The Vedanta Kesari – January 2019 issue

Vedanta Kesari

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The

January 2019

‘May you all be illumined!’

The Vedanta Kesari

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A Cultural and Spiritual Monthly of the Ramakrishna Order since 1914

J anuary 2019

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COVER STORY The slightly edited drawing of Maniam Selvan presents the unique scene of Sri Ramakrishna showering his blessings like a Kalpataru on 1 Jan 1886 at the Cossipore Garden House. For a description of the incident see ‘Meditation on the New Year’, page 17 of this issue.

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T he V edanta K esari

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A Cultural and Spiritual Monthly of The Ramakrishna Order

JANUARY 2019

CONTENTS

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Vol. 106, No. 1 ISSN 0042-2983

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Reminiscences of Sargachhi Swami Suhitananda l ica Top

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Meditation on the New Year Swami Chetanananda

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FEATURES

M us ing s

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A Message to Garcia

Dakshinamurti Stotra Yugavani

9 Editorial 22 Pariprasna 27 Vivekananda Way 44 Book Reviews 46 The Vedas: An Exploration 49 Topical Musings 51 The Order on the March

What is Religion?

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The Braahmanas Lakshmi Devnath

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda in ‘The Land of Five Rivers’ Swami Atmashraddhananda

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Some Thoughts on Spiritual Life Swami Satyapriyananda

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Two Versions of Sw. Vivekananda’s First Chicago Speech William Page

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Editor: Swami Mahamedhananda Published by Swami Vimurtananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai - 600 004 and Printed by B. Rajkumar, Chennai - 600 014 on behalf of Sri Ramakrishna Math Trust, Chennai - 600 004 and Printed at M/s. Rasi Graphics Pvt. Limited, No.40, Peters Road, Royapettah, Chennai - 600014.

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Vedanta Kesari

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The Vedanta Kesari

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Dear Readers, The Vedanta Kesari is one of the oldest cultural and spiritual magazines in the country. Started under the guidance and support of Swami Vivekananda, the first issue of the magazine, then called Brahmavadin, came out on 14 Sept 1895. Brahmavadin was run by one of Swamiji’s ardent followers Sri Alasinga Perumal. After his death in 1909 the magazine publication became irregular, and stopped in 1914 whereupon the Ramakrishna Order revived it as The Vedanta Kesari.

Swami Vivekananda’s concern for the magazine is seen in his letters to Alasinga Perumal where he writes: ‘Now I am bent upon starting the journal.’ ‘Herewith I send a hundred dollars…. Hope this will go just a little in starting your paper.’ ‘I am determined to see the paper succeed.’ ‘The Song of the Sannyasin is my first contribution for your journal.’ ‘I learnt from your letter the bad financial state that Brahmavadin is in.’ ‘It must be supported by the Hindus if they have any sense of virtue or gratitude left in them.’ ‘I pledge myself to maintain the paper anyhow.’ ‘The Brahmavadin is a jewel—it must not perish. Of course, such a paper has to be kept up by private help always, and we will do it.’

For the last 104 years, without missing a single issue, the magazine has been carrying the invigorating message of Vedanta with articles on spirituality, culture, philosophy, youth, personality development, science, holistic living, family and corporate values.

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January 2019

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January 2019

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AWARDEE INSTITUTIONS

ChennaiRamakrishna Vivekananda Ashrama, Bangalore Vivekahamsa, Bangalore Sri Ramakrishna Seva Trust, Bangalore Mata Brhamamayi Srimata Sharada Ashrama, Bangalore Swami Vivekananda Educational Society, Bangalore Mata Vivekamayi Sri Bhavatarini Ashrama, Bangalore Sri Sharada Shakti Ashrama, Mallathahalli, Bangalore Sharada Sevashrama, III Stage, Bangalore Sharadeshwari Ashrama, 3rd Stage, Bangalore Ramakrishna Vivekananda Ashrama, Chikkaballapura, Karnataka Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, Hebbal, Mysuru, Karnataka Ramakrishna Ashrama, Kollegal, Karnataka Sri Vivekananda Sevashrama, Basavanagudi, Bangalore Swami Vivekananda Charitable Trust, H.R.B.R. Layout, Bangalore To be continued . . .

Dakäiëàmùrti Stotra

Dakshinamurti Stotra with Manasollasa. Translated and Annotated by Swami Harshananda

January 2019

1. Obeisance to him, Árì Dakäiëàmùrti1, who is the Guru2, who at the time of spiritual awakening3 has verily realised his own Self, the one without a second,4 having understood that the world is within oneself, as in dream, but projected by màyà as though it is outside, even as a city reflected in a mirror5.6 1 Dakäiëàmùrti is one of the aspects of Lord Áiva. He is usually pictured as sitting in the yoga posture, under a banyan tree, facing the south (dakäiëa = south) and exhibiting the cinmudrà, the sign of knowledge, with his fingers. Being the personification of spiritual wisdom, he is the ideal guru. He is also shown as surrounded by disciples, much older in age. Though he is sitting silently, the spiritual power that radiates out of him automatically dispels all the doubts that arise in their minds. The additional verses given at the end of this hymn describe this.

2 The guru (spiritual preceptor) is one who has realised the Truth himself, and is able to teach about it to others, showing the way. According to the Hindu religious tradition, God is the primary Guru (Àdiguru) who transmits spiritual truths through a succession of human gurus to mankind.

It is His power that is actually coursing through the human gurus. Hence, the human guru is often identified with God Himself, at least by his disciples.

3 Awakening comes as a result of listening to the mahàvàkyas (the ‘great sentences’ like tat tvam asi or ‘Thou art That’) from a competent guru after preparing oneself for the same.

4 According to Advaita Vedànta, it is Àtman alone that exists and nothing else. The entire world of duality is nothing but an appearance, an illusion.

5 The example of reflection in the mirror is limited to explaining the existence of the whole world within the Self. It should not be construed that like the real city outside, which is reflected in the mirror, there is a ‘real’ world ‘outside’ of which the ‘inside’ is only a reflection!

6 The various objects seen in the dream including oneself are all creations of the mind and are within it. Likewise, it is màyà that creates this world of duality and all experiences associated with it.

On waking, the dream world, which was very much real during the dream experience, disappears.

Similarly, this world experience of the waking state also disappears when the spiritual awakening comes.

7 The Vedanta Kesari

PA G E S P O N S O R : S R I M AT S WA M I G A U TA M A N A N D A J I , S R I R A M A K R I S H N A M AT H , C H E N N A I

विश्वं दर्पणदृश्यमाननगरीतुल्यं निजान्तर्गतं पश्यन्नात्मनि मायया बहिरिवोद्भूतं यथा निद्रया । यस्साक्षात्कुरुते प्रबोधसमये स्वात्मानमेवाद्वयं तस्मै श्रीगुरुमूर्तये नम इदं श्रीदक्षिणामूर्तये ।। १ ।।

Yugavani

Incarnation

January 2019

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here is only One without a second. The Vedas speak of It as ‘Om Satchidananda Brahma’, the Puranas as ‘Om Satchidananda Krishna’, and the Tantra as ‘Om Satchidananda Shiva.’ From that one Om have sprung ‘Om Shiva’, ‘Om Kali’, and ‘Om Krishna’. The Incarnation (Avatara) is the play of the Absolute as man. Do you know how the Absolute plays as man? It is like the rushing down of water from a big roof through a pipe; the power of Satchidananda—nay, Satchidananda Itself—descends through the conduit of a human form as water descends through the pipe. God’s play on earth as an Incarnation is the manifestation of the glory of the Chit Shakti, the Divine Power.

Brahman alone is real and the world illusory—that is reasoning. And everything but Brahman is like a dream. But this is an extremely difficult path….That is why God incarnates Himself as man and teaches people the path of devotion. He exhorts people to cultivate self-surrender to God. Following the path of devotion, one realizes everything through His grace – both Knowledge and Supreme Wisdom.

However great and infinite God may be, His Essence can and does manifest itself through man by His mere will. God’s Incarnation as a man cannot be explained by analogy. One must feel it for oneself and realize it by direct perception. An analogy can give us only a little glimpse. By touching the horns, legs, or tail of a cow, we in fact touch the cow herself; but for us the essential thing about a cow is her milk, which comes through the udder. The Divine Incarnation is like the udder. God incarnates Himself as man from time to time in order to teach people devotion and divine love.

God, incarnating Himself as man, behaves exactly like a man. That is why it is difficult to recognize an Incarnation.… He has the same hunger, thirst, disease, grief, and sometimes even fear. Rama was stricken with grief for Sita. Krishna carried on His head the shoes and wooden stool of His father Nanda.

Not all, by any means, can recognize an Incarnation of God…. Only twelve sages, Bharadvaja and the others, recognized Rama as an Incarnation of God. By meditating on an incarnation of God one meditates on God Himself. The body is a mere covering. It is like a lantern with a light burning inside, or like a glass case in which one sees precious things.

Compiled from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Editorial

day events, our ideal or goal of life remains obscure and far away. To remedy this, we need to ask ourselves, What do I really want? What do I truly value? Am I progressing towards my goal? To ask these wake-up questions in an effective manner, we need to stand back a little from the mundane world. This conscious, purposeful withdrawing, at least for some time, from the never-ending chain of life experiences and entering into the depths of the inner stillness of the soul is called solitude.

As evident, this withdrawing has two dimensions. One is withdrawing into the inner realms or depths of our personality, and the other is the physical withdrawal to a silent place where no one can disturb us. While withdrawing into the inner stillness of the soul is the ideal, and sincere sadhakas are seeking just that through practices like meditation, bhajans, and leela chintan, the solitude that Sri Ramakrishna recommends begins with physical withdrawal. Explaining this he says, ‘How can the worldly man be cured of his serious disease unless he goes into solitude? A worldly man is suffering from delirious fever, as it were.

Suppose there are pickled tamarind and jars of water in the room of such a patient. Now, how can you expect him to get rid of the disease? … To a man, a woman is the pickled tamarind, [and vice versa] and his desire for enjoyment, the jars of water. There is neither end nor limit to this desire for worldly enjoyment. And the things are in the patient’s very room. Can you expect the patient to get rid of the delirious fever in this fashion? He must be removed for a few days to another place where there are neither pickled tamarind nor water-jars. Then he will be cured. After that if he returns to his old room he will have nothing to fear.’

January 2019

Can we realise God while leading a householder’s life? This is one of the questions that devotees often asked Sri Ramakrishna, and every time he affirmed that it was possible. To achieve this, one of the practices he strongly recommended was to go into solitude now and then.

But why are we talking of solitude at the beginning of a new year when the common and popular custom is to get together with friends and family and have parties or go on outings?

Well, anyone serious about progressing in spiritual life and leading a meaningful, peaceful life would do well to add periodic solitudes into their To Do list for this year.

Our everyday life is a continuous struggle to maintain mental and physical balance, and to have a harmonious relationship with things and people around us. The balance is disturbed by the onrush of sensate impressions from the world outside and from the samskaras bubbling up within our mind. Living in our modern society is like travelling on a crowded train or bus; ‘we are in each other’s way and we stumble over one another.’ Rubbing shoulders with all kinds of fellow passengers we literally pick up their dirt and sweat, and also willynilly their attitudes and passions. When we live and function for long in this state of confusion and strife, we unknowingly get used to it; we begin to sympathise and adjust with the duties, obligations, and etiquettes of mundane life just as the fisherwoman, in Sri Ramakrishna’s parable, accepts and enjoys the stench of her fish-basket deeming it a normal, desirable state of affairs. We imperceptibly compromise and slip from our spiritual ideal.

While we thus sleepwalk through life, engrossed in meeting the demands of day-to-

9 The Vedanta Kesari

PA G E S P O N S O R : S WA M I B A N E S H A N A N D A , V E D A N TA S O C I E T Y, G E R M A N Y

Solitude

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How should we enter into solitude and how long should we be in it? Sri Ramakrishna again answers, ‘When you practice discipline in solitude, keep yourself entirely away from your family. You must not allow your wife, son, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother, friends, or relatives near you. While thus practicing discipline in solitude, you should think: “I have no one else in the world. God is my all.” You must also pray to Him, with tears in your eyes, for knowledge and devotion.

‘If you ask me how long you should live in solitude away from your family, I should say that it would be good for you if you could spend even one day in such a manner.

Three days at a time are still better. One may live in solitude for twelve days, a month, three months, or a year, according to one’s convenience and ability. One hasn’t much to fear if one leads the life of a householder after attaining knowledge and devotion.’

Withdrawing into solitude to commune with God is also very much necessary for monastics. It is well known that Swami Vivekananda and his brother disciples spent many months in solitude performing intense spiritual practices. Once, after returning from his first visit to the West, Swamiji went into a short solitude in the forest near Almora. He told Mrs. Sara Bull, ‘I am going away into the forests to be alone; and when I come back, I shall bring peace.’ He spent ten hours every day in the silence of the forest for a few days.

In Sufi Islam there is a practice of solitude called Chilla wherein the sadhaka withdraws from ordinary social interaction and sits in a circle for 40 days and nights without food, and practices intense meditation and prayers. Jesus too, after his baptism, went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days and nights.

Interestingly, this practice of intense solitude is also used by some Hindustani musicians. They practice Chilla Katna, a 40day self-imposed retreat where the musician

practices in isolation focussing all the energies of his mind to discover the next level of excellence. Zakir Hussain, the renowned tabla player, is said to have undergone this austerity at the age of 17; of this experience he later said, ‘I saw things in the music that I had never seen before, new combinations, new patterns.’

Indeed, as modern neuroplasticity assures us, we can through focussed, sustained efforts redesign our brain activity, and create new patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions.

But to go into such long solitudes without proper preparation is an invitation for mental imbalance. Therefore, along with solitude, Sri Ramakrishna recommends some other forms of sadhana: 1) Repeat god’s name and sing His glories; 2) Keep holy company; 3) Now and then visit God’s devotees and holy men. These practices prepare the mind for intense sadhana in solitude. In fact, keeping this advice in mind, some of our centres regularly conduct Japa Yajna camps wherein initiated devotees gather for a 5-day camp in the ashrama determined to perform one lakh japa interspersed with bhajans, reading from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, and discourses by sannyasis. All the days, they maintain silence and are cut off from social media and friends. They practice communing with Sri Ramakrishna and in the process also identify the obstructions to their spiritual growth – subtle samskaras, habits of thought and action.

From such solitude, we should come out empowered as ideal men and women and re-engage with the world at a deeper level, discovering the divine behind the mundane, and seamlessly integrating inner and outer life.

In this new year, let us determine to physically reject the allurements of the sensate world, reside more within the inner chamber of our heart, learn to converse with the Lord, and then share the ensuing peace, joy, and knowledge with those around us.

Reminiscences

Reminiscences of Sargachhi SWAMI SUHITANANDA

Conversations with Swami Premeshananda (1884-1967) a disciple of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi.

