with and without qualities—all opposites get dissolved in the reality of God.

The whole universe must after all be a big piece of pleasing fun to Him. If you are poor, enjoy that as fun; if you are rich, enjoy the fun of being rich; if dangers come, it is also good fun; if happiness comes, there is more good fun. The world is just a playground, and we are here having good fun, having a game; and God is with us playing all the while, and we are with Him playing. God is our eternal playmate. How beautifully He is playing! The play is finished when the cycle comes to an end. There is rest for a shorter or longer time; again all come out and play. It is only when you forget that it is all play and that you are also helping in the play, it is only then that misery and sorrows come.

Then the heart becomes heavy, then the world weighs upon you with tremendous power. But as soon as you give up the serious idea of reality as the characteristic of the changing incidents of the three minutes of life and know it to be but a stage on which we are playing, helping Him to play, at once misery ceases for you. He plays in every atom; He is playing when He is building up earths, and suns, and moons; He is playing with the human heart, with animals, with plants.

We are His chessmen; He puts the chessmen on the board and shakes them up. He arranges us first in one way and then in another, and we are consciously or unconsciously helping in His play. And, oh, bliss! we are His playmates!’

The Eternal Relation Soul is eternal and so is God. While this relation is eternal, one can establish, or reestablish, this relation with God in various ways such as mother, child, beloved and so on.

All these ways of relating to God are definite methods of discovering our eternal relation with God. Suppose one thinks of God as a friend? Of course there are many ways to feel related to God but let us, for illustration, take up the attitude of a friend. Swamiji says,5 . . .God becomes our friend, the friend who is near, the friend to whom we may freely tell all the tales of our lives. The innermost secrets of our hearts we may place before Him with the great assurance of safety and support. He is the friend whom the devotee accepts as an equal.

God is viewed here as our playmate. We may well say that we are all playing in this universe.

Just as children play their games, just as the most glorious kings and emperors play their own games, so is the Beloved Lord Himself in sport with this universe. He is perfect; He does not want anything. Why should He create?

Activity is always with us for the fulfilment of a certain want, and want always presupposes imperfection. God is perfect; He has no wants.

Why should He go on with this work of an everactive creation? What purpose has He in view?

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1. CW, 4:209

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Becoming His playmates! That is religion, realising the eternal relation between the eternal soul and eternal God. But unlike all other relations of this world, this relation can never be terminated by anything. We can never terminate the eternal. God is, soul is and so too their relation is, eternal. o 3. CW, 3.402

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5. CW, 3.95

Simhâvalokanam From the Archives of The Vedanta Kesari (November, 1924-25, Pp. 251-252)

The Mystic Path SWAMI PRABHAVANANDA

It has been already mentioned that Vedanta recognises the truth that there must be various methods to realise the same goal, inasmuch as there are various types of men and women with diverse temperaments and characters. The Mystic Path is one of such methods to attain to the realisation of oneness.

In Sanskrit this path is known as Raja Yoga, or the king of all Yogas. It is said to be the king of all Yogas because it can be used with all the other Yogas and is suitable to almost all temperaments. It does not ask you to believe in any particular creed or dogma. You may have faith in one religion or other, or you may not have faith in any particular religion.

It does not ask you to change your own creed or dogma. If you are a Christian, remain a Christian; if you are a Hindu, remain a Hindu. You can remain in your own faith and at the same time follow these practices. And even if you have no faith in any religion, it does not matter. The chemist does not ask you to believe in anything beforehand. He has made certain experiments and he has found out the truth for himself. He will not simply ask you to believe in the truth he has arrived at, but he will take you to his laboratory and ask you to make the same experiments and find out the truth for yourself. Similarly, the mystic philosopher will ask you to make the experiments, to follow the practices and you will find out for yourself the truth taught by all the religions of the world.

This is also called the Mystic Path, because, as I go on describing the different steps, you will find that in the first place you have to practise regularly certain exercises, physical and mental, and you have to practise them in solitude, either in the solitude of a forest or in the solitude of your own room, where there will be nothing to disturb you, where you will be left alone with yourself and your thought.

But you must remember there is nothing secret or mysterious about this path. On the contrary, it tries to solve the so-called mysteries. Standing on the strong foundation of logic and reason, it tries to unravel the riddles of the universe and direct the individual souls towards higher and higher development, ultimately to make them realise the final truth taught by all the religions of the world. It does not merely give you hope of compensation for the sufferings of this world in some future birth, somewhere in heaven or other spheres.

On the contrary, it asks you to go beyond the sufferings and miseries of this world, even here and now. It seeks of you to realise the kingdom of heaven which is within even in the present life. o T h e

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Sanskrit Composition

Shri-Vivekananda-Dashakam Ten verses in praise of Swami Vivekananda BRAHMACHARI BHUDEVACHAITANYA

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The author is a monastic inmate at Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math.

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Notes 1. Sense objects allure the mind and the mind gets trapped by thoughts of sense objects. These thoughts bubble up repeatedly and this leads to indulgence in senses. That in turn intensifies infatuation. It forms a no-exit loop! Soon the habit turns into addiction. And hence it is a vicious circle.

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2. The sacrificial fire lit while taking the vows of Sannyasa.

3. Thoughts are often spoken of as waters in scriptures. For instance refer Sayana’s commentary on the 7th Mantra in Rig Veda Samhita at 10.8.125.—

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Article

‘I Have Wings, I Will Fly and Fly’ APJ ABDUL KALAM

Education—A Vast Field ‘When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are; anything your heart desires, will come to you’, says a poet.

When I am with you, I would like to recall the inspiring advice to you by Swami Vivekananda, How has all the knowledge in the world been gained but by the concentration of the power of the mind? The world is ready to give up its secret if we only know, how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration. There is no limit to the power of the human mind. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point. That is the secret.

Dear friends, this thought has indeed influenced my conscience and I would suggest that the education system must develop this faith among our youth and the youth to practice this faith in all their actions.

Hence, I was thinking, for such an international youth congress, what I can share with you. Shall I share with you, what I have seen and observed in thousands of schools, colleges, universities in India and abroad? Or shall I share with you the dreams of millions of youth whom I have met during the last seven years? Or shall I share with you, what I have seen in Singapore, how primary school teachers are prepared rigorously, tested and deployed in educating the young? Or shall I

share with you, how teaching of mathematics and physics in Finland high schools has become a great success and the role model for the whole of Europe? Or shall I share with you my experiences with Global Youth Meet at Liverpool and Dubai that focused the youth power as a powerful resource for world peace?

So far what I have said, even though are important, in order to provide an ambience, where multiple civilizations could co-exist with no rigid borders between them, the education system that one creates or brought through must have no respect for borders.

I was fortunate enough to benefit by this thinking when I was young and also to see it in practice during my several career efforts.

Friends, I will be sharing these experiences with you how from my childhood to now, education, knowledge and value-based events have shaped me. This will indeed be of interest to the youth who have assembled here. Dear young friends, today when I am with you, I would like to share some views and thoughts on the topic ‘I have wings, I will fly and fly’.

Unity of Minds Since I have come from an integrated society of billion people with multi-culture, multi-language and multi-religion and the environment where many civilizations confluence, I am going to talk to you about my education which I was fortunate to get.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, addressed the First International Youth Congress organised

by Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Memorial, Vadodara, Gujarat, on 10th August 2013. This is a slightly shortened text of his speech given on that occasion. o T h e

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Born in a small village in the southern part of India, my education could have constrained me to the length and breadth of that small island. But then my primary school teacher Shri Sivasubramanya Iyer not only taught me how birds fly, but also triggered a mission for my life towards flight sciences. I would like to recall one incident which commonly occurs in many parts of our country. I have witnessed this event when I was a young boy (10 yrs). In our house, periodically I used to see three different unique personalities meet.

Pakshi Lakshmana Shastrigal, who was the head priest of the famous Rameswaram temple and a Vedic scholar, Rev. Father Bodal, who built the first church in Rameswaram Island and my father who was an Imam in the mosque. They belonged to three major religions: Hinduism, Christianity and Islam.

All three of them used to sit and discuss the Island’s problems and find solutions.

In addition they built several religious connectivities with compassion. These connectivities quietly spread to others in the island like the fragrance from the flowers. This sight always comes to my mind whenever, I discuss with people on dialogue of religions.

India has had this advantage of integration of minds for thousands of years.

Throughout the world, the need to have a frank dialogue among cultures, religions and civilizations has been felt now more than ever. I did not realize then, but now I know, how these three people have practically demonstrated to me, the power of unity of minds and education without borders. At such a young age they have introduced me to this great theme effortlessly. The theme was Unity of Minds. This is what I learnt as a young boy equivalent to attending a multi-culture and multi-religious discourse.

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Nurturing the Seeds Here let me recall an incident that happened in the year 2001, while I was teaching at Anna University in Chennai, a course on ‘Societal transformation using technology’. I was invited by the Presidency College of Chennai to interact with students.

When I reached the venue, I saw more than 1500 students overflowing the hall. It was very tough to reach the dais. After I finished my lecture on ‘Vision elevates the nation’, I received number of questions from the students, which I answered. When I was leaving the hall, suddenly a young student pushed himself from the crowd and thrust a crumpled paper in my hand. I put the paper in my pocket and read it in the car, while I was returning to Anna University. My mind got elevated with the power of the message from T. Saravanan doing M. Phil, in Presidency College at that time. I would like to share the content of the letter with all of you, since it is relevant to the subject we are going to discuss.

The letter went like this:

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Dear Kalam Sir, the full power of banyan tree is equal to the power in the seeds of the tree. In a way both of us, you and me are the same, but we exhibit our talents in different forms. A few of the seeds become banyan trees but many seeds die as saplings without ever becoming a tree.

Due to certain circumstances and environmental conditions, many seeds even get damaged and become part of the soil as manure helping new seeds to become trees.

Saravanan then asked, You have worked for the country and helped many scientists, engineers, and knowledge workers, can you tell me, how you ensured that their abilities were not wasted or their growth was not stunted pre-maturely like banyan seeds that never became trees? In your service, what is the percentage of success you can claim?

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I suitably answered Saravanan and added that it was my great joy to see my team members excelling in knowledge and action. Since Saravanan wanted to know the percentage of success, I replied that it could have been minimum 60%. But this 60% emerged out of the 100% who worked for the projects.

The message I would like to give is: the seeds of banyan tree are indeed something like the citizens of the nation. Democracy and Governance have the power to give opportunity to every citizen to grow with capacity to perform. Every citizen therefore has the capacity to contribute to the vision of the country in his or her own way and in the process contribute to the success of few.

And this can grow in geometric proportion and result in the success of our nation which may be shared by all our citizens. Let every seed nurture. Nevertheless, seeds that become manure must not be treated lesser that the seeds that become trees.

Greece Experience Let me share with another beautiful experience that I had when I visited Greece in April 2007.

I was negotiating and climbing towards Acropolis mountain top in Athens and came across a group of 150 Greek students. They threw a spontaneous smile on me, the teachers came forward and introduced the students.

They said, they were very happy to see the Indian President and that the children would like to hear from him a few words. My mind at that time was thinking about the great personalities the land of Greece had given to the world: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The words of Plato were ringing in my mind when I saw the young students. Plato brings out that ‘Our aim in founding the State was not the T h e

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disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole’, 2400 years ago.

Similarly, around the same period Tamil poet saint Thiruvalluvar said, Piniyinmai selvam vinai inpam yemam Anaiyenpa natirkin vaindu.

The important elements that constitute a nation are: being disease-free, high earning capacity, high productivity, harmonious living and strong defence.

With these thoughts, I made up my mind of what to say to the students and the youth of Greece. I slowly repeated line by line, a hymn which I normally hear in Indian spiritual centers: Where there is righteousness in the heart, There is beauty in the character.

When there is beauty in the character, There is harmony in the home.

When there is harmony in the home, There is an order in the nation.

When there is order in the nation, There is peace in the world.

When the students and the youth repeated with me, the tourists around at the Acropolis also repeated and there was all round ovations. Then I realized how people from multiple nations, young and experienced, were influenced by the thought of righteousness in the heart irrespective of their nationality. You can see how the righteousness in the heart generates beauty in the character in the human beings and beauty in the character leads to harmony in the home.

Harmony in the home in an integrated way generates order in the nation. Of course the order in the nation finally blossoms peace in the world. The righteousness in the heart is the starting point for great individual, great family and great nation and ultimately great planet earth.

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Now the question is: How do we inculcate the righteousness in the heart. In my opinion, there are three sources which can build a youth with righteousness in the heart. One is mother, second is father and the third and the most important is the teacher, particularly primary school teacher. Also to provide righteousness in the heart to the young minds, we should have an environment of great education and a spiritual way of life and spiritual environment.

Now let us see a few great personalities, who are always remembered and celebrated by humanity for their unique contribution to society.

The Unique You If you look up, what do you see—the light, the electric bulbs. Immediately, our thoughts go to the inventor Thomas Alva Edison, for his unique contribution towards the invention of electric bulb and his electrical lighting system.

When you hear the sound of aeroplane going over your house, whom do you think of? Wright Brothers proved that man could fly, of-course, at heavy risk and cost.

Whom does the telephone remind you of? Of course, Alexander Graham Bell.

When everybody considered a sea travel as an experience or a voyage, a unique person questioned during his sea travel from United Kingdom to India. He was pondering on why the horizon where the sky and sea meet looks blue? His research resulted in the phenomena of scattering of light. Of course, Sir CV Raman was awarded Nobel Prize.

Do you know the scientist who is famous for Chandra Limit which describes the maximum mass of a white dwarf star, or equivalently, the minimum mass for which a star will ultimately collapse into a neutron T h e

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star to black hole following a supernova? Two of his students got the Nobel Prize before him.

It is of course the famous Nobel Laureate, Chandrasekhar Subramaniam.

Do you know an Indian Mathematician who did not have formal higher education but had inexhaustible spirit and love for mathematics which took him to contribute to the treasure houses of mathematical research—some of which are still under serious study and engaging all-available world mathematicians’ efforts to establish formal proofs.

