Wrút²; std{; PRABUDDHA ŒtËg JhtrªtctuÆt; > BHARATA Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!

Vol. 110 FEBRUARY 2005 No. 2

C Traditional Wisdom c

YOGA BUDDHI: STEADY INTELLECT ÔgJmtgtÂÀbfUt cwr°hufuUn fwUh¥là=l > cnwNtFt Êlà;t´t cw°gtu~ÔggmtrgltbT >> In this (path of yoga), O scion of the Kurus, there is but one-pointed de term in at ion. The thoughts of the ir res o lute, how ever, are di verse and une nd ing. (Bhagavadgita, 2.41) ;uMtk m;;gwÿUtltk Cs;tk v{er;vqJofUbT > ==trb cwr°gtudk ;k gul btbwvgtÂà; ;u >> To them, ever steadf ast and serv ing Me with af fect ion, I grant the yoga of und er- stand ing (buddhi yoga), by which they come to Me. (Bhagavadgita, 10.10) Cq;ihtf{UögbtKtu~rv Ætehtu =iJJNtlwdi& > ;rÅÅtªt ajuàbtdto=àJrNGk rG;uJ{o;bT >> The man of steady in tel lect (dhira) should not swerve from his path even when op - pressed by other creat ures, knowi ng them to be un der the sway of dest iny; this is the less on I have learnt from the earth. (Uddhava Gita, 2.37)

There are two signs of knowl edge. First, an un shak able buddhi. No matt er how many sor rows, af flict ions, dan gers, and ob sta cles one may be faced with, one’s mind does not un dergo any change. It is like the black smith’s an vil, which re ceives con - stant blows from the ham mer and still re mains un shaken. And sec ond, man li- ness—very strong grit. (The Gosp el of Sri Ramakrish na, 410)

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, musc les, nerves, ev ery part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave eve ry other idea alone. This is the way to succ ess, and this is the way great spiri tual gi ants are pro duced. (The Comp lete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1.177)

11 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 Towards a Casteless India

EDITORIAL

n di vid ual free dom, so cial equal ity and de - vi tali ty and choki ng their growth. This para - moc racy are con sid ered the de fin ing vir - dox i cal nat ure of caste has int rigued schola rs Itues of mod ern civ i li za tion. They are the and so cial ob serve rs and ex cited their imagi - benchmarks against which soc ial thinke rs judge nat ion down the cent ur ies. This has spawned the progr ess of na tions and peo ples. These val - hund reds of writi ngs and ob serv a tions on the ues are of ten found to be com pro mised in the sub ject with out the last word bei ng said yet. de vel op ing world and such are as have pro - vided fo cal points for in terv en tion by the North. The Sociology of Caste Whether these in terv en tions have been in tel - Caste is ess ent ially about soc ial di vi sions lec tual, socio-eco nomic, po lit i cal or mil i tary, and gra da tions, about the form at ion of classes they have in vari ably been con tro ver sial and and ranks based on dif fere nces in lin eage, oc- con tested. For, al though few in tel lec tu als would cup at ion or wealth. In rec ent times, Louis Du- ar gue against the uni ver sal de sir abil ity of these mont’s book Homo Hie rarchicus has pop u lar - val ues, few so ci eti es can boast of al low ing a ized the con cept of hu man beings as ess ent ially free play to these. In fact, num ero us ex tant and hi er ar chi cal in their so cial for ma tions. It has vig or ous so cial in sti tu tions con found and chal - been ar gued that so cial hi er ar chy is an in ev i ta - lenge the univ er sal ity of these val ues. Caste is ble out come of ba sic bi o log i cal dif fer ences be - one such in sti tu tion. tween hum ans—both as in di vid ua ls as well as To speak of caste with out cond emn ing it groups—and these dif fer ences are oft en acc en- is a sure way to inv ite cens ure, yet caste as an tua ted by env ir onm ent al modi f ie rs. That such in sti tu tion has proved re mark ably en dur ing. grad at ions are natu ral is sup ported by their If the Cons tit ut ion of free In dia abol ished un- exi st ence amongst a wide range of so cial an i - touchability and made caste dis crim i na tion il - mals. Ants, term ites and bees pro vide a strik - le gal, the pro vi sion of res er va tions for sched - ing exa mp le of org an ized div is ion of funct ion uled castes and tribes has tended to rei n force and la bour. The queens, nymphs, work ers, the caste ident ity of at least a large sect ion of sol diers and drones amongst these in sects the In dian pop u la tion. Elec tions in In dia re- have very spe cial ized roles and these di vi - peate dly con firm the fact that even prog res- sions are there fore termed ‘castes’ by en to mol - sive and lib eral-minded in di vid u als can hard - o gists. ly af ford to ig nore caste equat ions if they are to Most peop le ident ify caste with Hindu be succ essf ul in elec toral pol i tics. Caste re- so ci ety, but dis cern ing ob serv ers have point - mains a cruc ial de term i nant in a maj or ity of ed out that the Hindu caste sys tem is only a In dian mar riages, even when the in di vid u als spec ial case of a much more gen eral, if not uni - con cerned are well ed uc ated and are othe r- ver sal, phe nom e non of class dis tinc tion and wise litt le con cerned about caste. It has been hi er ar chy. So cial strat i fi ca tion ap peared early pointed out by soc ial think ers that caste served in the course of so cial evo lu tion. The four var- as a so cial bul wark that prot ected and pre - nas of Ve dic In dia had their equiv a lents in served the Hindu soc i ety in the face of in va - other cont emp or ary civi l iz at ions. End oga my, sions, but the same bul wark also cramped the commensality and oc cu pa tional spe cial iza - Hin dus with res trict ions, thus sapp ing their tion are taken by soc ial an throp ol o gists to de -

13 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 100 Prabuddha Bharata fine caste, and these were vir tu ally the de ter- used the term caste they der ived it from casta, mi nants of all so cial strat i fi ca tion in pre-mod - mean ing ‘pure or un mixed’. They were prob a - ern soc ie ti es. bly im pressed by the rules seg re gat ing the In mod ern so ci et ies, oc cu pa tional di ver - castes and the proh i bi tions against inter-mar- sity, inc reased soc ial mob ili ty, loose ni ng of riage. That a ser ies of Smriti texts down the fam ily ties and eco nomic ex pans ion have led cent ur ies had been for mu lat ing rules to regu - to the rep lace ment of the trad i tional de term i - late so cial or gan i zat ion, and in the pro cess nants of caste by econ omic sta tus as the sole rou tin ize and per pet u ate the ex ist ing seg re ga - de ter mi na tive of so cial dif fer ence. We now tion, is also unique to In dia. have eco nomic classes—the up per, the mid dle and the work ing—that are in no way less hi er- Evolution of Castes arc hi cal than the trad i tional caste or the In ter est ingly, the or i gins of the varna di- ranked feu dal or der. What dif fer en ti ates the vi sions as found in the Rig Veda app ear to be mod ern class from its med i eval or an cient rac ial. Early verses of this Veda speak of two coun ter part is the the o ret i cal lack of ex clu sive - varnas, the arya and the dasa (or dasyu), as two ness and the ind i vid ual as the unit of strati fi ca - dis tinct and in im i cal groups, dif fer ing in phys i- tion. Unf or tun ately, in pract ice, not many in- cal fea tures, skin colo ur and cul ture. The dasas di vid ua ls man age to rise from the lower ranks were later conq uered and as sim i lated even as of so ci ety to its higher eche l ons, and so class the four varnas with their trad i tional du ties as di vi sions are not as lab ile as one would othe r- known to us crys tal lized by the later Ve dic pe - wise ex pect them to be. riod. Marx ism rep re sents a mod ern ideo log i - Al though acc ord ing to texts like the Bha- cal at tempt at de vel op ing a class less so ci ety. gav adgita varna di vi sions are based on in di - How ever, the in ev i ta bil ity of class strug gle vidu al chara ct er traits (guna) and occ up at ion and the rule of the prol e tari at as pred icted by (karma), these di vi sions had turned he red i - Marx never re ally ma ter i al ized in the in dus - tary in the late Ved ic pe riod it self, even as oc - trial na tions of Eu rope. Cap i tal ist so ci et ies cir - cu pa tions be came he red i tary. Here it may be cum vented this prob lem through wel fare mea - worth noti ng that even in mod ern soc i eti es the sures and ‘class co op er a tion’. Marx ism suc ceed - like li hood that chil dren will choose the vo ca - ed as a po lit i cal move ment in agrari an so ci et- tion of their par ents, or a rel ated vo ca tion, is ies through dic tat or ial meas ures that not only quite high. That oc cup at ions should be he red - curbed in di vid ual en ter prise and de moc racy, i tary in anc ient times was, theref ore, only nat - but also led to the rep lace ment of the feud al hi- ur al. era rc hy with its bur eauc ratic comm un ist coun - De spite the re stric tions im posed by the ter part. Smritis on inter-varna marr iages, caste div i - A more sini st er form of soc ial div i sion is sions in an cient Ind ia re mained fairly fluid. In the one on rac ial and eth nic lines. At a global the M ahabharata we find Yudhishthira com - level this is cur rently one of the lead ing causes ment ing: ‘It ap pears to me that it is very dif fi - of con flict. Even af ter the abo li tion of slav ery cult to asc ert ain the caste of hum an bei ngs on and apart heid ra cial bias in sub tle forms re- acc ount of con fu sion of all varnas … hence the mains ap par ent in af flu ent so ci et ies, while in wise con sider char ac ter the prinicipal de sir - al most all re cent large-scale armed con flicts able.’1 Acharya Shankara echo es a sim i lar view ethn ic is sues have played a sig nif i cant role. about the then exi st ing caste struct ure in his Caste, then, as it is found in Ind ia, is hard - Brahma-sut ra-bhashya.2 ly unique. Yet it has dis tinct ive fea tures that The pro lif er a tion of vo ca tions and inter- de serve at ten tion. When the Por tu guese first varna mar riages led to the for ma tion of nu mer-

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 14 Towards a Casteless India 101 ous oc cup at ional groups, each of which be - tional and so cial mea sures prov ide some sup - came, by the med i eval times, a caste or a sub- port for this view. c aste called jati which, as the name its elf im - plies, was he red i tary. On Breaking Privileges Class, caste and priv i lege happ en to be Caste and Privilege closely linked ent it ies. It is this link that is the If so cial hi er ar chy is uni ver sal and if source of all dis crim i na tion and op pres sion. caste is sim ply one form of so cial hi era rc hy, As Swami Vi ve kan and a put it suc cinctly, ‘Caste what has made the In dian caste sys tem an is a natu ral or der. … That is the only nat u ral anachr on ism and anath ema in mod ern times? way of solv ing life. Men must form them - For one, as stated earl ier, econ omic fac tors selves into groups and you can not get rid of are the prime de term i nants of the so cial or - that. Wher ever you go, there will be caste. But der—the so cial and po lit i cal re la tions, and that does not mean there will be these priv i - the class di vi sions that char ac ter ize mod ern leges!’3 so ci et ies. The rise of ‘vai sh ya power’, as Un for tu nately, priv i leges are as per va sive Swami Vi ve ka nan da put it, was coi n ci dent as caste. ‘Priv i lege is the bane of hum an life,’ with the Ind us trial Revo lu tion and has been said Swam ij i, while analysing its dy namic re- the chief driv ing force for cap i tal ist so ci et ies la tion ship with the soc ial or der in his fa mous both in the col o nial and the post-co lo nial era. lec ture on ‘Vedanta and Privi lege’: The jati hi er ar chy, how ever, is not con so nant Two forces, as it were, are con stantly at work, with eco nomic sta tus, and has of ten been at one maki ng caste, and the other break ing caste; odds with the ris ing eco nomic or der. Sec - in other words, the one mak ing for priv i lege, ond, the free mark et capi tali st econo my al - the other break ing down priv i lege. And when - ways leaves room for up ward socio-eco- ever priv i lege is bro ken down, more and more nomic mo bil ity, alt hough in pract ice such light and prog ress come to a race. This strug gle rise may not be com mon. The pre de ter- we see all around us. Of course there is first the mined na ture of jatis, how ever, tend to dis - bru tal idea of priv i lege, that of the strong over cour age so cial change. Finally, it was the the weak. There is the priv i lege of wealth. If a man has more money than an other, he wants a pre scrip tion of he red i tary priv i leges and so - litt le privi l ege over those who have less. There cial dis crim i na tion, man i fest ing in its worst is the still subt ler and more pow er ful priv il ege form as ‘untouchability’, that rea lly made of in tel lect; be cause one man knows more than the caste syst em an eyes ore. othe rs, he claims more priv il ege. And the last of In ter est ingly, schol ars have ar gued that all, and the worst, bec ause [it is] the most ty ran - the cryst al lized caste sys tem as it obt ained in nic al, is the priv i lege of spir i tu al ity. If some per- the ninet eenth and early twent ie th cent ur ies sons think they know more of spiri t u al ity, of was ‘nei ther an unc hanged sur vival of an cient God, they claim a su per ior privi l ege over eve ry - In dia nor a sin gle syst em that ref lected core one else. (1.423) cul tural val ues’. Rather, caste as a mod ern so- Swa mi ji was in full agreem ent with the ed- cial con struct is ‘the prod uct of a con crete his- u cated, re form-minded in di vid u als of his time tori c al enc ount er bet ween Ind ia and Briti sh about the nec ess ity of a thor ough over haul ing col on ial rule’. Not only did the Briti sh privi - of so ci ety, for he felt that the nar row, re stric tive lege caste dist inct ions over all other forms of and sep ar at ive caste dis tinct ions were a bar- so cial iden tity but they also played upon caste rier to In dia’s prog ress. But his plan was not iden ti ties to en sure co lo nial con trol. The sig - de struc tive. He be lieved that each so ci ety fol - nif i cant changes ush ered into In dian so ci ety lowed its own line of growth and all that needed af ter in de pend ence both through con sti tu- to be done was to re move bar ri ers that im peded

15 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 102 Prabuddha Bharata this natu ral evo lu tion. He noted that the int ro- so ci ety is in turn gove rned by the four castes— duc tion of ‘new modes of ed uc a tion’, the open - the priests, the sol diers, the trade rs, and the la - ing of ‘new chan nels for the com ing- in of wealth’, boure rs’, and af ter a brief dis cus sion of the and mod ern com pe ti tion, es pe cially trade chara ct eri s tic fea tures of each of these states he com pe ti tion with Eu rope, had al ready bro ken ob serves, ‘Last will come the la bourer (shu dra) down caste bar ri ers to a great ext ent. What he rule. Its ad van tages will be the dis trib ut ion of wanted to add to this pro cess was the in tro- physi c al comf orts—its disa dv ant ages, (per - duc tion of ideas, for he was con fi dent that haps) the low er ing of cul ture. There will be a caste dis tinc tions will ‘crum ble bef ore the ad - great dis tri bu tion of or di nary cul ture, but ex - vance of ideas’. traord i nary gen iuses will be less and less.’ By ‘ideas’ Swa mi ji did not mean mod ern (6.380-1) sci ent ific and lib eral so cial ideas alone. For, al - In the semi nal ess ay ‘Mode rn Ind ia’, he though most pro gres sive mod ern so ci et ies are dwelt more elab o rately on this is sue and sug - built upon these ideas, they have not proved gested: suf fi cient in break ing down bar ri ers and privi - A time will come when there will be the risi ng of leges. What is needed is Vedanta, and a cul - the shudra class, with their shudra hood, that is to ture based on the Vedantic spirit. This is be- say, not like that as at pres ent, when the shudras cause ‘none can be Vedantists, and at the same are bec om ing great by acq uiri ng the char ac ter - time ad mit of priv i lege to any one, ei ther men - is tic qual i ties of the vai sh yas or the kshatriyas; tal, phys i cal, or spir i tual; ab so lutely no priv i - but a time will come, when the shudras of ev ery lege for any one.’ Vedanta pro claims that ‘the coun try, with their inb orn shudra nat ure and same power is in ev ery man, the one man i fest - hab its—not be com ing in es sence vaishya or ing more, the other less; the same po tent i al ity kshatriya, but rem aini ng as shudras—will gain ab so lute su prem acy in ev ery so ci ety. (4.468) is in eve ryo ne. Where [then] is the claim to priv i lege?’ (Ibid.) The last few dec ades have seen a sign if i - The Vedantic mes sage, when it spreads cant rise in soc ial and po lit i cal awaren ess among among the lower ranks of soc i ety, ens ures bot- the un der priv i leged sec tions of In dian so ci ety tom-up re form, for ‘if you teach Vedanta to as also in their att empts at self-emp ow erm ent. the fish erm an, he will say, I am as good a man In his lat est book The Si lent Rev o lu tion, the as you; I am a fish erm an, you are a phil os o - French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot arg ues pher; but I have the same God in me, as you that this trend con sti tutes a genu i ne ‘de moc ra- have in you.’ (3.246) All grass-root work ers ti za tion’ of In dia and that the so cial and eco - can test ify to this po tent transf orm ing ef fect of nomic ef fects of this ‘sil ent rev ol ut ion’ are Vedantic cul ture. In fact, Swam ij i was cate g or- bound to mul ti ply in the years to come. i cal that when eve ryo ne was taught that div in - This as sert ive ness has also brought into ity is within, eve ryo ne will work out his own fo cus the probl em of class con flict es pec ially in sal va tion. (Ibid.) ar eas where ul tra-left ide ol o gies have been dom i nant. Swa mi ji had warned against con - Shudra-jagarana: The Rise of the Shudras flict for two rea sons: one, it would fur ther di - To Swami Vi ve ka nan da the varnas were vide an al ready heterogenous nat ion; two, it not sim ple de scrip tive cat e go ries of the In dian would pre vent the dif fu sion of cul ture to the so cial or der. He used these cat e go ries to re- lower strata of so ci ety. The latt er is cruc ial be - pres ent In dian his tory, to con cep tu al ize the cause cul ture is in dis pensa ble for any group to evolv ing world or der, and even to make his - be sust aina ble, for ‘it is cul ture that withs tands tori cal pre dic tions. In one of his let ters to his shocks, not a sim ple mass of knowl edge.’ Swa- Amer i can host Mary Hale he writes, ‘Hu man mi ji theref ore laid great em phas is on the dif fu -

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 16 Towards a Casteless India 103 sion of cul ture. In his fam ous Ma dras lec ture is lit tle to sugg est that caste in In dia is on its on ‘The Fu ture of In dia’, he ex horted: ‘Teach way out. From Bud dha to Narayana Guru to the masses in the vern acu l ars, give them ideas, Ma hatma Gand hi, a whole host of pow erf ul they will get inf or ma tion; but somet hing more spir i tual per son al i ties have cam paigned against is nec es sary, give them cul ture. Un til you give caste, but the syst em has end ured. In her es say them that there can be no perm a nence in the on Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste Syst em in this raised con di tion of the masses.’ (3.291) is sue, Dr Krishna Verma notes Sri Ra ma kri sh - It is worth not ing that the shudras al ways na’s pregn ant comm ent: ‘The caste sys tem can had their own cul ture. In his mon u men tal be re moved by one means only, and that is the work His tory of Dharmasastra, P V Kane ob - love of God. Lovers of God do not bel ong to serves that if the shudras la boured un der cer - any caste.’ The bhakti move ment bears his tor i - tain grave dis abil i ties they had cert ain com- cal test im ony to this fact, and Swam ij i echo es pens at ory adv an tages too. They could fol low this spirit of Vedantic bhakti when he says, al most any prof es sion ex cept the few esp e- ‘Live in any caste you like; but that is no reas on cially re served for the brahmanas. They were why you should hate an other man or ano ther free from the daily round of ritu als man da tory caste. It is love and love alone I preach, and I for the other varnas, they had to und ergo no base my teachi ng on the great Vedantic truth sam s karas ex cept marr iage, no pena nces were of the same ness and om ni prese nce of the Soul nece ss ary for them in case of moral lapses and of the Uni verse.’ (3.194) The so lu tion to the they had no re stric tion to ob serve re gard ing vexed is sue of caste, there fore, may lie not in food and drink or gotra and pravara (in mar - an icon o clas tic att ack on caste but in the abil ity riage). They were en ti tled to purta-dharma of communities to tran scend these bar ri ers. (char i tab le acts) and also the pancha maha- The mes sage of Vedanta as exe mp lif ied yajnas.4 Swam ij i not only end orsed most of in the lives and teach ings of Sri Ra ma kri sh na, these cult ural feat ures but act ua lly pres cribed Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vi ve ka nan da con - them for eve ryb ody, ir res pec tive of caste. He tains this call for tran scen dence. It has played was as much against mean ing less rit ual as he a sign ifi c ant hist ori c al role in weake ni ng caste was in fa vour of inter- caste marr iages. He was dis tinc tions and it will con tinue to break caste all for free dom of choice in matt ers of food and barr i ers as it perc o lates among the masses. To oc cu pa tion; and ser vice as en vi sioned in the ex tent that we are able to con trib ute to this purta-dharma and the pancha mahayajnas, he pro cess, we may con sider our selves priv i - con sid ered man da tory for all. But Swa mi ji leged. ~ also wanted the masses to app rop ri ate the Sanskritic cul ture that had all along been the References priv i leged pos sess ion of the up per castes, for 1. ‘Vanaparva’, M ahabharata, 180.31-3, cited in P San skrit had been the source of the power and V Kane, His tory of Dharmasastra (Pune: Bhan- pres tige wielded by the up per classes. Of darkar Ori en tal Re search In sti tute, 1997), 2.61. course, by Sanskritic cult ure Swami ji meant the 2. Acharya Shankara’s com men tary on Brahma life-giv ing ideas con tained in the Upanishads Su tras, 1.3.33. and re lated texts, and not the ‘mass of su pers ti - 3. The Comp lete Works of Swami Vi ve ka nan da, 9 tion’ that of ten passed as Hind u ism. vols. (Calc utta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9, Des pite all the rec ent changes and up- 1997), 3.245. heav als, legislations and so cial pro tests, there 4. His tory of Dharmasastra, 2.164.