The misdeeds we hear about happened because of the inability to identify subtle desires lurking within the mind. Not harmonising knowledge, work, devotion, and yoga is the reason for this unfortunate situation.

In training sannyasins, it will be good if there is a deep study of scriptures in which all the four yogas are explained in detail. After that there should be scope for practising those yogas during the following four years. If this is done, novices will come out as excellent sannyasins after ten years (the period of training in the Ramakrishna Order before a novice is given the vows of sannyasa). Those who are not sincere will run away, unable to endure the rigours of the two-year study period (the intense training that brahmacharis of the Order receive at Belur Math, the headquarters of the Order).

7.9.60 Maharaj: Kishori-bhajana (worship of young girls) used to be very much in vogue among the Vaishnavas. A man practicing austerities at Vrindavan had a disciple. He noticed that every day this disciple was detaining the maid who supplied milk and chitchatting with her. The guru then told the milkmaid, ‘Look, you stop coming here for a few days; send the milk through somebody else.’ Not seeing the milkmaid, the disciple became restless. The guru then told him, ‘You meditate upon this milkmaid.’ The disciple, who was a sincere spiritual seeker, became aware of the condition of his mind. As his mind gradually became steady, he forgot his attraction for the milkmaid.

January 2019

6.9.60 Maharaj: In my pre-monastic days I saw people drinking alcohol and engaging in revelry in the name of practising spiritual disciplines.

Seeing such practices, I have become a cynic.

Consuming betel leaves, bidis, tobacco, tea, and taking interest in football matches – all these appear to be types of bondage. It is better not to pick up these habits. Why even consider them at all? Are our minds so empty? Don’t they have anything else to hold on to? I very much like that Bhagavad Gita verse `Vmo `Vmo {ZíMa{V _ZíM#mb_pñWa_²&& ‘Through whatever reason, the restless and unsteady mind wanders away …’

(6:26) That is why I say that nothing is achieved if you wait for an environment conducive to sadhana. A person who cribs about the difficulties on his path, is actually deliberately blocking the path to success.

Question: Is it okay to tell some little lies in order to make work go more smoothly?

Maharaj: We are sannyasins. Why should we resort to telling lies? Take up some small work, regard it as your sadhana, and with a worshipful attitude execute it like a beautiful piece of art. ñdën_ß`ñ` Y_©ñ` Ìm`Vo _hVmo ^`mV²…

‘Even a little of this dharma saves one from great danger.’ – (Gita 2:40). Take care not to harm anyone even in the least. And try your utmost to come out from that lie as soon as possible.

You see, people will say many things, but they have no value. Accept only those which tally with the scriptures and are rational.

Keep the rest filed in your mind, and at your convenience check to see if they are true.

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PA G E S P O N S O R : S R I G O R A PA D A B E R A , PA S C H I M M E D I N I P U R

(Continued from November 2018 issue. . .)

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Vaishnava dharma became so degraded in the name of love that you cannot even speak about it. One such practice was kishoribhajana. This has been mentioned even in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in reference to Vaishnavcharan. In the name of kishoribhajana, people had become so degraded that they used to claim that it was practiced even

by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. As proof of this, they quote Sarvabhauma, who said, ‘May Saati become a widow today!’ The quotation is related to an incident that occurred when Sarvabhauma invited Chaitanya Mahaprabhu for lunch. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a robust man. After setting out the dishes in a pleasing manner for Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when Sarvabhauma was about to call him to sit for lunch, his son-in-law made a taunting remark about the luxurious spread. Greatly distressed, Sarvabhauma cried out, ‘May (my daughter) Saati become a widow today!’ (i.e., ‘May my son-in-law die today!’) The wicked Vaishnavas interpreted this to mean that if Sarvabhauma’s daughter became widowed, Chaitanyadeva would practise kishori-bhajana with her. Do you see how far foolishness can go!

8.9.60 Question: Can there be a state where even without doing any work we can have knowledge, devotion and yoga?

Answer: But that state too involves work.

If you mingle with people in the practical field, then you can test yourself through work. In the preliminary stage, work according to your natural inclination, and strive to do that work from higher awareness. You should convert that work into worship. But it won’t do to simply reduce your work. The obsession for work has to be reduced. As the passions decline, the yearning for work will decrease automatically.

The Bhagavad Gita mentions three gunas –sattva, rajas and tamas. Do you know their functions? Sattva is attached to happiness and beautiful things. There is nothing forbidden for tamas. Rajas is attracted to action. There are more varieties: the rajas of sattva and the rajas of tamas.

A person embodying the rajas of sattva makes a plan and an estimate before initiating a work. He charts out what has to be done, who will do the work, what are the advantages, whether there is a proper environment or not, whether it will be possible to carry on the work even in his absence, etc.

A person embodying the rajas of tamas gets entangled in a lot of tasks. He cannot keep his cool and cannot give proper attention to anything. If questioned, he will say ‘It is Sri Ramakrishna’s work, He will set right all things.’

Can you show me a young man who normally doesn’t like to work, but when assigned a job suitable to his temperament does it with redoubled enthusiasm? A person endowed with tamoguna has to be kept under watch, and if necessary even disciplined a little.

He may have to be physically shown how to work. The teacher must cover up the faults of such a person so that he will understand that the teacher is his well-wisher. In his younger days Gopal was with me. I would ask him to assist me in cooking. Within a few days, after keeping the water on the stove, I would go out to attend some other work, instructing him to add rice into the water when it boiled. A month later, I found that he had become a better cook than me! Achintya used to avoid me. One day I called him and explained to him the necessity of service. Soon he became extraordinarily enthusiastic about work.

Sometimes sadhus fall from their ideal; this is quite natural. Maintain the same respect towards them. Downfall occurs because they avoid work and lack self-analysis. After a setback, they engage in worship and spiritual practice with redoubled enthusiasm. Therefore, we should not show disrespect to anyone.

Some sadhus become popular. Many people visit them. Other sadhus then feel jealous. Such mental disturbances happen when they desert God and pay more attention to the world.

(To be continued. . .)

Sri Ramakrishna Math

(A Branch of Ramakrishna Math & Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math) Puranattukara P.O., Thrissur-680 551, Kerala.

Phone Office: 0487-2307719; 082817 82193; 095261 72929 E-mail: thrissur@rkmm.org; thrissur.publication@rkmm.org Web.: www.rkmthrissur.org Appeal for Financial Help for Constructing

Swami Sadbhavananda Adhyaksha

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at Sri Ramakrishna Math, Thrissur, Kerala.

Namaste.

‘Sri Ramakrishna Math’ situated at Puranattukara near Thrissur city in Kerala is a branch of ‘Ramakrishna Math & Ramakrishna Mission’. Established as early as 1927 with a Gurukulam (hostel) for educating the poor Harijan children of the locality, this branch of the Ramakrishna Movement has since been tirelessly serving the society in a number of areas including value education, healthcare, propagation of Dharma, publication of Vedantic texts and spiritual ministration.

The Publication Dept. of this Math has published 300-odd books. By its unique service of decades, this Publishing House has contributed to the material and spiritual progress of the society.

Although it has developed over the years, its infrastructure has not developed in line with the increase in the volume of work and the Dept. now works under spatial constraints.

It is under these circumstances that we plan to build a 4-storeyed ‘Publication and Research Centre’, estimated to cost Rs. 6 crores. The new building will house the Publication Godown, Despatch Office, Publications Office (Books Section), Prabuddhakeralam Magazine Office, Public Library, Research Section, Living Rooms for Monks and Guests etc.

So, we request our devotees and well-wishers to make generous contributions to realize this unique project. I am fully sure that this project will contribute greatly to the welfare of society for decades to come. We will be greatly thankful to you if you could contribute even partially.

Your donations may be sent as DD/Cheque in the name of ‘Sri Ramakrishna Math’ or transferred to our bank account: A/c Name: SRI RAMAKRISHNA MATH; SB A/c Number: 6711843752; Bank Name: Kotak Mahindra Bank; Branch Name: Thrissur; IFS Code: KKBK0000596. All donations are exempt from income tax under section 80-G of the I.T. Act. Thanking you in anticipation, Yours sincerely and affectionately,

January 2019

‘Publication & Research Centre’

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January 2019

Ramakrishna Math, Yelagiri (A Branch Centre of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, W.B.) P.O. Athanavur, via Jolarpet, Yelagiri Hills, Dt. Vellore, Tamil Nadu, Pin: 635 853 Mobile No.9113815749 Email: yelagiri@rkmm.org A humble appeal to all the well-wishers of the Ramakrishna Order Respected Sirs/Madams,

The existing two old buildings need extensive repairs. Boundary walls need to be constructed. We have plans to start non-formal education for local poor children. As there is no medical facility available, we have planned to start a health centre to meet the demands. Also a Mobile Dispensary would be started.

At present there is nothing except 7 acres of land and two old buildings.

To develop the above said infrastructure, funds to the tune of several crores are required. It is in this context that we earnestly appeal to all the well-wishers, devotees and philanthropists to support this public cause by contributing your mite.

Drafts / cheques drawn in favour of Ramakrishna Math, Yelagiri, can be sent to the above address.

Online deposits can also be made to the following SBI account: Current A/c. No.: 37680966203 Bank Name and Branch: SBI, Nattrampalli Branch.

IFSC Code: SBIN0014619 PAN No.: AAATR3497G Please give details of any donation by e-mail to yelagiri@rkmm.org with your full postal address to acknowledge the donations, which are exempt from 80 G of I.T. Act. With grateful thanks, Yours in Sri Ramakrishna Swami Bhavarupananda Adhyaksha

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You will be happy to know that Yelagiri, hitherto a sub-centre of Nattrampalli Branch of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, has been made by a resolution of the Belur Math authorities, an Independent Centre to serve the local populace in a better way.

January 2019

Namaskars and greetings.

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January 2019

Article

Meditation on the New Year SWAMI CHETANANANDA

See God with Open Eyes is Swami Chetanananda’s new book published by Vedanta Society of St Louis, USA. The book, filled with anecdotes from the life of Sri Ramakrishna, describes how devotees can meditate on different aspects of Sri Ramakrishna – his physical form, his mind, his divine qualities, and so forth. We are grateful to Swami Chetanananda for giving our readers a New Year gift by permitting us to present here in an abridged form the chapter ‘Meditation on the New Year.’ Revered Maharaj is Minister-in-charge, Vedanta Society of St Louis, USA. Copies of this book will soon be available in India.

Ishta-mantra. Some centres conduct retreats where they discuss the episode of Ramakrishna as the kalpataru.

Although more than 130 years have passed, people from all over the world have not forgotten that memorable day: 1 January 1886. One proof of this is the Kalpataru Festival that is held at Cossipore every year. On that day nearly a million people stand in line from morning to night to bow down to Ramakrishna’s picture in his room, and they pray to him to fulfil their wishes. That day is now the object of our meditation.

Meditation has infinite power.

It is not limited by time. One can turn a past event into a present event in the mind through meditation. We can imagine that it is New Year’s Day and visualize Ramakrishna lying on his bed in the southwest comer of his room at the Cossipore garden house. There was no cot in his room: his bed was a mattress placed on a carpet and a mat. It was convenient for him to sleep that way, because his body was weak from cancer. The Master is chanting the Divine Mother’s name and praying for the welfare of the devotees. ……

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…… ……

Welcoming the New Year is a cultural tradition. On New Year’s Day, ancient Babylonians would take a vow to repay their debt to God. The ancient Romans would make various solemn resolves to their God Janus — which is why the name of the first month is January in the Julian Calendar. On New Year’s Day, many Christians pray to God to preserve their resolutions. Among the Jews, it is customary to beg forgiveness for any wrongdoings committed during the previous year. On New Year’s Day, Hindu merchants go to temples with new account books and offer worship for the success of their businesses. …… ……

Our Vedanta centres in the United States observe New Year’s Day in various ways: Some centres start with midnight meditation and prayer. Some centres observe a vigil from six o’clock in the morning to six o’clock in the evening; during this time, monks and devotees take turns each hour in silently repeating their

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chetanananda@vedantastl.org

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In Cossipore, the Master continued to observe his daily routine. Sashi Maharaj would help the Master with his morning ablutions. The Master would brush his teeth with a twig and scrape his tongue. He always kept his mouth clean because he used it for chanting God’s name and talking about Him to the devotees.

He then drank a little fruit juice or milk, He could not eat solid food because of the cancer in his throat. Holy Mother would prepare farina or tapioca pudding for his lunch. After lunch he would take some rest. After his noon rest on 1 January 1886, he felt better than usual. At 3 p.m. he told his nephew: ‘Ramlal, I feel good today.

Let us go for a walk in the garden.’ Ramlal replied: ‘Yes, uncle. You look good. Let us go for a walk.’

The Master put on a red-bordered dhoti, a shirt, a coat, a broad red-bordered chadar, a cap that covered his ears, and sandals. He took his walking stick. Latu Maharaj and Ramlal helped him go down the wooden steps to the ground floor. He then came out of the house through the western door and began to walk on the garden path. Because it was a holiday, more than 30 people had come from Calcutta to see the Master. Some were waiting inside the house and some were under the trees in the garden. They were talking amongst themselves about the Master. When they saw him, they all stood up reverently and bowed down. They were delighted to see him in the garden, and they followed him as he walked. ……

It was a pleasant and sunny afternoon.

The red brick-dust garden path went from the main house to the south and then turned right towards the gate. The Master proceeded slowly southward to the gate. The devotees followed him at a little distance. When he reached the midpoint of the path between the house and the gate, the Master saw Girish, Ram, Atul, and a few others under a tree on the west side of the path. They bowed down and came over to him joyfully.

Before anyone had spoken a word, the Master addressed Girish, asking him: ‘Girish, what have you seen and understood [about me] that makes you say all these things [that I am an avatar and so on] to everyone, wherever you go?’ Girish responded by kneeling down at the Master’s feet, folding his hands before his raised face, and saying in a voice choked with emotion: ‘What more can I say of Him? Even the sages Vyasa and Valmiki could find no words to measure His glory!’1 Ramakrishna was deeply moved by Girish’s words and his conviction. He stood still on the red brick-dust garden path, his whole body covered in goosebumps as his mind ascended into ecstasy. His whole face beamed with divine bliss. Seeing that wonderful form of the Master, the devotees’ joy knew no bounds. Exultant, they began to shout, ‘Jai Sri Ramakrishna, Jai Sri Ramakrishna — Victory to Sri Ramakrishna!’ Some collected flowers from the garden and offered them to him, and some took the dust of his feet. …

We regret that there was nobody there with a camera to take a picture of the Master in samadhi on the garden path. How wonderful it would be to have such a photograph!

However, if we did have such a picture, we would be deprived of the bliss that our limitless imagination can bring.