He was a unique Indian genius who could melt the heart of the most hardened and outstanding Cambridge mathematician Prof G H Hardy. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was Prof. Hardy who discovered a great mathematician for the world. This mathematician was of course Srinivasa Ramanujan for whom every number was a divine manifestation.

There was a great scientific lady who is known for discovering radium. She won not one but two Nobel Prizes, one for physics and another for chemistry. Who is she? She is Madam Curie. Madam Curie discovered radium and she was doing research on the effect of radiation on human system. The same radiation which she discovered, affected her and she sacrificed her life for removing the pain of human life.

When I described to you these historical events, you all jump up. The scientist, technologist, warriors and great human being, who created the event, are unique personalities.

Young friends, can you join such unique performers of scientific history? Yes, you can.

Definitely, you can. Let us study together, how it can be made possible.

I have, so far, met 15 million youth in a decade’s time. I learnt, ‘every youth wants to be unique, that is, You! But the world all around

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you, is doing its best, day and night, to make you just ‘everybody else’. At home, you are asked by your parents to be like neighbours’ children for scoring good marks. When you go to school, your teacher says, ‘Why not you become like the first five rankers in the class?’

Wherever you go, they are saying, ‘you have to be somebody else or everybody else’.

The challenge is that you have to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can ever imagine; and never stop until you arrive at your destined place, that is, a Unique You! How to achieve unique you? There are four proven steps—having an aim in life before 20 years of age, acquiring knowledge continuously, hard work towards the aim and, perseverance to defeat the problem and succeed. In this connection, let me recall famous ancient verses ‘I will fly’ of 13th century Persian Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi: I am born with potential.

I am born with goodness and trust.

I am born with ideas and dreams.

I am born with greatness.

I am born with confidence.

I am born with wings.

So, I am not meant for crawling, I have wings, I will fly— I will fly and fly.

Education gives you wings to fly.

Achievement comes out of fire in our subconscious mind that ‘I will win’. So, each one of you assembled here and elsewhere, will have ‘Wings of Fire’. The Wing of Fire will indeed lead to knowledge which will make you to fly as a doctor, or an engineer, or a scientist, or a teacher, or a political leader, or a bureaucrat or a diplomat or you would like to walk on the moon and mars or anything you want to be.

Conclusion Finally I would like to ask you, what would you like to be remembered for? You have to evolve yourself and shape your life.

You should write it on a page. That page may be a very important page in the book of human history. And you will be remembered for creating that one page in the history of the nation—whether that page is the page of invention, the page of innovation or the page of discovery or the page of creating societal change or a page of removing the poverty or the page of finding new technologies in energy or astronomy.

My greetings and best wishes to all of you for success in your educational mission and life. May God bless you! 

The soul alone lives. Spirituality alone lives. Hold onto that. Yet, perhaps, some sort of materialism, toned down to our own requirements, would be a blessing to many of our brothers who are not yet ripe for the highest truths. . . The mind is circling forward, as it were, towards the senses, and that mind has to circle backwards; the Pravritti has to stop and the Nivritti has to begin. That is the ideal. But that ideal can only be realised after a certain amount of experience. We cannot teach the child the truth of renunciation; the child is a born optimist; his whole life is in his senses; his whole life is one mass of senseenjoyment. So there are childlike men in every society who require a certain amount of experience, of enjoyment, to see through the vanity of it, and then renunciation will come to them. . . . Hands off! Let the poor fellow enjoy himself a little, and then he will raise himself up, and renunciation will come to him of itself.

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Article

From the River of Time into Timelessness PRAVRAJIKA VIRAJAPRANA

Understanding ‘Time’ What is time really? It’s one of those tough questions that have stirred scientists, philosophers, and truth seekers to look deeper for answers. Once someone humorously suggested that time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once. No one has been able to give a clear, definitive definition of time. We know it, however, through our experience and by its effects.

Our lives are dominated by it; we are driven by time. And the one thing we can say with assurance is that we never have enough of it.

We speak about time as though it had an objective reality; we treat it is an object and try our best to manipulate it. We use such expressions as time is slipping though my fingers; wasting time; running out of time; killing time; making time; time is hanging heavy on my hands; time flies; the years roll on; time out, when we stop the clock during a basketball game; or in economic jargon, trading time for money. We attribute qualifiers: a short time; a while ago; the remote past; the near future; time and again; from dayto-day; for the time being.

In many cultures time is often personified, such as Father Time, the Grim Reaper, the Great Leveler, the Great Avenger,

and Mother Kali. Time drags all things into a ceaseless flow. In the Bhagavad Gita (10.30), Sri Krishna describes himself, the divine, as Time—‘of measures, I am Time.’ Time sweeps us along its swift current.

Who isn’t familiar with the ravages of time? Our time begins here with our birth and ends with our death. Everything and every one of us, not just the pills in our medicine cabinet, have an expiration date. Searching for life’s meaning during this short interval amidst the constant threat and fear of this expiratory date is time dependent. Yet, paradoxically, we don’t know what it is that has so much influence on our lives, especially on our thinking; and, what’s even more important, to live meaningfully, for peace and spiritual fulfillment, we need to escape from time’s hold on us.

In the Wonderland of Time There is a wonderful children’s book

by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. Swami Vivekananda was extremely fond of this book; he felt it was the best book for children written in the 19th century. He commented that the author Carroll must have had unique insight into the workings of the human mind. In fact, Carroll did have a brilliant mathematical

A nun at the Vedanta Society of Northern California, San Francisco, USA, since 1972, Pravrajika Virajaprana is the editor and compiler of Photographs of Swami Vivekananda. She has contributed many thoughtprovoking articles for Vedanta Kesari and Prabuddha Bharata. This article is based on her talk on the same subject delivered at the Vedanta Society in May 2012. o T h e

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mind; interestingly, there is another book which is a spin on the original called Alice in Quantumland. In the first chapter of Carroll’s book, Alice is sitting beside a stream on a warm summer day listening to her sister read when she falls into a sort of dream. Suddenly, a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat rushes past her. The rabbit paused, pulled a watch out of his pocket and seeing the time, dashed off muttering to himself, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late.’ Alice took all of this to be quite ordinary until she thought about it; it wasn’t so much that the rabbit was talking to himself that got her attention, but that he had a waistcoat on and pulled a watch out of the pocket to see the time. Then she began to wonder about what she had seen.

We all have a little of Alice and the white rabbit in us as we rush through life physically, mentally, and emotionally, from one reaction, one disconnected chaotic thought to the next. All the while we consider our flow of consciousness as quite connected, meaningful

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and rational, and rarely reflect on what the commotion is all about. Incongruous as it may seem, this continuous state of motion in our lives that propels us through time, from one point of view, centers round a series of numbers: one through twelve or multiples thereof.

Let’s pause a moment and analyze a rather bizarre phenomenon that we simply take for granted, sometimes for a whole lifetime, without questioning this strange wonderland of our existence in time. We’ll begin with just a brief look at what we call a calendar, representing what we have named arbitrarily days and months, and a clock that is numbered one to twelve which consists of three units: seconds, minutes, and hours.

First of all, the old inaccurate dating method of the Roman republican calendar was updated by Julius Caesar based on the solar system. Unfortunately, the astronomer who advised him overestimated the length of a year by eleven minutes, so by the late 16th century the accumulative effect of this error had shifted the dates of the seasons by thirteen days. Along came Pope Gregory 13th who reformed the Julian calendar (he basically wanted to restore the vernal equinox to March 21), and to this day we in the West follow the Gregorian calendar.

Some of the Eastern Orthodox countries still partially follow the Julian calendar, and, by way of comparison, some of the Asian countries have totally different ways of dividing time and calculating the year and its components. For example, the lunar Hindu calendar is based on the phases of the moon; the Chinese lunar calendar has a different method of formulation, and the Islamic world still another and so on.

The monthly calendar that Pope Gregory handed down to us has been refined into

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a box with neat grids running horizontally and vertically stacked one on top of the other usually in five rows, sometimes spilling over into six. Within these rows are small boxes numbered one to thirty or thirty-one; and one to twenty-eight or twenty-nine, if it’s a leap year. This calendar represents a certain number of days, the sum total of which we call a month and give it a name. Twelve of these months we call a year. Now these little boxes are one way we attempt to quantify and organize time. Looking at a particular box, we name it: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on. What is a day anyhow? Well, it consists of three units 864,000 seconds, 1,440 minutes, and 24 hours, or the time it takes the earth to revolve once on its axis.

The clock is used to measure these units within one of these little day boxes. We are so accustomed to this that, like Alice seeing a talking white rabbit dash past her, it all seems so natural that we take it for granted.

There is a fascinating conversation about time between Alice and the Mad Hatter at the Mad Tea Party. The Mad Hatter’s watch told the day of the month, but not what o’clock it was. Alice found this curious and questioned him about it. The Hatter replied, ‘Why should it? Does your watch tell you what year it is.’

Alice’s reasoning is even more curious than the Hatter’s, she replied, ‘Of course not, because it stays the same year for such a long time together.’

Their mysterious conversation brings us to the next point: time intervals symbolized by a clock or a calendar, as we often need to be reminded, are not absolute quantities, applicable universally as a steady, unvarying, inexorable time flow running from the infinite past to the infinite future, but are merely a matter of practical convenience. Most clocks dating from the ancient sundials to shadow T h e

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measurement have been geared to the solar system. By observing the celestial sphere with its rotating, revolving motion, the attention of ancient philosophers was drawn to the regularity of these celestial motions as a way time could be measured metrically.

So they devised a method of mathematically measuring change.

Cyclic Nature of Time Cyclic time is intrinsic to nature. This is the Oriental view of time that everything is going round and round. Cosmic cycles of involution and evolution, withdrawal and projection, go on eternally in a wave-like motion; day follows night; the seasons come and go; mountains are ground down; ocean beds rise to the surface becoming mountains; rivers change their courses; and weather patterns shift from ice ages to global warming.

Furthermore, within an individual there are biorhythmic cycles and changes which are continually fluctuating. Everything that is born dies and then having been recycled is born again. This is quite different from the Occidental homogenous linear flow of time, where we are born, march through life in a sequence of distinct stages, incorporating into them some sort of fixed time epitomized in Shakespeare’s famous ‘seven ages of man’, and proceed according to schedule to the final stage death.

Ironically, in the West we think in a linear way, yet we measure the passage of time in our day-to-day life cyclically.

Take, for example, a watch that we wear, even the name implies what we are doing, watching the revolving motion of time (even digital watches); they are little ‘termination reminders’ that are on our wrists, as if there is a sinister plot in the universe constantly reminding us of our death day. We always

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want reminders and acknowledgment of our birthday, but unknowingly we carry our death day reminder with us daily.

Since there is no absolute time and yet considering our life is so dominated by it, it’s about time before proceeding with this discussion to throw out several working definitions. In philosophy and metaphysics, time is considered the fourth dimension in our space-time continuum. Practically speaking, time is a point in duration, a moment, an instant, an interval between two events; time is an attempt to quantify in a numerical sequence multiple successive intervals of duration. Time is also an indefinite, unlimited duration, a continuance, in which things are considered to be happening in the past, present, and future and thus inseparable from changes and events taking place in it.

One could say just as there is no colour without an eye to perceive it, in a similar way, an instant, an hour, a day, or a month is non-existent without an event or happening to mark it. Swami Vivekananda, who pragmatically deals with abstruse metaphysical subjects, says in his lecture ‘The Absolute and Manifestation’: You cannot have any idea of abstract time, but you have to take two events, one preceeding and References:

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the other succeeding, and join the two events by the idea of succession. Time depends on two events, just as space has to be related to outside objects.1

Then hinting at the elusive nature of space and time Swamiji continues, ‘They are shadows around everything which you cannot catch.’2 So just as space is merely a possible order of material objects, so time is simply a possible and often probable order of events concerning those objects.

Time flows like a stream, but the rate of flow varies. It is not always the same, not only for different individuals, but for the same person. Time, as Einstein’s theory of relativity so eloquently proved over a hundred years ago, is relative. There is no such thing as a fixed interval of time independent of the observer. For example, what we call a year is simply our measurement of the earth’s progress as we rocket through space during our orbit around the sun. Apparently, if we lived on Mercury instead of earth, we would have a different notion of time. Mercury goes around the sun in eighty-eight of our days and in that period rotates just once on its axis. So on Mercury a year and a day amount to the same thing. This is something like the Mad Hatter’s watch.

(To be continued. . .)

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New Find

Unpublished Letters of Swami Saradananda1 Jan 28th 1904 2/1 Bagbazar Street My dear Hari Maharaj,2 I am sorry I could not acknowledge your kind letter of Dec. 28th till now. I cannot tell you how very glad I was to get it.

I am sorry you are still suffering. Has the boil been cured? I met your brother (the doctor) a few days ago & he inquired after your health.

On my telling him what I knew, he suggested opium for you [to] take. Will you try it?

I have heard twice from Tulsi since he left. He is well only frightened or rather nervous with stage fright. I hear from Kali, he (Tulsi) is [has] already taken charge of the Gita & Sanskrit classes.

Sarada3 too has written to Sudhir that he is better. More of course you know of him from your Californian friends.

Christine’s School is prospering indeed. It has become impossible even now for one horse to do all the work in school days. Prof.J.C.Bose has presented her his own horse & Lalit Babu has promised to try to induce the Kasimbazar Maharaj to present us a bus. I wrote you perhaps, Upen Dev of Entally presented the school his own carriage. It was a old one & the other [day] one of the doors fell off in the street. I have sent it to get repaired thoroughly for the school will be a failure without it. The cost for repairing will come up Rs.120/- or so. Will you undertake to pay it? It will be a great help if you can.

I have just bought two machines for knitting socks brought one from Japan by Sadananda (Gupta) from the school funds at a price of Rs.150/- The poor women must be taught something by which they will be able to earn something & be independent. We are directing our efforts to that end.

