Trip to Kolkata

I am presently in Kolkata at a conference being sponsored by the Ramakrishna Mission at the Ramakrishna Institute of Culture. It is called the National Seminar, a biennial event, the topic of which this year is “Some Responses to Classical Yoga in the Modern Period.”


Swami Veda for health reasons could not come and sent me in his place to read his paper. It is a rather strange position to be in, but the circumstances are, as usual, educational. In fact, I am being rather flooded with intellectual stimuli that are already threatening to shortcircuit my almost always overloaded circuitry. Only relaxing into the Holy Name and mantra are a recourse, even though processing everything and then sharing it publicly is always in the back of my mind.

Last night was the inaugural session, prior to which all the principal participants were present and introduced to one another. I was already chuckling to myself as I was the only one in traditional Indian dress besides the swamis—everyone else was in suits and ties—and we were sitting in a very Western style drawing room sipping tea and munching on cake and cashews.

The inaugural session was held in the Vivekananda Hall, which is a large auditorium, much like what you would expect to see in a North American high school with a high stage on which a table was set up for the speakers, a podium, a screen for Powerpoint presentations, etc.

Throughout the session, I was constantly wishing that I could sit on the floor, or at least samaM kAya-ziro-grIvam as Gita tells us. It seemed most ironic that the entire event was being conducted in a way that catered to the Western intellect, with all the trappings of Western culture, and with seemingly only a nominal concession to the culture that it was presenting, i.e., the introductory prayers, which were chanted with what seemed like considerable discomfort, at least at first, by the brahmacharies of the Math.

The most interesting of the main speakers at the inaugural session was B.R. Sharma, who is the assistant director of research and head of the department of Philosophical Reasearch in Yoga at the Kaivalya Dham Yoga Research Institute in Lonavla, which I may or may not have to tell you is a very well established and prestigious institute. Founded by Swami Kuvalayananda in 1924, it has done a great deal of scientific work in studying the benefits of yoga as well as applying them in a therapeutic manner. Dr. Sharma is a Sanskritist and his main interest is in studying, preserving, and publishing the yoga texts in a scholarly fashion and some of the most reliable and authentic yoga texts are coming out of Lonavla.

We had an enjoyable talk afterward also. Sharma (I never found out what B.R. stands for) himself is from Badrinath. He is a very productive writer and has published many papers. It seems that everything you say elicits the response, “I have written a paper about that.” In particular he came to my room afterward and downloaded an article on Yoga-sutra 1.23 about the use of the word vA, arguing against the contention that worship of God (ishwara-pranidhana) is an optional and that its removal from the Yoga-sutras would have no negative impact on the work as a whole. I will read it through as soon as I get a chance.

The other two speakers of interest were Swami Prabhanandaji, the current general secretary of the RK Mission. He impressed me in the way that highly placed Catholic priests and bishops, etc., tend to. His paper was learned, but did not draw any deep lines in my consciousness. Of course, the main thrust, as is to be expected, is centered on Vivekananda’s contribution to the topic.

There is so much to digest. It will be days before it really sinks in. Mostly such a conference results in one or two impressions being made on the mind. I kind of wish that I had been there in my own name speaking about something quite different. I have to do my work. I have to do my work. I cannot be a parivrajaka all my life, flitting like a butterfly and not stinging like a bee, or rolling like a stone and not gathering any moss, to mix a metaphor.

So here I am for two more days. I went down the street yesterday . Feeling a little downward turn in consciousness after the intensity of the day. This is Ballygunge, what seems to be a high end part of town. In the dark I saw little, but I have decided to walk through town to the more central part of town and see what is to be seen. I did neti after my walk, as the nose is starting to feel smog-clogged.

Jagat Jindagi

For good reason, I have decided to split my current English blog into two sections, one dealing with theology, etc., the other with more current events. Let's see how that goes.

HIHT Annual Festival

On November 13, a busload of students and residents went from SRSG to Jolly Grand (I am sure that this has a different spelling and meaning, but that is the way I hear it) about halfway between Rishikesh and Dehradun. This is where Swami Rama established a teaching hospital, Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust, a few years before his death. Indeed, his samadhi is still on the grounds. The annual festival is called the Mahasamadhi Anniversary, commemorating Swami Rama's disappearance day. This was the 12th such annual festival.

HIHT began with only an outpatient clinic, but the present status of the institution is pretty impressive. In the past year, it was granted "Deemed University" status, as HIHT University, and has numerous departments, mostly related to the health sciences. Swami Veda is the chancellor of the university.

The director is the very dynamic Vijaya Dasmana, who was with Swami Rama from childhood, and says Swami Veda, was brought up by him specifically for the task to which he has now dedicated his life. Judging from the results, he is extremely capable.


You can see from this picture how nicely designed and maintained the campus is.


The current plan is to have the SRSG Gurukula become a part of the HIHT University and offer degrees in Yoga and related matters. Most of the staff here is currently devising a curriculum toward that end.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ashok Bhagat of Vikas Bharti Bishunpur in Jharkhand. The HIHT offers an annual prize, the Swami Rama Humanitarian Award, and Sri Bhagatji was the recipient this year for his work with the aboriginal or tribal people of the Jharkhand area. Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar a few years ago, primarily to further the development of a much neglected group of people. Bhagatji has dedicated himself to that work and has rather impressive achievements in a wide range of areas--health, education, agriculture, etc.