After some time, the Master came down from deep samadhi (antar-dasha) to a halfecstatic state (ardhya-bahya-dasha). Smiling, he said three sentences: ‘What more need I tell you? I bless you all. May you all be illumined!’2 After uttering those words, he became overwhelmed with love and compassion for his devotees, and went into ecstasy. Please remember that this auspicious occasion was the last time that he appeared outside the house to a group of devotees, blessing them collectively.

On this day he expressed his last message to all.

(Of course, later he blessed and advised some devotees individually.) ……

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unripe, ‘I’ completely disappeared. And whatever I-ness was left saw itself as ever connected with the Cosmic, or ripe, ‘I’.

Sometimes it would feel itself to be a limb or a part of the Cosmic ‘I’, and sometimes it would ascend gradually to the level of the Cosmic ‘I’ and merge in It. The Master could therefore grasp all ideas within all minds because all ideas of all minds in the world spring from that Cosmic ‘I’. Because the Master was always identified with that all-pervading ‘I’, he was able to know and understand any ideas that arose in the Cosmic Mind. In that exalted state, the Master’s feeling ‘I am a part of God’ would gradually vanish and the Cosmic ‘I’ or the Divine Mother’s ‘I’ would become manifest through him, and he would act as a guru, possessing the power of bestowing grace and inflicting punishment. At that time the Master would not appear to be humbler than the humblest: His demeanour, behaviour with others, and other actions took a different form.

Becoming like the mythical wish-fulfilling tree, he would ask a devotee, ‘What do you want?’ as if he was ready to use his superhuman power to fulfill the devotee’s desire immediately.3 When the Master became the kalpataru on that auspicious New Year’s Day, he blessed his devotees. This blessing was infallible. It is not true that the Master became kalpataru only on that day; he had fulfilled the wishes of his disciples and devotees many times on different occasions earlier. Swamiji once said: ‘He is actually distributing love. Love, devotion, knowledge, liberation, and whatever one desires —Gora [Ramakrishna] is bestowing upon us whatever he wishes. What wonderful power!’4 Even now the Master listens to his devotees’ prayers and fulfills them.

3) ‘Tomader sakaler chaitanya hok — May you all be illumined!’ This was Ramakrishna’s last public utterance. The phrase is similar to the word ‘Tattwamasi — thou art that,’ a great Vedic dictum. In the Chandogya Upanishad, the sage Aruni instructed his son Svetaketu

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The devotees understood that from this day on, the Master would no longer conceal his divinity from them or from anyone else in the world. They had no doubt that from now on all sinners and sufferers — despite their shortcomings, lack of spirituality, or feelings of inadequacy — would find shelter at his blessed feet. … ……

Now we shall meditate on the last three public sentences of Ramakrishna: 1. ‘Tomader ar ki balba — What more need I tell you?’ From 1879 to 1885 the devotees and disciples visited the Master and listened to message. The blessed M. recorded 177 days of the Master’s conversations in the Kathamrita (Gospel). Still there is no limit to how many incidents and talks of the Master we have lost.

According to an ancient Greek legend, swans sing a beautiful song just before dying. This is the origin of the phrase ‘swan song.’ Like that legendary Rajahamsa (swan), Paramahamsa Ramakrishna was in essencesaying to his devotees: ‘Look, I have been giving my message to you continually for the last seven or eight years. Now my throat has developed cancer due to speaking for long periods day after day, and also due to taking upon myself the sins of others. I have no more strength to speak. I am now at the end of my life, and I am telling you the most important thing. Listen carefully.’ ……

2) ‘Asirbad kori — I bless you all.’ In Bengali, the word ‘I’ does not appear. It is implied by the verb ‘kori.’ The Master meant to say, ‘I bless you all,’ but he could not utter the word ‘I’ and ‘mine.’ His ego was completely uprooted, and his ‘I’ was merged with God’s ‘I’. ……

Ramakrishna’s mysterious ‘I’ played out in different planes at different times. Swami Saradananda wrote: It is evident that after he attained nirvikalpa samadhi, the Master’s little, or

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nine times using the phrase ‘Tattwamasi — That thou art.’ Tat = Brahman; twam = you; asi = are. Through this, Svetaketu attained Self-knowledge. Aruni told his son: ‘You have always been Brahman, but due to ignorance you were unaware of it. One attains the bliss of Brahman when ignorance disappears.’

On that New Year’s Day in Cossipore, many devotees were present, so the Master said, ‘May you all be illumined,’ meaning ‘Let your hidden Brahman-consciousness be awakened.’ The difference between ‘Tattwamasi’ and ‘Tomar chaitanya hok’ is the wording and not the meaning. But on that day the Master did not stop at saying ‘May you all illumined’; he touched each devotee’s chest, one by one, with the palm of his hand and transmitted spiritual power to them instantly. In Tantra, awakening someone’s spiritual consciousness by touch is called Sambhavi initiation.

What is this consciousness? Spiritual consciousness is the chit aspect of Sat-chitananda Brahman. All kinds of knowledge come from this consciousness. This question arose in the Mundaka Upanishad: ‘What is that by knowing which all this becomes known?’ That is Satchidananda Brahman. It is the light of all lights. When It shines, everything shines. Stars, moon, sun, lightning, and fire are lighted by the light of Brahman.

The Master once said: ‘One cannot know that Consciousness without awakening one’s own spiritual consciousness.

Futile is the human birth without the awakening of spiritual consciousness.’ For this reason the Master awakened spiritual consciousness in the hearts of his devotees on this New Year’s Day. Spiritual consciousness is knowledge.

The Master further said: ‘It to know one’s own Self and keep the mind in It. One must light the lamp of Knowledge in one’s heart to see the Divine Mother. After attaining knowledge, when a man lives in this world, he can see clearly the difference between good and bad,

real and unreal. The sign of knowledge is passion for God, the awakening of the kundalini, a peaceful nature, and the absence of pride.’

The Master came to lead human beings from darkness to light, bondage to liberation. So he blessed the devotees, saying, ‘Be illumined.’

He knew the mind goes up and down in the dualistic plane, so there is no permanent peace and happiness there. The nondualistic experience is the final goal in spiritual life.

The Master said, ‘First tie the knowledge of nonduality in a corner of your cloth, then do as you please. Consciousness is awakened after the knowledge of the nondual Brahman.

After this realization comes eternal bliss.’ On that New Year’s Day, the Master bestowed his supreme blessing not only upon those 30 devotees, but also for future human beings.

Among the four goals of human life — dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), kama (aesthetic desire), and moksha (liberation) — moksha is the supreme or ultimate goal. The scriptures say ‘Jnanat moksha — liberation comes from Self-knowledge.’

The main intention of the Master’s blessing was to impart the knowledge of Brahman to devotees by destroying the fetters binding their hearts. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says: ‘This Brahman is the supreme goal, supreme glory, supreme abode, and supreme bliss. On a particle of this bliss other creatures live’ (4:3:32).

On this auspicious New Year’s Day, the Master broke the jar of bliss in front of everybody assembled in that garden. Akshay Kumar Sen wrote in Ramakrishna Punthi: ‘Sri Ramakrishna promised that before he left the world he would break the earthen jar in the market place. Let me tell you how the Master broke the jar.’ Then the author described the events of 1 January 1886. …

The meaning of ‘breaking the jar in the market place’ is ‘to reveal a mystery in front of all.’ However, this also implies that if the

t

References 1. Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play. [Divine Play] Swami Saradananda. Trans. Swami Chetananda.

St.Louis: Vedanta Society, 2006, 926 2. Ibid., 926

3. Divine Play, 450 4. Ibid., 803 5. Ramakrishna as We Saw Him. Swami Chetanananda.

St. Louis, Vedanta Society, 2012, 60

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The Master said to me, ‘Ramlal, my hands and feet are burning. Please bring some Ganga water and sprinkle it on me.’ He was extremely restless. I asked, ‘What happened?’ He replied: ‘I came into this world secretly with a few close devotees, and now Ram [Ram Chandra Datta] is spreading my name. He brings all sorts of people here and asks me to touch and bless them. How much burden can I carry? I got this disease by taking the sins of these people upon myself. Look, I shall not stay in this world any longer.’ I consoled him: ‘No, no. You will not have to receive any visitors or touch anybody.’

Then I brought the Ganga water and washed his hands and feet, and gradually he calmed down.5 The Master’s kalpataru-lila and last public message are the objects our meditation. On this day, the Master bestowed fearlessness to the devotees through Self-revelation, fulfilled their wishes, and lighted the lamp of wisdom in their hearts. However, God does not become the kalpataru only on one day; God is always the kalpataru. If we meditate daily on this lila of the Master, then he will appear before us every day as the kalpataru.

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earthen jar is broken in the marketplace, its contents (generally sweets) come out and can no longer be sold. The treasure within the jar is gathered up by the public to enjoy — as during a festival when sweets are scattered in honour of Lord Hari for the devotees to collect.

On that New Year’s Day, standing on the red brick-dust path at the Cossipore garden house, the Master became the kalpataru and broke the jar of love in front of his devotees.

Tasting that supreme divine love, some became intoxicated, some peaceful, and some completely immersed in the bliss of the Atman.

Out of exuberant joy they began to call others to partake of that joy. This is the sign of supreme love. The Master used to say, ‘Pure knowledge and pure love are the same.’ …… …. The Master returned to his room after blessing the devotees. As Lord Shiva drank the poison of this world to protect the creation, so the Master absorbed the poisonous sins of the devotees whom he had touched and began to suffer from a burning sensation. Ramlal recalled:

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PA G E S P O N S O R : A D E V O T E E , C H E N N A I

Cossipore Garden. Sri Ramakrishna became the Kalpataru near the curve of the Mango tree

Pariprasna Q & A with Srimat Swami Tapasyananda (1904 to 1991), Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Order.

January 2019

Approach the wise sages, offer reverential salutations, repeatedly ask proper questions, serve them and thus know the Truth. — Bhagavad Gita

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Question: Where should reasoning stop and give place to faith?

Maharaj: Reason and faith work in different fields, although up to a certain point they can go together. Reason, in the sense of logical inference, works on the basis of data provided by the senses. It works as deduction and induction. Deduction is based on a general proposition which is taken for granted. This general proposition in its turn is based upon induction, upon observation of sense data and verification through experiment. Thus sense data are the material which all logical processes deal with ultimately. The function of the logical process is to correlate these data, arrive at valid generalizations, draw implications in the light of the laws of thought, and thus help the intellectual understanding of perceived facts.

It will be seen that reason or logic in itself cannot give us any data. It can only process data obtained through perception. So logical reasoning can effectively function only where sense data are available, ie., within the limitation of our powers of observation with senses alone or senses aided by instruments. With regard to anything beyond, it can only work as an unreliable pointer to many possibilities, creating a sense of learned ignorance and uncertainty. Thus it cannot give us any conviction about the existence or nature of God, although it can point towards several possibilities in this respect.

In the field of the Spirit, which is non-spatial and non-temporal, only inspiration or supersensuous understanding (Jnana) can give us any data carrying conviction. To think that logic and reason can do so is to expect the impossible. But before Jnana is generated in us, that is, in our present state of understanding confined to spatial and temporal things, how are we to proceed with a working conviction on such a fundamental truth as existence of God? It is here that the faculty of our understanding known as faith has to come into operation.

Faith is the capacity of the mind to accept on trust the ultimate and otherwise ununderstandable facts of life with a power very near that of conviction. Trust is of course always on the basis of a reliable authority—a scripture or a teacher. It is an abuse of this faculty to invoke it in all petty affairs of life or to support the mystery-mongering tendencies of people. Its legitimate application is with regard to the ultimate questions of life where sense powers and logic are quite helpless in giving either data or certainty by themselves. Does God exist? What is His nature? Is there a hereafter? Has life got any ultimate meaning? How are we to live so as to realize the ultimate end of life? Questions such as these can be decided only on the basis of scriptures, which are divine revelations, or on the authority of great illumined world-

(Continued on page 39...)

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teachers who are acclaimed as messengers of Light. To live in perpetual doubt on such fundamental and vital questions on the ground that our sense faculties and reason in themselves cannot help us, is folly.

Doubt in this sense is as much a disease as credulity, which may be described as proneness to accept all kinds of claims and views on ordinary matters of life where the exercise of intelligence and critical spirit is needed in order to avoid deception.

In the choice of scriptures and teachers also there are certain norms set forth by these agencies themselves. Scriptures are revealed literature and have proved their genuineness by their survival through the ages and their conveying light and inspiration to countless generations o f men. And great world-teachers are men of illumination and power who have no selfish ends of their own to seek and who live absolutely for the welfare of the world at large.

Even here man has freedom of choice. People are born in different religious traditions. In these days when cultures and nations are brought into very intimate contact, man has got the freedom to draw inspiration from all these traditions. When he feels that the teachings of a particular religion on ultimate questions are more credible than those of another, he has got every right to accept them. Credibility is a requirement even where faith has to be exercised, especially if the men concerned are of considerable mental and intellectual development.

The question of ‘credibility’ brings us again to a consideration of the legitimate place of reason in our scheme of life even while according a proper place for faith. Just as reason can correlate the facts experienced by the senses and build them into an understandable system, so also it can help in relating the various facts of supersensuous experience among themselves and these in turn with our knowledge of the world of senses. It has been well said that what is accepted on faith need not necessarily contradict reason. The coherence of all data, whether sensuous or supersensuous, is a demand that human understanding makes for an integrated world-view.

The great Vedantic thinkers of India and the great theologians of the West have attempted this work of integration through reason. But this has its limitations. If we could understand the Spirit fully by logical thinking alone, Spirit would have become matter. Unless the limitations of logic in this field are recognized from the start, we are liable to commit the mistake of rejecting as unacceptable or non-existent what is beyond its capacity. We have therefore got to make a distinction between what contradicts reason and what transcends reason and be prepared to abandon the pretensions of logic when the point of transcendence has come. In other words man must be prepared to admit that his capacity for knowledge is very limited and his logic will break at some stage in its efforts to capture the Infinite in its webs. That point is the point of transcendence and what is beyond we have to accept by exercise of the faculty of faith alone ie., on the authority of the scripture and the teacher.

For example let us take the question of the existence of God. Attempts can be made on purely rational grounds to establish the plausibility of a First Cause. But when we try to understand the nature of It on pure logical reasoning, we will find our logic breaking. God the First Cause, by common acceptance, is

Article

Two Versions of Swami Vivekananda’s First Chicago Speech

January 2019

WILLIAM PAGE

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It is not generally known, but there are at least two versions of Swami Vivekananda’s famous speech titled ‘Response to Welcome.’

That was the first speech he gave at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, on 11 September 1893. There are a short version and a long version.

The short version is the standard, canonical version. It is found in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (hereafter, CW), Volume 1, pp. 3-4, and it is 472 words long.

The long version, which is less known, is also in the CW, but in Volume 9, pp. 429-430.

It is 554 words long—82 words longer than the short version. Published in a section titled ‘American Newspaper Reports,’ it is described as an ‘Editorial synthesis of four Chicago newspaper reports from: Herald, Inter Ocean,

Tribune, and Record, ca. September 11, 1893.’