Nivedita is on a lecture tour to N.W.P.4 with Gupta & Haripada. Gupta is still very poorly from the attack of diabetes.

The Holy Mother is coming here by the end of this month.

It is an age since I met you. I wish you would kindly come here once when the Holy Mother is here. I will inform you when She is here.

With my love to you as ever & prayers for your speedy recovery Ever yours affecly Sarat

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April 11th 1904.

2/1 Bagbazar Street.

Calcutta.

My dear Hari, I thank you for your kind letter of April 9th. I am so glad to hear from you and to learn you are feeling better. May you be quite young again soon is the constant prayer of your devoted friend.

I am so sorry to hear of Nag Mahasaya’s wife. It is so good of you to take care of her while there and again to think of this present to help her. I will intimate your wish to Rakhal Maharaj & I am sure he will do as you have desired.

I am sorry I cannot write you as often as I would like to. But there is no rest for the wicked like me, you know! I am fighting as best as I can, almost unaided to keep up the works started in Calcutta. The Vivekananda Memorial House has done good work last year & I am sure its influence will grow with time. But there is no funds to carry it on. So I am determined to raise funds & see the work through the second year & try to make it a permanent institution if possible.

Sister Nivedita is helping me a great deal in it. Then there is the female work of Sister Christine, which is growing beyond expectation & must be extended as soon as she comes back from her month’s tour from Mayabati5. So you see dear Hari I have been kept pretty busy & anxious too & it is enough that I can keep myself from becoming irritable & giving way to despondency. So do not think hard of me if I cannot write you.

The Holy Mother is better but far from happy, on account of the ill-health of Her uncle & ill-temper of Her widowed sister-in-law & anxiety for the little niece not to mention the anxiety for Her old mother’s health. I am glad She has come here for I trust, She will at least gain a little strength by a few months stay here. She would like to send Her love and blessings to yourself & Krishnalal who I hope is well.

You have heard perhaps what Jamini of Benares has done. He raised subscriptions in the name of the work there, after his resignation, used about a Rs 1000/- for his own purposes, & has married the daughter of a characterless woman! The public are crying for his warrant & I believe we will have to take the sad step for preserving the prestige of the work. This much for today. I will write more when I can. With my love & pranams to yourself & blessings to Krishnalal. yours affectionately Sarat.

References 1. A direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna 2. Swami Turiyananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna 3. Swami Trigunatitananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna 4. North West Provinces of India 5. Advaita Ashram, Mayavati, Uttarakhand

Courtesy: Ramakrishna Museum, Belur Math

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Article

Vedantic Idea of Civilization In the Light of Swami Vivekananda’s Teachings SWAMI DURGANANDA

The March of History ‘While nation states are important actors in the world, their interests and conflicts are shaped by civilizational factors1,’ said the political scientist Samuel Huntington in his now famous 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. Thus, it is civilizations, not nations, that have been a major force in steering humanity’s course in history.

Human history has indeed been a history of civilizations.

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), the noted British historian, identified 21 major civilizations in the world.2 According to him, some civilizations developed finer human aspects. Some remained barbaric before vanishing from the eyesight. Some (for example, the Roman) bloated into unwieldy greatness which yielded to the weight of its own pressure and broke apart3. Only about six or seven major civilizations remain today.

We wonder what the future civilization will be, now that the limitation of material pleasure and harm from its toxic effects has come to our notice worldwide. What will be the relationship between society and religion?

Will man’s rallying cry for ‘secularization’ push the seekers of the grand Ultimate Truth into their private ambries away from society? If Vedanta, the timeless wisdom of Indian sages, has been the mainstay of the Indian civilization, will it take a defeat in this

scuffle for ‘progress’—‘material progress’?

The present article looks at the factors behind the dynamics of civilizations and what might unfold.

What is Civilization?

The word ‘civilization’ originated from the French word civilisation, ‘to be an opposite to barbarity’. Oxford dictionary defines ‘civilization’ as: a state of human society that is very developed and organized.

It is a ‘state of intellectual, cultural and material development.’4 What then is cultural development? Or, ‘what is culture?’

According to Oxford dictionary, ‘culture’ is: the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group.

The word ‘culture’ comes from two Latin words: cultura (tilling of land) and colere (cultivation through education). What is implied is cultivation of the mind.

What then is the difference between civilization and culture? The answer is implicit in the definitions. Culture is in the mental realm while civilization is mainly in the physical. While culture refers to the behaviour, civilization refers to the structure (including people). Culture is a heritage, unwilling

o The author is a monastic inmate of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur Math in West Bengal.

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to change, difficult to measure (due to the problem of ‘self-reference,’ because it itself is the measuring yardstick), and can be a stand-alone entity. Civilization is a creation, synchronous with time (i.e., must change with time), can be measured, and must have one or more cultures in it.

While ‘civilizations are dynamic. They rise and fall, and may disappear altogether in the sands of time,5’ The roots of Indian Civilisation, based on Vedanta which emphatically holds itself on the immutable and infinite Brahman which is ever fresh, has a built-in renewal mechanism. Thus a civilization that is based on Vedanta, ie, Indian Civilisation, which is a philosophy of the ‘unchanging reality’, would, by definition, be undying and eternal. Like Vedanta, which is its basis, the Indian Civilisation is also eternal.

One may portray the relationship of these concepts in a figure:

society, further removing people from society leaves culture. Culture in turn is an engine for the advancement of the civilization. In the Indian context, it is through the channel of culture that civilization will make progress towards being Vedantic.

The Indian View Culture is the sum total of samskaras in the collective mind. The memories of the glorious past of India, when philosophy, arts, science, literature, logic, mathematics, scientific inventions, astronomy, religion and so on flourished in India, remain deep inside the collective mind of her people.

These cannot be forgotten just as one cannot forget memories of one’s past years. These memories incite the civilization from deep inside the minds of the people, quite unknown to the people themselves, and consequently the reconstruction of past glory automatically takes place.

Civilization: Structure (transport, building, roads, political system, etc.,) How then shall and people. the development Remove the physical take place in India?

Before that, let us Society: People (community with a relationships) and its culture look at the following ‘difference’.

Culture builds civilization

  

Remove people

Difference Between the Western and the Culture: ‘Mind’ of society (customs, beliefs, values, practices, behaviour) Indian Civilization — Language Since the times — Religion — Social habits of Socrates, the great — Music Greek philosopher, — Arts Western society — Skills has followed the — Knowledge analytical approach.

The above figure illustrates that civiliOn the other hand, at some point in her zation consists of the physical structure long history, India discovered the unity including the people and their culture. underlying everything and thus advanced to Removing people from the picture leaves the integral approach. It should be noted that T h e

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analysis divides, while integration unites and synthesizes. By ‘West’ is meant a mind-set and approach towards life, and not just a geopolitical entity. This could be applicable to the people in India as well as in the West.

One characteristic peculiar to Indian people is their synthesizing ability—the Indian people are quite comfortable with contradictions and paradoxes, knowing them to be in the large fabric of existence. They know that different gods and goddesses have contradictory characteristics and likes and dislikes, but they worship all of them and are happy. For example, according to vâstushâstra, garbage pit of the house may be located towards the south-west direction in the plot, but this happens to be the south-east direction for the neighbouring house, and yet they see no problem in it. They understand that the Ultimate Truth is beyond the capture of the impure mind, and that the mind itself sees the Ultimate Reality in contradictions due to the mind’s own peculiar structure.

According to Vedantasara6, this sankalpavikapla (thoughts and counter-thoughts) is a function of the mind. Taking contradictions as reality, placing emphasis on logic and using mind itself as the ultimate instrument, the Western society could not advance beyond mind. When a Western man confronts a contradiction, he is awfully stuck and cannot go any further because of his reliance on the incompetent tool, viz., the mind. One cannot sit on one’s own shoulder, similarly one cannot understand the mind through the mind. If one tries, one goes in circles, pirouetting.

Observing the changing understanding of reality given by the Western camp from the elaborately constructed edifice of logic, the present author notes elsewhere7: Having built a large philosophic structure on shifting sands of the mind and the intellect, it T h e

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is no wonder that the final conclusions in the Western system appear to be shifting in an ever extending and unending sequence.

The Indian society, on the contrary, did not remain satisfied with the cozy chambers of the intellect. It moved out of the suffocating confines of that which is ‘rational’—and it reached not the irrational but the suprarational8—this pure consciousness is the ‘supreme’ and a vantage point at which the mind is transcended.

This brings us to an important difference between the Western and the Indian approaches. According to the Western understanding, human personality is dichotomic, i.e., body and mind. According to the Indian understanding, human personality is trichotomic, i.e., body, mind, and the Atman.9 Perhaps because of an overemphasis on the analytical approach and the absence of a higher stand like the Atman, the West has been unable to achieve three important integrations: 1. Philosophy and religion: These two were a single quest in the West during the Greek period. However, for some reason, these two separated, and their integration has never been achieved in the West to date10. There has always been a separation between rationality and belief in West 11. (Note that Western theology is not philosophy per se.)

2. Philosophy and practical life: Philosophy has remained abstract and speculative in the West and hence its integration with practical life has not been achieved. (Note that science and technology is not ‘philosophy’ per se. but is a part of practical life itself.)

3. Religion and practical life: In the West, religion is equated to ‘belief’, and not to Reality. Being hazy and subjective, belief does not concord with practical life. This integration still remains to be achieved in the Western society.

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In India, religion was discovered to find solutions to practical aspirations. Philosophy was developed much later to ‘formulate’ the discoveries. Thus the three, viz. philosophy, religion and practical life, have always been integrated in India.

The four yogas (Karma, Bhakti, Dhyana, and Jnana) that are studied as philosophies in the field of Indian religion are practical sciences.

These are not theologies but are charted pathways, tested and verified, for a journey through life and from life to the Ultimate Reality. The secular and the sacred have been, except during the dark ages, integrated in India.

Vedantic Civilization India is at least a 5000-year-old civilization. Since the beginning of this civilization, spirituality has been its ‘obsession’.

Thus spirituality forms India’s ‘vibrant and living core’.12 Quite contrary to the common belief, Hinduism is not exactly a ‘religion’. It is rather a culture based on the philosophy known as the Vedanta. The reason Hinduism does not fit into the conventional definition of the word ‘religion’ is that it has ‘no founder, no defining creed, no centralized authority, is a vast complex of confederation’. However, it has ‘an overall coherence and vitality mainly because of its dynamic philosophy known as the Vedanta.’10 Again, contrary to intuition, in India, the spiritual realizations came first, only later were philosophic treatises developed to ‘record and explain’ the realizations. These records have been substantiated by future realisations.

The classical treatises are six in number and are called the Darshanas. These are Purva Mimamsa, Uttara Mimamsa, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, and Vaisheshika.

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Of these, except the Uttara Mimâmsâ, all of the other five ceased to be living philosophies because they either did not develop further and/or were absorbed into the Uttara Mimâmsâ now being called the Vedanta. Later on, Vedanta itself developed its own sub-schools such as the Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, Shuddhadvaita, Dvaitadvaita and so on.

Vedanta is not a creed or dogma. It is a search for the Ultimate Truth. It is this quest that the Indian mind has ever been preoccupied with. In their search, they found a mystery hidden inside one’s own being.

They found: one’s true being is neither the body nor the mind, but pure consciousness— which is omniscient, omnipresent and untouchable by anything external. This is the source and sustenance of the entire universe.

They made another important discovery: they found that the universe is a ‘self-sustaining, self-regulating, supreme harmony.’13 A harmony not only of matter and energy but an inter­ c onnected­n ess of consciousness, thought, and matter. The physical objects, thoughts, souls, feelings, experience, memory, energy, interaction, dynamics, stability, enthusiasm, danger, war, peace, good, evil, pleasure, pain—all these form a single, living, dynamic cosmic entity.

They discovered interconnectedness between human efforts and results. It is this connection that is known as the ‘law of Karma’ or simply ‘Karma’. Ethics results from this.

Thus, in India, ethics is not a draconian law stipulated in some scripture. There is no one to judge our actions. No one to sentence a punishment. No one to execute the punishment. Ethics is a simple statement of harmony: if you are in tune, the harmony itself has the capacity, with all its universal

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abundance, to ‘fill’ you up and make you happy. If you go against the harmony, you suffer—precisely because you distance yourself from the larger abundance and couch into a whirlpool of self-centred little fort.

In the modern age, Sri Ramakrishna, with his Herculean spiritual efforts and resulting direct realizations, affirmed that the ‘Ultimate Reality is one’ and ‘the goal of human life is the realization of the Ultimate Reality.’14 From his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda, came the two important definitions: Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man, (1)

and, Religion is the manifestation of the divinity already in man. (2)

These utterances that were made extempore at different times, in different contexts and at different places, are yet homophonic and aphoristic in structure. Swamiji has also given us definitions of true civilization and good society:

practicality, education, and society. If we rearrange Swamiji’s words, we see the relationship in six parts: 1. True civilization makes divinity in man manifest, (from (3)) 2. Manifestation of divinity is religion, (from (2)) 3. Religion (i.e., highest ideas) is made practical in the greatest society (from (4)) 4. Practicality (which is one way of manifestation of perfection) needs education, (from (1)) 5. Religion is the innermost core of education, and, (from (5)) 6. Society has to pay homage to Truth (which is divinity). (from (4)) This, in short, delineates the Vedantic Idea of Civilization.

The Philosophy and Practice of Vedanta In Swamiji’s other utterances we get more details:

True civilization is the manifestation of the divinity in man, (3)

and, Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die. Societies should be moulded upon truth, and truth has not to adjust itself to society . . . That society is the greatest, where the highest truths become practical. (4)

When asked if there should be religious element in education, Swamiji replied solemnly: I look upon religion as the innermost core of education. (5)

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v The world is always seeking the practical

possibilities of religion. Religion is ever a practical science. v The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by

controlling nature, external and internal. v Vedanta philosophy is not the outcome of

meditation in the forests only, but that the very best parts of it were thought out and expressed by brains which were busiest in the everyday affairs of life. v The actual should be reconciled to the ideal,

the present life should be made to coincide with life eternal. v Practical side of Vedanta… does not destroy

the world, but it explains it; it does not destroy the person, but explains him; it does not destroy the individuality, but explains it by showing the real individuality. v And the greatest error, says the Vedanta, is to

say that you are weak.