The highe st exp ress ion of love is unif ic at ion. —Swami Vivekananda

17 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 Prabuddha Bharata— 100 Years Ago

February 1905

Occasional Notes ives which dem on strate that age and death are only debts of na ture and noth ing more are the world’s pil lars of spir i tu al ity. Such a life ceased to in form its earthly tene ment from the 19th of Llast month. Born in 1817, Maharshi DevendranathTagore lost his pow ers of hear ing and sight years ago, with the re sult that what he lost in the gross he gained in the fine. His spir i tual in sight be - came clearer and stron ger, while his in tel lec tual per cep tion and men tal en ergy rem ained un im paired to the end. In pro por tion as he ceased to par tic i pate in the world of the senses he found his ac tiv ity in the spir i tual world. If the whole of a long life of pu rity, phi lan thropy and prayer— a youth of wond er ful ear nest ness and work for re li gious and so cial prog ress, a mid dle age ma tured in the love of God and man, and an old age ‘lived in the pres ence of God’— end ing in eu tha na sia can be called vic tory over death, it was Devendranath’s. He was a unique exa m ple of a house holder rishi of mod ern times.

rs Besant in the CHC mag a zine for Jan u ary men tions an amus ing in ci dent il lus tra tive of the sense of the word na tive as ap plied by Eur o pe ans to the peo ple of this coun try. ‘There was a Mlarge gath er ing to which a num ber of In dian gen tle men were in vited, and on the fol low ing day a re tired An glo-In dian of fi cial said to one of the Hindu guests: “Were there many na tives pres ent?” “Oh yes,” an swered the In dian, “many hund reds of na tives were pres ent, and about fifty Ind i ans.” The of fi cial had for got ten that the Eng lish man is a na tive in Eng land! The term con notes con tempt, and has come to mean sav age, and it will be rem em bered that Lord George Ham il ton pro tested, in the House of Com mons, against the use of the term na tive troops when a mem ber spoke of the splen did In dian army.’ That is one ex treme, this is an other. The ‘good old gen er a tion’ of In di ans, now fast dis ap pear ing, had also their pe cu liar con cep tions of a sav age. Here is an il lus tra tion. An old, much ven er ated sadhu was once speak ing in re ply to a quest ion on the sub ject of the cen tu ries of for eign sub jec tion of In dia. He be gan by say ing that he did not mind the sub jec tion so far as the kshatriya power was con cerned. Earth-hun ger, love of con quest and pos ses sion, he thought, were sava ge in stincts, which dis ap- peared from a na tion in pro por tion as it be came civ i lized. The sav age in man was bound to own the earth, whether the sav agery was exp ressed in brute force or in cun ning mech a nism. Civ i li za tion tamed a peo ple down; it re fined and spir i tu al ized the blood, as it were, and weeded out from it the brute im pulses of self ish ness, de pri va tion and de struc tion of oth ers. No, he went on, he would not mind that In dia should be a sub ject na tion if her cul ture and ide als were not put down by brute force ei ther in the shape of the sword or in that of money. The mil i tary and po lice forces of the world were bound to be more sav age than civ i lized and they were the real own- ers— so far as own er ship went— of the earth. There fore it mat tered lit tle who ruled over you— the sav - ages of your own col our or those of an other. But the real dan ger came when the spir i tual ide als and in sti tu tions of a na tion, evolved and per fected through cen tu ries, were sought to be swamped by the power of the sword or the or ga ni za tion of money. It ought to be the look out of the whole civ i lized world that en no bling ide als and be liefs and spir i tual in sti tu tions are not swept out of exi s tence by sav age ones, the same as it ought not to per mit the de struc tion of an other Al exa n drian, or to come to later

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 18 Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years Ago 105 times, an other Chi nese li brary. The power, con tin ued he, of the sword was bad enough, but the power of money was worse. For in stance, the work of the won der fully org a nized Chris tian mis sions, with the power of money at their back, was good so far as it im parted ed u ca tion to and re lieved the suf fer ing of the poor. But when that was made only the means to the end of proselytization, noth ing could be more re gret ta ble. For what of re li gion could they give to In dia? Ab so lutely noth ing. The whole world knew that. All that they could give were cer tain sav age ideas, as, a wild God who did not know his own mind, eter nal hell, a Devil about as pow er ful as God, the in her ent sin ful ness of man, res ur rec tion of all the world’s corpses on a cer tain day, sal va tion by proxy, etc. They wanted to make Je sus great and holy and they must needs do it by bringi ng him into the world in an un nat u ral way! Poor Mary! The imag i na tion of a child and a sav age was very sim i lar. Chris tian ity claimed an other unique po si tion. It ar ro gated to it self the sole po si tion of truth and the whole of it. No other at ti tude could be more child ish and more in im i cal to the prog ress of knowl edge and truth.

n his So cial Con fer ence ad dress the Maharaja Gaekwad re ferred to sadhus as fol lows: ‘We have al ready a large body of men who might be do ing some of this work for the coun try, just as the re li - Igious or ders of the Mid dle Ages did so much for Eu rope. I re fer to the count less body of sadhus who are roam ing over the coun try. But they must be trained, and they must have some thing use ful to say. For as cet i cism is evil un less it can be a hu mane as cet i cism, one not di vorced from phi lan thropy. He who sur ren ders life to help his fel lows is a saint, but not he who be comes a beg gar to avoid la bour or re spon si bil ity, or re tires to a jun gle to save what Kingsley would have called “his own dirty soul”.’ In the gen eral de gen er a tion of the coun try which af fected all classes from the prince to the peas - ant, the sadhus were no exc ep tion. The ill they are af flicted with is ex actly the same as of the oth - ers— lack of ed u ca tion. They are just as im por tant an item in the move ment for re form or prog ress as any other in the pro pa ganda. The point is, there fore, not why they do not do their duty, but what steps has so ci ety, and chiefly leade rs like His High ness, who reco g nizes their value as a fac tor in the na - tion, taken to train them? Kingsley’s phrase not with stand ing, we have the te mer ity to think that it is nec es sary for many a man to re tire into a jun gle to cleanse ‘his own dirty soul’, be fore he is fit to em bark on help ing his fel - lows. A pe riod of train ing is need ful in ev ery work: most so in phi lan thropy. A man who would save the souls of oth ers should be gin by savi ng his own. How else could he know what the soul was and how to save it? And re tire ment for a time, to qual ify for a knowl edge of the soul, to know it first hand and not merely gather an ac a dem i cal knowl edge about it, we re peat, is an ab so lute re quire ment for even the best of us. It is only the free soul, freed from the chains of per sonal am bi tion and at tach ment, who can do the great est amount of good to the great est num ber. The guid ing prin ci ple of a sadhu’s life is the Ve dic phrase atmanahmokshaya jagaddhitaya, ‘for the free dom of self, for the good of the world’. We are sur prised that His High ness should take a one-sided view of the mat ter.

heMy sore Her ald, not long ago, pub lished in for ma tion re gard ing the open ing of a pathashala by the head of the Shivagange mon as tery (Bangalore). In con for mity to the old In dian cus tom, Tthe schol ars would be pro vided with board, lodg ing and tu i tion, free of cost. We no ticed that only Sans krit would be taught. We gather that the swami is a man of cul ture and in touch with the times. We can there fore hope much from him. The ob ject of the pathashala is to spread a wider knowl edge of our an cient re li gion and phi los o phy. Would not the ex cel lent ob ject be better se cured if a lib eral Eng lish ed u ca tion was in cluded in the cur ric u lum of stud ies of the in sti tu tion? ~

19 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 Reflections on the Bhagavadgita

SW AM I ATULANANDA

Chap ter 11 (con tin ued)

21. Ver ily, these hosts of devas are en ter ing into You; some praise You in fear with fold - ed hands. Hosts of great rishis and Siddhas, sayi ng ‘Svasti, Peace, may it be well’ are singi ng Your glory in beaut if ul hymns. hene ver God in carn ates on earth, it is ent spheres, of fer their prayer in splen did for a great di vine pur pose. To carry hymns, and, dread ing the unt imely de struc- Wout that purp ose the Lord brings with tion of the uni verse, cry out ‘Svasti.’ Him the de voted free souls, who al ways re- The war as it is be ing ena cted and as it joice in be ing in His pres ence. These free souls, will de velop, now passes in re view be fore Ar- who come with the avatara and al ways re- juna’s men tal eye, or rather, spir i tual eye. The main with Him and sur round Him as the sat - film un rolls. Scene af ter scene is thrown on el lites stay with the planet, ret urn to God when the canv as of his mind. Time and space have the div ine purp ose is fulf illed. And so when changed their rela t ive val ues. They still ex ist, Sri Krishna came to est abl ish righ teousn ess on but in a dif fer ent way. The fu ture com es near earth, these bhaktas who came to ass ist in the and al most merges in the pres ent. Space also is worki ng out of God’s plan, ful filled that pur- al most elim i nated. Arjuna sees heaven and pose in the form of war riors on the field of earth and all the spheres at once. And he sees Kurukshetra. The war riors fight ing with and the fut ure and also the pur pose of things, the against Arjuna were none other than free true obj ect and char ac ter of the war. It is souls, who in carn ated to lighten the earth’s God-or dained. It is a war for righ teousn ess. bur den. All his fear and anx i ety had been in vain. It all Arjuna rea l izes this in his vi sion. He sees had to hap pen, just as it happ ened. that those who stand against him are no less We are so ig no rant, we have no faith, in strum ents in God’s hands than those who hence all our fear and anx i ety in life. Had Ar- fight on his side, and that by kill ing these war- juna trusted in God from the be gin ning, he riors God’s plan is also bei ng ful filled. For those would not have hesi tated to perf orm his duty who are slain re turn to their cel es tial abode from on the bat tle field. But he be came ego tis tic. He where they came. thought that he was the cause of the war, that Again, other per fected be ings, the rishis he would kill and cause oth ers to kill their ene - and Siddhas, wit ness ing the bat tle from dif fer - mies. He for got for an in stant that God is the only ac tor on the world-stage, He sees that those who stand against him that it is all His play and that are no less instruments in God’s hands than through us He acts. When we rea l ize this, life changes its as - those who fight on his side, and that by pects. The anx i ety, the bitt er- killing these warriors God’s plan is also ness, the fear, the heartburning go for ever. We be come His being fulfilled. play mates. He is the gen eral

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 20 Reflections on the Bhagavadgita 107 and we are the sol diers. ‘Ours W e are always surrounded by fear in a not to ques tion why, ours but to do and die.’ We be come re signed. thousand different forms. If we c an Life is sweet and death is sweet; c onq uer fear, samadhi c omes at onc e. W ith joy is sweet and sor row is sweet; vic tory is sweet and de feat is the body-idea c omes fear; with the just as sweet when we are truly S pirit-idea c omes fearlessness. res igned to God’s will. Pro por - tions change. What seems so that is in you, but rem emb er that it is all God’s mo men tous now, be comes very or di nary; play. No rev enge, no hat red, no in jury to oth- what seems so all-im port ant bec omes an in - ers. It is all fun, a play in which we take our dif fer ent matt er when the light of und er stand - share. And your soul and my soul look on and ing falls on it. It is not such an awf ully weighty quie tly take it all in and see the joke of it all. af fair to us now, whether our col lege team And now Arjuna con tin ues. First he re- wins the ball game or the other. But when we lates the wond er ful side of the Uni ver sal were in col lege, life and death seemed to de- Form, then the ter ri ble side and fi nally, its pend on that. splen dour. And so it is now in our life. Play with all your might, fight with eve ry ounce of strength

22. The Rudras, Ádityas, Vasus, Sádhyas, the Vishvas, the Ashvins, the M aruts, the Ush - ma pás, the host of the Gandharvas, Yakshas, Asuras, Siddhas— they are all look ing at You wonder struck. These dif fer ent classes of ce les tial be ings, filled with wond er. look ing on from their dif fer ent spheres, are 23. O M ighty-armed, see ing Your im meas ur able form, with many mouths and eyes, with many arms, thighs, feet and stom achs, and fear ful with many tusks, the worlds are ag i - tated with ter ror and so am I. s it transl ates its elf to Arjuna’s mind, In dia who court these ter ri ble vi sions in or der the great vis ion takes dif fer ent asp ects. to con quer fear, be cause fear is a great ob stac le AFirst came won der. He saw the Lord, to rea l iza tion. We are al ways sur rounded by mighty and glo ri ous, in His friendly as - fear in a thou sand diff er ent forms. If we can pect, the Abode, the Ref uge of all. Now co mes con quer fear, sam adhi co mes at once. With the the terr i ble side, the Des troyer, who swall ows body-idea co mes fear; with the Spirit-idea co - up the whole univ erse, who, with a turn of His mes fear less ness. The eas i est, the safe st, the wrist, ann i hi lates worlds. It is not strange that most natu ral way to con quer fear is through Arjuna is fright ened. It was an un heard-of vi - bhakti, bec ause the bhakta throws his bur den sion. The saints some times beh old fear ful sights upon the Lord and puts him self un der His in their med i tat ion. There is a sect of tantrics in prot ect ion. Arjuna cont inu es:

24. O Vishnu, beh oldi ng You touch ing the heav ens, shini ng in many colours, with mouths wide open and with large blaz ing eyes, my heart is ter ri fied and I find nei ther peace nor cour age.

21 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 108 Prabuddha Bharata

25. O Lord of gods! Seeing Your mouths, terr ib le with long teeth, blazi ng like the fire of pralaya (des truc tion), I know not the four quart ers, nor do I find peace. Have mercy, O Abode of the Uni verse! rjuna is a war rior in his body, mind and Arjuna quakes bef ore this vi sion and be comes soul, so his fear shapes it self in the form conf used. There is no way of esc ape. Wher- Aof a gi gan tic, im mea sur able op po nent, ever he turns, the Ter ri ble One faces him. He terr i ble to be hold; whose eyes flash fire, whose pleads for mercy, that peace may re turn to his many mouths are wide open, ready to de vour ag i tated mind. whom so ever he may get in his clutches. Even Now see what hap pens.

26-7. All these sons of Dhritarashtra, with the mult i tude of mona rchs, Bhishma, Drona, andSétaputra (Karna), as well as our own prin ci pal war riors en ter pre cip i tately into Your mouth, terr ib le with long teeth and fearf ul to beh old. Some are seen hangi ng be tween Your teeth, with their heads crushed to powd er. ri Krishna sees that the vi sion is more comes calm, less ag i tated and then he be comes than Arjuna can end ure. He gives it a dif - ex ul tant. The Lord is on his side. Conf i dence is Sfer ent turn. It re mains as ter ri ble as be - res tored and the vi sion (as we shall see) closes fore, but Arjuna’s pers onal safety is en sured. in great splend our and great hap pi ness for What Arjuna feared for him self hap pens to the Arjuna. en emy. It means their de struct ion and his safety: What is it like? Can you give an il lus tra- the war will end in his fa vour. His mind be- tion? Yes.

28. Ver ily, as the many tor rents of rivers flow to wards the ocean, so do these heroes in the world of men en ter Your fiercely flam ing mouths. hat a beau ti ful psy cho log i cal pic ture Arjuna to fear. He is safe! Now let happ en what we get here, of the work ing of the hu- will! From fear ing and trem bling Arjuna be - Wman mind—very re al is tic, very true. comes qui es cent: he be comes the ob server. Now The same vi sion of de struct ion, but the rel a - he can draw com pari sons. He even gives beau - tion ship is changed. There is no more reas on for ti ful il lus trat ions of what is tak ing place. 29. As moths rush into the burn ing fire head long to de struc tion, in the same man ner do these crea tures rush headl ong into Your mouths, only to peri sh. urried on by their own karma, by their taki ng its course. Nob ody is to blame. There is own na ture, these warr iors rush to their no crue lty on anyo ne’s part. It is the law of kar - Hown des truct ion, blindly or knowi ngly. ma. The Univ er sal Form swal lows up eve ry - Noth ing can prev ent them. The cosm ic Law is thing and He seems to en joy it. 30. O Vishnu! W ith blazi ng mouths You are licki ng and swall owi ng all the worlds on eve ry side. Filli ng the whole uni verse with rad i ance Your fierce rays are burn ing it up. hat an ext raord i nary vi sion! God the His power. All the days of our lives we have Des troyer, who swall ows up the uni- had it chanted into our ears that God is good Wverse; the Di vine Mother of the uni- and God is love and God is beauty! But how verse danc ing Her dance of de struct ion; Time, about this vis ion? What is there good or lov - de vour ing all; Death, slay ing and ex e cut ing able or beaut if ul in this car nage? Wars or

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 22 Reflections on the Bhagavadgita 109 floods or fam ines or epi dem ics are with us al - They think that when that goes, ev ery thing is ways; if not where we live, in some other part lost. But the cou ra geous soul, the true bhakta, of the globe. Dare we still go on chanti ng God does not stop at a lit tle pleasa nt, peacef ul feel - is good and all is good? No, that would be in - ing. He wants God, the Truth, as it is. He sin cer ity. The ter ri ble side in na ture is as real pushes on and then he may meet the Mother in as the lovely side, death is as real as life, and Her ter ri ble form. There, many re coil in fear, sor row is as real as joy. And if we ac cept (and as did Arjuna. But great trea sures of Truth we can not very well do othe r wise) that there is await those who pers ev ere. They do not ask but one God, the source of all that is, we must for a God of just fav ours; they are ready to con clude that good and evil both proc eed meet what com es, de struct ion as well as good from Him. times. Passi ng through that state of ter ror the We are afraid to ac knowl edge it. We are strong be hold the High est, the res plen dent scared by the ter rific as pect; we fear death. One. The fire has burned the dross. The mind ‘The deadly fright ful sword, reek ing with has bec ome crys tal clear. They have passed blood,/ They take from Her hand, and put a the ord eal, come out sanc tif ied and are ready lute in stead!’ as Swami Vivekananda puts it.1 for the high est sama dhi. We shrink back in fright at the thun der of Weak minds, it is said, may come to grief. Mother’s aw ful laugh ter, at Her nudeness, at Fear and terr or and the terr i ble strain may snap the drip ping sword. We dare not ac knowl edge the cords of the weak brain. But spir i tual gi - that it is She who scat ters plague She and sor row and dis ease. We W e dare not ac knowledge that it is who cheat ours elves; like the ost rich sc atters plague and sorrow and disease. W e we hide our face in the sand when dan ger app roaches. And c heat ourselv es; like the ostric h we hide our there fore we do not prog ress fac e in the sand when danger approac hes. spir i tu ally. Our fear, our cow - ard ice, holds us back. Our beau- A nd therefore we do not progress spiritually. ti ful im ages are smashed to ants und aunt edly push on through good and pieces. Our God of love and all-goodn ess re - evil till they reach the highe st summ it, from ceives a few knocks, and then we are stranded. where they look down on all dualistic con cep- We trem ble. That is the com mon ex pe ri ence. tion, as the mount aine er does on the clouds Arjuna does not un der stand. What does spread ben eath him. These clouds may mean it mean, this awesome Form? ‘Who are You, so much to the peo ple of the val ley. They may Lord? Ex plain to me, I pray, the meani ng of mean a harv est or a crop fail ure, but to the this ter ri ble vi sion. You swal low ev ery thing moun tain climber who is above them they and, as it app ears, with a good ap pet ite are al- mean nothi ng. The jivanmukta, or the lib era ted ways ready for more. Be mer ci ful and ex plain. soul, rises above good and evil. He may come What is Your purp ose? I do not un der stand it. down again to the world of strife and di vi sion, Where is Your mercy, Your feel ing, Your sym - but never can he for get his ex pe ri ence on the pa thy? I de sire to know You, O Pri me val One, moun tain top. Never can he for get the clouds for Your pur pose I know not.’ spread be neath him, una ble to af fect him in The first ex pe ri ences in the re li gious life any way. are usua lly of a peace ful, en joy able nat ure. Just as at an ear lier stage time and space Many con verts mist ake this for the highe st lost their rel at ive val ues and the past and the state and they never strive for anyt hing pres ent seemed to melt into one, even so good higher. They are afraid to lose that lit tle bliss. and evil ap proach each other here and bec ome

23 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 110 Prabuddha Bharata re lated as the ob verse and re verse sides of the tures, have taken so many vows, perf ormed same coin. Both are maya; both enc ir cle and our duties so faith fully! Is all that lost? No! No de lude us. The one is sattvic, the other tama sic, ef fort is in vain. That is the teachi ng of the but both are gunas. But we have to rise be yond karma-kanda. But unl ess it is all done out of love the gunas. And as we grow spiri tua lly, we be- and love alone, it will not bring us a high vi - come more and more de tached from the gunas. sion of God. Unl ess it is done with great hu- We rise above their sphere of power. We ap - mil ity, it may only in crease our van ity. We proach the Spirit, where maya is not. All chains may think that we have bec ome saints and and bond ages break, golden chains and iron then we are so ea ger to crit i cize oth ers. We ones, sweet bonds and bit ter ones. We rise may be come self-righ teous. That is why great above all limi tat ion. Good and evil bel ong to souls oft en ex press greater love for so-called the ma te rial plane. There they both ex ist and sin ners than for those who are re garded as there alone. And on that plane both serve their saints by so ci ety. Sinn ers have true rep en- pur pose. They co ex ist; where the one is, the tance. They know that they are sinn ers and other is too. that they have not the strength to give up sin. We must jump outs ide the cir cle of maya. There fore they fall at the feet of the Mas ter and Then we can never be caught like the young res ign thems elves to Him in all hum ili ty. Such snakes; we are free out side the cir cle, which is hum ble souls the Lord loves. The rich young man had W e lov e and hav e faith so long as our fol lowed all the comm and - self-esteem is not hurt. B ut let there be o n e ments from his youth. What better man could be found? But unpleasant word and the c ritic is brought he could not fol low the Mas ter, out. Is the guru so muc h greater than us? Je sus. When the test came, he turned away. Jes us said to him, A nd then and there the bond that held ‘If thou wilt be per fect, go and master and disc iple together is snapped. sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have noth ing but nat ure. It is said that the mother trea sure in heaven.’2 That was too much for snake has eggs in a cir cle around her while they him. Perh aps he thought (as so many of us do), are hatchi ng. And as soon as an egg hatches she ‘Why should I sell all? Am I not un att ached? quickly catches the baby snake and swall ows Af ter all, does the Mas ter know so much more it. But some baby snakes are very quick and than I do?’ How eas ily the self-righ teous mind clever and the mo ment they hatch, they jump is turned! We love and have faith so long as out side the circ le. And then they are safe. But our self-es teem is not hurt. But let there be one as long as they are ins ide the cir cle the mother unp leasa nt word and the critic is brought out. will catch them, no mat ter how quick they are. Is the guru so much greater than us? And then So it is with the soul. In maya lies dan ger. We and there the bond that held mast er and dis ci - are safe only when we jump outs ide maya. ple tog ether is snapped. Then we are in the arms of the Div ine Mother And so let us ex ami ne ours elves and see and she lifts us bey ond na ture. that no pride ent ers our heart. Let us not be It is a hard les son. We have strugg led so hasty in criti cism, for af ter all, we may be hard to be good and vir tuo us. And now we wrong. We may mis judge. Let us watch our - learn that the value of good ness was fic tit ious. selves more closely and be less mind ful of oth - We have re peated our mantras, spent hours in ers’ faults. When we watch our own weak - our med i tat ion rooms, read vol umes of scrip - nesses and insincerities and short com ings, we