As Volume 9 notes (p. 429), it was compiled by the late Marie Louise Burke (Sister Gargi), and first appeared in her monumental work, Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, Volume 1, pp.83-84.

The two versions combined The interesting thing about the long version is the ways in which it differs from the short one. Below is a conflation of the two. The text in black print is common to both. The text in red italics appears only in the long version.

Where there is a difference in wording, I give both, separated by a slash bar (/). The wording in the short version comes first, then the slashbar, then the wording in the long version, in red italics:

Sisters and brothers of America, It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. / to the grand words of welcome given to us by you. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world. / the most ancient order of monks the world has ever seen, of which Gautama was only a member. I thank you in the name of the mother / Mother of religions, of which Buddhism and Jainism are but branches; and I thank you, finally, in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu / Hindoo people of all classes / castes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on the /this platform, who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, [the long version omits ‘referring to the delegates from the Orient’] have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. / will bear to the different lands the idea of toleration which they may see here. My thanks to them for this idea.

William Page has been associated with the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Massachusetts since 1960 and is a member of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Association of Thailand. wpage108@gmail.com

Analysis If Sister Gargi synthesised the long version from four Chicago newspaper reports, where does the short version come from?

Evidently it is a slightly edited variation of the version published in John Henry Barrows’

magisterial history of the parliament, The World’s Parliament of Religions, Volume 1, pp.

101-102, published in Chicago in 1893, the same year the parliament was held. Sister Gargi suggested this in New Discoveries, Volume 1, p.

82.

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I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, / tolerance, but we accept all religions as / to be true. I am proud to tell you that I belong to a religion in whose sacred language, the Sanskrit, the word exclusion is untranslatable. (Applause.) I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who / a remnant of which came to Southern / southern India and took refuge with us in the very year / years in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.

I will quote to you, brethren, / brothers, a few lines from a hymn which every Hindoo child repeats every day. I feel that the very spirit of this hymn, which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: / by millions and millions of men in India, has at last come to be realized. ‘As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, / O Lord, so the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.’

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, / an indication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita [the long version italicises ‘Gita’]: ‘Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men [the long version omits ‘men’] are struggling through paths which in the end always lead to Me.’ Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed / have possessed long this beautiful earth. They have / It has filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, / with human gore, destroyed civilisation / civilization and sent whole nations to / into despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. [The long version omits this last sentence.] But their time is come; / But its time has come; and I fervently hope / believe that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention / in honor of the representatives of the different religions of the earth, in this parliament assembled, may be the deathknell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions / is the death-knell to all fanaticism (applause), that it is the death-knell to all persecution with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons / brethren wending their way to the same goal. / to the same goal, but through different ways.

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It seems likely that the long version was a more accurate rendering of Swamiji’s speech than the short one. It sounds closer to spoken English. In fact, the short version looks very much like an edited version of the long one.

It is smoother; some of the rough edges have been sandpapered away. Nonessential phrases and clauses have been deleted. Claims that might strike a discordant note in the harmony of religions by offending the Buddhists and the Jains (‘of which Gautama was only a member,’ ‘of which Jainism and Buddhism are but branches’) have been dropped. The sentence containing the claim ‘a religion in whose sacred language, the Sanskrit, the word exclusion is untranslatable’ has been deleted. Extraneous words like finally and always have been omitted.

Lengthy phrases have been condensed: ‘millions and millions of men in India’ has been downsized to ‘millions of human beings’; ‘the representatives of the different religions of the earth, in this parliament assembled’ has been whittled away to ‘this convention.’ Stylistically, the short version is superior.

The English usage provides further evidence that the long version is truer to the original. First, we have the phrase ‘given to us by you.’ Indian English is fond of the passive voice. Swamiji was an Indian, so he would have been less likely to say ‘which you have given us.’ That construction is more idiomatic in American English, and is likely to have been substituted by an American editor.

Second, Swamiji was more likely to have used the word castes, which is specific to Indian culture, than the more general word classes.

Third, the long version, recorded by American reporters, uses American spelling throughout (honor, civilization, realized), whereas the short version, probably edited in India, uses British spelling (honour, civilisation).

There is a question of whether Swamiji referred to human blood (short version) or human gore (long). I suspect the latter, because it’s more colourful. Swamiji was never shy

about using colourful language. Prim and proper Victorian minds would naturally shy away from the goriness of gore and want to substitute the more sanitised word blood.

The short version ends with a bang: the hope that the bell that had tolled that morning would sound ‘the death-knell…of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.’ The long version ends (with apologies to T.S. Eliot), not with a bang, but a whimper: it trails off with the debilitating qualifier, ‘but through different ways.’ But it compensates for this shortcoming by replacing the vague and general word persons with the warmer and more inclusive word brethren.

Conclusion So far as we know, Swamiji had to compose the speech in his head, while sitting on the stage waiting to be called on. We don’t know how much advance notice he had. We do know that he had declined an invitation to speak at the morning session, a few hours earlier. The short version is a masterpiece of rhetoric, and might easily be taught as a model for students to emulate in both speaking and writing. The longer version is also very good.

As it was delivered with very little time for preparation, given the conditions under which Swamiji had to compose it, in terms of content, organisation, and eloquence its high quality is almost miraculous.

Both versions serve three functions: they respond gratefully to the warm welcome Swamiji has received; they summarise concisely and eloquently the centuries-long Hindu tradition of accepting other faiths and welcoming their believers; and they end with an appeal for an end to intolerance. Whichever version comes closer to the original, the fact that Swamiji composed it in his head, without any books to refer to and without even being able to write it down, shows once again the matchless quality of that marvelous brain.

pullout for reference

ISSUE 10 13 ISSUE

Series 4: Swami Vivekananda's messages to the youth of India - a nine-part series ISSUE 13: MESSAGE 1: It is the youth who will transform this nation

It is the Youth who will transform this nation Swami Vivekananda has addressed the youth of this nation on many occasions.

We have organized his message to the youth into 9 key categories, as shown in the table on the right.

In this issue, we explore how we can build ourselves towards becoming a nation builder ...

“

ISSUE 16: MESSAGE 4: Awaken the spirit of ‘rajas’ within you ISSUE 17: MESSAGE 5: Believe in yourself ISSUE 18: MESSAGE 6: Be bold and fearless ISSUE 19: MESSAGE 7: Expand your heart ISSUE 20: MESSAGE 8: Be open to learning from anyone ISSUE 21: MESSAGE 9: Develop a gigantic will

My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions.

CW:V. pg.223

> explore further...

January 2019

PA G E S P O N S O R : S M T. S E LVA J O T H I V. , C H E N N A I

MESSAGE 1

ISSUE 15: MESSAGE 3: Stand on your own feet

27 The Vedanta Kesari

In this issue:

ISSUE 14: MESSAGE 2: Take up an ideal and give your whole life to it

Swami Vivekananda's vision - how we must build ourselves, if we seek to transform our nation...

January 2019

“Each one of you has a glorious

The Vedanta Kesari

28

future if you dare believe me. Have a tremendous faith in yourselves, like the faith I had when I was a child, and which I am working out now.

Have that faith, each one of you, in yourself – that eternal power is lodged in every soul – and you will revive the whole of India.

“My hope of the future lies

in the youths of character – intelligent, renouncing all for the service of others, and obedient – who can sacrifice their lives in working out my ideas and thereby do good to themselves and the country at large.

CW:VIII. pg 230-231

CW:III. pg. 303-304

“...what I want is muscles

of iron and nerves of steel, inside which dwells a mind of the same material as that of which the thunderbolt is made.

CW:V. pg.117

“We must enter into the life of

every race in India and abroad; shall have to work to bring this about. Now for that, I want young men. “It is the young, the strong, and healthy, of sharp intellect that will reach the Lord”, say the Vedas CW:III. pg. 303-304

“... by the will of God, from among these

very boys may arise in time great heroes of action and spirituality who will in future work out my ideas.

CW:VIII. pg 230-231

Share examples of your experiences of trying out these practices, on

www.vivekanandaway.org.

Any questions that come up in your mind while doing so, can also be discussed here.

How do I develop myself into one of Swami Vivekananda's young "lions"?

A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT CHECKLIST (based on Swami Vivekananda's vision) 1

Am I strengthening my faith in myself?

5

4

3

2

1

Am I developing my character capabilities?

(Refer Vivekananda Way, Issue 3, March 2018: Build my character & personality)

29

3

Am I developing my mental/ intellectual capabilities?

(Refer Vivekananda Way, Issue 2, March 2018: Affirm my infinite possibilities & Issue 4, April 2018: Develop my career worthiness )

4

5

Am I ready for a life of heroic action?

Am I developing my physical capabilities?

(E.g. build stamina to work long hours, develop a strong and healthy body, develop tolerance to pain, etc. Also Refer Vivekananda Way, Issue 2, March 2018: Affirm my infinite possibilities)

Designed & developed by

(Refer Vivekananda Way, Issue 5, May 2018: Contribute to Society)

ILLUMINE

Knowledge Catalysts

ÂŽ

www.illumine.in

The Vedanta Kesari

PA G E S P O N S O R : A D E V O T E E , K O C H A D A I , M A D U R A I

2

January 2019

(Refer Vivekananda Way, Issue 7, July 2018: Developing Shraddha in Oneself & Issue 9, September 2018: Living the ideal of 'faith in oneself' )

How can I be one of Swami Vivekananda's workers, who will "work out the whole problem"?

Here are some examples:

January 2019

KHUSHBOO MIRZA

At 23, she was the youngest member of the team participating in India’s maiden moon mission in 2008.

The Government has innumerable benefits & schemes for people, but very little of it is known to those who need these the most.

After completing her B.tech, Khushboo was placed in a foreign software firm but gave it up to join ISRO at a much modest salary. Her reasons – “I wanted to make my contributions to Indian science.

I think I have made a start.”

29 year old Aniket's work, spread across 10 states, is bringing information to the local people and thereby creating access to business loan for farmers, skill building for rural woman, scholarship for children and much more.

I can transform my role at work and I can become an agent of change...

ANIKET DOEGAR Social Entrepreneur

I can be an active citizen and take up causes that impact the country..

28 year old Pame, changed the face of Manipur subdivision that he was posted in, earning him the nickname ‘miracle man’.

The Vedanta Kesari

30

ISRO Scientist

I can adopt new professional pathways which involve serving the nation...

ARMSTRONG PAME IAS Officer

His first miracle was a 100 km motorable road, which he built by mobilizing people’s participation, in the absence of any government support.

This connectivity acted as a catalyst for the region bringing people essential services and spurring economic activity.

SHANTI MURMU Pro-active Citizen

Driven with the mission of changing the status quo in her community in which girl child is hardly educated, early marriage is prevalent, and woman’s health suffers due to superstition, 19 year old Shanti, started an initiative ‘Parivartan’. Along with youth in her village, aanganwadi workers and health workers, Shanti has brought these issues into forefront in her community.

Wherever I am, even if I have limited or no access to resources, I can serve the nation, if I have the desire to do so...

BABAR ALI World’s youngest headmaster

Moved by seeing children working in fields instead of going to school, 9 year old Babar, invited them to his backyard and took it on himself to teach them what he learnt in school.

Over the years, this informal gathering became a formal school with classes up to 10th standard and Babar its headmaster at the age of 16.

Now 25, Babar firmly believes that the government alone cannot bring change, people need to come forward to make education for all possible.

PA G E S P O N S O R : A D E V O T E E , K I S M AT P U R , H Y D E R A B A D

I can actively participate in nation building activities in my choice of job/career...

The Vedanta Kesari

31

January 2019

Article

Golden Temple, Amritsar

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda in ‘The Land of Five Rivers’

An Overview of Ramakrishna Movement in Punjab and Haryana January 2019

SWAMI ATMASHRADDHANANDA

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The author is the secretary of Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Kanpur. He gratefully acknowledges the valuable and timely help in various ways that he received from many monks, brahmacharis, devotees and volunteers in preparing this article. atmashraddha@gmail.com ‘This [Punjab] is the land which is held to be the holiest even in holy Aryavarta; this is the Brahmavarta of which our great Manu speaks. This is the land from whence arose that mighty aspiration after the Spirit, ay, which in times to come, as history shows, is to deluge the world. This is the land where, like its mighty rivers, spiritual aspirations have arisen and joined their strength, till they travelled over the length and breadth of the world and declared themselves with a voice of thunder.

This is the land which had first to bear the brunt of all inroads and invasions into India; this heroic land had first to bare its bosom to every onslaught of the outer barbarians into Aryavarta. This is the land which, after all its sufferings, has not yet entirely lost its glory and its strength. Here it was that in later times the gentle Nanak preached his marvelous love for the world. Here it was that his broad heart was opened and his arms outstretched to embrace the whole world, not only of Hindus, but of Mohammedans too. Here it was that one of the last and one of the most glorious heroes of our

race, Guru Govind Singh, after shedding his blood and that of his dearest and nearest for the cause of religion, even when deserted by those for whom this blood was shed, retired into the South to die like a wounded lion struck to the heart, without a word against his country, without a single word of murmur . . . ’1 This is how Swami Vivekananda described Punjab and its glorious past. This was in 1897 when he gave his famous lecture titled ‘Common Bases of Hinduism’, the first of his three lectures given in Lahore in the Undivided Punjab. Besides being a remarkable piece of oratory, this also gives an idea of how well-acquainted Swamiji was with the history of Punjab. The present-day Indian Punjab, however, is a much smaller geographical entity than what Swamiji visited and spoke about.

The march of history has taken its toll on the ‘land of five rivers’. Things have changed over the years.

It would be appropriate and imperative that before we sift the facts and details of how the ancient land of Punjab is connected with

January 2019

The Historic Land of Undivided Punjab Punjab, or Panjab, is one of the oldest regions on the earth where humans began to live. It is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising parts of eastern Pakistan and northern India. Until the Partition of India, and of Punjab, in 1947, the British Punjab Province encompassed the present-day Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Union Territory of Chandigarh, and most parts of National Capital Region or Delhi, and the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory. It bordered the Balochistan and Pashtunistan regions to the west, Kashmir to the north, the Hindi Belt to the east, and Rajasthan and Sindh to the south.

The Indus Valley Civilisation or Sarasvati Civilisation or the Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation, one of the early and the most widespread cradles of civilisations, originated and flourished in Punjab. It is also called Harappan Civilisation— named after the site where the remains of this civilisation were excavated in 1856 by the British engineers John and William B r u n t o n who were laying the East Indian R a i l w a y Company line

connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore.

Harappan Civilisation was a highly developed and organized civilisation and its discovery redefined the way the world history was written.

While the sites of Harappan civilisation are in Pakistan and other states of India, Punjab is the place where it started. Punjab, in that sense, is the cradle of human civilisation and culture.