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v The Vedanta recognises no sin, it only recognises error. Sins are very low degrees of Self-manifestation. v Life is the unfoldment and development of

a being under circumstances tending to press it down.

These quotations from Swami Vivekananda describe the Vedantic Civilization.

Vedantic Civilization is an integral life. It will be based on real religion, which is a practical science. Practical Vedanta means divinization of life—no separate times need be earmarked for religious and secular activities. The secular will be sacralised. The Vedantic Civilization

will be based on strength. And yet ‘lion will lick lamb’s body in love.’15 Vedantic Civilization will do good to the entire humanity ‘on the strength’ of strength. Arts, literature, science, technology, mathematics, religion and philosophy will flourish again. It will have strength together with surrender, renunciation coexisting with active life, attitude of acceptance as well as sacrifice, and faith in one’s own self concurrent with self-effacement. It will not run away from life into an imaginary heaven-like utopia.

Rather, it will let life itself unfold into palpable divinity on earth. o

References 1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1997), p.36.

2. Arnold Toynbee A Study of History, quoted in ibid., p.44.

3. Paraphrased from Gibbon, Edward, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (London: Strahan & Cadell, 1789), Vol. 3, Chapter 38, Part 6, sourced from www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/892/ pg892.txt.

4. Farlex online dictionary, 2013, www. thefreedictionary.com, accessed 25 Sept. 2013.

5. The Clash of Civilizations, p.44.

6. Vedantasara 66 7. The Cosmos in Western and Indian Thought, Prabuddha Bharata, 112/9 (Sept. 2007), p.42.

8. Suprarational means ‘above rational’.

9. Swami Bhajanananda, Knowledge and Consciousness—An Integral Approach. In Swami Sarvabhutananda (ed.), Understanding Consciousness : Recent Advances, (Kolkata: The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, 2009).

10. See for details Swami Bhajanananda, Sri Ramakrishna and the Vedic Ideal, Editorial, Prabuddha Bharata, 88/3 (Mar. 1980), p.89.

11. ‘Western civilization is a perpetual battle between Athens and Jerusalem. There is an uneasy alliance between the two in building up the Western civilization.’—author unknown.

12. Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission—their History, Ideals, Activities, issued by The General Secretary, Ramakrishna Math and Mission, p.3.

13. Swami Bhajanananda, Meditation and Sacrifice-V, Editorial, Prabuddha Bharata, 88/9 (Sept. 1983), p.364.

14. For an excellent account of what Sri Ramakrishna has done for humanity, see Swami Bhajanananda, What Sri Ramakrishna Has Done for the World, Editorial, Prabuddha Bharata, 91/12 (Dec. 1986), pp.492-505.

15. See Swamiji’s conversations with Ranada Babu, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 1999), vol. 7, p.205.

The older I grow, the better I seem to think of these time-honoured institutions of India. There was a time when I used to think that many of them were useless and worthless; but the older I grow, the more I seem to feel a diffidence in cursing any one of them, for each of them is the embodiment of the experience of centuries.

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‘But for Me, Mother and I—That is All’ SWAMI SUDARSHANANANDA

‘One day I went to see Sri Ramakrishna’, related Swami Turiyananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, there were many other visitors. Among them was a great Vedantic scholar. The master said to him, ‘Let us hear some Vedanta from you.’

The scholar with great deference expounded on Vedanta for more than an hour. Sri Ramakrishna was very pleased. The people around were very surprised at this, but after eulogizing the scholar the Master said: ‘As far as I am concerned, I do not like all these details. There is nothing but Mother and I. To you, knowledge, knower and known—the one who meditates, meditation and the object of meditation—this sort of triple division is very good. But for me, “Mother and I”—that is all and nothing else.’ These words, ‘Mother and I’ were said in such a way that it made a very deep impression on all present. At that moment all ideas of Vedanta paled into insignificance. The Master’s ‘Mother and I’ seemed easier, simpler and more pleasing to the mind than the three divisions of Vedanta. I realized then that ‘Mother and I’ was the ideal attitude to be adopted.’1

Who is ‘Mother’ whom Sri Ramakrishna referred to? According to Sri Ramakrishna, Mother is the dynamic aspect of the Ultimate Reality called

Brahman. When that Reality is static, we call It Brahman, and when it is dynamic, we address It as Mother, or Shakti. Says Sri Ramakrishna, My Divine Mother is not only formless, She has forms as well. One can see Her forms. One can behold Her incomparable beauty through feeling and love. The Mother reveals Herself to Her devotees in different forms.2

To Sri Ramakrishna, Divine Mother was a palpable reality. He lived and breathed in Her presence. He once said, I saw Her yesterday. She was clad in a seamless ochre-coloured garment, and She talked with me. . . She came to me another day as a Mussalman girl six or seven years old. She had a tilak on her forehead and was naked. She walked with me, joking and frisking like a child.3

The Mother that Sri Ramakrishna spoke was both immanent as well as transcendental reality. She is, always. She does everything— She creates, preserves and dissolves the world but is also beyond it. She does not reveal Herself so easily.

Learning to Be in Her Presence Not only living in Her Presence, Sri Ramakrishna wanted everyone to live in Her Presence. He gave certain practical hints as to how one can practice Her Presence in one’s life. Here are some of these: 1. Seeking Her Intensely: God is there, Divine Mother is there, but who wants Her! This is what Sri Ramakrishna pointed out. So,

o The author is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order at Ramakrishna Mission, Shillong, Meghalaya.

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this is the first thing necessary to practice Her Presence: want Her, seek to be in Her Presence.

Sri Ramakrishna sought Her like a mad man.

He wept and sobbed that he had not been able to see or experience Her. His only thought was, ‘How can I reach the Divine Mother? I have no support in the whole world; can I find the Divine Mother? Does She want to turn Her face to me?’ This yearning for divine is the core of religious life. As Swami Vivekananda pointed out,4 This is the message of Shri Ramakrishna to the modern world. Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects, or churches or temples; they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality; and the more that this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he for good. Earn that first, acquire that, and criticise no one, for all doctrines and creeds have some good in them. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names, or sects, but that it means spiritual realisation.

2. Learning to be Strong: All weakness comes from the ignorance of our real nature.

Ignorance generates attachment to the object of senses and that in turn creates fear. To a seeker of the Divine Mother, however, nothing can bind. No untoward event in the world can disturb a child of the Divine Mother. In the face of calamities, the ordinary person, steeped in worldliness, is shattered, but not so with the child of Divine Mother. Steady, firm, unmoving, resolute—such are the children of Divine Mother. One may be financially poor or socially lowest in hierarchy, but once we think we are children of Mother, nothing can take away our faith, dignity and calmness. A child of Divine Mother says, ‘My Mother is the Empress of the Universe; why should we fear anyone? She is our protector; who can

frighten us? We have nothing to fear from any quarter.’

3. Surrendering the self to Her: This means one should give up all sense of pride and possession and surrender our actions and their results to Her. One of the very illustrative examples of self-surrender is narrated by Sri Ramakrishna thus: When Rama and Lakshmana went to take their bath in Pampa Lake, they thrust their bows into the ground. Coming out of the water, Lakshmana took out his bow and found its tip stained with blood. Rama said to him: ‘Look, brother!

Look. Perhaps we have hurt some creature.’

Lakshmana dug in the earth and found a big bullfrog. It was dying. Rama said to the frog in a sorrowful voice: ‘Why didn’t you croak? We should have tried to save you. You croak lustily enough when you are in the jaws of a snake.’

The frog said: ‘O Lord, when I am attacked by a snake I croak, saying: “O Rama, save me! O Rama, save me!” This time I found that it was Rama who was killing me; so I kept still.’5

When a devotee realizes that God is doing everything, he accepts even death as a gift from Him. He thus becomes fully resigned to His Will. Such is the attitude of children of the Divine Mother. This is the best way to ward off all worries and anxieties.

Conclusion The one lesson that one learns from the example of Sri Ramakrishna is: practice the presence of Divine Mother in one’s day-to-day life. His own life was a life of absorption in Her thought and of one long prayer—all else was secondary. He was always either repeating Her name fondly or talking about Her with the devotees. For him there was prayer in the morning, prayer in the evening, prayer during the day, prayer at night. He knew nothing but ‘I and my Mother.’ o

References: 1. Spiritual Treasures, p. 110 2. The Gospel, p. 175 T h e

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An Inspiring Story

Kiran, the Light ALPANA GHOSE

Stirring words of Swami Vivekananda have ever inspired many young minds to overcome their trauma. The following is a stunning story of how Swami Vivekananda’s few words changed the life and spirit of a young girl.

It was March 2006. I went to a reputed bank in Kolkata to open my account. I was new to the city. It was as usual busy day for bank; I was waiting for my turn to come.

Someone called me from behind, ‘Hello Ma’m, hello aunty’. I was surprised who may call me aunty in this city. I looked back and saw a beautiful lady draped in sari; with bank Identity card hanging from her neck. I looked at her smiling face and sparkling eyes and it reminded me of Kiran, my neighborhood girl.

‘Oh my God! You are here’, I said. She came to me and hugged me, instantly my eyes glanced at her legs, she was walking gracefully. She asked about my family, I also enquired about her parents. She said, ‘Come to my room, we will talk’.

She gracefully took me upstairs to a spacious room and asked me as why I was in the bank. I told her about opening my new account. She called a peon and asked him to bring the required forms and then we started talking about Ranchi. I was still living in Ranchi; she had nostalgia about her childhood place. We were neighbours in a heavy engineering factory colony. She asked about every one of our neighbours. I was happy to tell her that almost all of her

friends have settled well. We talked for a long time in between my formalities for opening account was done. She rang her father and told him about my visit. Her father, Mr. Sinha, was delighted to know about me and he requested me to visit them with my husband in the evening. I promised him and left for my apartment.

While returning, flashback memory of Kiran filled my mind. I had seen her as a kid, staying in the next block with her family. Her innocent beauty, her smile, her sparkling eyes and above all her behavior enchanted us all.

She was a girl whom everyone loved. Slowly she grew up with other children of the colony.

She acquired a name—‘talking parrot’—due to her nonstop talking habit. She passed school board with record marks and decided to study medicine, so she opted biology in high school.

She was very studious and intelligent but she did not like my subject chemistry. She used to come to me for help and by helping her in studies I was promoted from ‘aunty to Ma’m’. She always complained, ‘How boring is your subject! How could you manage such a boring subject?’ I used to smile and help her solve her problems and gave her certain hints on how to manage boring inorganic and organic chemistry.

Days passed by. She, along with other children of the colony, were preparing for their competitive examinations.

Dr. Alpana Ghose is former head of the Department of Chemistry, Ranchi Women’s College, Ranchi, Jharkhand. o T h e

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It was summer time I was taking out my car from the garage for my morning classes. Kiran came running to me, and asked me, ‘Aunty, can you please drop me to the station?’ Her father also came and said that Kiran is appearing in AFMC (Armed Force Medical College) examination which was scheduled to start at 9 O’clock. The centre for the examination was at Namkom, an army cantonment, which is about 20 km from Ranchi town and they were not getting any auto rickshaw for Namkom so they have decided to go by train. Mr.Sinha, Kiran’s father, enquired if I can drop them to Ranchi station so that they can avail a train to get down at next stop Namkom. My husband came forward and happily agreed to drop them at station and me to college. On the way, Kiran talked about her preparation and studies. We dropped them at Ranchi station and wished her the best of luck for examination then went to our destinations.

It was about 2 O’ clock in the afternoon, I was back from the college; I did not know what news was waiting for me. What I learnt from my neighbor was so shocking that I could not believe my ears. Kiran and her father took the first train available at Ranchi station

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towards Namkom. They did not notice that it was an express train which had no stoppage at the small station like Namkom cantonment.

When the train did not stop at the station the train was running slow; her father jumped out from train and called her to jump out. Kiran jumped out but by the time train already had crossed the platform, so she fell on the track and one of her legs was under the carriage.

Her left leg was totally smashed and she cried at the top of her voice, ‘Papa take me out, else my whole body will be under the carriage.’

Stunned father rushed and took her out from the track. She was in the pool of blood and her left leg was completely damaged below knee.

People came and helped them to reach army hospital. While the treatment was on, she was still unconscious. I could not believe that the cheerful girl I saw in the morning had met such an unbelievable accident. My husband came from his office and he too was shocked to know about her. We went to Kiran’s quarter but no one was there. We did not have courage to go to hospital to see her.

Days passed by. Our whole colony was in grief as everyone loved her so much. After fifteen days or so she was brought to our factory hospital for further treatment. After

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few days we went to see her in the hospital.

When we approached the cabin we could hear loud cry, ‘Please, leave me alone; I can’t, no I can’t.’ Another voice said, ‘You have to; I will not listen to you, you have to.’ We went to the cabin to see what was going on, only to see that doctor and nurses had brought crutches and were asking her to stand up with the help of those crutches. We went near her bed, her face brightened a little but immediately she covered her face with blanket and started weeping. I sat near her bed and held her tightly; tears rolled down my eyes too, but I could not utter a word.

Her physician called me aside and asked me to tell her to start her new way of living with the crutches. Her parents could not motivate her to use those crutches and see if I could help in the matter. I was not in favour of pressing her to come to terms of the tragedy. I replied, ‘Give her some time; let her mind calm down. I cannot press her to use the crutches outright.’ I went to her and sat beside her and simply held her hand without uttering a single word. Her father and my husband talked about the progress of her treatment.

After this visit, we went several times to the hospital to see her; she would sometime talk and sometimes keep mum.

After about a month, she came home with crutches. I too visited her in the afternoons, after coming back from the college.