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 24 Reflections on the Bhagavadgita 111 will bec ome humb ler. And that hum il ity will This is pleas ing to the Mast er. He sees the ef- be our strength. On it we will soar higher till fect of His teach ing and in struct ions and it we reach the feet of Him who is the ref uge of gives Him a clue on how to pro ceed. This con fi - all. dence draws the Mas ter and the dis ci ple Arjuna has told Sri Krishna all that he closer, and both re act upon each other. It had seen and ex per i enced. It was a won der ful draws the Mas ter out, bring ing out the best in rev el a tion, a vi sion grand and sub lime, but also Him. Yes, Arj una is the skilf ul disc ip le who terr i fy ing. And what is its mean ing? How to knows how to please the teacher, not by flat - in terp ret it? Who is that Be ing, ter ri ble to be - tery, but by show ing Him the res ult of his ef - hold, yet wor thy of all praise? It must be the forts. He knows how to spur Him on to furt her High est of be ings, for eve ryt hing en tered into rev e la tions of Truth. And he also knows how to it. It is the source of all. But what is its pur - ques tion in tel li gent ly. ‘The true preacher of re - pose? These ques tions arise in Arjuna’s mind. li gion has to be of won der ful ca pa bil i ties,’ says In Arjuna we al ways find the true dis ci - the Upanishad, ‘and clever shall his hearer ple. When ever he ex pe ri ences some thing he be.’3 co mes to Sri Krishna and rel ates to Him with What then is Arjuna’s question? We find grati tude and hu mil ity all that he has seen. it in the next verse. 31. Tell me, who are You, in this ter ri ble form? Sal u ta tion to You! O Su preme De ity, have mercy. O Prim ev al One, I des ire to know You, for ind eed I know not Your purp ose. e merc i ful, O Lord. You have shown me lighten Arjuna. List en, I will tell you what the vi - Your won der ful form; now kindly ex - sion means. You have wit nessed Me in the form Bplain the mean ing, for that is not yet of Time and Death and the De stroyer. And clear to me. And who are You? This ques tion you have seen Me act in that ca pac ity. gives Sri Krishna an op por tu nity to fur ther en- 32. The Blessed Lord said: I am mighty, world-de stroy ing Time, here made man i fest for the pur pose of de stroy ing these peo ple. Even with out You, none of these war riors ar rayed here in the hos tile ar mies, shall live. am mighty Time, that is to say, I am the di- not be idle; do not ne glect your duty. It will not vine power that causes all changes. I am avail any thing. The law will take its course. IDeath; I de stroy the worlds. And at pres ent There fore be calm and hum ble and obed i ent, I am made man i fest for the purp ose of slay ing and then act seei ng still ness in strife, life in these war riors. Should you re fuse to fight, death, peace in war. even then, witho ut you, with out your in stru- (To be continued) ment ali ty, all these heroes will die. There fore, References do not be fool ish. Take My ad vice. This war is 1. The Comp lete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 nece ss ary for the unfoldment of My plans. I vols. (Calc utta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9, have come to es tabl ish righ teousn ess. I have 1997), 4.509. in carn ated for that purp ose. Why cann ot you 2. St M at thew, 19.21. be hum ble and re signed! Does any thing de - 3. Áùcaryo vaktákuùalo’sya labdhá’’ùcaryo jðátá ku- pend on you? Out of dust I can cre ate my ùa lánuùiøôaë. — Katha Upanishad, 1.2.7. mighty work ers. I do not de pend on you. Do

25 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System

DR KRISHNA VERM A

n mod ern Ind ia the caste syst em is cons id - brahmanas and shudras; there were no sig nif i - ered by many to be one of the most se ri ous cant kshatriya or vaishya castes. Anyb ody so cial prob lems hin der ing the prog ress of who was not a brahmana was con sid ered a I 2 the whole nat ion. In the beg inn ing the aim was shudra. Of course, among the so-called shud- di vi sion of lab our. Peop le were di vided into ras there was some hie ra r chy. There were vai d - four castes: brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and yas (a caste that fol lowed Ayurveda and prac - shudra, acc ord ing to their inn er tend ency and tised medicine) and kayasthas (be lieved by cap ab ili ty. Wisd om was the main chara ct eri s- some to be a line of kshatriyas in Ben gal), who tic of the brahmana, strength of the kshatriya, con sid ered them selves su pe rior to peo ple like busi ness tale nt of the vaishya, and shudras gold smiths, black smiths, weav ers, peas ants, were those who lacked all these three chara c - washerm en and fish erm en. Then there were teri s tics, but were good at man ual work. The cob blers, tan ners, burn ing- ghat work ers and scrip tures pre scribed sim ple liv ing and high sweep ers, who were known as untouchables. thinki ng for the brahmana. ‘Se ren ity, self-con - The di vi sion was not based on their fi nanc ial trol, aus ter ity, pu rity, for bear ance, and also po si tion. A brahmana might be poorer than a upr ightn ess, knowle dge, realization and faith kayastha zamindar or a gold smith (and in most are the dut ies of a brahmana, born of his na- cases he was), but his soc ial po si tion was ture.’1 Ini tially, caste de pended on one’s na - much higher than theirs. They had to show re- ture, but grad u ally it be came he red i tary, and spect to him in ev ery way, and he had au thor- the conc ept of caste hie ra rc hy evolved in so ci - ity over them. All rel i gious and soc ial act ivi - ety. Brahmanas were cons id ered the highe st ties that a non-brahmana wanted to per form of all classes, as they were to guide the other had to be sanc tioned by the brah ma na, and three castes through their wisd om. But be ing only a brahmana could func tion as the priest in tox i cated by this su preme power, they and spir i tual teacher. Howe ver, there were started ex ploit ing the lower castes. They want - some more staunch brahmanas, who would ed to grab all the so cial priv i leges, de ny ing ev - not per form priestly ac tiv i ties in a eryt hing to the othe rs. This ex ploi tat ion was non-brahmana house and would not acc ept worst in the me di eval pe riod. Even for small anyt hing from them. Ac cepting cooked food mat ters, in their day-to-day life, the non- brah - and drink ing wa ter from a shudra was ab so - manas had to get the sanct ion of the brahm a- lutely out of the quest ion. All these dist inc- nas. How ever, the kshatriyas by vir tue of their tions be tween brahmanas and non- physi cal strength, and the vaishyas their eco - brahmanas were ob served by women also. A nomic power, were not so much af fected. The brahmana woman, while men tion ing her con di tion of the shudras was rea lly pitia ble. name, would use the suffix devi (di vine per - They were supp ressed by all the three up per son), whereas a non-brahmana would use dasi castes. Hence the rea ct ion in mod ern times. (ser vant). Such were the caste conc ept ions duri ng Sri Ram ak ris hn a’s time. The Caste System in M edieval Bengal In ter est ingly, in Ben gal, in the me di eval Sri Ram ak ris hn a’s Lineage per iod, the caste di vi sion was re duced to two: Sri Ra ma kris h na was born in a brahmana

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 26 Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System 113 fam ily known for its pi ety and spiri tua l ity. His ity. A numb er of ritu als are ass o ci ated with fa ther foll owed all the princ i ples of a true this cere m ony, and many peop le are inv ited to brahmana as pre scribed by the scrip tures. All att end this func tion. Af ter he is inv ested with the brahmanic qual i ties ment ioned in the the sac red thread he has to live as a brahma- Bhagavadgita (quoted above) could be found in charin for a cer tain pe riod of time, beg ging his him. He led a very sim ple, pure life, spend ing food and sleepi ng on the floor. The first lady most of his time in spir i tual ac tiv i ties and who gives him alms is known as his bhiksha- scrip tural study. At the same time, he also mata, the ‘alms-giv ing mother’. This is ind eed strictly obs erved all the so cial rules of a brah- the priv i lege of a brahmana woman. Now, mana. Though poor, he did not ac cept any- Dhani Kamarini had a se cret de sire to be come thing from a non-brahmana, not even from Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s bhiksha-mata, which, of those brahmanas who ac cepted gifts from course, was nothi ng more than a wild dream shudras. His fam ily mem bers were also not al- on her part. She also knew it. But someh ow Sri lowed to do so. His ad here nce to brahmanic Ra ma kri sh na came to know about it and rules and his ren unc ia t ion and asc eti c ism prom ised to ac cept his first alms from her. made him so dis tin guished that ev ery body in When he made his de ci sion known to the fam - the vil lage had great re spect for him. No body ily there was natu r ally a lot of hue and cry. Ac - bathed in the pond be fore he took his bath, nor cepting the first alms from a shud ra woman would any body pass him by with out show ing and mak ing her the bhiksha-mata when the him proper re spect. fam ily was so or thod ox as not to ac cept any- thing even from a shudra-yajin brah mana (one His Attitude towards Other Castes who of fi ci ated for the shudras)? Imp oss ib le! Born in such an or thod ox brahmana fam - But the boy was ad am ant. His only ar gum ent ily, what was Sri Ram ak ris hn a’s at ti tude to - was this: hold ing on to truth is the prime vir - wards non-brahmanas? How did he deal with tue of a brahmana. If he can not keep his prom - them? Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s first con tact with a ise, he has no right to be called a brahmana. shudra was at the dawn of his birth. Dha ni His fam ily peo ple tried to per suade him but Kamarini, a blacks mith woman, was the first with litt le succ ess. Ult im ately they had to pers on to touch him and in trod uce him to the agree; and the upanayana took place with the world. How ever, there is nothi ng unu sual in black smith woman as the bhiksha-mata.3 it. In those days only a shudra woman func - There is an other inc i dent from the Gosp el tioned as a midw ife. But later the rel a tion ship of Sri Ra ma kri sh na: Sri Ra ma kri sh na used to that de vel oped be tween the two was his tory, hear from the vil lage blacks miths that dal (len - both for the fam ily as well as for so ci ety. When tils) cooked by them had some spe cial taste. Sri Ra ma kri sh na reached the age of nine, the They used to say that brahmanas do not know fam ily de cided to per form his upanayana, sa- how to cook dal prop erly. So he had a de sire to cred thread cere m ony. It is a cust om among taste that dal. We have alr eady seen that brah- brahmanas that when a male child at tains a manas were very part icu l ar in not acc epti ng cert ain age he is inv ested with the sac red any cooked food from a non-brahmana house. thread (worn di ago nally across the trunk) and But Sri Ra ma kri sh na was dif fer ent. He asked a given the Gayatri mant ra. This func tion is per - blacks mith woman, most proba b ly Dhani, to formed with great so lem nity. It is a very im - cook dal for him. Of course, his com ment on port ant occ as ion in the life of the boy, bec ause that dal was quite witty: ‘I ate the dal but it it is only af ter this funct ion that the boy be- smelt of the blacks mith.’4 comes a full-fledged brahmana. Be fore this he Chinu Shankhari, an old man of the vil - does not have the right to any rel i gious ac tiv - lage, was his child hood friend. Sri Ra ma kri sh -

27 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 114 Prabuddha Bharata na used to call him ‘dada’ (el der brother) and a priest there. Ult i mately, Ramkumar was ap - was very fond of him. Though Chinu be- proached to take up the job, and he agreed. longed to the art is an caste (shankharis are those How ever, Sri Ra ma kri sh na, then a young man who cut conch-shells and make conch ban- of nine teen, was not will ing to ac cept the food gles), con sid ered low in Ben gal, Sri Ra ma kri - of a kaivarta. Hav ing grown up in an ort hod ox sh na never hes i tated to take food from him. brahmana fam ily, he was well aware of the so - Chinu was also one of the first few who re al - cial prac tices of that time and did not wish to ized the di vin ity of the child Gadadhar. We break them witho ut reas on. But when his el - also read in the Ram ak ris hn a Punthi that a cer- der brother conv inced him through arg u- tain Khetir Ma, who be longed to the car pent er ments that there was no harm in taki ng food at caste, once de sired to feed Sri Ra ma kri sh na at such a holy place like the temp le of the Di vine her home, but did not dare to ex press her wish Mother situ a ted on the bank of the Gang a, he bec ause of her low so cial po si tion. Some how, started liv ing in the Kali temp le com plex and the di vine child came to know of it and in - grad u ally be gan tak ing food there too. Rea son sisted on tak ing food sitt ing at her place. The al ways had great app eal for him. Af ter some au thor of the Punthi points out how sur pris ing time he was en trusted with dec o rat ing the im - it was that though born in an or thod ox fam ily, age in the Kali temp le, and later be came the very strict in caste matt ers, Gadadhar ig nored priest there. Thus beg an his wor ship of the caste dis tinct ions al tog ether when they clashed Uni ver sal Mother, which grad u ally turned with love and af fec tion!5 into an in tense sadhana. Such sadhana and These, how ever, are his child hood in ci - such God-in tox i ca tion the world had not seen dents. Pres ently, we will see his at ti tude to - bef ore. An ac count of his sa dha na is be yond wards other castes when he grew up and be - the scope of this es say. We shall touch only a came aware of so cial dis tinc tions. Sri Ram a - few as pects of his re li gious prac tices, which kri sh na came to Cal cutta at the age of seve n- will re veal his at ti tude to wards caste sys tem. teen. His el der brother had opened a San skrit school there and was also work ing as a priest HisSadhana to Remove Caste Pride in the neighb ourh ood. Sri Ra ma kri sh na came The brahmana bei ng the highe st caste in to ass ist him and also to study un der his tu te- so ci ety, the other castes treat a brahmana with lage. This was the time when Rani Rasmani, a great hono ur and re spect. Natu rally, this very rich lady of the kaivarta caste, was build - might make him con scious of his so cial po si - ing the fam ous Dakshineswar Kali temp le. tion and give rise to a feel ing of sup e ri or ity. Though the Rani was very rich and pow erf ul More over, we have seen that Sri Ra ma kri sh na and re spected by all, there arose a techn i cal bel onged to a brahmana fam ily held in high probl em in wor ship ping the im age in the tem- es teem even by other brahmanas. Hence, in ple. In Ben gal of that time, no brahmana of fi ci- or der to crush his caste pride com pletely, the ated as priest in a temp le con structed by a first thing he did as a part of his tapasya was to kaivarta. Kaivartas were fish er men by pro fes - re move his sa cred thread at the time of med i - sion and were con sid ered low in the caste ta tion. Ac cord ing to Sri Ra ma kri sh na, jaty- strata. So the Rani inv ited pun dits for a so lu - abhim ana, the pride of caste or lin eage, was one tion acc ord ing to the shastras, but none could of eight ties that bind the self to the world of prov ide one. When Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s brother maya. Then, as his sadhana bec ame more and Ramkumar was con sulted, he told her to dedi - more in tense, the urge to de mol ish the ego and cate the temp le in the name of her guru, who feel one with all also grew in him. To at tain this was a brahmana. Still no body came for ward obj ec tive he used unique meth ods un heard of for the con sec rat ion of the temp le or to bec ome in the realm of spiri tual pract ice. He would

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 28 Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System 115 clean the places where the poor of all castes a sheph erd fam ily. Again, among his twen ty- were fed by the temp le man age ment, re move f ive int im ate househ older disc ip les whose their used plates, and some times even eat their names we find in the Sri Ra ma kri sh na Bhaktam a - leavi ngs. In Ind ia scave ng ers are cons ide red lika, nine teen were non-brahmanas. Most of to be long to the lowe st caste, the them were kayasthas while some be longed to the untouchables. Sri Ra ma kri sh na would go to vaidya caste and some to the vaishya caste. How- the dwell ing place of the tem ple scav eng er ever, in nine teenth-cen tury Ben gal, all non- and clean his toi let stealthi ly, lest the owner b rahmanas were termed shudras, as noted ear - should ob ject. This was his way of gett ing over lier. When Swami Vi ve ka nan da bec ame fa - the feeli ng of caste su per i ori ty. Shame, hat red mous, many of the or tho dox Hin dus ob jected to and fear are con sid ered to be obs tac les in the his el i gi bil ity for sannyasa. Their point was that spir i tual path. This sin gle act shows how he a shudra had no right to san n ya sa.6 got over these ob sta cles. He felt no shame in clean ing the hut of a low-caste per son; he had Transcending Caste Considerations no ha tred tow ards any body, nor any aver sion For Sri Ra ma kri sh na, pur ity of mind and for me nial jobs; he had no fear of so cial dis ap- de vo tion to God were the only cri ter ia for proval and was not afraid of ex com mun i ca - judg ing a man. In his es tim ate Narendranath tion. (Swami Vi ve ka nan da) and Rakhal Chandra The fear of oth ers’ opin ion—‘What will (Swami Brahmananda) were spir i tu ally much peop le think of me?’—is the worst form of higher than many brahmanas, though both of weakn ess in man. We al ways want the ap- them were kayasthas. Latu, the shep herd boy proval and ap pre ci a tion of oth ers. Be hind this of Chapra who was a do mes tic help at Ram- psyc hol ogy is the ego of the ind i vid ual. Sri Ra- chan dra Datta’s house, was transf ormed into ma kri sh na had no such weak ness in him. He Swami Adbhutananda, a great sadhu, by the was ab so lutely in dif fer ent to the opin ion of grace of Sri Ra ma kri sh na. Adhar Sen and Ma- the world. He would not hes i tate to sacr i fice ni Mallick were dev o tees of Sri Ra ma kri sh na anyt hing for a right eous cause. He was of the though they be longed to the so-called lower opin ion that the pride of bei ng born in an up- castes: one was a subarna-banik and the other per-caste fami ly in flates the ego and bars the was a teli. Sri Ra ma kri sh na used to visit their vi sion of equal ity tow ards all crea tures of houses and take food there. God. He vir tu ally saw God in ev ery body, An inc id ent rev eali ng Sri Ram ak ris hn a’s even in the pros tit ute, the par iah and the mlec - att i tude to wards the caste sys tem is rec orded cha (a mem ber of an alien race). The con cept of in the Gos pel of Sri Ram ak ris hn a. Once, on the equal ity, that God res ides in ev ery body, that occ as ion of Durga Puja, Sri Ra ma kri sh na went all are His child ren, is not new in rel i gion. to Adhar’s house. Kedar Chatterjee, an ort ho- Many saints have dec lared this truth. But in dox brahmana dev o tee, came to meet him the his tory of the world one does not come there. But when the time for par tak ing prasad across ano ther exa mp le where such metho ds ap proached, Kedar hes i tated to take food at were adopted to rem ove caste cons cious ness. Adhar’s place. He and sev eral dev o tees stood Unique in deed were the ways of Sri Ra ma kri - up; they were about to re turn home. Kedar sa- sh na. luted the Mas ter and bade him good bye. The Gos pel men tions the fol low ing con ver sa tion His Disciples there af ter: Among Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s six teen sann- Mas ter: ‘Should you go away witho ut bid- yas in dis cip les nine were non-brahmanas; of ding Adhar good-bye? Would n’t that be an act these eight were kayasthas and one be longed to of dis cour tesy?’

29 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 116 Prabuddha Bharata

Kedar: ‘”When God is pleased, the world is formed sadhana for the rea l iza tion of God and pleased.” You are stay ing; so in a sense we are had led a very pio us life would have to wait all stay ing. I am not feeli ng well. Bes ides, I am a for the next birth to be born as a brahmana. lit tle nerv ous about my so cial con vent ions. Only then could he get the res ult of his past [Adhar be longed to a lower caste. Kedar, a brahmana, could not dine with him or eat at his sadhana and be lib er ated. The case of Rasik home.] Once bef ore I had troub le with our com- the sweeper be lies this be lief. Be ing a scave n - mu nity.’ ger, he was cons id ered an unt oucha ble. Those Vijay (point ing to the M as ter): ‘Should we go were days when low-caste pers ons were away and leave him here?’ treated very inh um anly. If a low-caste man Just then Adhar came in to take the Mast er happ ened to cross an upp er-caste man’s path to the din ing room, for the meal was ready. Sri he would be pun ished, but no act ion could be Ra ma kri sh na stood up and said, ad dress ing Kedar and Vijay: ‘Come. Come with me.’ They taken against the latt er. Rasik used to see foll owed him and part ook of the dinn er to- many peop le come to Sri Ra ma kri sh na and get gether with the other dev o tees. his blessi ngs. He too wanted to go to him and Af ter din ner they all re turned to the draw - ask for his bless ings, but bei ng an unt oucha ble ing room, where the dev o tees sat around the dared not ap proach him in front of oth ers. One Mas ter. Kedar said to him with folded hands, day, when Sri Ra ma kri sh na was com ing from ‘Please for give me for hes i tat ing to eat here.’ the Panchavati all by him self, he took the op - Per haps the thought had come to his mind that he should not have hes i tated, since the Mas ter por tun ity to go near and kneel down be fore hims elf had no scru ples about eat ing at Adhar’s him and say, ‘Fa ther, what will hap pen to me!’ house. … Hear ing his cry for spir i tual grace, Sri Ram a - Mas ter: ‘One can eat food even from an un- kri sh na went into deep sam adhi, and Rasik toucha ble if the unt oucha ble is a devo t ee of God.’7 fell at his feet. Af ter some time, when Sri Ra- (Em pha sis added) ma kri sh na reg ained outer cons cious ness, he This small in ci dent not only shows the told Rasik, ‘Do not be afraid, you will have it. libe ral mind of Sri Ra ma kri sh na, but also re- At the time of death you will see me.’ Ex actly flects his sense of pro pri ety. Though app ar- the same thing happ ened: just bef ore his death ently an un let tered vil lager, he was very con - he saw Sri Ra ma kri sh na. His face beamed scious of et i quette and man ners. He knew that with de light and he shouted, ‘Fa ther, you have once you visit some body’s house, it is un man- come! You have not for gott en me!’ Say ing this 9 nerly to go away with out say ing goodb ye to he passed away. the host, while Kedar, a city-bred ed uc ated We also find Sri Ra ma kris h na sayi ng, man, was ig nor ing this fac tor. Seco nd, the con- ‘Hazra said that a man could not be lib era ted ver sa tion also re veals Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s high unl ess he was born in a brah min body. “How est eem for a dev o tee. Again and again we hear is that?” I said. “One at tains lib era tion through him say, ‘De votees do not be long to any caste’; bhakti alone. Ùabari was the daugh ter of a ‘Blessed is he who feels long ing for God, hunter. She, Ruhidas, and oth ers be longed to though he eats pork. But shame on him whose the sudra caste. They were lib er ated through 10 mind dwells on “woman and gold”, though bhakti alone.”’ he eats the pur est food—boiled veg e ta bles, 8 Caste and Spirituality rice, and ghee.’ We find the same at tit ude in his treat- Sri Ra ma kris h na was not a so cial re - ment of shudras. There used to be a mis con - former in the or di nary sense of the term. He cept ion that unl ess one was born a brah mana, was a mas ter of spir i tua l ity. In the Gos pel, one could not at tain lib era t ion. It was also be - where his words are re corded, we find very lieved that a non-brahmana who had per - few ref ere nces to the caste sys tem. But what -