On account of its geographical location and vulnerability, Punjab has seen numerous invasions by the Persians, Greeks, Kushans, Ghaznavids, Timurids, Mughals, Pashtuns, British, and others. These invasions mainly targeted the most productive central region of the Punjab known as the Majha region (other two being Deoba and Malwa), which is also the bedrock of Punjabi culture and traditions.

Scores of dynasties and imperial powers have ruled Punjab—and lost it too. It has naturally made the people brave and strong, ready to face challenges of life with strength, courage and gusto.

Punjab is witness to numerous exploits motivated by greed for wealth and power, plunder and the inhuman side of mankind, alongside the inherent spirit of resilience, bravery and goodness which mark the culture of Punjab, nurtured by numerous Hindu and Sufi saints (such as Kabir, Baba Farid and Bulleh Shah), alongside the great Sikh Gurus, who have blessed its people and history by their lives and teachings.

Punjab is also the land where the Rigveda (the oldest scripture known to mankind), Ashtadhyayi (Sanskrit Grammar) of Panini, Nirukta (one of the six Vedangas, dealing with etymology and interpretation of Vedic terms) of Yaska and Charaka Samhita (one of the foundational texts of Ayurveda), among many others, are believed to have been revealed or written.

The religion of Sikhs originated in Punjab, setting in motion the glorious tradition of sant-sepahis, ‘saint-warriors’, who exemplified selfless service, courage, hard work and sharing

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Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, and the Movement that bears the name Ramakrishna Movement, we draw a quick outline of Punjab, Punjabis and their rich culture. This will be an exercise in recalling, briefly but contextually, the historical, geographical and cultural perspective in which the Ramakrishna Movement started and has been working to spread, slowly but steadily, its message of harmony, peace and brotherhood, based on a spiritual outlook of life in the states of Punjab and Haryana. We should first know what does ‘Punjab’ consist of.2

January 2019 The Vedanta Kesari

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and caring for others. The Sikh tradition was organized and consolidated into Khalsa (literally ‘pure’ or ‘genuine’, refers to the army of initiated Sikhs represented by the five beloved-ones, started in 1699, by Guru Gobind Singh) which led to the formation of the Sikh Confederacy by the legendary Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab after the fall of the Mughal Empire. It was a glorious time for Punjab when, among his other notable achievements, Maharaj Ranjit Singh covered the sacred Harmandir Saheb in Amritsar with 750 kg of gold, thus bringing it the well-known name, Golden Temple, a shrine central to Sikh tradition and spirituality. The Guru Granth Saheb, enshrining the compositions of the Sikh Gurus, from Guru Nanak Dev to Guru Gobind Singh, as also of several Hindu and Sufi saints and devotees from Punjab and other parts of India, is the living presence in the Golden Temple. In recent times, the Golden Temple was declared as the ‘world’s most visited place of pilgrimage’.

Then came the British with their vested interests. The entire Punjab region was annexed by the British East India Company in 1849.

That was the making of the Punjab Province of British India. Like other regions of India during the colonial rule, Punjab too witnessed widespread exploitation of her people and malicious looting of her wealth and resources, reducing her rich and fertile land into one of poverty, starvation and misery.

In 1947, after a long fight for freedom, India was freed of the British colonial reign but at the terrible cost of partition of the country and one of the ‘biggest migrations’ or displacements of populace in human history.

The Punjab Province of British India was divided along religious lines into West Punjab and East Punjab. The West Punjab became a part of Pakistan while the East stayed with India. The cruel and inhuman violence that erupted in the wake of mass migration from either side—the newly formed Pakistan and the mainland India—left indelible scars on

the collective psyche of Punjab. Uprooted from their homeland and social and financial moorings, millions of Punjabis had to find new roots and to work hard to return to normal life again. A large number of Punjabi migrants settled in Delhi, and in several parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and other states in north India. While the gruesome scenes of death and mass migration left behind on their mind indelible and traumatic memories, it did not deter the undying spirit of the Punjabis who rebuilt their lives and once again came up in material prosperity, scientific advancement and other fields of social and cultural development.

No wonder Swami Vivekananda described the tough times Punjab passed through in its chequered history thus: ‘Wave after wave of Barbarian conquest has rolled over this devoted land of ours. “Allah Ho Akbar!” has rent the skies for hundreds of years, and no Hindu knew what moment would be his last. This is the most suffering and the most subjugated of all the historic lands of the world.’3 In 1966, some twenty years after India became free, the Indian Punjab was further divided on the basis of language, and for better administration, into three parts: Haryanvispeaking areas were carved out as Haryana, Pahari-speaking and Hilly regions into Himachal Pradesh and Punjabi speaking areas remained as Punjab. Here is a description of these three states: The State of Punjab, or Indian Punjab, is bounded by Pakistan on the west, Jammu and Kashmir to the north, Himachal Pradesh on the northeast and Haryana and Rajasthan to the south. The dominant language spoken is Punjabi with many regional shades of differences and several dialects, as also Hindi and Urdu.

Some of the

January 2019

and fauna and human resources with a welldeveloped economy and roads, Haryana has its own cultural identity and distinctive features.

Kurukshetra, the place where Mahabharata War was fought, and the Bhagavad Gita was delivered, is in Haryana. Sri Ramakrishna’s Vedanta Guru, Sri Totapuriji, hailed from Undivided Punjab, and the monastery where he lived is located in Ladana, near Kaithal close to Kurukshetra4.

The State of Himachal Pradesh, the third state that emerged from the Indian Punjab, is situated in the Western Himalayas. It is bordered by the states of Jammu and Kashmir to its north, Punjab in the west, Haryana to the southwest, Uttarakhand in the southeast, and the Tibet Autonomous Region in the east. At its southernmost point, it also touches the state of Uttar Pradesh. The state’s name was coined from the Sanskrit—him means ‘snow’ and anchal means ‘land’ or ‘abode’.

Like Punjab and Haryana, Himachal Pradesh’s history too dates to the Indus valley civilisation. During the Vedic period, several small republics known as Janapadas existed which were later conquered by the Gupta Empire. After a brief period of supremacy by King Harshavardhana, the region was divided into several local powers headed by chieftains.

These kingdoms, which enjoyed a large degree of independence, were invaded by the Delhi Sultanate a number of times. Mahmud Ghaznavi conquered Kangra at the beginning of the 10th century. Timur and Sikander Lodi also marched through the lower hills of the state and captured a number of forts and fought many battles. Several hill states acknowledged Mughal suzerainty and paid regular tribute to the Mughals.

The Himachal Pradesh is home to many Devi temples such as Jwalamukhi, Nayana Devi, Chinnamastaka, Chamunda, Tara Devi and others. Since pre-historic times, several tribes such as the Koili, Hali, Dagi, Dhaugri, Dasa, Khasa, Kinnar, Kirat and others have

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shades of Punjabi and the dialects spoken by Punjabis are Majhi (standard Punjabi), Malwai, Doabi, Pwadhi, Western Punjabi, Shahpuri, Jhangochi/Changvi, Jangli/Rachnavi, Pothohari/Pahari-Potowari, Hindko, Dhani, Jafri/Khetrani, Chenavar and Saraiki. Each of these language traditions has its own distinct usage, pronunciation and history.

A large number of Punjabis (more than 10 million), both Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis, have migrated to United Kingdom, Canada, USA and other countries, carrying with them Punjabi language, culture, cuisine and value systems.

Some of them have risen to many public offices of high order in those countries. The Hindu Punjabis follow a composite culture of worship of Krishna, Rama, Durga, Ganesha and other gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon, alongside a reverential and regular reading of Sri Guru Granth Saheb, full or in parts (such as Japuji Saheb, Sukhmani Saheb, Rehras Saheb, Anand Saheb and other sacred compositions of the Sikh Gurus). A significant segment of Hindu Punjabis, deriving their inspiration from Swami Dayananda Saraswati, follow the principles and practices of Arya Samaj which he founded in 1875.

The State of Haryana is bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the north-east, by river Yamuna along its eastern border with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan to the west and south, and Ghaggar-Hakra River flows along its northern border with Punjab. Since Haryana surrounds the country’s capital, Delhi, on three sides (north, west and south), a large part of Haryana is included in the economically-vibrant National Capital Region for the purposes of planning and development.

Haryana too has a few Indus Valley Civilisation sites in Hisar and Fatehabad districts. Haryanvi, a dialect of Hindi, is the dominant language spoken in Haryana—along with Bagri and Mewati, the two other dialects spoken both in Haryana and parts of Rajasthan.

Rich in history, monuments, heritage, flora

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been inhabiting this region. Himachali, the dominant language of Himachal Pradesh, has many dialects and usages. The state is known for its natural environment, hill stations, and scenic beauty. Blessed with perennial rivers, Himachal Pradesh has several hydroelectricity plants which produce surplus power that is sold to Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and other states. Bhakra-Nangal dam, one of the tallest dams in the world, is in Himachal Pradesh.

Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are in the forefront of protecting India’s borders by sending its brave young men to Indian army besides playing an important role in commerce, industry, agriculture and other areas of our national life. A good number of leading figures of India’s freedom struggle were from these states.

The Perennial Rivers of Punjab A description of Punjab will remain incomplete without mentioning its historic and perennial rivers after which it is named.

Besides their antiquity, these rivers have been part of the history of Punjab, silent witnesses to numerous wars, celebrations, births and deaths of various dynasties and hence occupy great significance in any discourse on Punjab’s history. These are rivers of life, influencing Punjab’s culture, economics and social lives. It is these rivers that make Punjab ‘the Granary of India’ or ‘the Bread Basket of India’.

Punjab is mentioned in the Vedas as Sapta Sindhu, the land of the seven rivers flowing into the ocean. These rivers are called in Sanskrit Saraswati (thought to be the present day Ghaggar), Satadru/Shutadri (Sutlej), Vipasa (Beas), Asikani/Chandrabhaga (Chenab), Iravati (Ravi), Vitasta/Vet (Jhelum) and Sindhu (Indus).

The present name, Punjab, is a compound of two Persian words, panj (five) and aab (water). It was introduced and promoted by the Turko-Persian conquerors of India, and more formally popularised during the Mughal Empire. Punjab meaning ‘The Land of Five Waters or Rivers’, refers to the rivers Jhelum,

Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All of them are tributaries of the Indus River, the Chenab being the largest. After Partition, only Sutlej, Ravi and Beas are part of the Indian Punjab. All the five rivers of Punjab were known to the Greeks who called them in Greek as follows: Indus was called Indos, Jhelum as Hydaspes, Chenab as Akesines, Ravi as Hydroatis, Satluj as Hyphasis and Beas as Hesidros.

The Indus River (or Sindhu) is one of the longest rivers in Asia. Originating in the Tibetan Plateau in the vicinity of Lake Manasarovar (now in China), the river runs a course through the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir in India, towards Gilgit-Baltistan and the Hindukush ranges, and then flows in a southernly direction along the entire length of Pakistan to merge into the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi in Sindh.

The term ‘India’ is a Greek and Latin term for ‘the country of the River Indus’. Elsewhere, the Pakistani province of Sindh also owes its name to the river. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians (people of present-day India and Pakistan) as ‘Indio’, ‘the people of the Indus’.

The Rigveda describes several rivers, including ‘Sindhu’. The Rigvedic ‘Sindhu’ is thought to be the present-day Indus river and is attested 176 times in its text. Swami Vivekananda brings out an insightful connection between the river Sindhu and the term Hindu. He says, ‘The word Hindu, by which it is the fashion nowadays to style ourselves, has lost all its meaning, for this word merely meant those who lived on the other side of the river Indus (in Sanskrit, Sindhu). This name was murdered into Hindu by the ancient Persians, and all people living on the other side of the river Sindhu were called by them Hindus. Thus this word has come down to us; and during the Mohammedan rule we took up the word ourselves. There may not be any harm in using the word of course; but, as I have said, it has lost its significance, for you may mark that all the people who live on this side of the Indus in modern times do not follow the

In Ambala It was when Swamiji was in Almora, a hill town now in Uttarakhand, that he began receiving invitations from the people of Punjab who, like those in South India and elsewhere, were keen to see and hear from him. Swamiji left Almora on 2 August 1898, via Bhimtal and Bareilly, to Ambala. It may be mentioned that Ambala was a part of Undivided Punjab then, and now it is in the state of Haryana. It is located almost on the border of the two states.

The city is organized as Ambala City and Ambala Cantonment.

On 12 August night Swamiji left for Ambala Cantonment where he was received at the railway station by a large number of people and taken in a horse carriage to a bungalow that had been arranged for his stay. Here he met

In Amritsar and Dharamshala On 20 August Swamiji and his companions who included Mr. and Mrs. Sevier, reached Amritsar by train. He was received at Amritsar with honour but remained there only for a few hours before proceeding to Dharamshala for recouping his health and energy. During this short visit to Amritsar,

January 2019

Swami Vivekananda’s Visit to Punjab Swami Vivekananda visited the Undivided Punjab in 1898, almost a year after he returned from his triumphant mission in the West. He was accompanied, in some places, by his Western disciples such JJ Goodwin, Sister Nivedita, Mr. and Mrs. Sevier and one or two monks and some devotees and disciples. The places that Swamiji visited in the Undivided Punjab are: Ambala, Amritsar, Dharamshala, Rawalpindi, Sialkot and Lahore with some visits in-between to Murree, Baramulla and Srinagar. Life of Swami Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Disciples6 gives good details of his travels, and interactions with people, in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

Mr. and Mrs. Sevier who had been in Shimla for some three months. In Ambala, Swamiji had religious talks daily with many people of different religious backgrounds—Hindus, Muslims, Brahmo and Arya Samaj.

Swamiji’s Life says that on the morning of the 16 August, at the request of a professor of the Lahore College, Swamiji gave a short lecture into a phonograph (the voice recording device in vogue then). The whereabouts of this phonograph are not known. Swamiji’s recorded voice is not available now though it has been documented that it was recorded in four places—Mysore in Karnataka, Ramnad in Tamil Nadu and Ambala in today’s Haryana, besides a phonograph sent by Swamiji from America to the Raja of Khetri.7 Swamiji was in Ambala from 12 to 20 August 1898. During his stay, however, Swamiji had been unwell. On account of his incessant travels and public speaking for more than a year, Swamiji was not keeping good health and hence in Ambala he was down with fever for most of the time and did not agree to the many requests for public lectures. On 19 August morning he visited Hindu-Muslim School, an institution that interested him for its symbolic name. It is not known where in Ambala this school was located, but it is worth all efforts to find out its history and present status. The same may be stated about other buildings and institutions which Swamiji visited in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. An organized and earnest effort should be made to locate them, and appropriate signage should be put to perpetuate the memories of his visit.

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same religion as they did in ancient times. The word, therefore, covers not only Hindus proper, but Mohammedans, Christians, Jains, and other people who live in India.’5 The term ‘Hindu’ obviously has historic connection with Undivided Punjab where the river Sindhu passed through. Now, due to political divisions, the major part of the river flows through the Pakistan Punjab.