She would always be in a depressed mood, speaking little. I felt bad for her—such a jovial girl turned into this state. One day I carried some small booklets of Swami Vivekananda’s sayings and left them on her side table. I did not tell her anything about the books.

After few days I went to see her again.

I saw her sleeping. I sat beside her for a while and when I was coming out of the room, suddenly she extended her hand T h e

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and caught hold of my wrist; I looked at her and said, ‘Oh, you are not sleeping! I thought you are resting.’ Surprisingly she asked me, ‘What are my strengths ma’m?

I am only a crippled girl; I am useless in this world, isn’t it?’ At first, I did not know what to say and then I realized that she had read one of the booklets of Swamiji which were lying on her bedside table. I replied, quoting and paraphrasing Swamiji’s words, You have great strength. You have your intellect which is not snatched away from you; there is no limit to the power of the human mind. All power is within you. You can do anything and everything. Believe in that. Do not believe that you are weak; Stand up and express the divinity within you. The more concentrated it is, the more power is brought to bear on one point; that is the secret. Don’t brood on your weak legs. You have to show the world that you are the bravest girl among us.

With tear-filled eyes, she looked at me.

I picked her school text books from the table and placed them on her bedside table and told her with a smile, ‘Start from the most boring subject, the mystery of Chemistry. Can I help you?’ She did not utter anything. I sat beside her for a while and then went to see her mother in the kitchen.

As days passed by, she began to slowly recover from the trauma and shock she had been undergoing. I used to visit her often and try to cheer her with some amusing stories.

After a few days, her father decided to take her to some hospital where artificial limbs were available. So the family shifted to Pune for her treatment. This was at a time when mobile phones were not common and one had to depend on the STD call. I spoke to her over STD calls once or twice every month. In one such conversation, she quoted Swamiji’s

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words, ‘“Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love.” I have learned this; so I am not afraid of my disability. I have to have only patience and perseverance. I have new legs now. May it be it is artificial but I can go round the world with this. I can do anything I like. I have started my life again. Thank you aunty, for helping me to come over the trauma I was facing. The booklets of Swami Vivekananda that you gave me are now my companion.

I am recovering not only physically but mentally too.’

Listening to her, my heart skipped a beat as I had some guilt feeling because it was I who had dropped her to the station on the day of her accident. But I was delighted to see the change.

After this conversation, for various reasons, we lost track of each other. I had no idea as to where she was and what she was doing. And now, after so many years again

the ‘little talking parrot’ was in front of me: composed, elegant and confident.

In the evening when we met at their house she told me the story of her struggle with her trauma which was not so easy to overcome. While her treatment was going on, she started again with her studies. This time she opted for commerce graduation course.

Although it was totally a new subject for her yet she adjusted with it. She learned walking again but it was without the help of others.

This gave her much strength. She realized that strength is life, weakness is death. So she started her fearless journey towards life.

Indeed, strength is life. And glory to Swami Vivekananda for his eternal message of strength and compliments to the young Kiran, the light, who bathed in this eternal source of inspiration and hope!

Who knows how many countless Kirans are getting inspired by Swamiji’s message of faith and strength! o

When you have got the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say—I have reached the state of fearlessness! Say—I am the Atman in which my lower ego has become merged for ever. Be perfect in this idea; and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: 'Thou art That', 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached!'

—Swami Vivekananda, CW, 213

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A Few Women Disciples of Swami Vivekananda PREMA NANDAKUMAR

A Historical Perspective Women as scholars, poets and spiritual instructors were not a new phenomenon in India of the 20th century. As early as the Vedas, they were in the forefront as knowledgeable members of the society. The Vedas had amongst its Rishis many women, among them Ghosa Kaksivati, a granddaughter of the eminent Rishi Dhirgatamas as also Ghodha and Vasukrapatni. As Swamini Atmaprajnananda Saraswati has pointed out, there is nothing in the Vedas to show that women could not be Adhikaris [recipients] of the mantra.

But there was a steady decline in their status due to many reasons. One of them was no doubt the continued foreign invasions and desecration of Indian women by invading armies. The Sati of Rani Padmini and the other ladies of her time are well-known. In trying to keep their women away from the public eye, men proceeded to deny other facilities for them, one of them being education. Women’s position had indeed become unenviable by 19th century.

Swami Vivekananda’s travels through the land as a Parivrajaka [itinerant monk] revealed to him this ugly state of affairs regarding the position of women in Indian society. It called for immediate rectification.

According to him, women were not playthings for men, and women’s problems could be solved only by true education, which was, . . . A development of faculty, not an accumulation of words, or as a training of individuals to will rightly and efficiently. So shall we bring to the need of India great fearless women— women worthy to continue the traditions of Sanghamittra, Lila, Ahalya Bai, and Mira Bai— women fit to be mothers of heroes, because they are pure and selfless, strong with the strength that comes of touching the feet of God.1

He realised that education held the key to such empowerment. Towards achieving that he called for the founding of schools and persuaded educated, foreign ladies to come to India and inspire the women here.

Swamiji wanted to get girls into the schooling system to empower them physically and economically. Mentally too, for they should become equal to men in everyday dealings and dare to take decisions on their own. The last part was the direct result of his experiences in England and the United States. The position of American women in their society inspired him no end. He wrote to Swami Ramakrishnananda on 19th March, 1894: Nowhere in the world are women like those of this country. How pure, independent, self-

Dr. Prema Nandakumar is a devotee from Srirangam, Tamil Nadu. She has several publications to her credit, and regularly reviews books for The Vedanta Kesari and other journals. o T h e

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relying, and kindhearted! It is the women who are the life and soul of this country. All learning and culture are centred in them. The saying, Yaa Sri Svayam Sukrutinaam Bhavaneshu—‘Who is the Goddess of Fortune Herself in the families of the meritorious’ (Chandi)—holds good in this country, while that other, Alakshmeem Paapaatmanaam—‘The Goddess of ill luck in the homes of the sinful’ (ibid.)—applies to ours. Just think on this. Great God! I am struck dumb with wonderment at seeing the women of America.

Tvam sri tvam isvari tvam hreeh —‘Thou art the Goddess of Fortune, Thou art the supreme Goddess, Thou art Modesty’ (ibid.). Yaa Devi Sarvabhuteshu Shakti Rupena Samsthithaa ‘The Goddess who resides in all beings as Power’(ibid)—all this holds good here. There are thousands of women here whose minds are as pure and white as the snow of this country.

And look at our girls, becoming mothers below their teens!! Good Lord! I now see it all. Brother, Yatra Naaryasthu Pujyanthe Ramanthe Tatra Devataah, ‘The gods are pleased where the women are held in esteem’—says the old Manu.

We are horrible sinners, and our degradation is due to our calling women ‘despicable worms’, ‘gateways to hell’, and so forth. Goodness gracious! There is all the difference between heaven and hell.2

He had personally experienced the bounty of the maternal heart in American women. In a crisis, they could take a decision in a split second. One remembers Swamiji sitting on the kerb on the opposite side of 541, Dearborn Avenue in Chicago on 10th September, 1893. He had walked a long way to find the office of the Parliament of Religions and had had nothing to eat for almost a day.

The matronly Mary Hale had seen him, had come out of the house to meet him, made gentle enquiries and took him home to give a proper meal. She had then taken him to the Parliament Office and everything moved T h e

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properly. Swami Vivekananda’s anxiety for such womanhood in India can be seen in many of his writings on the subject. He went on to say: If I can raise a thousand such Madonnas— incarnations of the Divine Mother—in our country before I die, I shall die in peace. Then only will our countrymen become worthy of their name.3

This is the reason why when we turn to the page of Swami Vivekananda’s women disciples, those in the forefront of the list happen to be women from foreign lands.

Foreign ladies were educated, and could command themselves whether married or not and could always be on equal terms with Swami Vivekananda. They could attend his meetings without any inhibition, and could engage in dialogues with him with perfect ease as in the Upanishadic times, could question him and even demur with him. This spirit was most welcome for Vivekananda who wanted no doors to bar the freedom of the human species. In the 19th century, Indian women could not move around freely and could never dream of a master-disciple relationship with a young Sannyasi. This explains why we have women disciples of Swami Vivekananda chiefly from the West.

Swamiji’s Women Disciples in the West There were many foreign women like Josephine MacLeod, S. Ellen Waldo and the singer Emma Calve who were his admirers but only very few took initiation as his disciples.

Among his admirers we could begin with the one who helped him in Boston much before he became famous on 11th September, 1893.

When he came to Chicago in July and realised that the convention was in September, he had a major problem because of his financial condition. He heard that the cost of

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living in Boston was much cheaper. It was one thousand miles away but Miss Kate Sanborn of Boston whom he had met earlier had given her card and asked him to feel free to apply to her for help if he had any problem. When he contacted her, she wired him to come to her place in the Metcalfe village. A teacher and farmer who readily helped people, Kate introduced him to her friends during the week he spent in her farmhouse called Breezy Meadows. Thanks to her, he gave his first speech in America to a women’s club on 21st August.

Vivekananda left Metcalfe for Boston accompanied by Kate’s nephew Franklin Sanborn. Franklin was a journalist who had a wide circle of friends, one of whom was Dr. John Henry Wright, Professor of Greek classics at Harvard. They both met at Annisquam, forty miles from Boston. The victory march of Swami Vivekananda had begun.

But even as he was in the glowing limelight of adulation, he remembered the suffering womanhood of India.

H a d n ’ t he seen misery and untimely death in his own family?

He was sure that the treatment of women

by Indian men was inexcusable.

Kate Sanborn This is why T h e

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even as he started earning money abroad, he made it sure that a portion of it went to a foundation for Hindu widows at Baranagore in north Calcutta. He also thought that Indian women could receive great inspiration if such western women he was seeing in the United States and England could come to India and open up the path to them.

Time Spirit was on his side. The educated women of America were thirsting for more knowledge and the Indian monk’s pragmatic Vedanta fascinated them. There were to be many spiritually-inclined admirers for him in America. They may not have become his direct disciples, but they could remain tuned to his spiritual and compassionate wavelength.

Foremost among them is Ellen Hale of Chicago.

When he came to Chicago from Boston and could not locate the Parliament Office, Ellen Hale had noticed the ochre robes of the traveler and had taken him to her house. Mr. and Mrs. Hale took him to meet the Parliament Office and all was well. When grace is in action, what can stop a victorious march?

Later on, when Swami Vivekananda had to stay in America for a few years, it was Mr. and Mrs. Hale who helped him manage his finances. The entire family—George and Ellen, their two daughters Mary and Harriet as also their nieces Isabel and Harriet McKindley— remained devoted to him. They had drawn so close to him that Swamiji would refer to them as Father Pope, Mother Church and babies or sisters. There was plenty of correspondence, punctuated by humour between Swami Vivekananda and these friends.

Among other women from the West who played a major role in his work both as helpers and as devotees were Betty Leggett and her husband Frank in whose farm, the sprawling Ridgely Manor at Connecticut,

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Swami Vivekananda spent a considerable amount of time, during his three visits to the place. The Swami found the place very conducive to meditative life and his longest stay here was for ten months in 1899. It was here that his other devotees like Josephine McLeod (Betty’s sister) and Sister Nivedita also stayed, listening to their master. Even today one can see the sofa on which Swami Vivekananda sat and spoke on Eastern mysticism and global unity to his audience of Western admirers which included Sara Turnbull, Sister Nivedita, Josephine Macleod, Sister Christine and the Leggett couple.

Josephine Macleod When one goes through Swami Vivekananda’s life and his letters, it is obvious that he had many admirers among the western women who had deep devotion for him, admired his stunning capacity to explain Eastern thought in the Western idiom and adored him for his commitment to the social regeneration of the Indian people, particularly Indian women. The one who comes immediately to our mind in this group is Josephine Macleod, a rich aristocratic lady from America.

We are told that it was her material and heroic backing which helped Swami Vivekananda establish this Belur Math. It was also here that Swamiji told her, ‘I shall never see forty’. He assured her that he had given his message and now must go because ‘the shadow of a big tree will not let the smaller trees grow up. I must go to make room.’

Swamiji’s passing was a great shock but she recovered and applied herself in helping the fledgling Mission acquire strong wings

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by herself staying in the monastery for long periods of time. She also helped in a big way the monks of the Mission who went to the West.

Another foreign friend of Swamiji was a niece of Josephine. Alberta Sturges Montagu who married the 9 th Earl of Sandwich was Josephine Macleod an accomplished musician. Swamiji who could get tuned to others because of his own varied accomplishments, had no problem in communicating with Alberta. This victor of the Parliament of Religions could say the right word in a private letter too as in this epistle to Alberta dated 8th July, 1895: ‘I am sure you are engrossed in your musical studies now. Hope you have found out all about the scales by this time. I will be so happy to take a lesson on the scales from you next time we meet . . .’ He even wrote a poem for her:

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The mother’s heart, the hero’s will, The softest flower’s sweetest feel; The charm and force that ever sway The altar fire’s flaming play; The strength that leads, in love obeys; Far reaching dreams, and patient ways, Eternal faith in Self, in all The sight Divine in great in small; All these, and more than I could see Today may ‘Mother’ grant to thee.

(To be continued. . .)

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Insights into Some Keywords In Swami Vivekananda’s Words A few definitions and descriptive passages from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda The Vedas The Hindus found their creed upon the ancient Vedas, a word derived from Vid, ‘to know’. These are a series of books which, to our minds, contain the essence of all religions; but we do not think they alone contain the truths. They teach us the immortality of the soul. In every country and every human breast there is a natural desire to find a stable equilibrium—something that does not change.