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 30 Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System 117 ever lit tle is there gives us a glimpse of his at ti - ear lier, Chinu Shank hari bel onged to a lower tude to caste. Even this is al ways placed in the caste and we are talki ng of a time when caste cont ext of spiri t ua li ty. Sri Ram ak ris hn a lived con scious ness was so strong in Beng al that in God alone. His talks and acts were never even touchi ng a low-caste man was con sid - out side the realm of di vin ity. Hence, when - ered to be sacr i le gious, what to speak of an up - ever the topic of caste came up he disc ussed it per-caste brah ma na pros trat ing be fore him! from the spir i tual point of view. For ex am ple, while talk ing about Capt ain Vishwanath His Observations on Some Castes Upadhy ay, he says: Sri Ra ma kri sh na was in deed aware of the Capt ain is a strong uph older of or thod ox con- caste dist inct ions preva l ent in soc ie ty, but vent ions. Bec ause of my vis it ing Keshab Chan - never paid any im port ance to it. In fact, in the dra Sen, he stopped com ing here for a month. whole of the Gos pel, very rarely do we find Sri He said to me that Keshab had vi ol ated the so- Ra ma kri sh na men tion ing any body’s caste. cial conv en tions: he dined with the Engl ish, had Once while ask ing Mani Mallick to build a res - marr ied his daught er into ano ther caste, and erv oir in a cer tain vill age where peo ple were had lost his own caste. I said to Capt ain: ‘What suf fer ing from acute wa ter short age, he said do I care for such things? Ke shab chants the smil ingly, ‘You have so much money; what name of God; so I go to him to hear about God.’ will you do with so much wealth? But they say (651) that telis are very cal cul ati ng.’ But in the While des crib ing the na ture of a God-re al ized course of the con ver sa tion he was rep ri - man he says, ‘He bec omes like a child. … All manded by Manilal: ’Sir, you re ferred to a res - pers ons are the same to a child. He has no feel- erv oir. You might as well have con fined your - ing of high and low in re gard to pers ons. So he self to that sug ges tion. Why al lude to the does n’t dis crim i nate about caste. If his mother “oil-man caste” and all that?’ Sri Ra ma kri sh na tells him that a part icu l ar man should be re - laughed. (202) This was a sim ple hu mor ous garded as an el der brother, the child will eat com ment by Sri Ra ma kri sh na, and ev ery body from the same plate with him, though the man was amused. may bel ong to the low caste of a black smith.’ Sim i larly, when Balaram Bose quoted (171) We find in his life also the same type of some brahmanas as sayi ng that Annada Guha same-sight ed ness. When the storm of God-in - was a very egot ist ic man, Sri Ra ma kri sh na tox i ca tion en vel oped him, he for got ev ery - replied, ‘Never lis ten to what the brahmanas thing: his caste, his high so cial po si tion, his say. You know their na ture very well. If a man highly res pected fam ily. All dis tinc tions were does not give them money, they will call him oblit era ted. He ob served, ‘I be came mad. … In bad; on the other hand, if a man is gene ro us to that state I could not obs erve any caste res tric- them, they will call him good. (All laugh.) I tions. The wife of a low-caste man used to know Annada. He is a good man.’ (727) These send me cooked greens and I ate them.’ (548) are the only two places in the Gos pel where we Again, ‘Oh, what moods I passed through! At find Sri Ra ma kri sh na talki ng about some pe- Kamarpukur I said to Chine Shankhari and cul iari t ies of part icu l ar castes; but even there the other chums of my boyh ood days, “Oh, I he does not ap pear to mean of fence. fall at your feet and beg of you to ut ter the name of Hari.” I was about to prost rate mys elf Caste in His Parables bef ore them all. Thereu pon Chine said, “This Sri Ra ma kri sh na was well ac quainted is the first out burst of your di vine love; so you with the life style and work ings of the peo ples don’t see any dis tinct ion bet ween one man of diff er ent castes and pro fes sions. While ex - and an other.”’ (549) As we have ment ioned plaini ng some abs truse philos ophi c al or spiri -

31 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 118 Prabuddha Bharata

A c c ording to S ri R a ma kri sh na c aste Ra ma kri sh na gave is as sig nif i - distinc tions c an be remov ed only through cant as it is in tere sti ng: How can I say yes? I ate curry at bhakti, dev otion to God. Intense lov e for Keshab Sen’s house. Let me tell you God melts away all distinc tions. what once hap pened to me. A man with a long beard brought some ice tual point, he used ex am ples from their here, but I did n’t feel like eat ing it. day-to-day life to make the con cept easy to A lit tle later some one brought me a piece of ice com pre hend. Take for ex am ple the car pen ter from the same man, and I ate it with great reli sh. woman pound ing paddy, an il lus trat ion of You see, caste re stric tions fall away of them- abhy asa yoga, the yoga of pract ice. With one selves. As co co nut and palm trees grow up, the hand she turns the paddy in the hole where branches drop off of them selves. Caste con ven- the pest le of the huski ng-ma chine is pound ing tions drop off like that. But don’t tear them off the paddy; at the same time she nurses the as those fools do. (1023-4) baby and also talks to pro spect ive buy ers. But The last sen tence is very im por tant and shows fif teen parts of her mind out of six teen are how much Sri Ra ma kri sh na was against any - fixed on the pest le, lest it should pound her thing art i fi cial. Noth ing should be done forc - hand. Sim i larly, wood cut ters, peas ants, pot- ibly. If one has not risen above the feel ing of ters, weav ers, wives of gar den ers and fish er - sup er io ri ty or inf er io ri ty reg ardi ng one’s caste men—a ll figu re as ill ust rat ions in his conv er- or so cial po si tion, mere eat ing to gether or sa tions. It is rem arka ble how, in those days of marr yi ng in a diff er ent caste will not help. caste re stric tions and seg re ga tion, he freely Outw ardly one may make a show of equal ity mixed with these peop le of so-called lower but in side there will be ha tred and jeal ousy. castes and obs erved their act iv i ties! Sri Ra ma kri sh na was very much against any type of hyp oc risy. Whate ver co mes in a natu - On Obliterating Caste Distinctions ral way is wel come. If one tears off the scab But what was his view re gard ing caste from a raw wound it causes troub le but when dis tinct ion as such? Did he want the syst em the wound is dry the scab falls off au tom ati - abol ished al tog ether bec ause it was a soc ial cally. It is the same with so cial rules. So cial evil? Or did he jus tify it? In the latt er half of the con ven tions are deep-rooted in our minds. ninet eenth cent ury, at the time of Sri Ra ma kri - When the mind be comes abs o lutely prep ared sh na, soc ial re forms had started taki ng place to acc ept a new idea, only then is so cial change in urb an Ben gal. Raja Rammohan Roy, with pos si ble. Ac cord ing to Sri Ra ma kri sh na caste the help of the Brit ish Gov ern ment, al ready dis tinc tions can be rem oved only through had banned sati. The Brahmo Samaj was bhakti, dev o tion to God. Int ense love for God formed and im age wors hip was de nounced melts away all dis tinct ions. In Sri Ra ma kri sh - by the Brah mos. Their next at tack was on the na’s lan guage: caste syst em. The Brahmos did not be lieve in The caste sys tem can be re moved by one means caste dis tinct ions. They pract ised inter-caste only, and that is the love of God. Lovers of God din ing and mar riage. Though they cons tit uted do not be long to any caste. The mind, body, and a small por tion of the tot al popu la tion, their soul of a man be come pu ri fied through div ine in flu ence on ‘Young Ben gal’ was great. With love. Chaitanya and Nityananda scat tered the them the evils of the caste sys tem were a topic name of Hari to ev ery one, inc lud ing the par iah, of hot dis cus sion. Sri Ra ma kri sh na was once and em braced them all. A brah min witho ut this cat e gor i cally asked by Ashwini Kumar Datta, love is no long er a brah min. And a par iah with ‘Do you ob serve caste?’ The an swer that Sri the love of God is no long er a par iah. (155)

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 32 Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System 119

This, how ever, is the last word about the References caste sys tem. The su pe ri or ity or in fe ri or ity of a 1. Bhagavadgita, 18.42. man does not de pend on his caste or his po si - 2. Shankari Prasad Basu, Vi ve ka nan da O Sama ka- tion in so ci ety. It dep ends upon his ment al pu- lin Bharatvarsha, 7 vols. (Kolkata: Sunil Man- rity. dal, 1-6, 1983; 7, 1988), 3.123. ~ ~ ~ 3. Swami Saradananda, Sri Ra ma kri sh na the Great Mas ter, trans. Swami Jagadananda (Chennai: We have al ready ment ioned that Sri Ra - Sri Ra ma kri sh na Math, 2001), 63-4. ma kris h na was not a so cial re former in the or - 4. M, The Gosp el of Sri Ra ma kri sh na, trans. Swami di nary sense of the term. But the work of such Nikhilananda (Chennai: Sri Ra ma kri sh na Math, great souls is done sil ently. When we look 2002), 564. back, we see what a trem end ous change has 5. Akshay Kumar Sen, Sri Sri Ra ma kri sh na Pun thi al ready taken place in mod ern Ind ia. By their (Kolkata: Udbodhan Off ice, 1953), 32. words and deeds Sri Ra ma kris h na, Sri Ma Sa- 6. Samakalin Bharatvarsha, 3.117-8. ra da Devi and Swami Vi ve kan and a have si - 7. Gos pel, 576. lent ly tried to re move this age-old ha tred based 8. Ibid., 564. on caste dis tinc tions. The Ra ma kri sh na Mis - 9. Nibodhata (Kolkata: Sri Sarada Math, July 2002), sion, which is an em bodi ment of their ideas, is 86. fol low ing the re li gion of ser vice to hu man ity, 10. Gos pel, 591. ir re spec tive of caste, creed or re li gion. ~

ot by matt ed locks, nor by fami ly, nor by birth does one be come a brahmana; but in whom Nthere ex ist both truth and right eous ness—pure is he, a brahmana is he. —Bud dha he true failu re of caste occ urs whene ver it est abl ishes such an asc end ancy of soc ial opin ion Tover the ind i vidu al’s cons cience that his power of ad vance is imp eded and he be comes less of a man, or less rea lly ben efi c ent soc ially. —Sis ter Nivedita

lass war is fore ign to the ess ent ial gen ius of Ind ia, which is cap a ble of evolvi ng com mu nism Con the fund a men tal rights of all on equal just ice. Ramarajya of my dream en sures rights alike of prince and paup er. —Ma hatma Gan dhi

o ideali se the real, which more oft en than not is full of in eq uit ies, is a very self ish thing to Tdo. It is only when a pers on finds a pers onal adv ant age in things as they are, that he tries to ideali se the real. To proc eed to make such an ideal real is nothi ng short of crim i nal. It means perp etu a ti ng ine q uity on the ground that whate ver is sett led is sett led for all times. Such a view is opp osed to all mor ali ty. No soc ie ty with ideal cons cience has ever acc epted it. On the con- trary what ever prog ress in im prov ing the terms of as so ci ated life be tween in di vid u als and classes has been made in the course of his tory, is due ent irely to the rec ogn it ion of the ethi cal doct rine that whate ver is wrongly sett led is never sett led and must be res ett led. —B R Ambedkar

have a dream that my four litt le child ren will one day live in a na tion where they will not be Ijudged by the col our of their skin, but by the con tent of their char ac ter. —Mart in Lut her King Jr

33 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 BioeBthioicest hfoicrs S fcoire Sncceie annced aTnedc hTneoclohgnyo:l oAg yH:indu A HinPdeurs Ppercstipveective

SW AM I JITATM ANANDA

hy an in ter na tional con fer ence on man bei ngs who can bring out the in fi nite po- bioethics? An i mals of Af ri can for ests ten ti al ity of the Christs and Bud dhas hidd en Wdo not need any such con fere nces. ins ide them (’sávidyáyávimuktaye’). Hind u - They live, hap pily or unh app ily, preyi ng on ism con tin u ously as serts, ‘Átmánaó viddhi, one ano ther, surv iv ing on each other’s flesh and Know thy Self.’ This is the goal of hu man evo - blood, liv ing for the sake of eati ng and pro cre- lu tion: not the crea tion of global kill ers, but at ing, for sense grat i fi ca tion and per pet u a tion global sav iours— the Christ-man and the Bud - of spe cies. We hu man bei ngs need to day a dha-man, as Pi erre Tielhard de Chardin global con fer ence on bioethics to crea te a sus- showed in his brill iant book The Phe nom e non of taina ble global civ i li zat ion, in this age when Man. The amoeba evolves into Christ, bec ause the in for ma tion rev o lu tion brought on by the end of hu man evo lu tion is Christogenesis. com puters, the Inter net, sci ence and tech nol - ‘Each soul is po tent ially di vine. The goal ogy has made the world a global vil lage. is to man i fest (re al ize) this Di vin ity within,’ Why do sci ent ists need a syst em of bio- taught Swami Vi ve ka nan da. Ac cord ing to ethics? Be cause ethi cs aims at crea ti ng highe r Hin du ism, there are two great aims of knowl - hum an bei ngs and a higher level of civi li za- edge: ex tern al per fec tion in life through sci - tion. That so ci ety is the most ethi cal which pro - ence and tech nol ogy and in ter nal per fec tion duces the larg est num ber of Christs and Bud- through higher Knowle dge (‘Dve vidye vedit a - dhas; or an Ein stein who turned into a cos mic v ye … parácaiva-apará ca’, Mundaka Upanishad, man; or great scie nt ists, arti sts, painte rs, writ- 1.1.4). Of these two, prim ary imp ort ance has ers and phi los o phers who have in spired hu - been given to the sup e rior Knowl edge (para vid- man bei ngs to reach sup erh um an and super - ya) for the man i fes tat ion of the Christs and sen su al lev els of ex is tence. ‘Civ i li za tion is the Bud dhas within us. man i fes tat ion of that Di vin ity in man,’ said the The sec ond goal of sci ence is to bring wel - great est in ter preter of Hin du ism in mod ern fare to the whole world. I re mem ber talk ing to times, Swami Vi ve ka nan da, in his Harv ard agro-sci en tist Dr Nor man Borlaug, who used Uni ver sity talk of 1896. Civ i li za tion does not to spend sleep less nights in the deserts of Mex - cons ist in maki ng newer mac hines or proj ect- ico to de velop drought- and dis ease-re sis tant ing man as a ‘tool-mak ing ani mal’, as Benja - strains of wheat. He did suc ceed, and thus min Frankl in said. Nor does it lie in the cre- saved one third of hu mani ty from a sure fam- ation of an ‘eco nomic an i mal’, as Alvin Toffler ine pre dicted by world econ o mists, for which said, or just a Freud ian sense-bound an i mal he got the No bel Peace Prize. This is the glory who jumps at ev ery sensate pleas ure prov ided and beauty of sci ence. by to day’s consumerist so ci ety, com mits blun - Hin du ism con tin u ously as serts that hap- ders, suf fers from a sense of guilt and dep res - pi ness lies not in in di vid u al is tic liv ing, how- sion, and then com mits sui cide. ever ex cel lent that may be, but in liv ing a hol is - Sci ence means knowle dge. Knowl edge tic life for the wel fare of ent ire hu man ity, be - for what? Knowl edge for evolv ing higher hu - cause each one of us is in ex tric ab ly conn ected

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 34 Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu Perspective 121 with the uni verse. ‘I con nect the whole uni- The Hindu Concept of Ethics: Dharma verse like a thread con necti ng pearls,’ says Sri In a beau tif ul story from the Brihada ran - Krishna in the Bhagavadgita. Hap pi ness, ful fil - yaka Upanishad we find that even af ter crea ti ng ment and peace come to an in di vid ual or a na - brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaish yas and shudras, tion when they know how to live for the wel - the Crea tor did not feel happy. He fi nally cre - fare of all hu man ity. ‘Bhémaiva suk ham, In fin i- ated the ‘ex cel lent form’ of law and jus tice tude is bliss,’ says the Chandogya Upa nishad called dharma, or right eousn ess. Says the (7.23.1). Upa nishad, ‘There is nothi ng greater than From the per spec tive of Hin du ism the en - dhar ma, right eousn ess or just ice. So even a tire is sue of bioethics re volves round two pri - weak man hopes (to de feat) a strong er man mary quest ions: through right eousn ess, as with the king’s (1) Is sci ence helpi ng to crea te highly help. That right eousn ess is ver ily truth.’ evolved hum an bei ngs or is it only cre ati ng (1.4.14) high ly pow er ful Frankensteins? Ac cord ing to the Manu Smriti, the king (2) Is sci ence cat eri ng to the wel fare of en - must prot ect the count ry through an eff i cient tire hum an ity, or is it only tryi ng to enr ich one adm ini st rat ion. The king who has succ essf ully nat ion, one race or one group at the cost of rooted out vi o lence from his king dom, com - others? mands the high est res pect. (8.386-7) By the If our an swers are in the af fir ma tive and king’s or der, puni sh ment alone gove rns all cre- we ori ent all of our sci ent ific re search, in ves ti - ated be ings. … The whole world is kept in or der ga tions, find ings and dis cov er ies to wards this by puni sh ment meted out to evil-do ers. (7.18, end, we would have fol lowed the uni ver sal 22) The king must pun ish thieves and the laws of bioethics. wicked by lashes, fines or se vere cor po ral pun - Duri ng the succ essf ul ex plo sion of the first ish ment. (8.324) Any ass ass in should be im - atom bomb in Alamogordo, Rob ert Oppen - med i ately killed. (8.350) A truly spiri t ual man hei mer, its maker, spon tan e ously be gan to re - should never be hurt. (8.380-1) cite the hymn from the Gita where God’s ef ful - The Cre ator ass ured hu man ity that he gence is com pared to the ef ful gence of a thou - had cre ated dharma, a sys tem of law or moral sand suns. A few days later a spe cial party was or der by which the weak would be able to get hosted in hon our of the sci ent ists led by Mr jus tice against the strong. The moral or der, or Oppenheimer. He found that the party was a ìta as de scribed in Ve dic Hin du ism, is in vi o la - ‘dis mal flop’. A cool-headed sci ent ist came out ble. Its vi o la tion means self-de struc tion. sud denly and be gan to vomit. ‘The rea ct ion has Macbeth brought de struct ion on him self be - beg un,’ wrote a stu pe fied Oppenheimer.1 His cause he vio lated the moral or der by kill ing mem o ra ble speech af ter the first atomic ex plo - the inn o cent guest Duncan. Acc ord ing to Ve - sion is a cry for mo ral ity and ethi cs for sci en- dic Hin du ism, a guest has to be re spected like tists worki ng in a therm o nuc lear age: ‘But a god just as one’s fa ther, mother and teacher there is an other thing— we are men too; we should be re spected as gods. Swami Vi ve ka- can not for get our de pend ence on our fel low- nand a ext ended this Upanishadic limit, and m en. I mean also our deep moral dep end ence de clared that the new Vedantic Hin du ism … the value of scie nce must lie in the world of must re spect the God in the sin ner, the ig no - men … all roots lie there. There are the stron - rant, the sick and in the have-nots of all coun- gest bonds in the world, stron ger than those tries and climes, ev ery where, ir re spec tive of even that bind us (atomic sci ent ists) to one an- caste, creed or nat ion al ity. It is on this bas is of other, deep est bonds that bind us to our fel - uni ver sal res pect for the Inf i nite in the fin ite, low-men.’2 for God in hu man bei ngs ev eryw here, that the

35 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 122 Prabuddha Bharata new eth ics of hu man civ i li za tion must be who told you not to hiss?’ The snake got the based. mant ra for surv ival in an ant ago n ist ic world. Hin du ism as serts that there is the same This is the Hindu view of ethi cs in pract ic al Con scious ness per vad ing all crea tures, plants life. and even non-livi ng ent it ies. Manu rec om - mended fines for in jur ing small an i mals, cat- Unity, the Basis of Ethics tle, wild quad rup eds and birds. (Manu Smriti, It is from the re al iza tion of the one sin gle 8.296-8). Cons ciousn ess eve ryw here that sages have In 1901, the Ind ian bi ol o gist J C Bose felt their in ex tri ca ble in ter con nec ted ness with dem on strated his ep och-mak ing ex per i- the rest of the uni verse. It is only af ter such re - ments of hum an-like res ponse in meta ls al iza tion that true love, love for othe rs, dawns. before the phys ics sec tion of the Brit ish As so - Then the higher man goes on to live a hol is tic ci a tion at Brad ford. Sci ent ists saw with won - life. Only then are ethi cs and mo ral ity born. der the sim i lar curves obt ained from hu man All eth ics is based on the perc ept ion of the ba- mus cles, meta ls and plants when they were sic unity of life. Vi ve ka nan da ex plained, ‘Why res pond ing to the ef fect of fa tigue, de pres - should you do good to othe rs? Bec ause that is sion and poi son ous drugs. Bose’s dis cov ery the only con di tion of life; thereby you ex pand con clu sively proved that the same be yond your lit tle self; you live and grow. All consciousness pul sates in men, plants and nar row ness, all con trac tion, all self ish ness is even meta ls in var i ous ways. He summed up simp ly slow suic ide.’4 the ess ence of his find ings thus: ‘In many in- The ra tion al world of scie nce is earn estly ves tig at ions on the act ion of forces on mat ter, bent upon seeki ng out the rat ion al ity, the rai- I was amazed to find bound ary lines van ish - son d’etre, of all its phil os o phy and ethi cs. Eth - Hinduism asserts that there is the same ics can not be der ived from the mere sanct ion of any pers on - Consciousness pervading all creatures, age, how ever great and di vine plants and even non-living entities. he may have been. Such an ex- pla na tion of the au thor ity of ing and to dis cover points of con tact emerg- ethi cs ap peals no more to ra tio nal think ers. ing bet ween the livi ng and the non-livi ng.’3 They want some thing more than hum an sanc - tion for eth i cal and moral codes to be bind ing; Can W e Use This Holistic Ethics they want, in the words of Vi ve ka nan da, in Practical life? ‘some eter nal prin ci ple of truth as the sanc tion Sri Ra ma kri sh na, the mod ern saint of of eth ics’. (3.189) Vi ve ka nan da as serts that in Hin du ism, tells us that al though God is pres - or der to reach the real ba sis of mo ral ity or eth - ent in ev ery liv ing be ing like man, ti ger or ics one ‘must have the high est philo soph i cal snake, we cann ot emb race a tig er; we have to and scie nt ific conc ept ions’. (2.355) avoid it and cre ate bar ri ers to pre vent the ti - Two eter nal prin ci ples gov ern ing the uni - ger from taki ng in no cent lives. Again, Ra ma- verse stand out in the Vedanta phi los o phy of kri sh na teaches us that our duty is not to kill Hin du ism: the wrong doer, but take suff i cient steps so (1) The Inf i nite is the backg round be hind that he ref rains from wrong do ing. A snake the fi nite (At man = Brah man). was taught by its guru not to bite othe rs. (2) An es sent ial ho lis tic unity and in ter- When it left bit ing, peo ple be gan to hit it mer - con nect ed ness is al ways there beh ind all ap - ci lessly and left it half-dead. The guru came par ently dis pa rate re al i ties of the uni verse and back and taught the snake, ‘Do not bite. But the life therein (ekam-eva-advitiyam).