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Swamiji was accommodated in the house of Mr. Todormal, Barrister-at-law.

Swamiji went to Dharamshala, a delightful hill station, which now forms part of Himachal Pradesh, and spent some seven or eight days. Except for meeting a few casual visitors, he spent the time quietly, as the guest of Bakshi Sohanlal, a pleader of the Chief Court of the Punjab. It is not known whether Swamiji addressed any public meeting in Amritsar.8 As his health improved and he felt better at Dharamshala, Swamiji journeyed to Amritsar again where he stayed for two days.

During his stay, he had long discussions on religious and philosophical subjects with Rai Mulraj and other leading Arya Samajists. Not much is known about the contents of these discussions. It is not known if Swamiji visited the Harmandir Saheb, but some historians suggest that it is quite likely that he did, as Harmandir Saheb was too well known to have escaped his notice.

In Rawalpindi and Murree On 31 August Swamiji left for Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan). Many people had gathered there to give him a reception, and arrangements had been made for him to stay; but he soon left for Murree, a small hill town now in Pakistan.9 At Murree, Swamiji stayed with Mr. Hansraj, a noted pleader. While Swamiji did not accede to most requests for public talks due to his ill health, he consented and went to the houses of some Bengali residents of the town, where he sang many bhajans. He did give some talks on religious subjects and on his plans for work in various parts of India.

From Murree, Swamiji went to Baramulla by tonga. He left Murree on 6 September and reached Baramulla on 8 September. He then travelled to Srinagar (in Kashmir) where he was the guest of Justice Rishibar Mukhopadhyay.

During his stay Swamiji met Raja Rama Singh, the brother of the Maharaja of Kashmir who was deeply impressed by Swamiji’s personality

and ideas and ‘voiced his desire to help’ Swamiji carry out his plan of work. Many sadhus, pandits, students, officials of high rank and scores of others met Swamiji. During this visit to Kashmir, Swamiji also visited Pampur, Anantnag, Martand, Avantipur, and finally reached Murree again on October 8 where he stayed till 16 October. At Murree Swamiji was presented an address of welcome to which he ‘gave a talk which delighted the audience immensely’. No transcript of this talk is, however, available.

From Murree, Swamiji came to Rawalpindi (a distance of some 70 km) by tonga, where he was welcomed by some people of acclaim. He met, at the residence of Mr. Hansraj, and talked with Swami Prakashananda of the Arya Samaj.

During their conversation renowned people such as Justice Narayan Das, Mr. Bhaktaram, barrister and many others, were present.

In Rawalpindi on Sunday, October 17, Swamiji delivered a lecture to a large audience in Sardar Sujan Singh’s garden. The meeting was chaired by Sardar Sujan Singh and for two hours Swamiji discoursed lucidly on Hinduism, extensively citing from the Vedas. An English disciple who was present there described the scene of Swamiji giving this talk thus10 : ‘Swamiji, sometimes strolling in the course of his lecture, as was his wont, and sometimes leaning against a pillar decorated with foliage, wreaths, and flowers, and himself wearing a beautiful wreath of flowers on his head and a garland round his neck, looked in his flowing saffron-coloured robe and sash, like a Greek god. Moreover, as a background to this, the audience, mostly sitting on the lawn, turbaned and cross-legged, with the sun setting in the distance, made altogether a wondrously picturesque scene.’

At Rawalpindi Swamiji visited a Kali temple many times. At the temple he received and spoke to many visitors from different provinces and gave several religious talks.

Swamiji left Rawalpindi on 20 October for

Jammu where he met the Maharaja of Kashmir and held discussions with him and others present with him. Swamiji also gave a number of public lectures and was present for the Diwali festival. None of these lectures seem to have been noted in shorthand or otherwise.

Jammu has a sizable population of Punjabispeaking populace. Swamiji gave all his lectures in Hindi. Swamiji’s Life records: ‘The

power and life that he (Swamiji) put into the Hindi language was so extraordinary that the Maharaja of Kashmir requested him to write a few papers in that language. This he did, and they were greatly appealing.’ Unfortunately, Swamiji’s papers in Hindi are lost in the pages of forgotten history! But it is a great blessing on Hindi language and literature that Swamiji bestowed by speaking and writing in Hindi.

(To be continued. . .)

Pariprasna

(Continued from page 23...)

omnipotent, omniscient and all-merciful. But when we try to relate all these three in the light of His creation, we find them incompatible. For, a world so full of evil and a God who is omnipotent and merciful cannot go together, as far as our reasoning can see. Immediately one may jump to the conclusion that God does not exist, as the concept of Him is not logical and on the presumption that logicality is essential for reality. But the existence of Him is proved not by logic but by the experience of sages and seers and what logic attempts to do is only to reconcile His factuality with ordinary human understanding as far as possible. So when in the course of this attempt at understanding, we find logic breaking at a stage, we have to know that we have reached the stage of transcendence.

There we have to stop relying on logic and begin to depend on faith alone until we rise to the stage of realization. Faith, it has to be admitted, denotes imperfect understanding, but it is the stepping stone to illumination which is the stage of perfect understanding in spiritual matters. But we have to confine the application of it to the ultimates and the imponderables where sense perception cannot give us any data and where logical thinking finds itself in a labyrinth leading nowhere.

Selections from Spiritual Quest: Questions & Answers by Swami Tapasyananda

January 2019

Colloquially pronounced as Ambarsar, Amritsar is situated 50 km from Lahore. The city is also believed to be the place where the Ashrama of Maharishi Valmiki, the composer of Ramayana, once existed. The Jallianwala Bagh is located near Golden Temple.

9) Both Rawalpindi and Murree were parts of the Undivided Punjab. Located in Pir Pinjal range in the Himalayas, Murree is in the Rawalpindi District of Pakistan Punjab. Murree was the summer headquarters of the colonial Punjab Government until 1876 when it was moved to Shimla. Both Rawalpindi and Murree had many Hindu Punjabis and Bengali residents who were Swamiji’s chief hosts. Now Rawalpindi, the fourth-largest city in Pakistan by population, is in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Rawalpindi falls within the ancient boundaries of Gandhara and is in a region littered with Buddhist ruins.

10) Life, pp. 284.

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References 1) Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, hereafter CW, 1989, Mayavati Memorial Edition, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, ‘The Common Bases of Hinduism’, p.366.

2) Most of the details given here are from the online Wikipedia, and a few from Punjab’s oral-tradition.

3) CW, 3:69, ‘Common Bases of Hinduism’.

4) The Vedanta Kesari, 2016, July, ‘A Pilgrimage to The Monastery of Sri Totapuriji’.

5) CW, 3: 118, ‘Vedantism’.

6) Life of Swami Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Disciples, hereafter Life, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, pages 280 to 294.

7) The Vedanta Kesari, 2012, June, ‘That Golden Voice’.

8) Amritsar—literally, the tank of nectar of immortality— was founded in 1577 by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das. The fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan, designed Harmandir Saheb to be built in the center of this tank, and upon its construction, installed the Adi Granth.

Article

Some Thoughts on Spiritual Life

January 2019

SWAMI SATYAPRIYANANDA

The Vedanta Kesari

40

It is seen that though people make a beginning in spiritual life, not everyone is serious about crossing the ocean of samsara.

When we receive a spiritual advice, the sound or verbal energy enters into our ears. And for many people, the matter ends there! But in the midst of domestic problems, sometimes the forgotten spiritual advice is suddenly remembered. Such regular remembering one day converts the sound energy into action energy. And in time, the fruit of following the advice is readily seen. So, it is good to seek to know, and good to repeatedly hear spiritual discussions. This article is an attempt to reflect on some spiritual ideas, known to many of us, so that they make a lasting impression on us.

The foremost requirement for spiritual life is a divine disgust. Yes, we are disgusted with our present life more or less. But that is not divine disgust. Consider a bird or a cat in a closed room. It will go from one end to the other looking for a gap to get out. Even these lower animals do not like to be jailed up! They feel the call of freedom from within. But sadly, though we are certainly at an advantage in being a higher evolutionary product of nature, we are content to live in fetters. The fetters of samsara should make us feel like being locked up in a jail. That provides the driving force or yearning for finding an urgent solution to our plight.

All our troubles are because we identify ourselves with the body-mind complex. We desire things of the world and engage in selfish actions, forgetting the fact that we are in reality completely fulfilled. Actions motivated

by desire involve the use of temporal objects and consequently the fruits of such actions are also temporal. We have to wake up to the understanding that the purpose of human life is not merely to live like animals but to aim for God-realisation even in this very life with the help of a sound body and a pure mind.

What is God-realisation? These are the examples cited: A person searching for a misplaced necklace needs only to be told that it is worn on his neck! He does not have to get the necklace again. Hanuman of great prowess had only to be reminded of it to get back that energy lost temporarily by a curse.

Sri Ramakrishna gives the example of a man with a lantern in hand, looking for fire to light his pipe, only to be told that he already had the fire he was looking for. In short, we have to shift our identity from the present mistaken body-identity to our real identity as the Atman.

To achieve this, purity of mind is a basic requirement.

Purity of mind means freedom from impure thoughts, freedom of the senses from the sense-objects, and remaining unperturbed in the face of the dualities of life like joy and sorrow, gain and loss, victory and defeat, and heat and cold. One of the ways to attain such purity is to regard any work as of utmost importance and then perform it unattached, looking upon oneself as the only person left, on whose endeavour the success of the undertaking depends.

When the mind is purified, it becomes steady and manifests tremendous powers just

The author is a senior sannyasi of the Ramakrishna Order and lives in Belur Math.

satyapriyananda@rkmm.org

(Continued on page 47...)

January 2019

choose the long-term beneficent in preference to the immediate pleasurable. Once this choice is made, practice means to repeatedly bring the mind to that which is beneficial in the long run.

With the mind thus controlled and focussed, we have to approach the scriptures and the guru. The scriptures are a guide map that show us the way to the splendour hidden within. And the guru is one who guides us on the way. So we should cultivate faith in the scriptures and surrender to the guru.

Faith is the one essential thing. The faith that we have in a person or thing is based on our own judgement of that person or thing. This reliance on our judgement presupposes faith in ourselves. For, if we do not have faith in ourselves, how can we rely on our judgements?

Along with faith in ourselves, we must have faith in the Name of God. God and His Name are one and the same. Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi would say, japat siddhi or perfection through the repetition of God’s Name. We have to repeat the Name of God and hold on to Him. Dive deep—this is the mandate. There is no point in merely floating on the surface if we like to access the innumerable invaluable pearls lying at the bottom of the lake, deep within our consciousness. So, one should practise stabilising the mind and simultaneously pray for divine grace so that we may progress in spiritual life overcoming all obstacles.

From one point of view God-realisation depends on the grace of God. But for this grace to descend on us we have to put in selfeffort. Being pleased with our self-effort, despite knowing our limited capacity to scale

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like a convex lens converging solar rays into a focus generates immense heat. Such a steady mind can effectively focus upon spiritual practices; it can reason to ascertain what is real or permanent and what is unreal or ephemeral; it can be directed towards God with a love called ‘love for love’s sake’ that does not beg worldly favours; it can be immersed in deep meditation, from where it cannot be pulled out ‘just as the limbs of a tortoise which when tucked in never comes out even if it is cut to pieces’; it can perform work like a Hanuman and yet not feel tired! Only with such a mind can any of the four yogas –jnana, bhakti, karma, and raja yoga – be practiced successfully.

Sri Ramakrishna used to say that lust and lucre constitute ignorance; me and mine does not allow one to perceive one’s real identity.

He held that spouses should live like brother and sister after the birth of one or two children and devote their time to higher pursuits and spiritual practices. Pursuit of wealth too should be balanced with its proper utilisation like serving the poor and the afflicted, and other righteous activities.

In earlier days, the student’s life was first devoted to understanding righteousness.

That was the first goal of life. Rooted in it the individual would pursue wealth and desire, the next two human goals. It is lack of this knowledge of righteousness that makes people amass wealth and enjoyments unrighteously. That accounts for the sad state of our society today. The importance of learning righteousness can be well appreciated if we remember Sri Krishna’s words that ‘He is desire which is unopposed to righteousness’ and He was on the side of Yudhishthira because he was righteous.

A usual problem faced by all aspirants is that the mind is difficult to control. To achieve this tough task, Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, and Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras suggest two tools: Vairagya or renunciation and Abhyasa or practice. Renunciation means to

The Vedanta Kesari

42

150

1200

January 2019

Kumbha Mela 2019 Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama Vijnanananda Marg, Mutthiganj, Allahabad -211 003 Phone : (0532) 2413369, Mob: 9453630406 E-mail : rkmsald@gmail.com; allahabad@rkmm.org

January 2019

An Appeal

43 The Vedanta Kesari

Dear Friends, We all know that Tirtharaj Prayag (Allahabad) is a place for versatility of religions and spirituality. Not only different sects of the Hindu Dharma, but also people of all religions and faiths come to Prayag to feel the divine spiritual vibrations permeating its atmosphere. One can see this confluence of religions during the time of Kumbha Mela, which is a sort of a mini India.

By the grace of spiritual teachers, from time immemorial pious devotees come to Kumbha Mela to take a dip in the Triveni Sangam and be sanctified. The upcoming Kumbha Mela is scheduled from 14 January to 19 February 2019. As per Government estimates, more than 15 crore sadhus, devotees and pilgrims will take bath in the holy sangams during the Mela.

Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Allahabad, will take this opportunity to fulfil Swami Vivekananda’s mission: “Service to Man is Service to God”, by serving more than five lakh Sadhus, Devotees and Pilgrims coming from the remotest corners of the country. This is also a unique opportunity for us to spread the message of the Holy Trio. With the blessings of Most Revered Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj, who founded this Sevashrama in 1910, we are planning to organise a camp on the banks of Triveni Sangam.

During the Mela days, the following facilities will be provided to devotees/pilgrims: v Prayer-cum-Lecture Hall v Round-the-clock free Medical Camp with emergency facilities v Book Stall v Photo Exhibition on the Holy Trio v Boarding/Lodging facilities for sadhus, devotees and pilgrims.

The estimated cost of this Kumbha Mela Camp is about Rs 1,50,00,000 (Rupees one crore and fifty lakh). To meet this huge expenditure we request you to contribute generously and also encourage your friends to join us in this SevaYajna started by Swami Vivekananda himself.

Your kind donation will be gladly accepted and acknowledged. Donations can be either by A/C payee Cheque / Draft in favour of ‘Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama— Allahabad’ or Bank Transfer(NEFT/RTGS): Bank Name: State Bank of India, Allahabad, A/C no: 10210448619, IFSC: SBIN0002584 All donations are exempt from Income Tax under Section 80G(5)(vi) of Income tax Act, 1961. Please send your Pan No: along with your Donation. Our PAN No is AAAARIO77P. Hope you will seize this unique opportunity to make our Kumba Mela mission successful.