We cannot find it in nature, for all the universe is nothing but an infinite mass of changes. But to infer from that that nothing unchanging exists is to fall into the error of the Southern school of Buddhists and the Charvakas, which latter believe that all is matter and nothing mind, that all religion is a cheat, and morality and goodness, useless superstitions. The Vedanta philosophy teaches that man is not bound by his five senses. They only know the present, and neither the future nor the past; but as the present signifies both past and future, and all three are only demarcations of time, the present also would be unknown if it were not for something above the senses, something independent of time, which unifies the past and the future in the present. (CW, 1.330) Vedanta The word Vedanta literally means the end of the Vedas—the Vedas being the T h e

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scriptures of the Hindus. Sometimes in the West by the Vedas are meant only the hymns and rituals of the Vedas. But at the present time these parts have almost gone out of use, and usually by the word Vedas in India, the Vedanta is meant. All our commentators, when they want to quote a passage from the scriptures, as a rule, quote from the Vedanta, which has another technical name with the commentators—the Shrutis.

Now, all the books known by the name of the Vedanta were not entirely written after the ritualistic portions of the Vedas. For instance, one of them—the Isha Upanishad— forms the fortieth chapter of the Yajur-Veda, that being one of the oldest parts of the Vedas. There are other Upanishads which form portions of the Brahmanas or ritualistic writings; and the rest of the Upanishads are independent, not comprised in any of the Brahmanas or other parts of the Vedas; but there is no reason to suppose that they were entirely independent of other parts, for, as we well know, many of these have been lost entirely and many of the Brahmanas have become extinct. So it is quite possible that the independent Upanishads belonged to some Brahmanas, which in course of time fell into disuse, while the Upanishads remained. These Upanishads are also called Forest Books or Aranyakas. (CW, 1.257)

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The Order on the March Ramakrishna Math and Mission—News and Notes Durga Puja Durga Puja was celebrated at Belur Math from 1 to 4 October 2014 with due solemnity and joy.

The weather was fine on all the four days and about two lakh devotees attended the Puja to receive the blessings of the Divine Mother. The Kumari Puja performed on 2 October drew huge crowds, and the Sandhi Puja on that day was also attended by many devotees. The Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, Smt J Manjula Chellur, attended the Puja on the Ashtami day. As in the previous years, Doordarshan Kolkata telecast live the Puja at different times on all the days. The Kumari Puja was telecast by several private channels also, and the entire four-day celebration was streamed live on Belur Math website.

Cooked Prasad was served to about 49,000 devotees on Ashtami day and to about one lakh devotees during the four days.

Durga Puja (in image) was performed at Mauritius Ashrama and the following eleven centres in Bangladesh: Baliati, Barisal, Chittagong, Comilla, Dhaka, Dinajpur, Faridpur, Habiganj, Jessore, Narayanganj and Sylhet, and also at the Narail sub-centre of Jessore Ashrama.

At Dhaka centre, Begum Rowshan Ershad, Opposition Leader of Bangladesh National Assembly; Mr Mirza Abbas, Convenor of Bangladesh Nationalist Party for Dhaka city; Sri Goutam Chakraborty, former Water Development Minister; Dr Kamal Hossain, former Law Minister; Sri Pankaj Saran, High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh, and several other distinguished persons attended the Durga Puja celebration. On the Ashtami day, nearly 15,000 people witnessed the Kumari Puja and were served cooked Prasad.

Durga Puja (in image) was celebrated at the following 24 centres in India: Antpur, Asansol, Barasat, Contai, Cooch Behar, Dhaleswar (under Agartala), Ghatshila, Guwahati, Jalpaiguri, Jamshedpur, Jayrambati, Kamarpukur, Karimganj, Lucknow, Malda, Medinipur, Mumbai, Patna, Port Blair, Rahara, Shella (under Cherrapunji), Shillong, Silchar and Varanasi Advaita Ashrama. o Foundation Laid Foundation stone for the proposed Centre for Human Excellence and Social Sciences, also called ‘Viveka Tirtha’, at Rajarhat, New Town, Kolkata, was laid on 11 November by the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee. Swami Prabhanandaji, the General Secretary and the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Dr Manjula Chellur among others took part in the ceremony. o T h e

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A New Math and Mission Centre A new branch centre of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission has been started at Shimla in Himachal Pradesh. Its address is ‘Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, C/o Himalaya Brahmo Samaj, Near A G Office, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh 171003’, phone no. 0177­2659755 and email id <rkmshimla@gmail.com>. The centre does not have at present any guesthouse facility. o Commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda The following centres held various programmes to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. (Main programmes conducted by them are mentioned against their names.)

Cherrapunji: 103 youth counselling programmes in 7 states in the Northeast from 3 August to 28 September which were attended by 1128 youths.

Rahara: A students’ convention on 11 September in which 898 students participated.

Swamiji’s Ancestral House, Kolkata: Two public meetings at the centre on 10 and 16 October which were attended by 1400 people.

On the centre’s initiative, two public meetings were held at two places in Kolkata on 22 and 30 September. In all, about 650 people attended the programmes.

Bhubaneswar: Dr S C Jamir, Governor of Odisha, inaugurated the seminar on education on 8 October which was attended by 400 teachers, professors and others. o General News Swami Vagishanandaji inaugurated the renovated Dilaram Bungalow (sanctified by Swamiji’s stay in 1892) at Vadodara centre on 28 October.

The newly built Vivekananda Cultural Centre at Ponnampet Ashrama was inaugurated on 26 November.

The School Education Department, Government of West Bengal, awarded Shishumitra Vidyalaya Puraskar, 2014, to Ramharipur high school in recognition of its outstanding efforts in adopting childfriendly norms and standards in education and sanitation. The award comprised a trophy, a certificate and Rs. 25,000/- in cash.

All the 13 students of Vivekananda University in the MA final year of the five-year integrated MA Course in Sanskrit successfully cleared the National Eligibility Test conducted by University Grants Commission (UGC-NET). While all of them will thus be eligible for being appointed as Assistant Professors in any college or university in India, the top 7 have been further declared eligible for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) for pursuing higher studies.

A class-10 student of Katihar school, who participated in the IGNITE-2014 national competition conducted by National Innovation Foundation, won an award for his idea ‘provision of fourth light (blue) to reduce traffic jams’. The award, comprising a certificate, a memento and a book, was handed over

by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, at a function held in Ahmedabad on 18 November.

The newly built lower primary school building of Cherrapunji centre’s school at Maraikaphon was declared open on 27 September.

A student of our Rahara College has secured first rank in the B.Ed. Examination 2014 conducted by West Bengal State University.

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In the 14th National Paralympic Swimming Championship held at Indore from 6 to 9 November, 6 students of Narendrapur Blind Boysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Academy (2 each in Senior, Junior and Sub-Junior Groups) have won 7 gold, 8 silver and 5 bronze medals in different events as given below.

Event Freestyle Stroke Back Stroke Breast Stroke Butterfly Stroke

Senior Group Bronze Gold Gold & Silver Silver & Bronze

Junior Group Silver Gold & Silver Gold & Silver Silver

Sub-Junior Group Gold & Bronze Gold & Bronze Gold & Silver Silver & Bronze

Sacramento centre celebrated its golden jubilee with a day-long programme on 1 November, Jagaddhatri Puja day, with worship, homa, and a musical performance. About 200 devotees attended the programme.

The renovated Vivekananda Grove at the Olema Retreat of San Francisco (USA) centre was inaugurated on 31 August. The grove has been serving as a memorial to Swamiji and as a site for meditation since 1963. Its meditation platform contains a number of stones brought from different places in America which were visited by Swamiji. As a part of renovation, a statue of Swamiji has been installed in the grove.

Dhaka centre held the inaugural function of the centenary celebration of its high school on 9 November. Mr Md. Nazrul Islam Khan, Secretary, Ministry of Education, Govt. of Bangladesh, inaugurated the day-long programme in which many other dignitaries also took part. Besides speeches, the programme consisted of a rally, a musical performance, and a drama on Swami Vivekananda. o Relief and Rehabilitation v Hudhud Cyclone Relief: Andhra Pradesh: Visakhapatnam centre distributed 100 kg lentils, 160 kg onions, clothes and 30 blankets among 200 affected families of Kondarajapalem village in Vijayanagaram district on 31 October. v Jammu centre continued its relief work among the victims of flash floods and landslides in the state. The centre gave 3000 bricks to a family in Mawa-Karora village in Jammu district on 10 June. The centre also distributed 160 blankets, 20 shawls, 20 jackets and 20 sets of utensils (each set containing 2 cooking pots, 5 plates, 5 mugs, 5 spoons and 1 ladle) among 160 families of Subhashnagar, Bithur, Udheywala and R S Pura areas in Poonch and Rajouri districts from 31 October to 15 November. v The night shelter for the poor and homeless constructed at Rohini, Delhi, by our Delhi centre was handed over to Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) in a function held on 12 November in the presence of Sri M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India. o T h e

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Book Reviews For review in The Vedanta Kesari,

publishers need to send us two copies of their latest publication.

Celebrating Swami Vivekananda

By Swami Tathagatananda Published by Vedanta Society of New York, 23 West 71st Street, New York, NY.10023, USA. Available at Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata. 2013. Paperback, Pp.183, Rs.80.

This very aptly titled volume contains six essays and two appendices; aptly titled, because no person’s life and memory deserves to be celebrated with such overflowing joy as that of Swami Vivekananda for he himself was a man of joy, as the famous hymn on him by his brother monk Swami Ramakrishnananda describes him.

This was in spite of the struggles he had to undergo as a man, a monk, a great leader and the lone champion of his country among aliens, because he was essentially a mystic, a man in ceaseless communion with God. This is a truth that many scholars especially in the academic circles, dealing with his aspects as thinker, activist and man are unable to factor in their studies of the Swami.

To the received wisdom of this age, mysticism is an escapist pursuit to be relegated to the twilight regions of abnormal psychology and of no value in everyday existence. The opening essay corrects this view. It reviews at length Swamiji’s mystical experiences and shows how it offers an enriched view of man which complements the Enlightenment model of the rational man gloriously but tragically pitted against the wanton tyranny of nature (pp.2-30). As the author puts it, ‘he represents eternal human excellence’. . . ‘He is that lighthouse of hope and pure guidance (sic) that the world seeks. Clearly the mystic is profoundly useful to humanity’(p.28).

In the second piece, the author describes the momentous impact of Swamiji’s participation T h e

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in the Parliament of Religions and how it abides as a living, growing experience in the American consciousness. He points out how Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda are being accepted more and more by the American public. He quotes Arnold Toynbee who wrote that Sri Ramakrishna’s name will not be missing from future history books to show how the relevance of his great life to humanity will come to be increasingly appreciated in the days to come. With his long experience as a spiritual teacher in America, the author confidently states: that more and more people are being attracted to his life and message as is evident from the numerous books available now in many western languages about Sri Ramakrishna; there is an unprecedented increase of interest among youth in spirituality; quotes from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, sometimes unacknowledged, appears in medical journals, botanical magazines, health magazines and such diverse publications. Interfaith dialogue is immensely popular and people show interest in and respect for religions other than their own.

The third essay is fairly long and depicts Swamiji’s heroism. It is the heroism of the God man, the Avatara who though made of flesh and blood like any other human being, does not yield his spirit to narrow self-centered interests but struggles to transcend them and seeks to take on himself the sorrows of humanity. In history Buddha is the archetype and in mythology Shiva who drank burning poison to save the world. The author writes feelingly about the Shiva nature of Swamiji, ‘He was the incarnation of Lord Shiva who was roused by Sri Ramakrishna from deep samadhi. He took a human form and accepted human suffering for the good of humanity . . . We can never grasp his infinite spiritual significance or the fullness of his human personality’ (p.55).

The remaining two essays are on Swamiji as an incarnation of Shakti, and the value of Brahmacharya. Both are rewarding reading, the latter especially because it was a subject most dear

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to Swamiji’s heart and its growing relevance in these days of growing licentiousness, encouraged and championed by the print and visual media, as if, with a vengeance. The author quotes Pitrim Sorokin’s complaint against television that its only achievement has consisted in ‘bringing into millions of our homes erotically charged, alcoholic atmosphere of night clubs, ugly commercials and endless murder and sex plays’(p.118).

The last of the six essays is a touching account of the friendship between Raja Ajit Singh of Khetri and Swami Vivekananda. Of the two appendices one is on Japa. The last is an account of Swami Ramakrishnananda and his love for Swami Vivekananda and total dedication to his Mission.

The author copiously quotes from the works of Swamiji, his biographers and chroniclers and illustrates his points with anecdotes from Swamiji’s life, and writes with feeling and conviction which makes the book absorbing reading. A book to be cherished. ____________________ M.C.RAMANARAYANAN, THIRUVALLA,

Sri Ramakrishna’s Ideas and Our Times: A Retrospect on His 175th Birth Anniversary Board of Editors Swarup Roy, Jatisankar Chattopadhyay, Swami Shastrajnananda and Sandipan Sen

By Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira, Belur Math and RMIC. 2013, Hardback, pp.407, Rs.200.

What happens when a great mystic—whom His devotees consider to be God—comes to the human arena and lives a life totally devoted to and marked by love for God, in such a manner that He remains relevant for all time to come?

Several things follow: a revolution in thought, leading to an examination of those values held dear, resulting in a redefinition of God and theology and ending as a movement that reorganises religious belief to mean something much vaster than a set of deeply held convictions, but which are compartmentalised to suit the occasion.

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So when Gadadhar Chatterjee was born in the remote Bengal village of Kamarpukur, no one could have known what was going to happen in the next half century that his life encompassed, though. In the years that followed, profound and great changes were to get revealed in the garden temple of Dakshineshwar in Kolkata. Gadadhar would soon take it upon himself to undergo great spiritual experiences in His search for Unity and become, almost against his wishes, a household name for religious tolerance. Transformed from the village boy Gadadhar, Sri Ramakrishna, the world teacher, knew the extent to which His name would grow across the globe.

The book under review is the result of an erudite international seminar organized to commemorate the 175th birth anniversary of Sri Ramakrishna at which several noted scholars presented their views on the different aspects of the ideas and personality of Sri Ramakrishna, with a view to assessing his relevance in the increasingly scientific and technical world of today.