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 36 Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu Perspective 123

Eth ics is the foun da tion of any so ci ety or to his int im ate disc ip les: ‘Bahujana hitáya, civ i li za tion. With out eth ics life would be gov- bahuj ana sukháya, lokánukampayá, hitáya, erned by the law of the jun gle. The ends of mo - artháya, su kháya, devamanuøyáîám; for the ral ity are ful filled by the rec og ni tion of one’s good of the many, for the happ i ness of the own Self in oth ers. The Gita de clares, ‘He that many, with com pas sion, for bring ing good ness sees one God ex ist ing ev eryw here can not in - and the good things of life to all, both for the jure ano ther who is his own Self, and so at tains gods and the com mon masses.’ the highe st goal.’ (13.28) In the Sufi mys tic ism of Is lam, the same Vedanta phil os o phy, which is the crown- voice is heard in the ut tera nce ‘ana‘l-haq, I am ing glory of Hin du ism, enc oura ges an ind i vid - God’ in stead of ‘ana’l-ab’d, I am the serv ant of ual to rea l ize the inf i nite God in the fi nite God.’ Jalaluddin Rumi says, ana’l-haqmeans I body, then see His pres ence ev eryw here, and am not, He is all; there is no bei ng but God’s. thus turn his life into a cease less ser vice to his That is ex treme of hum il ity and self-abase ment.5 own Self in oth ers. Dualistic phi los o phies, which make a dis tinc tion bet ween God and Science Brings Us a Single Universe man, cann ot jus tify this ho lis tic vi sion. A rul - of Unbroken W holeness ing Pers onal God prom is ing rew ard in heaven Rel a tiv ity phys ics shows us that ma te rial or pun ish ment in hell for His devo tees can obj ects are not dis tinct ent it ies, but are ins epa - puni sh the vio l at ors of ethi cs and enc oura ge ra bly linked to their en vi ron ment or the so- fel low feeli ng for the be liev ers of the same faith, c alled empty space; prop ert ies of one mat er ial but cann ot ins pire uni ver sal love for man kind at subs tance can only be und er stood in terms of large. Un for tun ately, in some rel i gions, a clan - their int era ct ion with the rest of the world. The nish at ti tude made the kill ing of non-be liev ers uni verse of clas si cal physi cs has been swept re spect able. away by rela t iv ity, whose main hallm ark is uni- The Ten Com mand ments of Mo ses with fi ca tion, join ing to gether space, time, en ergy cat e gor i cal im per a tives like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and mat ter in an in dis sol u ble con tin uum.6 In ‘Thou shalt not bear false wit ness’ and so on the state of sin gu lar ity of blackholes, as Roger form the fun da ment al bas is of eth ics in Se mitic Penr ose calls it, en ergy-matt er and space- time rel i gions. The teach ings of Christ re turned to are all fused into one sin gle en tity, a unity be yond pure ethi cs and re duced the Ten Com mand - space and time.7 ments to two cent ral teachi ngs: If Ein stein in ter con nected time, space, (1) Love the Lord thy God with all thine field and mat ter, Heisenberg’s un cer tainty prin - heart and soul. ci ple broke down for the first time the Car te- (2) Love thy neighb our as thys elf. sian du al ism of mind and mat ter by provi ng Why does a new born baby get so much that the obj ec tive out side in sub atomic phys ics love from her mother? Bec ause a day ear lier is in ex tri ca bly re lated to the sub jec tive di men - the two were one. All ethi cs, all al trui s tic and sion of the sci ent ists. The rea l ity tod ay is no hu man is tic val ues, as op posed to jin go is tic, fun - more ob jec tive but ‘omnijective’ (sub jec tive da ment ali st and dog matic val ues, are based on and ob jec tive) ac cord ing to Mi chael Tal bot in the perc ept ion of this ba sic unity of ex is tence. his book Myst i cism and the New Phys ics. This ho lis tic perc ept ion of life forms the Ilya Prigogine, win ner of the No bel Prize bas is of eth ics in all ma jor rel i gions. In the Jain for Chemistry, writes in the int rod uc tion to his re li gion paropakára (do ing good to othe rs) and book Or der out of Chaos, ‘Pres ent-day re search pa rahita-cintá(think ing of oth ers’ good) are the leads us fur ther and fur ther away from the op - first two valu es for joyf ul liv ing. The same po si tion bet ween man and the natu r al world.’8 path of ho lis tic liv ing was voiced by Bud dha Ac cord ing to him, the main purp ose of his dis -

37 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 124 Prabuddha Bharata cov ery is to show ‘in stead of rup ture and op - mar riage bet ween scie nce and easte rn myst i- po si tion, the grow ing co her ence of our knowl - cal in sights.’11 edge of man and na ture’. ‘We are liv ing in a Echoing the high est Hindu philo soph i cal sin gle uni verse,’ says Prigogine.9 sent im ents, Viv ek an and a de clared that in the Thomas S Kuhn, in one of the most in flu - ul ti mate anal y sis ‘the whole uni verse, men tal ent ial books of mod ern times, The Struct ure of and ma ter ial, will be fused into one. It is the Sci en tific Rev o lu tions, shows how the scie nt ific find ing of unity to wards which we are go- world has turned to a new par ad igm of in ter- ing.’12 Again, he said: con nect ed ness of the en tire uni verse, and an One atom in this univ erse can not move with out in sep a ra ble con nec tion be tween mind and drag ging the whole world along with it. There mat ter. It is the new ho lis tic par ad igm of sci ence. cann ot be any progr ess witho ut the whole world The suc cess ful ex per i men tal dem on stra - fol low ing in the wake, and it is bec om ing eve ry tion of Bell’s the o rem by Da vid Bohm in 1972 day clearer that the sol ut ion of any probl em can proved that twin, paired quan tum part ic les never be att ained on rac ial, or na tional, or nar- somehow com mu ni cate with each other in- row grounds. Ev ery idea has to be come broad stant an eously, even at a space-like dis tance. till it cov ers the whole of this world, ev ery as pi- Da vid Bohm says: ‘Parts … are seen to be in ra tion must go on in creas ing till it has eng ulfed the whole of hum ani ty, nay the whole of life im me di ate con nec tion in which their dy namic 13 re la tion ship de pends in an ir re duc ible way on within its scope. the whole syst em, and ind eed that of a broad - (To be concluded) er sys tem in which they are con tained, ex tend - References ed ul ti mately into the en tire uni verse. Thus, 1. Rob ert Oppenheimer, Let ters and Rec ol lec tions one is led to a new no tion of un bro ken whole - (Cam bridge: Har vard Uni ver sity Press, 1980), ness which de nies the clas si cal idea of anal- 292. ysability of the world sep a rately.’ Bohm writes 2. Ibid., 328. with an other phys i cist, Ba sil Hiley, that the ex - 3. Swami Jitatmananda, Ho lis tic Sci ence and Ve- per i men tal ver i fi ca tion of non-lo cal cau sal ity dan ta (Bom bay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1991), in physi cs ‘leads to a rad i cally new no tion of 1-15. un bro ken whole ness of the uni verse’.10 4. The Comp lete W orks of Swami Vi ve ka nan da, 9 The quan tum rev o lu tion, as Ken Wilber vols. (Calc utta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9, wrote in 1993, has est abl ished a ho lis tic para - 1997), 7.476. digm as the fi nal bas is of sci ence, ins tead of the 5. Claude Alan Stark, God of All (Mas sa chu setts: old dualistic par ad igm, which sep ar ated God Claude Stark, 1974), 77. from men, man from man, mat ter from mind, 6. Amaury de Riencourt, The Eye of Shiva (Wil - and ob vi ously na tion from na tion and re li gion liam Morr ow, 1981), 22. from re li gion. It has in spired and has led to a 7. Ibid., 72. mon ist ic and not monot hei st ic vis ion of un- 8. Ilya Prigogine and Isabella Stengers, Or der der ly ing rea l ity. ‘It is per haps the most out- Out of Chaos (Lond on: Flam ingo, 1986), 16. standi ng cult ural phen ome n on of our time,’ 9. Ibid., 4, 9. writes Amaury de Riencourt in his book The 10. Fred Allen Wolf, Taking the Quan tum Leap (New Eye of Shi va. ‘It might well be that mank ind is York: Harper & Row, 1989), 177. now on the thresho ld of a psyc ho log i cal and 11. The Eye of Shiva, 196-7. phys i o log i cal rev o lu tion of a mag ni tude that 12. Ho lis tic Sci ence and Vedanta, 1-15, 149. will overs hadow all the so cial and po lit i cal rev - 13. CW , 3.269. o lu tions of our cen tury, made poss i ble by the seem ing ly in con gru ous, yet per fectly log i cal,

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 38 A Christian Looks at the Life of Vivekananda

DR S SUNDER DAS

am sure many of you will be fam ili ar with era ted the child ren of Is rael from the clutches the acc ount of the first mira c le that Jes us per- of the Phar aoh of Egypt, no one could ap- Iformed at the wedd ing in the vil lage called proach God ex cept through the int erc ess ion of Cana in Gal i lee. Jes us was a guest at this wed - the priests. The veil rep res ented the par ti tion ding. The wine gave out, to the disc om fi ture of bet ween the comm on peo ple and God. The the mas ter of cer e mo nies. Mary, the mother of ad vent of Je sus changed all that. Any one, poor Je sus, some how felt her son could help. When or rich, sin ner or right eous, could ap proach she asked him to do some thing to prod uce God. It has been so with the Hin dus too. For a wine, he got the serv ants to fill the troughs with very, very long time, the priestly class held the wa ter. The wa ter im me di ately turned into wine. right to int erp ret to the comm on peo ple the The guests asked the mast er of the feast as to pro lific rit u als in her ent in Hindu wor ship. For why he had kept the good wine till the end. It one thing they were the only ones who knew has been said that when Rob ert Browning was San skrit, the lang uage of the sac red Hindu lit - a lit tle boy at school, the teacher had set the er a ture. They were the ed u cated peo ple of the class a com po si tion ent it led ‘The Miracle at time and only they could in form the peop le as Cana’. While the rest of his class mates were to what ritu a ls were req uired to ap pease the busy writi ng fur io usly, lit tle Robe rt just sat de ity. Not only was there a princely liv ing for dream ing. Just be fore the com po si tion was the priests, they also wielded enor mous due to be handed in, he wrote just one sen- power and in flu ence over the lives of in nu- tence: ‘The wa ter saw its Lord and blushed.’ mer a ble peo ple. Need less to say, he got the highe st marks for It could be said with con vic tion that the his ef fort. If I were asked to sum up in one sen- life of Swami Vivekananda was de voted to the tence the ess ence of Swami Vivekananda’s il lit er ate poor peo ple of In dia who were down - work, this is what I would say: ‘He brought the trod den by the ap pli ca tion of the caste sys tem. awaren ess of the di vin ity of man to the com - In that way he also sought to bring the com - mon peo ple all over the world.’ mon peo ple to an ap prec i a tion of how ev ery The cru ci fix ion of Je sus at the in sti ga tion hu man bei ng had the ca pa bil ity to reach the of the chief priest of the Jew ish peo ple had enor - heights of spir i tual awaren ess. Vedanta phi los - mous re per cus sions. Na ture it self re belled o phy holds that di vin ity re sides within each against the inh um an crime: there was pitch and ev ery hum an bei ng and the aim of a suc - dark ness for three hours. When the spirit of Je- cessf ul life is to acq uire not only a knowl edge sus left his body many mo ment ous things of this fact but also to feel this conv ic tion. The happ ened. There was a sev ere earthq uake and veil that Vive ka nan da rent was the bring ing to the graves opened, and peop le who had been the awaren ess of the poor peo ple that they dead for a long time awake ned and went into needed no priest to in terc ede for them and that the city. The most sign if i cant thing that hap- they could ap proach God di rectly witho ut any pened was that the veil of the temp le was rent hu man in ter ven tion. in twain from top to bott om. Many Christ ians Why was Swami Vivekananda cho sen to even to this day do not und er stand the sign if i- take the mes sage of Vedanta to the West? We cance of the torn veil. From the time Mos es lib - have to look at the conc epts of ext rov er sion

39 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 126 Prabuddha Bharata and introversion. The ex trov ert is out ward look - high er in the morni ng and early af tern oon. ing and has the cap aci ty to int era ct act ively with This has seve ral pract ic al imp lic at ions. the world of peo ple; the in tro vert, on the other In tro verted peo ple seem to func tion best in the hand, is in ward look ing and can be said to live early morn ing and fore noon. As the day pro - in a subj ec tive world. Some im port ant res earch gresses, their body tem per a tures and their ef - find ings on introversion are: fi ciency tend to wane, whereas ex tro ver ted · In tro verts have higher lev els of cor ti cal peo ple come alive in the af tern oon and eve - arousal and better abil ity to learn cond i tioned ning. It is in ter est ing to note that in Vedan ta res ponses, and they seem to be better learn ers and Yoga phi los o phies the pre-dawn hours, us ing for mal, di rect teach ing meth ods. re ferred to as brah ma-muhurta, are said to be · They seek stimu l us avoid ance, are cau- the best time for cont emp la tion and study. tious and tend to over-so cial ize. Ex tro verts, on the other hand, have a crav - In trov erts may be seen to show stimu lus ing for stim u la tion; they of ten need change of aver sion in the sense that they alr eady have a act iv ity and rest pauses. They are very susc ep- high cor ti cal arousal, any fur ther stim u la tion tib le to rew ards. They are im pul sive and are bei ng perc eived as un pleasa nt. It is perh aps slower to learn the rules of so ci ety. the introversive char ac ter is tics of the re clu sive The in tro ver sion-ex tro ver sion di chot omy yogi which makes him spend a mas sive slice is of ten over looked by the lay man who thinks of his life ens conced in a cave, obliv i ous to the that ev ery seeker af ter truth is fit to be a san- hus tle and bus tle of eve ryd ay life. nyas in. Many yo gis and holy men have spent a · They are pro cess ori ented and tend to life time try ing to fit their per son al ity into a avoid com pet i tive sit u a tions. An in ter est ing patt ern of ren un ci a tion which is not in their cor re la tion may be drawn with the the ory of na ture. Some of them have had to be con tent karma prom ul gated by the anc ient sages of In - with be ing karma yo gis. Ramakrishna Para- dia which pos tul ates reb irth thous ands or mil - mah amsa, al though he did not put it in these lions of times unt il the ind i vid ual Atm an is words, was nev ert hel ess aware of the fact that ready to merge with the Div ine Con scious - de spite the spir i tual evo lu tion of Swami Vi- ness. Once Swamiji asked Pavhari Baba what vekananda he was cut out to be a mess eng er of the sec ret of succ ess in work was, to which he spir i tua l ity not only to the Weste rn world but rep lied, ‘The means should be loved and cared also to In dia. He had the nec ess ary outg o ing for as if it were the end its elf.’ This is an other na ture to rel ate to peop le of all faiths. One of way of say ing what the Gita teaches: ‘To ac tion the ess ent ial at tribu tes he had was his in nate man has a right; he has no right to the fruits of gift for su perb pub lic re la tions. His tar get pop - ac tion.’ This is in con for mity with the pro cess ul a tion could be rich or poor, white or brown ori en ta tion, that in tro verted In dian cul ture or black, athe ists or be liev ers. He could re late stands for. to all of them with great succ ess. · They have a rich fan tasy life and this Swami Vivekananda had al ways been may be of aid to peo ple of re clu sive hab its. ex trov erted and he would never ac cept any- · They do not usu ally suff er from bored om. thing with out ques tion ing. Very of ten he need- · The thresh old for pain is lower for the in - ed pos i tive proof about ev eryt hing. For ex am - tro verts and theref ore it may be found that ple, dur ing the early days of his dis ci ple ship, it their suf fer ing is dis pro por tion ate to the in ten - was re ported to him that Ramakrishna Para- sity of the pain ful stimuli. mah amsa had re nounced wealth, money in · In tro verts are more sus cep ti ble to pun - part ic ul ar, and that the very con tact with money ish ment. would cause him dis com fort. Vi ve ka nanda · The body tem per a ture of in tro verts is hid a coin un der his guru’s matt ress. Ra ma -

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 40 A Christian Looks at the Life of Vivekananda 127 krishna, when he oc cup ied his bed, jumped up der to par take of the food pre pared by a per - as if in pain. He made a search of the mat tress son of lower caste. Not Swam ij i. He not only when the of fend ing coin was found. This was pract ised what he preached, he also acc epted just one of the tests he subj ected his guru to. ev eryb ody as equal witho ut any hint of Swami Vivekananda’s food pref er ences have patronization. Once when he was in Khetri, caused a great deal of fu rore among his criti cs, Rajasthan, peo ple came to him all day long who have ac cused him of pam peri ng to his with their ques tions. Three days and three bodily needs at the ex pense of spiri tua l ity. nights passed in that way. Swamiji was so en - Some ort hod ox Hin dus even ac cused him of grossed in talk ing about spir i tual matt ers that eat ing for bid den food at the ta ble of in fi dels. he did not even stop to eat. No one even asked He re torted by say ing: ‘Do you mean to say I him whether he wanted to eat or rest. On the am born to live and die as one of those caste- last night when all the vis i tors had left, a poor rid den, su per sti tious, mer ci less, hyp o crit i cal, man came for ward and said lov ingly, ‘Swami- athei s tic cow ards that you only find amongst ji, I have no ticed that for three days you have the edu c ated Hin dus? I hate cow ard ice. I will not even taken a glass of wa ter! This has have nothi ng to do with cow ards.’ Fur ther, ‘I pained me very much.’ Swamiji felt as if God bel ong as much to Ind ia as to the world, no him self had come to suc cour him. He said to humb ug about that. … What count ry has any the man, ‘Will you please give me somet hing spec ial claim on me? Am I any na tion’s slave? to eat?’ The man, a cob bler by trade, said, ‘My … I see a greater power than man, or God, or heart yearns to give you some bread, but how Devil at my back. I re quire no body’s help. I can I? My touch will de file the food. If you per - have been all my life help ing othe rs.’ This is mit I will bring you some coarse flour and dal remi nis cent of what peop le said about Je sus and you can prep are them as you please.’ Swa- when he part ici pated in the soc ial life of his miji said with out hesi tat ion, ‘No, my child, com mun ity, eati ng and drink ing with the give me the bread you have baked. I shall be com mon peop le. It has to be pointed out that happy to eat it.’ At first the poor man was fright - se vere re nun ci a tion is very of ten sought by in - ened bec ause he thought the Mahar aj a would tro verted peo ple whereas the karma yogi, pun ish him if he did as Swamiji asked. But the who is usu ally an ex trov erted man, does not ea gern ess to serve a monk over pow ered his have to re nounce anyt hing but live the life of a fear. He hur riedly went home and re turned house holder bear ing in mind that ev ery act with freshly baked bread, which Swa miji ate that he does is for the di vin ity which res ides with reli sh. It goes to show that in Ind ia there within and which is all around him. This are mill ions of poor peo ple of hum ble ori gin means that a rad i cal at ti tu di nal change has to who are nob le and large-hearte d and that, be brought about. And this is ex actly what given a chance, they would help other peop le. Swami Vivekananda did. It has been re corded But Swami Vivekananda also had to that once he came across an out caste puff ing learn his less on about pur ity and im pur ity the away at his pipe. He craved for a smoke and hard way. Just bef ore his im pend ing de par- req uested a draw from the pipe and en joyed it, ture to Ameri ca, he was inv ited by the Maha- very much to the dis com fi ture of the man, ra ja of Khetri to a mu si cal en ter tain ment in who was hor ri fied that a high caste man which a nautch girl was to sing. Swamiji prompt- should share a pipe with him. ly ref used to go since he was a monk and not Many peo ple talk glibly about the bane of per mit ted to en joy sec u lar plea sures. The untouchability and how ev eryo ne is equal in singer was hurt and sang that he should not God’s eyes. But when it com es to the crunch look upon her sins. In her song she said, ‘Is not many so-called up per class peop le would shud - same-sighte dn ess Thy name?’ Swamiji re al -

41 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 128 Prabuddha Bharata ized that the girl whom so ci ety cond emned as looked at the art if i cial and worldly crowd of im pure was nev er the less a pre cious per son in peop le and con trasted it with his mast er’s pu- the sight of God. Be fore God there is no dis - rity and ren unc i at ion. He ber ated them merc i - tinc tion of good and evil, pure and im pure. lessly for the hyp ocr isy and shal low na ture of Such pairs of op po sites bec ome man i fest only West ern culture. The au di ence was re sent ful when the light of Brah man is ob scured by and many left the meet ing in an ger. How ever, maya. In this con nec tion we have to re mem ber on re turn ing home, Swamiji rec alled what the story of the woman caught in adul tery Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had said about who was brought to Je sus. The pun ish ment tol era nce, and he wept. His mas ter had never among the Jews for adul tery was death by utt ered a word of cond em nat ion against any- ston ing. Je sus said to the hos tile mob, ‘He that one. is with out sin among you, let him first cast a How ever, Swamiji tried hard to ad here to stone at her.’ Soon the crowd dis ap peared, the prin ci ple of see ing God in ev ery liv ing be - each one bei ng con victed in his own heart! ing, which is what his mas ter was at pains to It might be worthw hile to re late an other teach him. His pers onal ideal was that of the of the ex pe ri ences of Je sus, a Jew by birth and sannyasin who dur ing the First War of Ind e - there fore sup posed to be su pe rior to the gen - pend ence (known as the Sepoy Mut iny in the tiles. A publ i can named Levi hosted a very big West), when he was stabbed by a Brit ish sol - feast for Je sus. The scribes and Phar i sees, the dier, said to his murd erer with his dy ing cream of Jewry, took Je sus and his dis ci ples to breath, ‘And thou also art He.’ Then there is task, sayi ng, ‘Why do you eat and drink with the tale of the saint who ran af ter a thief with pub li cans and sin ners?’ Je sus an swered, ‘They the ves sels he had dropped in his ter ror at be - that are whole need not a phys i cian; but they ing dis cov ered. The saint then said, ‘O Lord, I that are sick. I came not to call the righ teous, knew not that Thou wast there! Take them, but sinn ers to rep ent ance.’ they are Thine! Pard on me, Thy child.’ This is One of the outs tand ing gifts Swamiji had rem i nis cent of the story of the bishop’s can dle - was the abil ity to chast ise his friends and dis ci - sticks in which the thief, who was the bishop’s ples with out causi ng of fence, alt hough it was guest, stole his sil ver can dle sticks and tried to not al ways so. His host ess in Amer ica, Miss abs cond with them. The po lice ap pre hended Dut cher, a con sci en tious Meth od ist Chris tian, him with the booty where upon the bishop could not take in with equa nim ity Swami Vi- made the re mark that the silv er was his gift to ve kananda’s rev o lu tion ary ideas. She be came the man. The idea of recognizing an en emy physi cally ill and was not seen at the meeti ngs would have seemed to Swa miji’s mind a proof for a num ber of days. One some times won - of ha tred. ders how Swamiji could be so tactl ess as to of - Swamiji’s rev ere nce for Bud dha was one fend a lady who had bef riended him and who of the pas sions of his life. Sist er Nivedita re - had placed at his dis posal her own large man- lates with con sid era ble feel ing, how one eve - sion, even build ing an ann exe for him to stay. ning Swamiji sat with his dis ci ples rec on - Miss El len Waldo, an other of his dis ci ples, structi ng the story of Siddhartha’s re nun ci a- was once in tears. On bei ng asked why, she re- tion as it must have ap peared to his wife Ya- plied, ‘I seem una ble to please you. Even when sho dhara. On the night of the fatef ul fare well other peop le ann oy you, you scold me for it.’ Prince Siddhartha re turned again and again to He said, ‘I do not know those other peop le the bed side of his sleep ing wife. It was she well enough to scold them. So I come to you. whom he was about to sacr i fice for the sake of Whom can I scold if I can not scold my own?’ the world. That was his strugg le. Then the fi - When Swamiji had to speak in Boston, he nal fare well with that gent le kiss on the foot of