With Namaskar and best wishes, Swami Akshayananda Secretary

Book

Reviews

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

January 2019

Swami Subodhananda

The Vedanta Kesari

44

by Swami Chetanananda & Swami Vimohananda Published by Advaita Ashrama, 5, Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata - 700 014, 2016, paperback, pp.212, Rs.100.

Swami Subodhananda, one of Sri Ramakrishna’s blessed direct disciples was lovingly known as Khoka Maharaj in the Ramakrishna Order.

True to the word ‘Khoka’ which means a small boy, Swami Subodhananda had a childlike personality.

The charm of this personality was enhanced by a deep spiritual wisdom and a generous heart.

The present book details the life, teachings, reminiscences, and letters of Khoka Maharaj. The biographical narrative has been reproduced almost verbatim from Swami Chetanananda’s popular and authoritative book ‘God Lived with Them.’ Twentyone reminiscences of Khoka Maharaj by sannyasis and devotees have been translated from the Bengali book Swami Subodhanander Smritikatha, compiled and published by Udbodhan Office, Kolkata. Khoka Maharaj’s letters have been translated from the Bengali book Sri Sri Swami Subodhanander Jibani O Patra, published by Sonargaon Ramakrishna Math, Dhaka.

The mark of a great saint is not in how he enthralls his audience with revolutionary spiritual ideas, but in the way he lives his life without any trace of ego. Such a great saint truly was our Khoka Maharaj, who could transform lives by the power of his compassion, love and childlike wisdom. Once when a woman disciple asked him if he could teach him Gayatri and other such disciplines, Khoka Maharaj humbly replied, ‘Mother, I don’t know all those things either. You see, I am a Khoka. I have given you what I have received from the Master, what I have known from my own experience, and what has kept me in a blissful state. Please control your mind and practice japa and meditation.’

The book is replete with numerous anecdotes reflecting Khoka Maharaj’s love and concern for devotees, and the miraculous ways in which he intervened to help his disciples progress on their

spiritual journey. Every other incident recorded in the book can be meditated upon to cultivate right spiritual attitude towards life and to develop faith in the Lord. One of the challenges that a sincere spiritual seeker faces is doubting his own sincerity of purpose. Once when Swami Subodhananda was asked what one must do if one has not firm faith in God or in the divine reality, his simple yet profound reply was, ‘Don’t stop calling on God even if He doesn’t show himself. If one already has firm faith, what else remains to be achieved?’

The book is a must-read for all devotees of Sri Ramakrishna and even for spiritual aspirants walking in different paths. _____________________ SWAMI SHANTIVRATANANDA, MYSURU

Caturyuga Calendar of Vaisvasvatha Manvantara (Puranic Chronicle)

by R. Parthasarathy.

Published by The Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, No.84, Thiru Vi.Ka. Road, Mylapore, Chennai – 600 004.

2015, hardbound, pp.212, Rs. 400.

In this book under review the pre-historic conditions of Indian peninsula have been designed, developed and discussed from two perspectives: First, India as having an uninterrupted history for many yugas as a punya-bhumi, and the other, the Western historians’ conception of ‘non-originality as ‘Indian’ and that only foreign ideas flourished after 1500 B.C. To these Western scholars, the ‘Vedas are mere books of prayers, the epics are unsubstantiated stories and the puranas are books of fables’.

Both the Western scholars and Indian historians who are against the above views intended to rewrite Indian history from the puranic sources ranging from 5000 years. In accordance to the great longing of Dr. N. Mahalingam, the present author has accomplished this assignment by writing this tremendous treatise. The work commences with the authentic source of the puranas as establishing the history of India especially from their translation to other languages as well as ascertaining the

logically consistent method based on the findings of this unique work. ___________________________ R. GOPALAKRISHNAN, CHENNAI

by M.A. Jayachanra and others.

Published by Gandhi Centre of Science and Human Values, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 43/1, Race Course Road, Bengaluru - 560 001, Email: gandhicentre.bvd@gmail.com. 2016. paperback,pp.179. Rs.150.

Pluralistic society is now the norm the world over and we are witnessing the breaking of borders through migration, whether voluntary or enforced and some societies are bewildered by the changes they see. Fortunately for us, we have had a long tradition of welcoming and embracing different forms of worship, holding the view from Upanishadic times that Truth is one, though sages describe it different ways.

This book throws light on the leading religions of the world – Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam and, in doing so, enlightens the reader of the basic tenets of each. Every religion has been evaluated and explained by an active and well-known practitioner of that particular religion.

Reading through the book, it is very clear that every religion emphasises the same things – universal love, acceptance, non-violence, charity, non-judgement, with great stress laid on tolerance and human kindness. This is also the message of Sri Ramakrishna who illustrated it with a brilliant metaphor – it does not matter whether one uses a ladder or stairs (and today even an elevator), the important thing is to get to the roof.

The essays are full of high thinking and need concentrated study if it is to be interpreted rightly.

This book is for the serious reader and searcher for Truth as all the writers are experts in the doctrines of their respective religions and their scholarship and rigour is everywhere evident. ____________________________ PREMA RAGHUNATH, CHENNAI

A couple of days before the Master's passing away, when Narendra (later swami Vivekananda) and a few others were standing by his bed at night, a curious thought flashed across Naren's mind: ‘The Master has said many a time that he is an Incarnation of God. If he now says in the midst of the throes of death, in this terrible moment of human anguish and physical pain, “I am God Incarnate”, then I will believe.’ No sooner had Naren thought this, than the Master turned towards him and, summoning all his energy, said, ‘O my Naren, are you not yet convinced? He who was Rama, He who was Krishna, He Himself is now Ramakrishna in this body: not in your Vedantic sense, but actually so.’

January 2019

Human Values in Religions

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applicability of ‘saptarishi’ era for fixing the puranic events. Various sources are considered for asserting the period of each yuga, along with the danger in altering the dates as well. According to the author, in order to explore the various puranas, epics and other holy scriptures, the caturyuga calendar will be of immense help.

In the prologue, it is stated that this work ‘tries to highlight various challenges faced by Indians in re-creating the ancient history of India and relevance of puranas as sources for re-writing the history of India’. A large number of national and international sources are analysed in this regard in order to authenticate the period of the puranas which form the better source of Indian history, as per the contention of the author. The subject matters of the puranas pertaining to parables, avataras, devaasura wars, and the scientific data which are found in the puranas are well explained subsequently. The caturyuga calendar and time scale are elucidated with a view to focus the main theme of this work.

The role of the rishis in observing minutely the movements of the planets and the disputes in numbering them as six or seven has also been highlighted.

A variety of details contained in the puranas pertaining to the yugas are developed with a key note that the mythological traditions and historical traditions vary widely in the puranas. The calendar dealing with the four yugas with puranic chronicles are properly annotated with a vivid picture of the development of the puranic allusions and historic facts. A few worthwhile appendices also add glory to this enthralling project.

On the whole this work has certainly fulfilled the ambitious objective of the author that ‘the puranic events provided in this book offer an excellent framework for incorporating Suryavamsa, Candravamsa and other dynasties within the revised Caturyuga scale.’ A great potential lies ahead for further research on a large scale for the enthusiasts.

Let us hope for the day when people and scholars come together to thoroughly analyse the puranas, yugas, dynasts, histories, mythology etc. in a

The Vedas: An Exploration

The Braahmanas LAKSHMI DEVNATH

January 2019

(Continued from the November 2018 issue...)

The Vedanta Kesari

46

Guide books and manuals - supposedly modern concepts- existed even in the Vedic ages. The Braahmanas – second major division of the Vedas – was primarily that. A cursory reading of the text reveals that the Braahmanas function as a guide to the interpretation of the mantras otherwise called the Samhitas of the Vedas. The word Braahmanas, it may be stressed, has nothing to do with the word Brahmin – one of the four major castes in Hinduism. Maurice Winternitz, an Austrian scholar, explains the Braahmanas as the ‘science of sacrifice.’ Braahmanas means a text that explains each word of the mantra and the practical usage of them in sacrifice or yajna.

Interestingly, they represent the earliest attempt to interpret the Vedic mantras. Legends and anecdotes are an intrinsic and interesting part of the Braahmanas. Philosophical speculation, hairsplitting textual interpretations and aphorisms reveal the highly developed intellectual level of the Rishis of yore. It also lists the Vedic karmas or rituals that are to be performed for man’s welfare and are therefore aptly called the Karma Kanda or the action portion of the Vedas along with the Samhita and the Aranyakas.

Pertinently, each exposition also specifies the Dakshina or payment to be given to the priests.

The contents of the Braahmanas are technically classified into two categories viz. vidhi – rules and arthavada – fruits of the sacrifice and the adverse effects of sacrifices wrongly performed. While concerned with the arthavada, Braahmanas explain all the aspects

of sacrifice namely prayers, formulas, chants, sacrificial act, material and so on with equal importance and discuss it from various points of view that include both legends and history.

While the mantras of the Vedas reveal poetic calibre of a high order, the Braahmanas are completely in prose and may be said to mark the beginnings of Sanskrit prose though, it may be remembered that even the Yajur Veda contains some portions in prose. Could it be that it thus contained the seeds of future literary works in Sanskrit? Each of the four Vedas has many Braahmanas. Only a few of them are extant now.

The Rig Veda, presently has two Braahmanas – the Aitareya and the Kausitaki also called as Saankhayana. Both these elaborate the entire sacrificial ritual, in a systematic manner. Curiously, the Aitareya is concerned principally with the Soma sacrifice.

Further, the Aitareya details the duties of the Hotr – the officiating priest of the Rig Veda.

The mantras however are not explained according to its original sequence present in the Samhita. The 40 chapters of the Aitareya are further subdivided into 8 divisions of 5 chapters each. The Aitareya is an exhaustive text showing scant respect for brevity. Subject matters also include forays into legends. But, the text is easy to understand except for a few parts that draw a thin line between profundity and obscurity. The second Braahmana called the Kausitaki or Saankhayana, with its 30 chapters, appears to be comparatively a better organised

The author is a researcher and writer with various books and articles to her credit on Indian music and culture. lakshmidevnath@gmail.com

text and, for the major part, covers the entire gamut of sacrificial procedures. Its subject matter is homogenous and the phrase tasya uktam Braahmanam [thus says the Braahmana] frequently appears in this. The tight and comprehensive narrative style of this text with its mnemonic phrases called gatha, however adds to the difficulty in interpretation. Could it be that this factor has resulted in the Kausitaki being less popular than the Aitareya?

January 2019

Both the above Braahmanas essentially communicate in a common style, bereft of literary ornamentation. Both of them quote the Rig Vedic verse in parts and proceed to the explanations. However, where considered necessary they do not hesitate to cite the whole word. But there is a rapid and bewildering change of subject that throws the reader off gear.

(To be continued….)

Some Thoughts on Spiritual Life Maya, the Lord bestows His grace when the time is propitious.

In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, we have several references to a conversation between Radha and Yasoda. When Sri Krishna went away to Mathura, Yasoda once visited Radha and found her absorbed in meditation. When she came to outer consciousness, Radha told Yasoda: ‘I am the Primordial Energy. Ask a boon of Me.’ Then, Yasoda prayed: ‘I do not want Brahmajnana; may I see the form of Gopala in my meditation;

Continued from page 41....

may I serve God with my body, mind, and speech; may I behold His devotees with these eyes; may I always have the company of Krishna’s devotees; may I always serve the devotees of God; may I always chant God’s name and glories with my tongue; may I meditate on Him with this mind; may I go with these feet to the place where His divine sport is manifested; and may I devote all my senseorgans to His service alone.’

This is the prayer that should be constantly pouring out from our heart.

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Sayana, the great commentator on the Vedas says that the Braahmanas contain eight classes of topics. They are: Itihasa – history Purana – legend Vidya – esoteric knowledge Upanishad – philosophy Sloka – verses Sutra – aphorisms Vyakhyana – explanations Anuvyakhyana – elaborations In the Braahmana period, the supreme God seems to have been Prajapati.

The word Braahmana [neuter gender] means primarily an ‘explanation or expression of a learned priest’, a doctor of Sacrificial science on some point of the ritual. The etymology of the word is however, doubtful.

January 2019

What is Religion?

The Vedanta Kesari

48

Religion is the realizing of God.1 A thinker once said, “More people have died in history because they gave the wrong answer to the Religion question. ‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘No.’ Bam! ‘Do you believe in God?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you believe in my God?’ ‘No.’ Bam!” Religion has been the greatest boon of human civilization. Religion also has been the worst curse on mankind! No other idea exalts man to heights of divinity; no other idea regresses man to the depths of devilry!

Religion is indeed an enigma. We can’t seem to live with it, nor can we live without it.

One of the greatest contributions of Swami Vivekananda to modern thought has been his exposition of what religion actually is.

We shall try and understand his ideas in this regard, using his own words, as far as possible.

In India, there are said to be three hundred millions of Vedantins. But if there were one in a thousand who had actually realized religion, this world would soon be greatly changed. We are all atheists, and yet we try to fight the man who admits it. We are all in the dark; religion is to us a mere intellectual assent, a mere talk, a mere nothing.

We often consider a man religious who can talk well. But this is not religion. ‘Wonderful methods of joining words, rhetorical powers, and explaining texts of the books in various ways — these are only for the enjoyment of the learned, and not religion.’ Religion comes when that actual realization in our own souls begins. That will be the dawn of religion; and then alone we shall be moral.2 You must open your heart. Religion is not going to church, or putting marks on the forehead, or dressing in a peculiar fashion; you may paint yourselves in all the colours of the rainbow, but if the heart has not been opened, if you have not realized God, it is all vain. If one has the colour of the heart, he does not want any external colour. That is the true religious realization. We must not forget that colours and all these things are good so far as they help; so far they are all welcome.

But they are apt to degenerate and instead of helping they retard, and a man identifies religion with externalities. Going to the temple becomes tantamount to spiritual life. Giving something to a priest becomes tantamount to religious life. These are dangerous and (Continued on page 50...)

Topical Musings

transforms as concerted, team-work done under a new socio-economic world-view, and corporate organization is the new Ashrama (or station of life) where this modern Sadhana is performed.

Swamiji once told Sister Nivedita, “The older I grow, the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel.”

We shall attempt to understand this idea of Swamiji, which he himself declared to be supremely important in his scheme of things, by reproducing an 1899 essay that had a tremendous impact in shaping the modern world. This essay ‘A Message to Garcia’ was written by Elbert Hubbard. He was born in Illinois, USA on June 19, 1856. He founded ‘Roycroft’, an avant-garde Arts and Crafts community in New York in 1895. Hubbard edited and published two magazines, ‘The Philistine’ and ‘The Fra’. He was an influential thinker, known for his ardent defense of free enterprise. His ideas have contributed in no small measure in shaping the work culture that placed America at the top of the global economy. More importantly, all the countries and cultures that embraced Hubbard’s ideas in ‘A Message to Garcia’ effectively transitioned from the medieval to the modern world-view.