The book is divided into six parts and progresses logically from Sri Ramakrishna in his own times to his relevance in ours. The first part comprises four papers, beginning with Swami Prabhananda’s examination of Sri Ramakrishna as the ideal monk. He points out that the longevity of his ideas is entirely due to his unique qualities which manifested as a personal response to each of his audience. Scholars such as Max Mueller, Romain Rolland and Christopher Isherwood were struck by his divine qualities, while many Indians too have tried to encapsulate their own experience of him.

The writer ends by saying that Sri Ramakrishna is as relevant today as he was in his own times.

The second, third and fourth papers examine the social, religious and political climate of Bengal in the nineteenth century, a most revolutionary part of her history, when so many new ideas were being added to the cultural and religious melting pot. While AP Sen reviews Sri Ramakrishna against the socio-political milieu of his times, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s paper is a very convincing historical and sociological perspective of Sri Ramakrishna’s stance a propos the ascendancy of Christianity in that particular period of Bengal’s history. He describes Sri Ramakrishna as a harbinger of new thinking who raised God-realisation to a very high

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level of sophisticated thinking firstly by avoiding miracle-mongering and secondly by advocating the ideal path as being a mix of jnana and bhakti.

This paper sums up diverse spiritual influences, a picture of a resurgent India as against the usually accepted description of a people rendered inert through colonialisation. In the last essay of this part, ‘Sri Ramakrishna and His Chief Disciple’, the author, Swami Tyagarupananda gives a comprehensive guide of Swami Vivekananda’s role in universalising Sri Ramakrishna’s message, the most revolutionary being that of seeing God in man and serving him through human—and humaneservice.

The second part of the book, discussing Sri Ramakrishna: the Man and His Personality, begins with a highly learned and scientific investigation

by Swami Atmapriyananda of Sri Ramakrishna’s bhavamukha state. Sri Ramakrishna had been urged to remain in bhavamukha on three separate occasions by the Divine Mother herself. The author scrutinises the state in three separate ways, one, through science, two, in the light of classical Indian philosophy and three, through the lens of the Ramakrishna Mission ideology.

The second essay in this section is by Swami Tyagananda, who likens Sri Ramakrishna to ‘the tree without a name’ (achina gaach), a tree which many people would like to—and have—described.

And why has Sri Ramakrishna been a subject of so much scholarship and enquiry through the last century and more? Because every step leads closer to what we are seeking.

The last essay in this part, by Pravrajika Bhaswaraprana expresses the view that Sri Ramakrishna is the vehicle through which all systems of belief and thought can be reconciled.

This leads the reader on to the section which considers Sri Ramakrishna’s ideas and their impact both on contemporary Bengal as well as modern times. Jitendranath Mohanty examines the multifaceted significance of Sri Ramakrishna’s ostensibly simple statement ‘Yato mat tato path’.

Through a series of premises, the complexity of the content of Sri Ramakrishna’s words, couched in simple, everyday language, their influence on several levels of human existence is brought out.

The second by P. K. Mukhopadhyay is a scholarly inquiry into the validity of Sri Ramakrishna’s ideas and goes deep into the conundrum of the first T h e

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ownership of a certain idea. The writer makes the case for ideas being validated only through actual action—we consider the ideas of Sri Ramakrishna as his because ‘he lived those ideas most authentically’ (p. 154, ibid). Sabujkoli Sen’s exposition on Sri Ramakrishna from the feminist perspective clarifies his stand on kamini-kanchana, by which he meant lust and gold. Since his audiences were in the main composed of men, he compressed a wealth of meaning into this phrase. The writer brings out his basic attitude of respect to women—this particular paper’s relevance is not far to seek in these times when women demand, and quite rightly, equality in every sphere.

The text that sets most people on their journey towards ‘discovering’ Sri Ramakrishna—the Kathamrita—is the subject of the next four essays.

There is absolutely no doubt that the historical validity of the text, so painstakingly written by Sri Mahendranath Gupta (Sri M) and so brilliantly translated by Swami Nikhilananda for the edification of non-Bengali knowing readers, and the charm and beauty of Sri Ramakrishna’s rustic and powerful language all combine to make it a most memorable reading experience.

M’s language, as Professor Sivaramkrishna points out, binds us to the book with ties of love.

Swami Sarvagananda uses the word language to denote Sri Ramakrishna’s love for music: ‘You will be able to cite innumerable incidents in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna where he used music as a medium of communication of his ideas’ (p. 253).

In the next section, Syed Anwar Hussain points out that even if Sri Ramakrishna did not go in for ‘a fastidious religious texts. . . he had the right and endowed mind to understand the core message of every faith’ (p.259, ibid). The writer makes a distinction between the pristine Islam Sri Ramakrishna was exposed to and the Islam of today.

Sri Ramakrishna achieved interfaith harmony long before the term was as well-known as it is today.

Jeffery Long gives another angle to understanding the depth and sweep of Sri Ramakrishna’s influence, brought to the West by Swami Vivekananda. To one like himself, who had to reconcile Ramakrishna’s teachings with his natal Catholic faith, the spiritual slant, rather than the religious quality, of Sri Ramakrishna was the starting point.

Swami Bhajanananda speaks about the value of Sri Ramakrishna as a world teacher rather than an

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avatara, in order to survey the mega-trends in the world today. It is through this, says the author, that human consciousness can be transformed to divine consciousness.

The last part contains five essays, two in Bengali, looking at Sri Ramakrishna through a larger perspective. Swami Sanmayananda looks at Sri Ramakrishna’s ability to accept all perspectives of God while the other authors speak of him as a master teacher who used ordinary metaphors to illustrate his lessons as well as Sri Ramakrishna’ s interest in all forms of art.

The volume is thus very comprehensive —the papers presented are all by scholars who have looked at their subject from multifarious points of view. The most significant thing is Sri Ramakrishna’s attribute of being so many things to so many people—it is impossible to define him in any specific way. What has emerged is a picture that we can keep looking at over and over again and discovering new aspects.

The book is a significant and rich addition to the ever-growing collection of Ramakrishna literature. Readers will find an ocean of thoughts which can be read and re-read, pondered over, again and again. A limitless fund of knowledge it certainly is, but there are some parts which are too esoteric for the average reader. That said, this reviewer thinks that part of the challenge of advancing in spiritual life is learning to read works that at first elude ones understanding but could become clearer upon reflection because, as the poet Browning said, ‘Man’s reach should be beyond his grasp/Or what are the heavens for?’ ___________________________ PREMA RAGHUNATH, CHENNAI

Swami Vivekananda

By Prema Nandakumar Published by Indus Source Books, P.O. Box No. 6194, Malabar Hill P.O., Mumbai - 400 006.2013, paperback, pp.230, Rs.225 This year, celebrating the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, has seen a plethora of publications from all over the world. The current book by Dr. Prema T h e

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Nandakumar is one such, published under Indus Source Books’s series ‘Spiritual Masters’. The author’s name is quite familiar to readers of The Vedanta Kesari, through her erudite articles and book reviews.

The objective of the book is quite modest.

It is to present to the readers the life of Swami Vivekananda in a simple format, easily understandable and in its essentials. The life of Swamiji has been extensively documented in various books, like the Life by Eastern and Western disciples, the nine volumes of the Complete Works, the six-volume New Discoveries—a detailed description of his stay and work in the West by Sister Gargi, Swamiji in Chicago by Asim Chaudhuri, followed by a sequel of Swamiji’s entire stay in the West. These books are eminently readable, but pose a challenge to one coming to Swamiji for the first time. The present book provides an entry point to such readers, by presenting the essential points and events of Swamiji’s life.

One problem facing any author wishing to write a concise biography of Swami Vivekananda is, what to include and what to exclude. Only those who are steeped in the culture of Sri Ramakrishna will be able to exercise this choice judiciously. The author, Prema Nandakumar, has been associated with the Sri Ramakrishna Order right from her childhood because of the parental influence.

She is, in a sense, saturated with the lore of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda. This has helped her to grasp the salient points of Swamiji’s life and to present them faithfully.

In this handy volume, the author has presented her ‘choice’ in 9 chapters, each with an appropriate and catchy title. The last chapter, the tenth, discusses the achievements of Swamiji. To the Indian nation, his greatest gift was the establishment of the Ramakrishna Order, its band of Sannyasins, the large number of branches all over the world. But, last, but not the least, is the magnificent temple for Sri Ramakrishna on the holy soil of Belur Math. His other contribution was the establishment of spiritual magazines, like Brahmavadin (now called The Vedanta Kesari), Udbodhan and Prabuddha Bharata. This is indeed an incredible achievement for any individual! No wonder, Swamiji was heard muttering to himself on the last day of his life: ‘Only another Vivekananda would have understood what this Vivekananda has

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achieved!’ Lest this appear as a boast, he quickly added, ‘But, if He (Sri Ramakrishna) wants, he could create hundreds of such Vivekanandas!’

The author of the book has to be thanked for her wonderful gift to the reading public, and the publishers too for bringing out this book, during the year of Swamiji’s 150th birth anniversary. ______________________________ NVC SWAMY, BANGALORE

Vedanta and Holy Mother

By Swami Swahananda Published by Advaita Ashrama, Dehi Entally R oad, K olkat a . 2012, Hardback, pp.304, Rs. 100.

Any statement or topic hard to understand is instinctively labeled as ‘Vedanta’, remarked Swami Ranganathananda in a lighter vein.

The presumption is that Vedanta is a dry subject, complex, confusing. Such negative perception will cease when we study the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi. In fact Vedanta has fascinated many. One of the articles in the book under review recalls the observation of a monk from the West, Swami Atulananda. The Swami said: ‘I began to appreciate Christ after being a Vedantist. Through Vedanta I could realize that God can assume different aspects . . .’

‘Vedanta, Holy Mother, Ideas and Disciplines’ titled as ‘Vedanta and Holy Mother’, says the Publisher, is a ‘collection of self-contained articles and not a planned book’. Part I of the book is dedicated to Holy Mother. The assortment of articles is a compendium on her unique personality.

However, being an avatara, an infinite entity, none can fully comprehend Holy Mother’s personality unless she chooses to unmask what is hidden. It baffled observers to see her concern for a mere broomstick when she could in an instant resolve contentious issues like endorsing Swamiji’s overseas travels or accommodating devotees under surveillance by the then Government, overruling opposition and remaining apolitical. She could handle conflicting interests in hostile environment with ease.

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Sri Sarada Devi was the mirror image of ideal womanhood, rather motherhood. Though subject to privation, she radiated unbounded love, compassion, forgiveness, fortitude to face head-on meaningless orthodoxy or challenges to her domain, guileless seeing ‘good in evil’ and more. She was the loving mother of all, regardless of caste or nationality. Despite maintaining a low profile, ‘both self-assertion and self-effacement ranked parallel in her’ that manifested when needed. She was ‘a social and spiritual reformer’ whose mere touch turned ‘bad persons into good’. Her renunciation was total like Sri Ramakrishna.

She did not study Vedanta as an academic discipline. Yet, points out the author, ‘. . . Vedantic teachings were always in the background’ when she spoke and ‘. . . in practical life, she advocated applied Vedanta’. A lesson for torchbearers of empowerment of women is that in the way Ramakrishna Movement women have been exalted.

In the words of a scholar, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi taught that God could be conceived both as man and woman. Thus, ‘the male principle and the female principle are not distinct from each other . . . No man is wholly a man; no woman is entirely a woman . . .’

Part II of the book titled ‘Ideas’ contains 13 chapters/articles concerning the need for religion, role of organizations of religious bodies, areas of operation, relevance of social service, morality and probity in society, and many others. The author must be complimented for his sublime presentation of the religious landscape of India.

The creation of an organization (chapter I) ‘. . . for the practice, preservation and propagation of spiritual ideas . . .’ of the Ramakrishna Movement was a masterstroke of Swamiji. Observers have noted the quiet efficiency of its operation with no hidden agenda or cult figures. Moreover breaking convention the Ramakrishna Movement devoted attention to ‘purify social life and create abundant sympathy for suffering sections of society’.

The articles remind us of the inherent strength of religious spirit that could not be destroyed by armed invaders desecrating holy places, aggressive proselytizing or attempts to discredit religious activity. Elimination of evils like selfishness or dishonesty is ‘the positive service of religion’. The article ‘The Youth and Spiritual Life’ highlights the importance of early training in spiritual life. Despite

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occasional overlapping of ideas, these chapters are very informative. The youth of the country will further benefit from the last two chapters of Part II. Why should India, the land of religion, be ridden with social evils? Chapter 8, Life and Religion, points out that people and their attitudes/ priorities were different in the halcyon days.

Lacking in conviction of our spiritual moorings and becoming addicted to temporal possessions, we have degenerated. Instead of carping at religion, we should be ‘genuinely religious’.

The concluding Part III on ‘Disciplines’ is devoted to practical spiritual life. Forms of Japa, meditation, rituals and devotion form the focus of the chapters. Skeptics wonder how one can chant divine names and surrender to Him without even seeing God. Swami Adbhutananda’s response has been quoted by the author. The wise monk cites the example of an applicant in an office seeking a position or favour. The application is addressed to the concerned official even without meeting or knowing the person. ‘Similarly, send your application to God, and you will receive His grace’.

In spite of a large number of publications on Holy Mother, Vedanta and Holy Mother has much to offer, available at an incredibly low cost. _______________________________ P. S. SUNDARAM, MUMBAI

Glimpses of Excellence In Ancient India

By Dr. Suruchi Pande Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai - 600 004. 2014, paperback, pp.140, Rs.110.

Swami Vivekananda prophesied that in the future ‘millions of Rishis’ will be roaming the land of India, and imparting spirituality to the world.

But before this can happen, Swamiji felt that the first step is to remove the ill effects of colonial slavery from their minds, and replace with a genuine love T h e

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for their culture. After that, the next step would be to awaken the masses (from all castes) into the status of a refined person. Hence, Swamiji reminds all Indians, ‘Each of you was born with a splendid heritage, which is the whole of the infinite past life of your glorious nation.’