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 42 A Christian Looks at the Life of Vivekananda 129 the princ ess. Duri ng the seven years of the any hum an bei ng is ever un wor thy or un- prince’s ab sence , Yashodhara had lived clad ready to hear the Truth! in the yell ow cloth, eat ing only roots and It is perh aps a mark of the sannyasin that fruits, and had not used a bed. On his re turn as he is not afraid of phys i cal dan gers. Swami Vi - Bud dha, she took the hem of his gar ment ve kananda had to learn this fact perh aps the while he told their son the Truth. When the hard way. The first ex per i ence was when as a child asked, ‘Mother, who is my fa ther?’ her young swami he was purs ued by a band of ans wer was, ‘The lion that passes down the mon keys. He was afraid they would harm street, lo, he is thy fa ther.’ When the lad, at his him. An old sannyasin, who happ ened to be mother’s be hest, asked his fa ther to give him nearby, said to him, ‘Face the brutes.’ This is his in heri tance, he had to ask thrice bef ore what Vivekananda did and the mon keys ran Bud dha turned to Ananda, his dis ci ple, and away. He never for got this less on. Much later said, ‘Give it.’ There upon the dis ci ple threw the when Swamiji was in Eng land, he hap pened gerua cloth over the child. On Ananda’s aski ng to visit a farm in the com pany of an Eng lish - his mas ter whether he should also be stow on man and Miss Mul ler. An enr aged bull Yas hod har a the ochre cloth, Bud dha as sented. charged at the litt le group. The Eng lish man Thus Yashodhara bec ame his dis ci ple. One of ran for his life and reached the safety of a hill. the first things that Swami Vive kananda did Miss Mul ler ran as fast as she could but fell, be - af ter receiving the ochre cloth from his mas ter ing in ca pa ble of fur ther eff ort. Swamiji, see ing was to go to Bodh Gaya and sit un der the great her pred ic a ment, stood in front of her with tree where Bud dha was said to have at tained folded arms. When it neared him, the bull sud - his en light en ment. denly stopped, turned and walked away. One There were many rea sons why Swamiji of the thoughts that had preo c cu pied Swamiji’s was so im pressed by Bud dha. The fact that mind then was the dis tance that the bull Bud dha kept in abeya nce his own att ainm ent would be able to toss him and whether he was of nirvana till all sent ient bei ngs on earth had to die in such a vio lent man ner. It is also on re - att ained that state, app ealed to the sense of fair cord how he, as a young boy, had saved a child play that Swamiji esp oused at all times. The from be ing tram pled un der the hooves of a work that Bud dha did for help ing the poor horse in Cal cutta. peop le, esp ec ially the outc astes, was some- One of the im por tant things that Swamiji thing Swami Vivekananda had al ways done. did duri ng the last few years of his life was To this day, Bud dhists ab hor the exi s tence of this: he paid more att ent ion to peop le do ing the caste sys tem. The very est abl ish ment of the so cial work to raise the liv ing con di tions of the Ramakrishna Mis sion was the cul mi na tion of poor and down trod den. He scoffed at the idea Swami Vivekananda’s de sire to up lift the In - of peo ple look ing for their own sal va tion by dian masses. He be lieved, for in stance, that it aus terit ies and med i tat ion. This is in ac cor- was im por tant to help other peop le even at the dance with his ext rov erted pers ona li ty, which risk of re tard ing his own spir i tual growth. On de ter mined his pref er ence for ac tion rather one oc cas ion he rem arked, ‘Of course I would than cont emp la tion alone. It has to be rem em- com mit a crime and go to hell for ever, if by bered that he was a karma yogi, which is that I could re ally help a hu man bei ng.’ Like symbolized by his or ga ni za tional ca pac ity re- Bud dha he also be lieved that the Truth should sulti ng in the est abl ish ment of the be ac ces si ble to ev ery hu man be ing. He was Ramakrishna Mis sion in In dia and by his fond of giv ing the exa m ple of Ramanuja, who work in Ameri ca and Eng land. The Ramakri- broke his vow of se crecy and pro claimed the shna Mis sion as it is con stit uted now has an sa cred man tra to all. One won ders whether im port ant arm which deals with the upl ift of

43 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 130 Prabuddha Bharata the poor and il lit er ate. How ever, when he was ten about the Mast er’s life: not eng aged strenu ously in his ac tive work, he I have such deep feeli ngs for the Mas ter that it is could med i tate for a long time. It is on re cord im pos si ble for me to write about him for the that in In dia and in the USA he experienced pub lic. If I had writ ten the ar ti cle Max Mul ler nirvikalpa samadhi many times. In this re gard wanted, then I would have proved, quot ing one may say that he is not a typi cal ex am ple of from phil os o phies, the script ures and even the an ex trov erted man. I has ten to add that ev ery holy books of the Christ ians that Ramakrishna was the great est of all proph ets born in the rule has its exc ept ion. It has been said that world. That would have been too much for the when he was a young nov ice un der the wing old man. You have not thought so deeply about of the Pa ra mahamsa, Ramakrishna asked him the Mas ter as I have; hence you could write an what he wanted most in life. Naren, as he was unb i ased ac count that would sati sfy Max Mul - known then, promptly rep lied, ‘To remain al - ler. There fore I asked you to write. ways in sam adhi’. Ramakrishna rem arked, ‘I What ever ex pla na tion Swamiji was able thought you had been born for some thing to of fer in this reg ard rem ains shrouded in mys - greater, my boy.’ This set Swamiji thinki ng. tery. In deed no sat is fac tory ex pla na tion ex ists Thus he stood for work witho ut att achm ent or or is pos si ble. work for im per sonal ends as one of the high est Swamiji had his share of heck lers too. ex pres sions of the rel i gious life. Very soon an Fort un ately, these peop le were not shall ow or der of monks was formed with their faces trouble mak ers but sin cere seek ers af ter truth. set prim ari ly tow ards new forms of civic duty. Once a white-haired phi los o pher said to This was the beg inn ing of the Ramakrishna Swami ji at the end of a lec ture, ‘You have spo - Mis sion. ken splend idly, sir, but you have told us noth- Ev ery thinki ng pers on who reads Swami ing new.’ Swamiji was quick to re ply, ‘Sir, I Vivekananda’s life would be int rigued to find have told you the Truth. That, the Truth, is as that he rarely spoke about his ment or and pre - old as the im mem o rial hills, as old as hum an- cept or in publ ic, es pec ially in Amer ica. One ity, as old as creation, as old as the Great God. won ders why he did not, for in stance, publ i - If I have told you in such words as will make cize the teachi ngs of Ramakrishna Parama- you think, make you live up to your thinki ng, hams a at the Parl ia ment of Re li gions. Sis ter do I not do well in telli ng it?’ Vivekananda Ni vedita had this to say: ‘He never in pub lic was a mas ter of rep ar tee. Once dur ing ques - men tioned his own Mas ter, nor spoke in spe- tion time, a nat ive of Scot land made a snide re - cific terms of any part of Hindu my thol ogy.’ mark by aski ng, ‘What is the dif fer ence be- At one stage Max Mul ler, the orientalist, asked tween a ba boo and a ba boon?’ Swamiji’s in stan- him what he was do ing to make his guru Ra- tan eous rep ly was: ‘Oh, not much, it is like the ma krishna Paramahamsa known to the world. dif fer ence be tween a sot and a Scot— just the At that time Max Mull er was writ ing a bio gr a- dif fer ence of a let ter.’ Alt hough Swamiji was phy of the Mas ter and he enq uired whether Vi- abrupt with fa ce tious, in sin cere peo ple, he vekananada could pro cure some mat er ial for was never known to show the slight est im pa- this endeavour. In stead of di rectly acq ui esc - tience at be ing in terr upted by sin cere seek ers ing to this req uest Swamiji asked a col league, af ter truth, of whom there were many in his namely Swami Sarada nan da, to write down au di ence. the sayi ngs of Sri Rama krishna and the bio - One of the things we have to re mem ber is graphi cal facts of his life. Later Max Mul ler in - that Swami Vivekananda was born end owed corp o rated these in his book Ramakrishna: His with cert ain gifts, one of which was his phe- Life and Say ings. Vive kananda ex plained in the nome n al memo ry and an abil ity to speak in fol low ing words why he him self had not writ - publ ic. Even as a school boy these chara ct eri s -

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 44 A Christian Looks at the Life of Vivekananda 131 tics came to light. At school one day, he was re- the P & O Com pany. Be sides this he also pro - gali ng his class mates with a story. When the vided a robe of or ange silk, an ochre tur ban teacher came into the room and started teach- and a hand some purse. Swamiji en joyed the ing, the child ren were still list eni ng to Na ren - voy age bec ause he could go sight seei ng at var - dra’s story. All this whisp eri ng and ina tt en- i ous ports of call, Col ombo, Sing ap ore, Hong tion to his teach ing enr aged the teacher, who Kong and Yokohama. From Van cou ver in ques tioned his pu pils as to what he was say - Cana da, he trav elled by train to Chi cago. He ing. No one could an swer. But Narendra was ar rived too early for the Par lia ment and did able to re peat word for word what the teacher not have the nec es sary ac cred i ta tion from a had said. This proved that he could att end to well-known in sti tu tion. More over, his funds two things at the same time. Psyc hol o gists will were dwin dling. It is to the credit of Amer i can tell you that it is im pos si ble to do this. How - women that some of the very wealthy ones ever, In di ans have al ways spo ken about some came to his help and ex tended their hos pi tal- gifted peo ple who could have what is called ity to him. Al though he had stage fright in the ashtavadhana, the abili ty to at tend to eight dif - beg in ning, when he did speak to the gath er- fer ent things at the same time! Later on, while ing, his first words, ‘Sis ters and Broth ers of at Belur Math, Swamiji wanted to go through Ameri ca’, drew the peo ple to a standi ng ova - the Encylopaedia Bri tan nica. Af ter pe rus ing tion. What he did was open the eyes of the some of these vol umes for a few days, he could Ameri cans to the mess age of Vedanta. Swami- ac cu rately re mem ber much of the con tents. ji made clear to the peo ple there that unl ike Dur ing the early days of his ex plo rat ions, many other rel i gions, Hin du ism was a tol er- Swami Vive kananda trave lled widely all over ant app roach to life which ad mit ted the di vin - In dia, many a time with out food. His aim was ity of many re li gious leade rs like Je sus, to travel to Kanyakumari. He alw ays pro- Muhammad and othe rs. It is not pos si ble here ceeded alone on these jour neys quot ing the fa- to go into de tails about his mes sage to the mous words of Bud dha: ‘Even as the lion not West but it can be summed up in the words of tremb ling at noises, even as the wind not caught St Paul, ‘And now abideth faith, hope and in a net, even as the lo tus leaf un touched by the love: but the great est of these is love.’ wa ter, so do thou wan der alone like the rhi - noc eros.’ Af ter reach ing Kanyakumari he Some Pithy Sayings of Swamiji wor shipped Devi Kanyaku ma ri in the shrine · ‘It is well to be born in a church, but it is and then swam across the shark-in fested wa - terr i ble to die there.’ ters to med i tate on the rocks where, ac cord ing · ‘What the world wants is char ac ter. The to the Puranas, the Devi had per formed world is in need of those whose life is one burn - tapasya. ing love, selfl ess. That love will make ev ery Any ac count of the life of Vivekananda word tell like thun der bolt. … Awake, awake, can not be comp lete witho ut a narr at ion of what great ones! The world is burn ing with mis ery. happ ened at the Parl ia ment of Re li gions in Can you sleep?’ Chic ago. To start with, the Maharaja of Khetri · ‘Si lence! ye teache rs of the world, and si - was re spon si ble for in tro duc ing two im por - lence! ye prophe ts! Speak Thou alone, O Lord, tant things into the life of Swamiji. It was he unto my soul!’ (In the con text of Thomas a who sugg ested that he take the name of Vive- Kempis’ Im i ta tion of Christ.) kananda, perh aps to emphasize his wis dom · ‘It is a sin even to think of the body.’ and knowl edge. Seco ndly, the prince bought a · ‘It is wrong to man i fest power.’ ~ first-class ticket on the ship SS Pen in su lar of

45 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 ParabrahmaUpaniøad

TRANSLATED BY SW AM I ATM APRIYANANDA fUboK& raútNwrõv{tvfUÀJbT Attainment of purification of mind through karma (selfless action) v½tvt=c{ÑKtu l rfUkal > a;w˜vt=à;Jor;oltu~à;seoJc{ÑK& ô:tltrl aÀJtrh > ltrC†=gfUãXbqrÆot¿Mw std{ÀôJ v ¿mwMwr¹t;wgtoJô:t&, ytnJlegdtnovÀg=rGKtmÇgtrd¿Mw > stdrh;u c{Ñt ôJv¿u rJ˜Kw& mwMw¹tti h¥={ô;wheg- bGhk raàbgbT > ;ôbt”t;whJô:t a;whETdwjJu˜xlrbJ MãKJr;;úJtrl ;à;wJrÅCßg, ;=trn;k rºtdwKef]UÀg Åt- rºt kNútúJrl˜fUMobtvt‘, Òttlvq;k rºtdwKôJÁvk rºtbqr;oÀJk v:] ÂÉJÒttg, lJc{ÑtÏglJdwKtuvu;k ÒttÀJt, lJbt- lrb;k rºt& vwlr¯tdwKef]UÀg mqguoàÅrd¿fUjtôJÁvÀJulifUef]UÀg, yt‘à;fUÀJbrv bÆgu rºthtJÀgo c{ÑrJ˜Kw bnuˆJ hÀJ - b l wmàÆttg, yt‘à;bufUef]UÀg ra=Td{à:tJÅi;d{Âà:k fU] ÀJt, ltÇgtr= c{Ñrcjv{btKk v:] ¢v:] ¢m¹t rJkN r; ;úJ mkc àÆtk rºtdwKtuvu;k rºtbqr;ojGKjÂG;bËgufUÀJbtvt‘, Jtbtkmtr==ÂGKfUxÓà;k rJCtÔg, yt‘ à; d{n mkbu j lbuJk Òtt À Jt bqjbufUbT, ImÀgk bà] bgk rJÒtt;k ôgtÅtathöCKk rJfUthtu ltbÆtugk br] útfUuÀguJ mÀgbT,O… >>5>> 5. There is noth ing (else) other than the five-footed Brah man (paðcapáda-brahm an).1 There are four places [for re al iz ing] the in ner jæva-brahm an con tained within [or con sist ing of] four pádas.2 In the na vel, heart, throat and head there are [the four] states of wak ing, dream ing, deep sleep and turæya.3 [Furt her, the Atm an is to be cont emp lated in so far as the conn ect iv ity goes] in the áha vanæya, gárhapatya, dakøiîa and sabhya fires.4 In the waki ng state [the pres id ing de ity is] Brah má, in the dream state [the dei ty is] Viøîu, in deep sleep [the de ity is] Rudra [and] turæya [the fourth state] is the imm ut ab le (in de struct ib le), of the nat ure of [pure] Cons cious ness.5 Hence, the four states [waki ng, dreami ng, deep sleep and turæya] [may be con ceived of] as a four-fin ger unit meas ure [in terms of which] the enc ir cling thread [is mea sura ble];6 [just as the sac red thread is ninety-six fin ger-breadth units in length, even so the inn er brahmasétra may be con sid ered to be com posed of] ninety-six cate go ries (tattvas) fol low ing an anal o gous di vi sion of the [ex ter nal] thread;7 [sim i lar to the ex tern al sa cred thread tri par tite in com po si tion, even so the in ner brahmasétra is to be] brought to the state of thirty-two cat eg o ries (tattvas) by a three fold [ap pli ca tion] of the three qual i ties (guîas of prakìti);8 [this tri part ite nat ure of the inn er sac red thread] pu ri fied by [di vine] Knowl edge should be re al ized sep a rately as of the na ture of the three guîas [namely, sattva, rajas and tamas] and as the es sence of the triad of gods [the trimértis, namely, Brahmá, Viøîu and Ùiva]; this is to be known as what could be des ig nated as nava-b rah - man9 pos sessed of nine at trib utes; this nine fold mea sure, be ing ren dered into three, each again hav ing the three guîas, should be ident i fied with [and thought of] as the very na ture of the [three] com po nent parts (kalás), [namely] the sun, the moon and fire;10 the first and the last should be ro tated thrice by the mid dle and in quir ingly cont emp lated as the states of bei ng of Brah má, Viøîu and Maheùvara;11 again, the first and the last should be joined to gether in the knot of Con scious ness made into a knot of non-du al ity;12 that which ex tends from the na vel up to the brahmarandhra (at the top of the head) and conn ected sepa r ately with the twenty-seven ta- tt vas,13 pos sessed of the three guîas and dis ting uished by the chara ct eri s tics of the Trin ity (tri- mér tis) should, nev ert hel ess, be unif ied into one; [this inn er brahmasétra should be] con sid ered as [hangi ng from] the left shoul der [and reach ing] up to the right loin; the conj oin ing of the first and the last14 should be un der stood in such a way [that it is clearly per ceived that they have but]

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 46 Parabrahma Upaniøad 133 one [com mon] source; the truth that is clay [bei ng the cause of obj ects made of clay] hav ing been known, [the eff ects in the form of clay ob jects] are seen to be [ill u sory], be ing merely a mass of words (in subs tant ial ver bosi ty), the transf or mat ion [bei ng merely of] names, [while the cause beh ind all this, namely] clay, is alone the Rea l ity (the Truth);15 … (To be continued) Notes 1. Upaniøad Brahmayogin re fers to this paðcapáda-brah man as turæyátæta. In re gard to this turæyátæta pað ca- páda-brah man, there is no avidyá, of the na ture of de lu sion (about ex is tence or non-ex is tence) dif fer ent from It self. 2. There are four places for the rea li zat ion of the inner jæva-brah man re sidi ng in the four pádas con sti tuted of their microcosmic (vyaøôi) and macrocosmic (samaøôi) as pects. Those in the vyaøôi asp ect of the four pádas are viùva, taijasa, prájða and turæya, while those in the samaøôi asp ect of the four pádas are: vi ráj, sétra, bæja and turæya. 3. Al though the Upaniøadic text speaks of the nav el (nábhi) as cor res pondi ng to the waki ng state, Upaniøad Brahmayogin con tends that the eye (netra) is the place for exp er i enci ng the waki ng state, in vok ing the fol low ing ùruti pas sage in sup port of this cont ent ion: ‘Netrasthaó jágaritaó vidyát kaîôhe svapnaó samáviùet; suøuptaó hìdayasthaó tu turæyaó mérdhni saósthitam.’ (Brahmopaniøad, 21) 4. These fires are diff er ent names of the cons ec rated fire oblig a to rily main tained all through his life by a house holder (gìhastha). The áhavanæya fire is a con se crated fire taken from the house holder’s per pet - ual fire, and burns on the east ern side in a sac ri fice; the dakøiîa fire is the sac red fire placed south - wards in a sac ri fice; the gárhapatya fire is the sa cred fire per pet u ally main tained by a house holder. The sabhya is a sa cred fire be lieved to be pres ent in the body. 5. In the pass age that fol lows, in or der to ex pound the brahmasétra (lit er ally, ‘the thread or string of Brah man’), its sim i lar ity with the ex ter nal yajðasétra, the sac red thread worn by the twice-born (dvija), is brought into play and the im ag ery of the ext er nal thread is used with telli ng eff ect in or der to dev elop a pro found ins ight into the true im port of the brahmasétra, which is the int er nal and spir i tual coun ter part of the ex ter nal and ma te rial yajðasétra. At this point Upaniøad Brahmayogin com ments beau ti fully as fol lows: ‘If one holds on to the yajðasétra in the course of [Ve dic] kar mas in this fashi on by con tem plat ing its na ture as brahmasétra, then that kind of karma will lead to cittaùuddhi, or pu ri fi ca - tion of mind.’ The idea is that the at ti tude with which one per forms karma, or ac tion, is re spon si ble for pro duc ing ele v a tion of mind. We should bring brahma-buddhi, that is, the feeli ng and thought of the Di vine, to bear upon all our ac tions and ins trum ents of act ion. Refe re nce may be made to the very first verse of the Æùávásya Upaniøad, which says that all that ex ists should be cov ered by the div ine Con- scious ness or God. Bond age and lib er a tion are es sent ially in the mind and the ment al at ti tudes. This imp or tant mess age ought to be rem emb ered when we study the elabo rate anal ogy of the yajðasétra and the brahmasétra, al though some points of this anal ogy might ap pear some what pe cu liar and in - trigu ing. 6. The pro cess of in ter nal iz ing, in med i ta tive aware ness, the sa cred thread (which a sannyásin disc ards while taki ng the vow of sannyása) is elabo rated here through the well-known Upaniøadic method of numb er anal ogy. The ext er nal sa cred thread usu ally con sists of six strands of cir cu lar loops, each strand ap prox im ately sixt een units long (one unit bei ng taken to be four fing er-breadths in length). Thus the tot al length of the sac red thread works out to 6 loops x 16 units in each loop = 96 units al to - gether. Now the medi t a tive pro cess of int er nali za tion con sists in cont emp lat ing each of the four states (wak ing, dream ing, deep sleep and turæya) as corr es pondi ng to one-fourth part of the unit of meas ure just ment ioned, so that the ent ire sac red thread worn ext ern ally may be thought of as the

47 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 134 Prabuddha Bharata

four-state-unit re peated twenty-four times. Since the numb er 24 corr e sponds to the cos mic prin ci ples (tat tvas) of Sáïkhya phil os o phy, the ninety-six units comp ris ing the sac red thread may be con tem- plated, by numb er anal ogy, as the ninety-six tattvas, that is, 24 x 4— the twenty-four cos mic prin ci ples as ap plied to each of the four states. The meani ng of this int ern ali zat ion programme of medi t at ion seems to be that a sannyásin, be ing an ear nest seeker of lib er a tion, should aban don the ex ter nal and, withd raw ing his mind and senses as much as pos sib le from the ext er nal world, con temp late the ext er nal as a sym bol of the int er nal. His mind would thus alw ays try to live ab sorbed in the int er nal world through a trans cend ent al aware- ness. 7. The div is ion of the ext er nal sa cred thread into ninety-six units and its cor re spon dence with the ninety-sixtattvas have been fairly elabo rately dis cussed above. 8. The same num ber anal ogy as ment ioned above is ex tended to a dif fer ent level of in ter pre ta tion as fol - lows: 32 cos mic prin ci ples (tattvas)— acc ounted for, prob a bly, as the 24 tattvas of Sáïkhya phi los o phy + puruøa (1) + sapta dhátus (7)— in in ter ac tion with each of the three gunas, thus maki ng up 32 x 3 = 96, could be taken as ano ther type of medi t at ion in the pro cess of int ern ali zat ion of the sa cred thread. 9. The nine as pects or modes of Brah man (des ig nated as nava-brah man) are, prob a bly, the five-footed pað ca páda-brah man and the four-footed catuøpáda-brah man. 10. The sun, the moon and fire are the three es sen tial sources of light, by day or by night. The Átman/ Brah man, spo ken of in the Upaniøads as the Light of all lights (jyotiøáó jyotië — Muîõaka Upaniøad, 2.2.9), is of ten medi tated upon in and through these lower man i fest a tions of light. 11. The meani ng of this ‘ro ta tion’ is not quite clear. Per haps it means that the three states of cons cious - ness, namely, wak ing, dream and deep sleep (jágrat, svapna and suøupti), keep rev olv ing in a cy cle, one fol low ing the other like a wheel fixed at the centre and ro tated by mov ing the ‘two’ edges. Also, it may be noted that the Trini ty— Brahmá, Viøîu and Maheùvara— have alr eady been ment ioned as the pre sid ing dei ties of wak ing, dream and deep sleep states, re spec tively. 12. The ex ter nal knot cer em o ni ally tied dur ing the prepa ra tion of the sa cred thread is thought of here as the knot of Cons cious ness leadi ng ult i mately to non-du al ity. In Vedántic ter min olo gy, the mix-up of cit (Con scious ness, or caitanya) and jaõa (matt er), that has ‘someh ow’ taken place on ac count of avidyá or ajðána (ign or ance), is spo ken of as cid-jaõa-granthi (the knot of Cons cious ness and mat ter) and this ‘knot’ is the ess ence of saósára, or in volvem ent of the pure Spirit or Self, which is our true na ture, in the world of matt er . The cutt ing of this knot (much like ‘cutt ing the Gordian knot’) is the meta phori - cal ex pres sion for mukti, or libe ra tion, from the bonda ge of saósára. The Upaniøad here uses the same ima ge ry to highl ight the imp ort ance of the re ali zat ion of non-dual (advaita) Con scious ness. 13. The twenty-seven tattvas per haps mean the twenty-four cos mic prin ci ples (caturvióùati tattvas) to - gether with the three guîas of Sáïkhya. 14. The first and the last could mean jágrat (wak ing) and suøupti (deep sleep), both of which have their foun da tion or source in the tran scen dent turæya state of con scious ness. 15. Cf. Chándyoga Upaniøad, 6.1.4, and Ùaïkara’s com men tary thereon.