A Message to Garcia Initiative The world bestows its highest rewards, both in money and in honors, for only one thing. And that is Initiative.

What is Initiative? I’ll tell you: It is doing the right thing without being told.

But next to doing the thing without being told is to do it when you are told once. That is

January 2019

The next few issues of Topical Musings, will present a broad outline of the spiritual practice that Swami Vivekananda designed for the modern man.

Everyone knows what spiritual practice generally means. Did Swamiji change anything in this area? Did he add or delete anything from the vast repertoire of practices that have traditionally come down from generation to generation? The answer is yes, and no.

We believe that Swamiji brought in some vital changes in the spiritual practices meant for the modern world. It is but natural. When the world has got a new spiritual ideal to strive for, can the spiritual practices that lead you to that new ideal be the same as before? Hence we say ‘Yes, Swamiji did initiate some changes in the spiritual practices meant for this age.’

However, any idea, or practice, cut-off from its connection to our past will be only a novelty. It cannot last long, devoid as it will be, of sustaining life-force. So, the modern spiritual practices that Swamiji prescribed will have to be situated in the larger framework of the ageold, traditional practices of Japa, Dhyana, Bhakti and Swadhyaya. They will have to be an organic development from the past, and not an isolated, standalone interjection in the present. Hence we say ‘No, Swamiji did not change any of the spiritual practices, traditionally understood, but expanded their scope by introducing new elements, to make them relevant for this age.’

Thus we find that ‘Harmonious living’, ‘Clarity of thought’ and ‘Creativity’ are now powerful spiritual practices under the new dispensation. Vyakulata is now seen as Manliness and Brahmacharya appears in a new form as Obedience. All ritualistic worship

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A Message to Garcia

to say, carry the Message to Garcia: those who can carry a message get high honors, but their pay is not always in proportion.

Next, there are those who never do a thing until they are told twice; such get no honors and small pay.

Next, there are those who do the right thing only when necessity kicks them from behind, and these get indifference instead of honors and a pittance for pay. This kind spends

most of its time complaining about hard-luck and injustice.

Then, still lower down in the scale than this, we have the fellow who will not do the right thing even when someone goes along to show him how and stays to see that he does it; he is always out of job, and receives the contempt he deserves To which class do you belong?

(To be continued. . .)

January 2019

What is Religion?

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pernicious, and should be at once checked. Our scriptures declare again and again that even the knowledge of the external senses is not religion. That is religion which makes us realize the Unchangeable One, and that is the religion for everyone. He who realizes transcendental truth, he who realizes the Atman in his own nature, he who comes face to face with God, sees God alone in everything, has become a Rishi. And there is no religious life for you until you have become a Rishi. Then alone religion begins for you, now is only the preparation. Then religion dawns upon you, now you are only undergoing intellectual gymnastics and physical tortures.3 Religion is not, and never can be, in the field of intellect. Intellectual reasoning is based on facts evident to the senses. Religion has nothing to do with the senses.4 There have been various poets in Bengal whose songs have passed down to the people;

(Continued from page 48...)

they are sung in the streets of Calcutta and in every village. Most of these are religious songs, and their one central idea, which is perhaps peculiar to the religions of India, is the idea of realization. There is not a book in India on religion which does not breathe this idea. Man must realize God, feel God, see God, talk to God. That is religion. The Indian atmosphere is full of stories of saintly persons having visions of God. Such doctrines form the basis of their religion; and all these ancient books and scriptures are the writings of persons who came into direct contact with spiritual facts. These books were not written for the intellect, nor can any reasoning understand them, because they were written by men who saw the things of which they wrote, and they can be understood only by men who have raised themselves to the same height. They say there is such a thing as realization even in this life, and it is open to everyone, and religion begins with the opening of this faculty.5

All references from The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda 1) Vol-5: Sayings & Utterances 2) Vol-2: Jnana-Yoga; Ch- 8: Realization 3) Vol-3: Lectures from Colombo to Almora: The Work Before Us

4) Vol-6: Notes of Class Talks and Lectures: Lessons On Raja-Yoga 5) Vol-4: Lectures and Discourses; My Master

The Order on the March News & Notes from Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission

Jubilee Celebrations Faridpur centre, Bangladesh, celebrated the centenary of its primary school, Mahakali Pathashala, on 11 November 2018. Swami Suvirananda, the General Secretary of the Order presided over the meeting, which was attended by a number of sannyasis and former students of the school.

Platinum Jubilee of Sri Ramakrishna Vidyarthi Mandiram, Bengaluru Ramakrishna Math, Bengaluru was founded by Swami Ramakrishnananda in 1903, and is sanctified by the visits of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, Swamis Brahmananda, Shivananda and Abhedananda and headed Aurangabad Temple consecration

January 2019

In the historic city of Aurangabad, the tourist-hub for the celebrated Grishneshwar Jyotirlinga and Ajanta-Ellora caves, a group of local devotees initiated, in early 1980’s, the establishment of the present Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Aurangabad. With the blessings of several senior sannyasis who often visited the centre, the devotees acquired the land, where the ashrama is now situated, and took up service activities. The ashrama was affiliated as a branch centre of Ramakrishna Mission on 6 June 2005. The construction of the Universal Temple of Sri Ramakrishna began in 2009, with Srimat Swami Smaranananda Ji Maharaj, then one of the vice-presidents and currently the president of the Order laying the foundation stone. The temple was consecrated on 17 November 2018 on the holy occasion of Sri Jagaddhatri Puja

by Srimat Swami Vagishananda Ji in the presence of Srimat Swami Gautamananda Ji and Srimat Swami Shivamayananda Ji, the three vice-presidents of the Order. Functions including spiritual discourses by sannyasis of the Order, cultural and musical performances based on Vedantic tales, lives and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, devotional traditions of Maharashtra was held from 16 to 18 November. A commemorative souvenir, Arghya, was also released. In all, 325 sadhus and 5000 devotees from different parts of the world participated in the celebrations.

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New Universal Temple of Sri Ramakrishna at Aurangabad

January 2019

Bengaluru

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Mumbai

by illustrious swamis like Tyagishananda, and Yatiswarananda. Sri Ramakrishna Vidyarthi Manidram, a hostel in this Math for Class 11, 12 and undergraduate students came into existence in 1943 when Swami Tyagishananda gave shelter and provided all necessities to a young harijan student who wanted to pursue his studies. When the number of students slowly grew, and accommodating them became difficult, Swami Yatiswarananda in his time as the head of the ashrama constructed the present spacious hostel. Currently about 130 students reside in the hostel. Popularly known as ‘Mandiram’ with its beautiful building, auditorium, prayer hall, outdoor theatre, lush green garden, well-equipped library and gymnasium, the hostel is an oasis in the city of Bengaluru for the young minds who are nurtured in Indian values and culture to grow as enlightened citizens of our society. The inmates most efficiently execute various responsibilities in the hostel like serving food, cleaning toilets, cultivating vegetables for the kitchen, and maintaining the garden. They also participate in rural development works and engage in regularly serve in slums and hospitals.

From 23 to 25 November, 2018 the Mandiram celebrated its Platinum Jubilee with Public Meeting, Youth Convention, Cultural Programmes and Alumni Meet. Srimat Swami Gautamananda Ji, Swami Suvirananda, Sri Siddalinga Maha Swamiji the pontiff of Siddaganga Mutt, Tumkur, Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, Founder, Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and several sannyasis of the Order and distinguished guests addressed in different sessions of the celebration. A souvenir, Amrutha Vaahini, was also published on the occasion.

Cultural Services The showroom and publication centre for Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Literature at the Dhaka ashrama, Bangladesh, built with financial donation from the High Commission of India to Bangladesh, was inaugurated on 25 November 2018 by Srimat Swami Suhitananda Ji, one of the vice-presidents of the Order.

Guests of Honour Prof. Jagdish Mukhi, Governor of Assam and Sri Tathagata Roy, Governor of Meghalaya, visited Belur Math and Visakhapatnam centre on 13 November 2018. Sri C. Vidyasagar Rao, Governor of Maharashtra, participated in a function organised by Mumbai ashrama to commemorate the 125th Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s Chicago Addresses. Sri Vajubhai Vala, Governor of Karnataka, participated in the Platinum Jubilee Celebration of the Sri Ramakrishna Vidyarthi Mandiram, Bengaluru.

News from Abroad The California Heritage Council, committed to promoting the preservation of the unique architectural character of San Francisco and all of California, honored the Vedanta Society of Northern California with an award certificate in appreciation for the restoration and preservation of the Vedanta Society’s Old Temple, built in 1905 by Swami Trigunatitananda and well known as the first Hindu Temple in the western world.

Swami Tattwamayananda, the minister-in-charge of the Vedanta Society received the award in the Acceptance Ceremony on 24 October 2018 which was attended by a large number of the prominent citizens of San Francisco. In his acceptance speech, Swami Tattwamayananda underlined the spiritual

Mysuru

New York

foundation of the temple by quoting Swami Trigunatitananda’s comment during the original dedication of the Temple: ‘Believe me, believe me, if there is the least tinge of selfishness in building the temple, it will fall, but if it is the Master’s work, it will stand.’ It may be remembered here that the temple miraculously withstood the great San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906 did not have a formal foundation. But its foundation was stronger than any built of concrete, mortar or granite. Swami Trigunatitanandaji’s faith in God and his guru Sri Ramakrishna was the real foundation of the temple.

125th Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s Historic Chicago Addresses Spiritual retreats, public meetings, and music-festivals were held by Baghbazar, Jhargram, Koyilandy, Mangaluru, Sarisha, Pune, Shillong, and Vadodara centres between 6 October and 25 November, 2018 in which 3620 people participated.

43 youth/students’ programmes comprising lectures, workshops and cultural performances were conducted from September to November by Almora, Sarisha, Chennai Students’ Home, Indore, Jammu, Mangaluru, Mysuru and Mumbai centres. Around 12,529 youth participated in these programmes.

Visakhapatnam centre held cultural competitions in four districts of Andhra Pradesh from July to November in which 49,698 students took part. In the first round 4,948 prizes were given and in the final round 16 students were awarded prizes and certificates. Coimbatore Mission also held cultural competitions in 13 schools and colleges on 26 September and 16 October in which 2085 students participated.

Public meetings, lectures and musical programmes were organized on different dates from September to November by ashramas at Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg and Phoenix in South Africa, Faridpur in Bangladesh, Gretz in France, Amstelveen in Netherlands, Sacramento in USA. Srimat Swami Gautamananda Ji addressed the gatherings in South Africa, attended by more than 700 devotees. The event by Gretz centre was organised in a cruising boat in Seine river in Paris and was attended by 240 people including Sri Vinay Mohan Kwatra, Ambassador of India to France. Amstelveen centre conducted three programmes in Amsterdam, Hague and Groningen, which are located in different corners of the country. In the reputed university city of Groningen, several Indian academics and a large crowd including students participated in the function held on 18 November 2018. Vedanta Society of New York conducted an Interfaith meet on 2 Oct which was attended by about 200 people.

Education Services On 31 October 2018 the ‘Sports Science, Yoga and Fitness Centre’ of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Education and Research Institute (RKMVERI) at Belur main campus was inaugurated by Srimat Swami Smaranananda Ji Maharaj. The five storeyed building has been named Atma-Vikas – the unfolding or realization of the pancha-atma.

January 2019

The headmistress of Higher Secondary School (Main) of Chennai Mission Ashrama received Mahatma Gandhi Leadership Award from NRI Welfare Society of India (UK Chapter) at the House of Commons, London, on 25 October 2018.

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Awards

Chennai

Kalady

The foundation stone for the proposed girls’ high school building at Shivanahalli centre was laid on 22 November by Srimat Swami Gautamananda Ji.

January 2019

Value Education and Youth Programmes

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Delhi centre conducted 15 values education workshops in Assam, Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh between 29 September and 27 November, which were attended by 734 teachers in all.

Rajkot centre held nine values education programmes in the ashrama premises and in four schools of the city between 23 September and 7 October, attended by 1875 students. Sarisha centre conducted a personality development programme for the youth on 2 September, attended by 220 youths.

Healthcare Services The newly set-up High Dependency Unit at Kankhal Sevashrama hospital was inaugurated on 10 October.

Vrindaban centre conducted the 2nd of the Bi-annual Free Urology & General Surgery Camp 28 November to 4 December, 2018 with the kind support of Manav Seva Sansthan and a team of 8 guest and 6 in-house specialists. About 342 patients were screened in the OPD and 120 patients underwent surgeries free of cost.

Cyclone Relief Odisha: Continuing its relief work among the victims of the cyclonic storm Titli, Bhubaneswar centre distributed 1000 saris, 800 dhotis, 200 lungis, 500 blankets and 200 mosquito-nets among 500 families in Gajapati district from 31 October to 3 November.

Tamil Nadu: In the wake of the devastating cyclone Gaja, which severely affected several districts of the state, Chennai Math commenced relief work by serving more than 62,000 plates of cooked food (rice, pongal, etc) to affected people in Nagai and Thiruvarur districts from 18 to 22 November.

Kerala Flood Relief In continuing the relief work, the Order through our centres at Haripad, Kalady, Koyilandy, Kozhikode and Pala distributed 5500 utensil sets; 13400 kg of groceries like rice, dal, and oil; 1582 packets of biscuits; 1294 mats/bedsheets; 33910 garments like saris, lungis, and shirts; 200 solar lamps; 483 mosquitorepellents; 1224 bars of bathing soap; 737 sanitary items, etc., among 6726 families and 24704 notebooks, 10458 pens, 16506 geometry/drawing boxes among 19945 students in Haripad, Ernakulam, Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Pathanamthitta, and Kottayam districts.

Distress and Winter Relief The Order has distributed 4304 saris, 996 ladies’ garments, 625 dhotis, 10550 shirts, trousers, etc., 240 children’s garment, 2146 blankets, 397 school bags through 15 centres in India; 100 dhotis and 375 saris through the Sylhet centre, Bangladesh; two sewing machines through Lusaka centre, Zambia. In addition to the regular ration for old women in Vrindaban, the Vrindaban centre distributed 1481 kg groceries, 215 bars of bathing soap and 215 phials of hair oil among 215 old women.

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Vol.106. No.1 The Vedanta Kesari (English Monthly) January 2019.

Regd. with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under No.1084 / 1957. Postal registration number:TN / CH (C) / 190 / 2018-2020. Licensed to Post without prepayment TN/PMG(CCR)/WPP-259 / 2018-2020.

Date of Publication: 24th of every month; Posted on 26 December 2018

It is very good to be born in a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. It is very good to be born within the limits of certain forms that help the little plant of spirituality, but if a man dies within the bounds of these forms, it shows that he has not grown, that there has been no development of the soul.

—Swami Vivekananda

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