Most Indians possess an intuitive understanding that their ancestors were glorious forerunners not only in matters of para-vidya (spiritual knowledge) but also in apara-vidya (secular matters). But upon deeper investigation, some may find difficulty in supporting their answers. This wonderful book (a little more than 100 pages long), Glimpses of Excellence in Ancient India which reads like a mini-encyclopedia, provides the answers and supporting references, attesting to India’s glorious past in a vast array of areas.

In this text, the author explores the ancient Indians’ pioneering and sublime understanding in the areas of arts, music, dance, drama, beautification, love, food, medicine (including human, veterinary and plants), yoga, sports, literature, political science, environmental studies, seismology, administration, right code of living, etc., in separate chapters.

Dr. Suruchi Pande’s method of presentation, in some of the chapters, is to introduce the subject by referring to a relevant story from the Puranas.

Next, she briefly touches upon the diverse techniques and methodologies of the specific field (which in many instances will leave the reader in awe). Third, she cites from different ancient Sanskrit texts both to support her findings as well to further encourage the reader to pursue additional research on the matter.

Upon completing the book, the reader begins to realise a common thread of unity underlying all the different subjects. Whether yoga, mathematics, acting, plant medicine, sports or administration, all are treated as sciences—there is a hidden vidya, which will reveal itself only to one who ‘always speaks the truth, has control over the senses, good health and no addictions.’

This short yet wonderful summary of India’s glorious past should be distributed throughout the primary and secondary schools and inspire the Indian youths with a greater pride and love for their motherland. _________________________________ SWAMI CHIDEKANANDA,

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ADVAITA ASHRAMA, KOLKATA

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RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA Vijnanananda Marg, Mutthiganj, ALLAHABAD - 211 003 (U.P.) Phone - 0532-2413369, Fax - 0532-2415235 Email: rkmathald@dataone.in, rkmsald@gmail.com Website: rkmallahabad.org

An Appeal for Endowment Fund Dear Devotees, Allahabad or Prayagraj, as it is fondly called, is a very holy place of pilgrimage in India and devotees from many countries throng here during the Kumbha Mela held after a regular interval.

Innumerable devotees gather here for Magh Mela every year held in the month of Magh (January - February). Devotees come to stay here for the Kalpavas for a month during this period. This is one of the most sacred features of the holy city.

Every year the Ramakrishna Math, Allahabad, arranges for the Magh Mela Camp in the month of Magh (January-February) for about one month (Kalpavas) starting from 15th January till Maghi purnima. For this annual event, we spend nearly Rs. 40 Lac every year. This cost might even increase due to steep increase in input costs.

Ramakrishna Math, Allahabad requests devotees and admirers to contribute liberally for Vijnanananda Endowment Fund.

During Kumbh Mela:

No: of days reservation in Camp

No: of family members who can stay in camp

Rs. One Lakh or more

One day

Three

Rs. Two Lakhs or more

Two days

Three

50 donors on first come first served basis for two consecutive Kumbh Mela

Rs. 10 Lakhs or more

Five days

Three

Rs. 30 Lakhs or more

Ten days

Five

During Magh Mela:100 Endowment donors on first come first served basis in each bracket

Rs. 10,000 or more

One day

One

Rs. 20,000 or more

One day

Three

Rs. 50,000 or more

Five days

Three

Rs. One Lakh or more

Ten days

Five

100 donors on first come first served basis in each bracket

50 Endowment donors on first come first served basis

Endowment Amount

Endowment donors desirous of staying during the Kalpavas period would have to deposit an additional Rs.30,000 per member before the end of Sept. 2014. Fifty such donors would be allotted stay on first come first served basis.

Donation to Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama are exempted from Income Tax under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act 1961.

Please contact our office to register your name for the Endowment Fund with your contact details. We could then send a form which can be filled by you and sent to us with the Endowment amount.

Swami Sarvabhutananda Secretary

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BUILD A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN Daridra Narayan Seva: Serving the uneducated, illiterate women, and people affected by flood/drought, irrespective of caste, creed, and religion by regularly distributing dhoti and sarees (about 800 per year), blankets (about 700 per year), food packets to the suffering villagers, and 15 to 10 bicycles every year to poor high school girls.

Education Seva: Serving the indigent tribal children, who are first generation learners, by running three rural primary schools and six free coaching centres in the remote village areas. In addition, the Ashrama administers a higher secondary school, a primary school, and a kindergarten school for the indigent children of Malda. Finally, we also provide a hostel for 70 students, either at nominal cost or free.

Medical Seva: Serving the indigents who dwell in the slums and do not have the means for proper medical care, by operating both allopathic and homeopathic dispensaries, providing mobile medical service for the poor, and conducting ten medical camps every week. T B patients are given free medicines and injections. Every year approximately 30,000 people receive free medical care in the units of the Ashrama.

Dear Friends, Your contributions are the sole sustenance for the above seva. I humbly request you to donate generously. We hope to create a corpus fund of two crore rupees, the interest of which will help us to meet the above expenses. In your donation, kindly mention that it is for the ‘corpus fund for the philanthropic activities of our Ashrama’.

All donations for this noble cause are tax exempt as per the Income Tax Act, 80G. A/c payee Cheque/ Draft may be drawn in favour of ‘Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Malda’.

Online donations may be made to the following bank accounts of Malda Ashrama with intimation to us: State Bank of India of Malda —111753632.70, United Bank of India 0133010034363.

Swami Parasharananda Secretary RAMAKRISHNA MISSION ASHRAMA (A branch centre of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, West Bengal) Malda, West Bengal—732,101. Tel.- 03512-252479; email: rkm.malda@gmail.com

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AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE The Ramakrishna Math, Koyilandy, Kerala, a branch centre of the Ramakrishna Math Belur Math, established in the year 1915 will celebrate its centenary in 2015 with launch of various Programmes. Our devotees and well-wishers are invited to participate in yearlong function.

Humble Beginnings: There was a Yogi Math & Subrahmanya Temple at Melur near Koyilandy managed by Sri K.P. Krishnan Nair and few others. They requested Swami Nirmalanandaji who was halting then at Vadakara to establish Ramakrishna Math there. Swami Nirmalanandaji accepted the property in April 1914 and installed Sri Ramakrishna at the Math in March 1915. In 1929 the main ashrama building was dedicated and in 1987 a new prayer hall and Shrine was consecrated.

Activities at the Ashram: Besides daily worship at the shrine and birthday celebrations of the Holy Trio & other important Hindu festivals the centre conducts weekly classes on scriptures, value education for students. It serves the needy in a spirit of worship providing medical help / educational assistance to the deserving poor. It also runs a Non-formal education centre for 100 deprived children who are provided books, stationeries and uniforms. Teachers at the free coaching centre helps poor students acquire proficiency in academics. Every year about 700 poor students are given free note books and stationeries.

Plans for the Centenary Year: To commemorate the centenary year 2014-2015 we wish to build a centre of learning and excellence for our village youth who will be provided training and guidance in: • Waste recycling and management • Programmes to promote learning of Sanskrit, English, and Hindi • Programmes to promote positive health and life style management • Sustained Graded Value Education Programme [SGVEP] for students The project is estimated to cost about Rs. 2 Crores. The task is big but the funds at our end are meagre. With no support from Government our activities are run only on donations from public. We therefore seek generous involvement and participation of devotees, friends, admirers and well-wishers through donations and contributions to this noble endeavor to make the centenary celebrations a grand success.

All donation made to the Math are exempted from Income Tax Section 80G the Income Tax Act. You may please send your donation by Cheque/Draft in the name of “Ramakrishna Math, Koyilandy “ Bank A/C No: 10632417896 State Bank of India, Koyilandy, IFS Code SBIN0003338.

Yours in the Service of Lord, Swami Bhuvanatmananda Adhyaksha

Ramakrishna Math, Koyilandy

Swami Vivekananda Road, RO Melur, Koyilandy, Dt. Kozhikode, Kerala 673 306 E-mail: rkmkoil@yahoo.com; rkmkoyilandy@gmail.com Phone: 0496-2630990. Cell no: 09447863787

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Ramakrishna Sarada Ashrama, Devaprayag An Appeal The Ramakrishna Sarada Ashrama was inaugurated on the auspicious occasion of the Chaitra Shukla Navaratri. The high-points of the week-long celebration were the enshrinement of Devi Durga, the presiding deity of Devaprayag, Lord Raghunathji and Sri Thakur, Holy Mother Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda and also chanting, homa and cultural programmes.

Mokshaprana Centenary Bhawan Most Revered Mataji accompanied by Pravrajika Atmaprana Mataji had visited Devaprayag.

She was ecstatic after taking a bath at the sangam and said, ‘I have completed my journey to the Himalayas.’

To commemorate her visit to Devaprayag and also as a symbol of her immense love for Himalayas, a building is being constructed at Ramakrishna Sarada Ashrama in Devaprayag. The three-storeyed building will have the following facilities: 1. Five guest rooms in the names of Revered Bharatiprana, Mokshaprana, Muktiprana, Dayaprana and Shraddhaprana Mataji. 2. A library and a study room—Mokshaprana Path Bhawan.

3. A Sunday study circle for local students on value education and life-skills—Vivek Bodha. 4.

Spiritual Retreats—Moksha Satra. 5. Pre-primary School for local children—Sarada Kusum.

The project will cost about Rs 50 lakhs. We appeal fervently to all devotees, NGOS, service and welfare-oriented corporate houses to extend their kind and generous support and receive the choicest blessings of Thakur, Ma, Swamiji and Revered Mataji.

Any person wishing to perpetuate the memory of their dear ones may donate minimum Rs. 50,000 and above and have the privilege of displaying a marble plaque in his/her name.

For details, please contact: Swami Sarvatmananda, Ramakrishna Sarada Ashrama, Dak Banglow Road, PO: Devaprayag, Tehri Garhwal. Uttarakhand. Pin: 249301 Email: rmksarada@gmail.com; Phone: 09410520930, 9897452084 Cheque/DD drawn in favour of Ramakrishna Sarada Ashrama, may be sent to.

For online donation: Our CBS A/C. Punjab National Bank, Devaprayag. A/C--0625000100098104 (IFS code: PUNB: 0062500); State Bank of India, Devaprayag. A/C No: 30932831669 (IFS code: SBIN 0014135)

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The Monk without Frontiers

Pages: 648 Price: Rs. 480/Postage: Rs.50/-

We are happy to notify the readers about the new “ENHANCED EDITION” of The Monk without Frontiers—Reminiscences of Swami Ranganathananda.

In this edition two more articles on the Swami have been included. The size (layout) of the book has been changed to a larger one, and also the typeset is new, enhancing the overall look and readability of the book. The book now has a new cover.

This book is a compilation of articles on Swami Ranganathananda written by the monks of the Ramakrishna Order, nuns of the Sarada Math and Ramakrishna Sarada Mission, and devotees and admirers of the Swami. There are 136 pieces of writing presenting before us his multi-faceted personality in an inspiring as well as interesting manner.

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NAVAJEEVAN BLIND RELIEF CENTRE (FREE HOME FOR THE BLIND, ORPHAN AND AGED) TIRUCHANOOR, TIRUPATI - 517503. Ph : 0877-2239992, 9908537528 [Mob.] E-mail: sreenavajeevan@gmail.com Website: www.navajeevan.org

An Appeal 35 Years of Service to Humanity 1979 - 2014 1. Navajeevan School & Hostel for Blind Children – 2. Navajeevan Free Eye Hospital – 3. Navajeevan Free Home for Aged –

4. Navajeevan Annaksetram - 5. Navajeevan Sharanagati Vridhashram – 6. Navajeevan Rural Medical Centres - 7. Navajeevan Eye Care Centres - 8. Navajeevan Orphanage Children Homes –

Tirupati, Parlekhimundi, Golamunda Tirupati Tirupati, Rishikesh, Parlekhimundi and Chennai Kothapeta / Rishikesh Tirupati Berhampur [Orissa] Serango & Kalahandi [Orissa] Tirupati, Parlehkimundi, Saluru, Golamunda, Berhampur, Pandukal, Vizag & Araku

A Humble Request for Donation 1. Sponsor one day Annadan to Blind Children and aged

– Rs. 5000/-

3. Sponsor one blind child or Orphan child for one year

– Rs. 6000/-

2. Sponsor 5 IOL Cataract Eye Operations

4. Sponsor one poor aged person for one year

5. Sponsor one free eye camp at Rural/Tribal area 6. Vidyadan—Educational aid for one Child

– Rs. 7000/–

Rs. 5000/-

–

Rs. 2000/-

– Rs. 50000/-

Donor devotees can send their contributions by cheque/DD/MO to the above address on the occasion of birthday, wedding day or any other special occasion and receive prasadam of Lord Balaji Venkateswara of Tirupati as blessings.

Contributions to NAVAJEEVAN BLIND RELIEF CENTRE, Tirupati are eligible for Tax Relief U/S 80G of Income Tax Act. Our Bank details for online transfer : Bank Name : Indian Bank , Gandhi Road Branch, Tirupati SB A/c No: 463789382, Account Holder : Navajeevan Blind Relief Centre, Branch Code: T036, IFSC code: IDIB000T036,

‘We can attain salvation through social work’ – Swami Vivekananda K. Sridhar Acharya Founder/ President

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Vol.102-1 The Vedanta Kesari (English Monthly) January 2015. Regd. with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under No.1084 / 1957. POSTAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:TN / CH (C) / 190 / 12-14. LICENSED TO POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT TN/PMG(CCR)/WPP-259 / 2012-14 Date of Publication: 24th of every month

Teach yourselves, teach everyone his/her real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes.

Power will come, glory will come, goodness will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come, when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.

—Swami Vivekananda

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Subscription (inclusive of postage) Annual : ` 100 10 years: ` 1000 60 ~ J A NWebsite: U A R Y 2 www.chennaimath.org 0 1 5 Contact: Ramakrishna T h Sri e V e d a n t a K eMath, s a r i ~Chennai.