Upasana according to Shankaracharya

ed i ta tion (upasana) means app roachi ng the form of the de ity, or the like, as it is pres ented Mby the eul og ist ic port ion of the Vedas rel ati ng to the ob jects of medi t at ion, and conc en- trati ng on it, exc ludi ng all worldly thoughts, till one is com pletely ident if ied with it as with one’s body, conv ent iona lly reg arded as one’s self. Comp are: ‘Bei ng a god, he att ains the gods.’

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 48 Glimpses of Holy Lives

Sadhu Mathuradas

any In di ans think that the age of the Not show ing any fur ther in tere st, Mah- saints is long over, that their coun try endranath turned his at tent ion to his hoo kah. Mno lon ger prod uces saints. How ever, He had only taken a few puffs when, with out the be lief is largely un founded. How does a warn ing, the sadhu tried to grab the pipe from man find a saint if he is not looki ng for one? his hand. Star tled, Mahendranath withd rew One can not walk into a saint, surely! If only his hand just in time, and then, without show - peo ple were gen u inely in ter ested in spir i tual ing surp rise— or any cour tesy to the sadhu— life and des erved holy company, there is no con tin ued with his smok ing. And the sadhu doubt that they would, sooner or later, find sat there looking like a small boy in a sulk. thems elves liv ing with saints. As a mat ter of Af ter some time, Swami Kalyananandaji, fact, there have been many who took the trou- the head of the Sevashrama, ent ered the court - ble to find what they were look ing for. Mahen- yard ac com pa nied by Swami Nischayananda- dranath Datta, Swami Viv ekanan da’s youn- ji. Both of them were dis ci ples of Swami Vive - ger brother, was one such— and he came kananda. The sadhu walked up to them and, across not one but several saints, all of whom at the end of a fairly long con ver sa tion on noth - had att ained to a state so high that to them the ing in par tic u lar, left the place. in junc tions and pro hi bi tions of so ci ety were When the sadhu had gone away, some meani ngl ess. These exa lted souls, emb odi - work ers of the Sevashrama, who had been ments of re li gion and spir i tua l ity, are the ‘salt watchi ng all this from a dis tance, app roached of the earth’. Whether we re al ize it or not, they Mahendranath and asked, ‘Mathuradasji just are the cons cience of our so ci ety. In ord er to wanted a smoke, but why did you re fuse him?’ make it known that such spir i tual gi ants still They sounded as though he had made a very lived and walked the length and breadth of In- grave er ror. But Mahendranath saw things dif - dia, Mahendranath re corded his ex pe ri ences fer ently: how could he, a Ben gali who ate fish in a small Ben gali book, Sadhu-c hatushtay. What and meat, have let a sadhu smoke from a pipe fol lows is a re telli ng of his ac count. he was usi ng? ~ ~ ~ Be that as it may, Mahendranath came to know the iden tity of the sadhu. Mathuradasji Kankhal, March 1924. As Mahendranath was a highly revered monk in Hardwar and sat on a wooden bench in the courty ard of com manded great res pect from Sevashrama Ramakrishna Mis sion Sevashrama en joy ing worke rs. Countl ess sadhus lived in temp les his early morn ing smoke, an old sadhu ar - and mon ast eri es that dotted the holy city of rived and sat down be side him. Even for a Hardwar, and all of them came to the Sev- sadhu, he was quite un kempt: his shock of ashrama for med i cal treatm ent. None of them, grey hair was unt idy and a sparse beard grew how ever, enj oyed the hon our that was ac - on his cheeks. Ex cept for a narr ow kaupina he corded to Mathuradasji. wore nothi ng. Mahendranath looked at the Three or four days later the sadhu again sadhu ques tion ingly and was re warded with a came to the Sevashrama. This time there were toothl ess grin. The sadhu looked quite strong other peop le sit ting in the courty ard smok ing. for his age; he seemed to be a Punjabi. But the sadhu made straight for Mahendra-

49 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 136 Prabuddha Bharata nath. Somet hing in Mahendra nath’s hook ah bushes and dries up in sum mer.’ ‘So he lives in seemed to have cast a spell on him. But Mah- that hut?’ ‘Yes, Mathuradasji sleeps there at endranath’s mann er was still cold and dis tant. night. He does n’t need a bed; the bare floor is Af ter waiti ng for a while, the sadhu made a good enough for him. Why, the hut doesn ’t even long pipe from the stem of a ban ana leaf and, have doors or win dows.’ ‘Then what does he sticki ng it into the hook ah bowl witho ut ask- do in win ter, how does he keep him self warm? ing, beg an to smoke, looki ng at the pipe in- Win ters are so cold here.’ ‘Summ er or win ter, tently all the while. This time also not a word Mathura dasji does n’t seem to feel the dif fer - passed be tween the two. ence. We have never seen him use a shred of Mahendranath watched the sadhu’s be - cloth other than his kaupina, let alone a blan - hav iour mi nutely. He had seen too many sa- ket! He just lies down on the floor and goes to dhus to be eas ily taken in. Most of them were sleep. It does n’t bother him whether it is burn - com mon gos sips, un asham edly money- mind - ing hot or freez ing cold.’ ‘And where does he ed, and not a few were em broil ed in ashrama eat?’ ‘Mathuradasji does n’t go about with a pol i tics and other such con tro ver sies; some begg ing bowl, nor does he eat at almsh ouses were even li ti gious! Mahendra nath would or ashramas. He acc epts only what is of fered have noth ing to do with their ilk. He pre ferred with love and affection.’ Mahendranath was to be alone rather than in such ‘holy’ com pany. im pressed. A few days had passed. Mathuradasji re - W ho Is a Paramahamsa? turned to the Sevashrama once again at mid- Mathuradasji, how ever, was dif fer ent. morn ing and found Mahendranath sit ting on He was en tirely art less, un worldly. There was the bench dragg ing on his hoo kah! This was ab so lutely no at tempt at im press ing oth ers. their third meeti ng. With out a hint of in hi bi - The more Mahendranath ob served him, the tion, Mathuradasji sat next to Mahendranath more Mathuradasji’s child like sim plic ity and reached for the pipe. Mahendranath did stood out. Ev eryt hing about him was so natu - not res ist this time, but wiped the pipe clean ral and yet he seemed strangely unt ouched by be fore Mathuradasji put it to his mouth. The the world. When he was not talk ing, the sadhu ice was brok en. ‘Well, well,’ said Mahendra- sat sil ently, his ser ene gaze fixed on some thing nath, ‘have your smoke, sir. I am an aghori, deep within him self. At such times he looked and so are you. Go ahead, en joy your self.’ de tached from his sur round ings. Then he (Aghoris are a Shaiva sect to whom nothi ng is would ex change a few words with othe rs and hor ri ble. Mah endranath used the term be - go away just as he had come. He walked with a cause he ate fish and meat, and Mathura dasji spring in his step, like a cheer ful boy. was above the no tions of clean li ness and un - ‘Where does this sadhu live?’ Mahendra- clean li ness.) Othe rs joined in: ‘So Mathura- nath en quired of some young men at the Sev- dasji got his hoo kah at last! Carry on, have a ashrama. ‘Near Satikund,’ they re plied. ‘There nice time.’ But Mathu radasji was in no mood is an aband oned hut at the edge of the lake.’ for talk. He bus ied him self with the pipe, jig - ‘Where is Satikund?’ ‘You have to cross the gling his knees as he sat on the bench. Aft er small ca nal be hind the ashrama and go be - sev eral long puffs, his mouth split in a broad yond the large patch of jun gle on the other smile and he looked as happy as a boy who side. It is quite a dis tance from here. The place had won a bet. When he had sat is fied him self is as in ac ces si ble as it is in hos pi ta ble, the whole thor oughly, Mathura dasji rose to his feet and area over grown with thick for est and tan gled walked away. veg et at ion. Even the lake is rimmed with thorny (To be continued)

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 50 & Reviews &

For review in PRABUDDHA BHARATA publishers need to send two copies of their latest publications.

Phot og raphs of Swami Viv ek an and a. cre ates a res o nance, a spandana that sets in mo tion a Compiled and res earched by memb ers of the con tem pla tive rich ness rarely seen in or di nary vi - Ve dan ta So ci ety of North ern Cal i for nia. Sri sual texts. Ra ma kri sh na Math, 16 Ra ma kri sh na If this ap pears a rom ant ic im pres sion, re call what Paul Capanigro, the cel e brated mas ter of land scape Math Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004. pho tog ra phy, says: ‘For me pho tog ra phy pro vides E-mail: [email protected]. 2002. xvii + 286 an int er sec tion of time, space, light, and ess ent ial pp. Rs 200. stance. One needs to be still enough, ob ser vant his is an inv alu able vol ume which we owe to the enough and aware enough to reco gn ize the life of Tded i cated, me tic u lous re search of the mem bers the mat er ial, to be able to hear through the eyes. of the Vedanta So ci ety of North ern Cal i for nia. ‘The Clar ity of pro cess and simp lic ity of pur pose are pur pose of this’ al bum, say the comp ile rs, ‘is three- com pro mised by the heat of int ell ect. But once I fold: one, to serve as a vis ual medi t at ion on one of have achieved this com mu nion, I can hear the voice the great est spir it ual teach ers who ever lived; two, of the print as it forces its way through ideas and to pres ent chro nol og ic ally all the known pho to - ma te ri als.’ (Pa rab ola, iss ue on ‘Truth and Il lu sion’, graphs of Swami Vi ve ka nan da ac com pa nied by Wint er 2003, 61) what ever his tor i cal back ground is avail able; and, This mag nif i cent al bum is a glow ing tes ti mony three, to port ray the tenor of Swa mi ji’s life dur ing to the re sponses and rec ep tion, cont ent and com po - the time that the phot o graphs were taken through sit ion of pho to graphs as iden ti fied by Paul Capa ni - brief bio graph ic al sketches of him and through his gro. Ar ranged in five sec tions— Sec tion One: In dia own words.’ 1886-1893, Sec tion Two: The West, 1893-1896, Sec - The res ult is a vi su ally amaz ing and int er i orly tion Three: Ind ia 1897-1899, Sect ion Four: The West, ill um in ati ng coll ect ion of the most maj est ic figu re 1899-1900 and Sect ion Five: Ind ia, 1900-1901— each that has ever sub jected his lum in ous form to the hu - sec tion has a nar ra tive, quo ta tions from Swa mi ji and man eye see ing through the tech nol ogy of a lens. back ground con cern ing the pho to graph(s). The al - Ho ly Mother once ob served reg ard ing the Great bum is a com pre hens ive col lec tion that pro vides, Mas ter get ting pho to graphed: ‘In car na tions of God both for the cul tural his to rian and the dev o tee, rare have app eared on earth again and again; but only spec i mens of Swa mi ji’s var ied and var ieg ated the peo ple of the pres ent age have been int el li gent ‘moods’ and mo ments. enough to in vent a new de vice for re cordi ng and The first thing that strikes one is the imm ense pre serv ing their like ness— the cam era.’ In deed, one va ri ety: the very first phot o graph of ‘this shore less can, looki ng at this coll ect ion, even say that the arte- sea of rad ia nt knowle dge’ evokes a state of un - fact of a came ra is te leo log ic al, ris ing to the full stat- shakea ble poise and strength that is still nas cent. ure of its po ten ti al i ties when a lu mi nous be ing like With a lo tus pos ture and the torso draped with a Swa mij i faces it. If ‘writ ing with light’ is the root typ ic al dhoti-like cloth, the photo prese nts obv i- meani ng of a photo, then where can one find a more ously the light hidi ng und er a bushel. By the time en chant ing and el e vat ing fig ure to ‘write’ about we reach phot o graph 8, the stand ing figu re with a than Swa mi ji? staff and ochre robes is sig nifi cantly re vel a tory of We are so acc ust omed to verb al texts that we what is to man i fest it self in the years to come. If one by pass the fact that vi sual texts have a dif fer ent di- were inc lined, one way to con temp late this vol ume mens ion of re cep tion, and ab sorp tion is of ten a by - would be to sim ply gaze into the eyes of Swam ij i as passed fact. Here is a vol ume that tran scends even a pro gres sive unf oldi ng of that inn er fire, that ‘burn - the vi sual and evokes the vi sion ary eye. Ev ery photo ing, roar ing fire, cons umi ng all imp u ri ties to ashes!’

51 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 138 Prabuddha Bharata

To re al ize the uniquen ess of Swam ij i is to see phot o - the blend ing of the eter nal and the tem po ral’. This graphs (14, for ins tance) in which he app ears with is, in deed, the se cret of the great im pact of this vol- othe rs. His ca sual ap pear ance sets him apart from ume which is fasc ina tingly re vel a tory and com pul - the rest, for Swa mi ji shows a poise, a grace and sively, vib rantly vi sual. (Per haps, all the more so above all, a le o nine strength that stare you in the since it is in black and white!) face! Even look at the way Swa mi ji places his hands! Dr M Sivaramkrishna Per haps, one who is an ade pt in mudras may find Former Professor and Head, Department of English mean ing and sig nif i cance usu ally un avail able to Osmania University, Hyderabad ca sual onl ooke rs of pho tos! See the grace of the folded hands in phot os like 21, 23 and 25. But quite oft en one not ices— if I can phrase my Phi los o phies of Com mu ni ca tion and re sponses ad e quately— an Olympian de tach ment M ed ia Ethi cs: Theo ry, Con cepts and Em- in Swa mi ji that is odd con side r ing his ext raord i- pir i cal Is sues. Kiran R N. BR Pub lishing nary warmth and love. This is best il lus trated (for Corp or at ion, 3779 1st Floor, Kanhaiya Na- me) in photo 80 taken duri ng the ‘great summ er’ of gar, Tri Nagar, Delhi 110 035. E-mail: brpcltd 1899 at Ridgl ey Manor where Swa mi ji spent ten @del2.vsnl.net.in. 2000. xxxiv + 342 pp. Rs weeks. Swa mi ji is seen sitt ing in photo 80 with the 750. face slightly low ered(?) and eyes closed(?). One gets the imp res sion that he was imm ersed in some- ivi ng bei ngs sust ain thems elves by comm un ic a - thing like an unc harted sea of con scious ness where Ltion. Like the urge for food, com mu nic a tion is few ven ture! One won ders whether he is the same inh ere nt in all bei ngs. The quest ions how and why per son who ap pears so gre gar io us and burst ing with we com mu ni cate have en gaged phi los o phers the ‘party spirit’ that marks some phot o graphs. Per - down the ages. Kiran has done a trem end ous job in haps, the exp res sion that ap pears on the face is eval u at ing the ma jor West ern and East ern phi los o - some thing that Capanigro calls ‘hear ing through’ phies of com mu ni ca tion with em pir i cal ver i fi ca - (here, the closed) ‘eyes’. tion. Sim i larly, the im pres sion that ap pears of Swa- It is said that com mu nic a tion is cul ture and cul - mi ji in pho tog raphs 73 and 74 (74 faci ng the most ture is com mun ic a tion. With the grow ing imp or - cel e brated of Swa mi ji’s po ems ‘Kali the Mother’) is, tance of in for ma tion and de vel op ment of tech nol- in deed, like the print, ‘shad owy’! Did the spirit of ogy, comm un ic at ion has domi n ated the prese nt Kali blot out the light so that we have only a faint world but witho ut leavi ng any lasti ng imp act; rather im print? Is Swa mi ji gaz ing into the ter ri fyi ng but it is more inv olved with the frivo lous and the sens a - dy namic emp ti ness that hov ers on the ho ri zon as tional. We need to corr ectly ap ply the great ideas and one be gins to ‘dare to love mis ery’, the sor row that prin ci ples be hind com mu ni ca tion to make it more sor row is? But then, there are pho tos where Swa mi - ef fec tive. ji smiles dazzlingly and dis arm ingly but with a Di vided into three parts, this book is based on glint of amused tol er ance, ind eed ac cep tance, of the aut hor’s in ter views with a sel ect sam ple of me- hum an folly stem ming from Mother’s Cos mic Play! dia peo ple. The first part disc usses the var io us phi- (See phot os 83, 88, 90 and 103). Again, some phot os los o phies of com mu ni ca tion like prag ma tism, ex is- ac quire a ra dia nt dis tinc tion and grace by sim ply ten tial ism, her me neu tics, the pre-re flec tive and the the shock of his hair! I find pho to graph 91 ir re sist - four theo ries of the press. The sec ond part gives the ible: the hair is wavy, thick and lush, parted in the the o ret i cal per spec tives on val ues and value sys - midd le, the eyes gazi ng steadily, the hands folded, tems that guide mass comm un ic a tion. The third with three fin gers of the right hand set off against part is ‘Value Syst ems and Ethi c al Di lemmas: Em- the ‘dark shade’ of the ‘coat’ Swa mi ji is wear ing. For pir i cal Is sues in Print and Elect ronic Me dia’. The the same rea son, I find phot og raph 104, if one can rel ev ant figu res and ta bles are a great help in clari - put it that way, very cute. fy ing things. In short, as Re vered Swami Ranganathanandaji Most peo ple are pas sive and gulli ble while the puts it in his ill u min at ing ‘Pref ace’, ‘the qual ity of the med ia, both print and elec tronic, are proactive. This eter nal sat u rates’ the pho to graphs. As such the al - book will be ex tremely use ful to peo ple in the print bum is ‘a vivid, vi sual feast— get ting a glimpse into and elec tronic me dia. Be sides its rel ev ance to the

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 52 Reviews 139 med ia pro fess ion, the book can greatly in flue nce of the great Acharyas hav ing be come out dated! The the masses and mould fut ure ac tion. The aut hor ex- age-old truths of the Upanishads and the Gita may plores the valu es, bia ses and princ i ples that gove rn ap pear to have be come irr el ev ant, but the fact re - me dia own er ship, re port ing, re spon si bil ity, com mit - mains that Truth is eter nal and will never bec ome ment and cul pa bil ity. stale or out dated. Peo ple whose pro fess ions hinge on comm un i- In the book un der re view, the au thor has given ca tion, like teach ers, law yers, doc tors, ex ec u tives and an int ro duc tion which inc ludes com ments on ‘the pol it ic ians, will find this book very usef ul in und er - peo ple of an cient In dia, the Hindu con cept of God, stand ing the phi los o phy be hind com mu ni ca tion and idol wor ship, the batt le of the Mahabharata and the be com ing better com mu ni ca tors. Gita’. But the main book is a chapt er-wise Engl ish The aut hor is a lec turer in com mun ic a tion and transl at ion of each verse. In each chapt er the aut hor jour nal ism at Sri Padmavathi Mahila Uni ver sity, Ti - has int ro duced its subj ect mat ter bef ore tak ing up ru pati. She was also a UGC re search fel low at the De - the trans la tion. Cer tain verses have been grouped part ment of Studies in Phil os o phy, Bangalore Uni - to gether for trans la tion. ver sity. Her cre dent ials and list of re search pa pers An other ad di tion to the ex ist ing cor pus of Gita are im pres sive. She has done well in rec ord ing the trans la tions. great strides of Indian cul ture and its con tri bu tion Dr C S Shah (late) to world civ i li za tion, made pos si ble by San skrit, Aurangabad which is un par al leled as a ve hi cle for com mu ni ca - tion. Re li gious Re viv al ism as Na tion al ist Dis- The first of its kind, the prese nt work should course: Swami Vi ve ka nan da and New play a sig nif i cant role in fur ther ing cul ture-spe cific Hin du ism in Nine teenth-Cen tury Ben- re search in the field of com mun ic a tion. gal. Shamita Basu. Ox ford Uni ver sity Press, Swami Satyamayananda YMCA Li brary Build ing, Jai Singh Road, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata New Delhi 110 001. E-mail: or ders@oupin. com. 2002. xi + 213 pp. Rs 525. SreemadBhagwadGeeta. Debabrata Bose. t a time when it is fash iona ble to con sider Vi ve - Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kulapati Mun- Aka nan da as an icon or re strict him to a canon shi Marg, Mumbai 400 007. 2001. E-mail: for gett ing his thoughts and ins ights, the prese nt [email protected]. xxiii + 115 pp. volu me is welc ome. Its well-res earched and clearly Rs 100. doc u mented struc ture takes Vi ve ka nan da’s cont ri- bu tions quite ser i ously. ‘Mo der nity’ and its pres up- he Gita still ins pires many a scholar to write po sit ions are the framew ork the au thor uses with Tabout it, transl ate it or comm ent upon it. It still an ac cent on re cent the o ries of rel ated so cial ins pires sadhakas to un der take spir i tual dis ci plines change. This is claimed as ‘the first at tempt of its based upon its teach ings. The Gita is the knowle dge kind’. The ba sic aim is to ‘read the text of Vi ve ka- of the Upanishads in a con densed form as told to nan da’s neo-Hind ui sm as an at tempt to con struct hum ani ty by Lord Krishna through Arjuna. the unity, hist ory, mor als and the dest iny of’ the na - What in spired Debabrata Bose to transl ate the tional self. Gita into mod ern Eng lish? In the pref ace, he says Shamita Basu traces her ar gum ent by emp ha- that the reas on for trans lat ing the book was bec ause siz ing the sign ifi c ance of the hist ory of Vi ve ka nan- his niece had not come across a sat isf ac tory Engl ish da’s life be fore he went to the Par lia ment of Re li - trans la tion and com men tary on the Gita. Dis - gions. This is seen as ‘the con text of Vi ve ka nan da’s courses, or bha sh yas, writ ten by Shankaracharya con ver sion from a Brahmo ra tion ali st to a Hindu and Ramanu ja char ya are, ac cord ing to Bose, ‘out - na tion al ist’. More over, the swami’s views on Hin - stand ing and in deed pre-em i nent. But they were dui sm are treated ‘as a doc u ment, and his ap pear - writ ten many hun dred years ago. The world has ance in Ameri ca as a form of performative utt er- evolved much since then. There are many learned ance’. mode rn comm ent ari es.’ Given this kind of app roach, it is to be ex pected One is not con vinced about the com men tar ies that the book steers clear of the many and oft en ster-

53 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 140 Prabuddha Bharata ile disc us sions about what is na tion al ism and its ve ka nan da did bec ause, as the au thor rightly says, mani f est or la tent forms. She rightly em pha sizes a he avoided ‘of fer ing any ro man tic cri tique of de vel - cru cial el em ent which many rec ent stud ies (spe- op ment and mod er nity’ and emp ha sized the ‘ult i - cially the ones by Amiya Sen and Indira Chow dhu - mate lib er a tion of the spirit through self less ac tion ri) ign ore or at best dis miss with tau to log i cal ar gu- for hu man ity’. But, dif fer ing from the au thor, one ments. In cont rast, the au thor as serts una m big u- can say that this is valid not only for a co lo nial so ci - ously the fact that ‘na tiona l ism, to Vi ve ka nan da, ety but for hum ani ty as a whole, whate ver the con- was an act of self-rev el at ion, a go ing back to the ori - cep tions of Enl ighte nm ent. This asp ect needs fur- gin of this Hindu self, and a Hind ui sm ris ing to ther att ent ion in a guarded and cau tious way with- self-con scious ness’. Ind eed, she notes that in the out de i fy ing or de fy ing the con tri bu tion of this great subs eq uent nat iona li st strugg le ‘those who adopt - ar chi tect of mod ern In dia. The book needs to be ed the rel i gious id iom and rose in the de fense of read by all those who are in ter ested in nat iona l ism Hin du ism of ten bor rowed from Vi ve ka nan da this at this cruc ial mom ent. One may diff er or cont ro- gi gan tic con cep tion of Hin du ism as the cus to dian vert a few points, but the study is marked by rare of univ er sal enl ighte nm ent’. This is seen as ‘a ge ne- bal ance of ac a demic neu tral ity and per sonal per- al ogi c al acc ount of this univ ers al Hind ui sm’. At the spec tives. same time, as an ac a demic she is cau tious in not at - Dr M Sivaramkrishna tempti ng to ‘say anyt hing meani ngf ul about the au- then tic ity of Vi ve ka nan da’s Hind ui sm’, or to what ext ent ‘he foll owed clas si cal texts, trea tises and doc- trines’. Sree Satyanáráyana SwámiVrata Kal- From this point of view, the chapt er on ‘The pam. Kalluri Suryanarayana. Sankhyayana Uni ver sal iza tion of Hin du ism’ vis-à-vis the con - Vidya Parishat, 2-12-34 Annapurna Col - struct ion of the na tion seems to me a very bala nced ony, Uppal, Hyderabad 500 039. 2002. viii and com pre hens ive ap proach. In a cli mate when + 147 pp. Rs 108. both the sec u lar ists and the re viva l ists beat the drums of their own uni lat eral the ses about Vi ve ka- he wor ship of Lord Satyanarayana is very nan da, it is hearte ni ng to see some body who writes Twidely prac tised in In dia and even in for eign with hone sty and int egr ity avoidi ng blat ant gene r - lands with a size able Hindu pop u la tion. The orig i - al iza tions. The two im bal ances of ei ther san i tiz ing nal vrata is des cribed in the ‘Reva Khanda’ of the or sanc ti fy ing a re li gious fig ure are avoided. Even Skanda Purana, which is one of the eight een chief when very int ri cate ar eas such as rea son and rit ual Puranas. in Vi ve ka nan da are dis cussed, there is an at tempt Though there is noth ing new about the con - to pres ent one’s pers pec tive witho ut mak ing it too cepts con tained in the book un der re view— scores sub jec tive. Ref reshi ngly, the aut hor is aware of but of books in vir tu ally ev ery In dian ver nac u lar have not over awed by the schol ars in the field such as Su- been publ ished— the aut hor has to be comp li - mit Sarkar. In this reg ard the au thor’s study of en - mented for its sheer exhaustiveness and met ic u lous light enm ent and the place of sci ence, eth ics and ad her ence to the Ved ic an gle of Satyanarayana phil os o phy seems to me to open up are as for fur - wor ship. ther study spec ially in the light of the comm on The book beg ins with an enum era tion of the charge that Hin dui sm does not have ethi cs as such. cus toms be hind the wor ship, its sig nif i cance and The only point one can make about this is that the the ben e fits that ac crue from it. Then co mes a rather disc us sion could have been more ac ces si ble to the lengthy list of ar ti cles re quired for the vrata, a list gen eral reader who is in ter ested in Vi ve ka nan da, long enough to dis cour age even peo ple of mod er - but is put off by the spe cial ist ac a demic vo cab u lary. ate means! This is fol lowed by the ac tual San skrit ‘Re fresh ing rather than seg re gat ing the an cient text along with the Engl ish trans la tion. The last so ci ety from the rest of the world,’ says the aut hor, chapt er of the book con tains the Satyanarayana ‘Vi ve ka nan da’s nat iona l ism sought to ens ure that a Sahasranama. form of En light en ment was ush ered in through the It is sur pris ing that the aut hor has not inc luded mod ern use of Hindu re li gion which could en ter the arati hymn, for no wor ship is con cluded with- into a dia l ogue with Weste rn rat ion ali sm.’ This Vi- out the mand at ory arati. But for this one draw back

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 54 Reviews 141 the book is fairly com plete. lent and div ine pro to type of the dyn amic pos si bil - ity within each livi ng bei ng. … For the one half of a Santosh Kumar Sharma Kharagpur cent ury that he oc cu pied in this reg ion of mor tal be - ings, his ent ire per son and his pers onal life was ul ti - mately a most as tound ing jour ney and inn ate dis- The M ir age and the M irr or. Rich ard C cov ery of the God dess Ex pe ri ence in the shape of Pres cott. 1st Books Li brary, 2511 West 3rd Kali.’ Street, Suite #1, Bloomington, IN 47404, The aut hor also ex plores women’s role in USA. 1998. xix + 210 pp. Price not men- Hindu cul ture through myth o log i cal ide ol o gies tioned. prev a lent in Hin du ism which have, ac cord ing to him, wed ded them ‘to be good moth ers who, for ex - In her ent So lu tions to Spir i tual Ob - am ple, must care for and feed the naughty boy- scurations. Richa rd C Prescott. 1st Books king Krishna, and that their sole pur pose and iden- Li brary. 1999. xxxiv + 524 pp. Price not tity is to bring forth the boy-king. … These idea ls men tioned. have cre ated the his tor i cal sit u a tion of a cul tur ally caged lion.’ (103) hese two books by Richa rd Prescott are an at - At some places, the books ex plain Ra ma kri sh- Ttempt to ex plore, und er stand and ex plain a na’s prayers (103) and at oth ers, vi sions and in ci- wide range of spir it ual top ics from dif fer ent ang les. dents re lated to Sri Ra ma kri sh na. In fact, many of It enc om passes a large gamut of ideas and is sues, the Hindu ideas of cons cious ness, cos mic moral of ten trav el ling through un known ter ri to ries, and princ ip le, mothe rh ood of God and so on have been tries to un cover the hidd en meani ngs, fin ally open- com mented upon. ing up some ins ight here and there. Obv io usly the The au thor makes co pi ous ref er ences to Bud - au thor is a keen stu dent and dev o tee of Sri Ra ma - dhist conc epts and tra dit ions, though he is not very kri sh na, try ing to com pre hend Sri Ra ma kri sh na, clear and prec ise about what he wants to say (In her - his mys ti cal ex pe ri ences, his ref er ences to Ve dantic ent So lu tions to Spir i tual Obscurations, 164). He and Tantric conc epts of re al ity, and so on. The au - speaks of his dream ex per i ences as also some spir i- thor also tries to weave in Bud dhist teachi ngs and tual vi sions and ima g er ies which are rather dif fic ult Yogic tene ts into his exp la nat ions. for a comm oner to dec ip her. But unf or tu nately, the aut hor is not very fo - A lit tle more caref ul copy-ed it ing of the text cused as to whom he is ad dress ing his writ ing to. Is (cap i tal iza tions, ital ics, foot notes on San skrit and it to a stu dent of Vedanta? Then the per spec tive is Budd hist terms, etc) will add to the util ity of the unc lear and the ex pla nat ions mixed up. Or is it to a book. spir i tual as pi rant? Though he does re fer to his ex - Monastic Sojourner per i ences in the light of Sri Ra ma kri shn a’s teach - ings, no syst ema tic exp os it ion from a spiri t ual standp oint has been att empted. Book Received The books are at the most an endeavour of a Ind ia and ‘The Dedi c ated’: To wards the highly cur i ous West ern mind to dec ode cer tain Ve- dantic, Tantric, Yogic and Bud dhist term i nol o gies, Rise of a Na tion. Mamata Ray and Anil Ba - vis-à-vis Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s mys ti cal ex pe ri ences. ran Ray. Manu script In dia, 166/3 SNN ‘In my spiri t ual work’, says Prescott (Mi rage and Gan guly Road, How rah 711 104. 2003. 336 Mir ror, 102), ‘I see Sri Ra ma kri sh na as a most ex cel- pp. Rs 320.

iven the sort of pract ic al idea li sm that Nivedita out lines for Ind ia, Ind ia can achieve ad e - Gquate, if nor perf ect, int eg rat ion as a nat ion and take gia nt steps in all spheres of life—so- cial, po liti cal, moral, mat er ial and int ell ect ual—and havi ng thus ‘arisen’ she can use the united strength of a res urg ent nat ion tow ards achievi ng a world ord er based on the ess ent ial onen ess of hum an ity. —from Ind ia and ‘The Dedi c ated’

55 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 Reports

New M ath Centres Thanks to en thu si as tic pub lic re sponse and in - Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Mekhliganj, volve ment, the meet ings and cul tural events which had been a sub-centre of the una f fil i - or ga nized all along the route were a grand ated Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Cooch Behar, succ ess. At eve ry place the ratha, led by 3 was taken over by the Ramakrishna Math in monks and 11 vol unt eers, was rec eived with October 2004. It has been made a sub-centre of aus pi cious mu sic and flower gar lands, and Ramakrishna Math, Cooch Behar, and re- hund reds of peop le, from stu dents to dig ni tar - named Ramakrishna M ath, M ekhliganj. Its ies, att ended the meeti ngs that fol lowed. address is: Ramakrishna Math, Mekhliganj, 60,000 copi es of Sara da Devi Suk ti Sudha, a Dt Cooch Behar, West Bengal 735304 (Phone: book let publ ished spe cially for the oc ca sion, 03584-255272). were given away, apart from 15,000 cop ies of 3 A new branch cent re of the Ramakrishna other tit les; 60,000 pict ure postc ards con tain- Math came into bei ng in Bindweide, Ger- ing a beau ti ful photo and say ings of Holy many, in No vem ber. Its ad dress is: Vedanta- Mother were also dis trib uted. Gesellschaft e.V., Bindweide 2, D-57520, Stein- A con ven tion of the of fice-bear ers of the e bach/Sieg, Germ any (Phone: 49-2747- 930493; Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Bhava Prachar Fax: 49-2747-930494). Swami Banesha nandaji Par ishads was held at Belur M ath on 29 and has been app ointed head of the cent re. 30 Oc tob er to dis cuss var i ous as pects of Holy Mother’s 150th birth an ni ver sary cel e bra tions DurgaPuja be ing or ga nized by dif fer ent un af fil i ated cen - Durga Puja was cel eb rated at Belur M ath tres un der the Parishads, and to guide and from 20 to 23 Oc tob er 2004 with sol em nity and help them to take up some foll ow-up prog - joy. Tens of thou sands of dev o tees thronged rammes for women’s wel fare. The con ven tion the prec incts of the Math on all four days to re - was ad dressed by se nior monks of the Ra ma - ceive the bless ings of the Di vine Mother. The krishna Or der. Kumari Puja held on the 21st drew huge crowds as usual. Cooked pra sad was served to News from Branch Centres about 74,000 dev o tees on Puja days. The Puja Sri S Jaipal Reddy, Min is ter for In for ma - was telec ast live by Kolkata Door darshan at tion, Broad cast ing and Cul ture, Gov ern ment of diff er ent times dur ing the four days. In dia, vis ited Ramakrishna M is sion Stu dents’ Home, Chennai, on 11 Sept emb er and ad - Holy M other Sri Sarada Devi’s dressed a meet ing or gan ized on this oc cas ion. 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations As part of its cent en ary cele b rat ions, the cent re In con nec tion with the cel e bra tion, Ram- also or ga nized a dev o tees’ con ven tion on 19 akrishna M ath, Rajahmundry, or ga nized a Sep tem ber and a sem i nar on ‘Pov erty Al le vi a - 28- day- long ratha yatra from 19 Sept emb er to tion’ on 20 No vem ber. 20 Oct ob er. Passi ng as it did through nearly Sri Vikas Shridhar Sirpurkar, Chief Jus - 100 towns and vil lages of 7 dis tricts of coastal tice, Uttaranchal High Court, visi ted Advaita Andhra Pradesh, the 3000 km yatra fulf illed Ashrama, M ayavati, on 25 Sept emb er. the purp ose of taki ng Holy Mother’s mes sage Srimat Swami Gahananandaji Maharaj, to the maxi mum num ber of peo ple pos si ble. Vice Pres i dent, Ramakrishna Math and Rama -

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 56 Reports 143 krishna Mis sion, laid the foun da tion stone for cont inu ed rel ief ope ra t ions among flood vic - the prop osed guest-house build ing at Ram a - tims by dis tribu ti ng food, cloth ing and es sen- krishna M ath, Puri, on 8 Oct ob er. tial items like halazone tabl ets, cand les and Swami Smarananandaji, Gene ral Secr e- match boxes: Ramakrishna M ath, Barasat, dis - tary, Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna trib uted khichuri to 19,005 pers ons for 5 days in Mis sion, laid the found a tion stone for the pro- North 24 Parganas; Ramakri shna M is sion posed ex tens ion of the school buildi ng at Ra- Ashrama, M alda, dis tribu ted 700 kg chira, 225 makrishna M is sion TB San a to rium, Ran chi, kg gur, 250 kg salt and 50 kg bisc uits among on 8 Oc tob er. 1200 pers ons in Malda, and 2565 kg rice, 210 Srimat Swami Atmasthanandaji Maha raj, kg dal, 1600 kg chira, 200 kg sugar, 100 kg gur, Vice Pres i dent, Ramakrishna Math and Ra- 500 kg salt and 120 kg bisc uits among 4346 makrishna Mis sion, in au gu rated the newly per sons in Birbhum; Ramakrishna M is sion built guest-house at M atrimandir, Jayram bati, Ashr ama, Sargachhi, dis tribu ted 1000 kg chi ra on 10 Oc tob er. and 200 kg gur among 1844 pers ons in Mur- Ramakrishna M is sion Sevashrama, Vrin- shidabad; Rama kri shna M is sion, Sikra- Ku - daban, opened a blood bank in its hos pi tal on 6 lingram, dis tribu ted 15,834 kg chira, 2892 kg No vem ber. gur, 750 kg rice and 150 kg dal among 10,467 fami l ies in North 24 Parganas; Rama kri shna Achievement M is sion Head quar ters dis trib uted 80 kg chi- A stud ent of the school run by Ramakri- ra, 20 kg gur, 40 blank ets and an equal num ber shna M is sion, Viveknagar, bagged the gold of dho tis and sa ris among 40 home less fam i - medal at the Abantika Int ern at ional Ess ay, lies in Nadia; Ramakrishna M is sion, Dhaka, Paint ing and Slo gan Comp et i tion held in New dis tribu ted 15,107 kg rice, 1755 kg dal, 4510 kg Delhi in De cemb er. 9 more stud ents of the chira, 905 kg sugar, 1609 packe ts of baby food, school won med als at the com pet it ion: 4 sil ver 690 kg milk, 4000 halazone tabl ets, 100 sar is, and 5 bronze. 1207 cand les and 1152 match boxes among 24,110 peop le bel ong ing to 37 vil lages spread Foreign News over 9 dis tricts. Sev eral dis tin guished per sons, in clud ing Be sides the above-men tioned re lief ser - Mr Abd ul Mannan Bhuiyan, Min is ter for Lo - vices, the fol low ing cen tres helped the poor cal Gov ern ment and Ru ral De vel op ment; Mr and needy in their lo cal i ties: Ramakrishna Moudud Ahmed, Min is ter for Law; Mr Sadeq M is sion, Vivek na gar, dis tribu ted 100 dho tis, Hossain Khoka, Mayor of Dhaka; and Mr 100 sar is and 458 chil dren’s gar ments; Rama- Hossain Muh amm ad Ershad, for mer Pres i - krishna M ath, Pu ri, dis tribu ted 140 garm ents; dent of Ban gla desh, att ended Durga Puja at and Ramakrishna M is sion Ashr am a, Ram- Ra makri shna M ath, Dhaka, on dif fer ent days haripur, dis tribu ted 400 dho tis, 1100 sar is and of the cele b rat ion. 150 sets of chil dren’s gar ments. Durga Puja at Ramakrishna M is sion In De cem ber, as a fol low- up to re lief Ashrama, Narayanganj, Ban gla desh, was at - work, our cent res in Assam, Bihar and West tended by Bri ga dier Hafizuddin, Min is ter for Ben gal dis trib uted blan kets, dho tis, sa ris and Wa ter Re sources; Mr Abul Kalam, MP; and ass orted garm ents among the flood vic tims of some other dig ni tar ies. those states.

Relief W ork Relief W ork by Belgharia Students In Oc to ber, Ramakrishna Math and Mis - For the peo ple of West Ben gal, Durga Pu- sion cen tres in West Ben gal and Ban gla desh ja is a most aus pi cious and ea gerly awaited

57 PB - FEBRUARY 2005 144 Prabuddha Bharata fes ti val. Last year’s Puja, how - ever, brought only tears to those liv ing in low-lyi ng are as like Bongaon in North 24 Parganas. Heavy show ers lashed the area dur ing the first week of Oc to ber and man-made blocka ges in the Jamuna’s course caused se vere waterlogging. Soon the are as around Bongaon were sub - merged un der wa ter as high as 6 feet! The stu dents and dev o tees of Ramakri shna M is sion Cal - cutta Stu dents’ Home, Bel- gharia, de cided to spend their Puja hol i days try ing to help the Tsunami Relief being done in Nagapattinam by Ramakrishna Math, Chennai vic tims. They could have eas ily spent the time par tyi ng and tions right from the day the di sast er struck. mak ing merry, but bring ing re lief to their af - Ramakri shna M is sion, Port Blair, dist rib - flicted brethr en gave them more ful fil ment. uted cooked food, baby food and cloth ing, The nu mer ous vil lages in be tween Bon- bott led drink ing wa ter among 1500 peop le in gaon and the Jamuna were badly hit, of which Andaman; Ramakris hna M ath, Chennai, dis - 53 were iden ti fied as the worst af fected. The trib uted cooked food, dho tis, sa ris, bed sheets, ent ire area bei ng in un dated, vil lages could only mats and utens ils and so on to about 22,000 be reached by boats. This ard u ous work was peo ple and also pro vided med i cal aid to made eas ier by mo tor boats don ated to the Ra- 27,500 peop le in Chenga lpattu, Chennai, Cud - ma kri sh na Mis sion by the peo ple and gove rn- dalore, Kanya kumari and Nagapattinam. The ment of Ja pan. Vol unt eers visi ted each home ex tremely af fected vic tims were pro vided in these vil lages and dis tribu ted iden tity cards shelt er. Ramakrishna M ath, M adurai, pro - to those who needed help most. Food and vided food to fish erm en in Rameshwaram; med i cal fa cil i ties had to be pro vided ur gently. Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Kalady, dis - As of No vem ber, 21,259 kg of chira and 5644 trib uted: clothes, uten sils, and food in kg of gur was dis tribu ted among 37,383 per- Ernakulam dis trict. Ramakri shna M is sion, sons. A temp o rary med i cal camp was also Co lombo, dis tribu ted to more than 25,000 started with lo cal help, and 460,000 wa ter-pu- peop le cooked food, stoves, utens ils, clothes, ri fy ing tab lets were dis trib uted. mats, bed-sheets, dry-foods, med i cines, etc. af ter fanned out in about 20 camps in Batti- Tsunami Relief caloa and nearby places. Steps were bei ng The dev as tat ing tsu nami that crashed taken to ex tend the re lief work to more places into the Ind ian east coast and Sri Lanka on 26 and reach more peop le in the worst-af fected De cem ber de stroyed hun dreds of kilo metres are as. Furt her rep orts will fol low. Rama- of coast line kill ing tens of thou sands of peo ple krishna Math, Belur Math, re lief is over see ing and in flict ing in de scrib able mis ery upon in - all op er a tions. The to tal ex pen di ture till nu mer a ble oth ers. The fol low ing cen tres of the 10.1.2005 was about 1.30 crores. Do na tions re - Rama krishna Mis sion launched re lief op er a- ceived are about 0.73 crores. ~

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 58