You can see from his picture that he is shirtless. This comes from his conviction that one has to place oneself amongst the people one claims to be helping, rather than placing oneself in a condescending position. His main inspirations are Vivekananda and Gandhi.

Swami Veda Bharati gave the keynote address. He is not only chancellor but "spiritual director." In that capacity, he did something which was rather unusual for what, to all appearances, is a quite secular institution. He led a silent meditation for three minutes. What was striking about it was that in a restless audience of several hundred people (liberally stocked with SRSG folk), the auditorium became totally silent and for the entire five minutes, there was neither whispered conversation nor ringing cellphone. Believe me, that is a first for me in India.


Later I was talking with Swamiji and I told him how I once went to Bangladesh where a godbrother was holding a kirtan and festival at his house. I remembered how disciplined the Muslims I had seen in the mosque were and how undisciplined and disrespectful the ordinary Hindus had been at the Vaishnava event.

Swamiji said that he had not asked nor received any mystic powers from his guru, but he could claim this one. And he said that he had been able to bring crowds far larger than this one--even tens of thousands--into a state of silence.

Now, that is something worth learning.

Swami Krishnananda Visit

We had a visit from a Keralan sadhu, Swami Krishnananda, who came in a tourist bus loaded with his disciples for a tour of north Indian pilgrimage sites. He has come to SRSG before, but this is the first time I had the occasion to see him.

He is an enthusiastic kirtaniya with a powerful voice. I was not there when he started his session, but Swami Veda was. Swamiji sent for me, saying that I would not want to miss this. Krishnananda was doing Krishna bhajans at the time. He often sings a Sanskrit stotra solo and then breaks into a Malayalam, Sanskrit or Hindi bhajan to which his disciples are an equally enthusiastic chorus.



Afterwards, Swami Veda gave, as he often does for visiting performers and sadhus, a token of appreciation. You can get a glimpse of Swami Krishnananda's personality from this picture.



Someone snapped this picture of me during the kirtan. I look pretty meditative. Likely it is because soon after I arrived, the Swami started doing kirtan for Rama, Shiva and other demigods--even the Navagrahas. So I was appreciating his voice, but not so much the content.



After the performance, we went up to Swami's dining room to eat. Krishnananda Swami and I were introduced. He took one look at me and said, "After eating, we will go back downstairs and do 15 minutes of Hare Krishna. And you must dance." He spent about five minutes eating and then was madly off in all directions.

Surprisingly, Swami Veda also came downstairs into the meditation hall and contrary to habit, did not sit in his vyasasan type chair, but on the floor. He said of K.S. that, "Most people start kirtan slow and work up into high gear, but you start at top speed." In Mayapur, the kids used to call me "Rail Gari" because I led kirtans as though I was driving a train. Anyway, that is the way Krishnanandaji led the Hare Krishna kirtan.

There was no getting out of it. I had to dance. And soon everyone was whirling around like a bunch of dervishes. Men and women. As a matter of fact, the rather grave looking woman to the far left of the Swami in the second picture above was a rather impressive figure with a lot of elegant moves. Swami gave of himself energetically.

It went on for half an hour and then we all calmed down with three minutes of silent meditation...

Photo of Sannyasis with Swami Veda Bharati

Photo taken yesterday on the occasion of Swami Rama's disappearance tithi. Front row, left to right: Swami Ma Seva Bharati (Dhanurdara Swami's cousin), Swami Turiya, Swami Veda Bharati, Swami Jnaneswari, Swami Radha Bharati (in charge of the Gurukula). Back row: Ramcharit Swami, Tattvananda Bharati, Panchashila Swami from Nepal, Swami Nityamuktananda, Sukhmeet Swami, Niranjana Swami, Chidananda Swami, Vachanananda Swami.

New School Year in Gurukula

We have been pretty busy lately. The new school year is finally underway here. Unfortunately, the Gurukula is not quite as organized as most schools, though things are looking somewhat optimistic here at the beginning of the semester. We have taken on six new students, two from Holland, two from Uttar Khand, one from Manipur and one from Karnatak. Several of the deadwood students have been trimmed away.

But the faculty staff problem is still acute. We are expecting a retired ESL teacher from Cornwall to come in two weeks time, but until then I am going to be taking both English and Sanskrit classes. This really works out to more than two classes, because there are different subgroups in both. It is a bit like the old one-room schoolhouses that they had out on the frontier, with everyone from the small kids to the high school students in one room. That makes organization difficult. Luckily we have Chandramaniji to teach advanced Sanskrit, so that rounds out one aspect of the syllabus nicely.

Last night I also gave a lecture on "the philosophy of Hatha Yoga." There was a good audience, since there is a group doing teacher's training from Holland, U.S. and China. There was also a sizable group from the western U.S.A., brought here by Sherri Baptiste Freeman and India Supera. When there are many international students like that, the ashram is pretty lively. There must have been at least 75 people in the meditation hall this morning.

Swami Veda came back a few days ago. He was very tired, so I did not go to see him, but he invited me upstairs for dinner the day before yesterday, and I invited myself up yesterday after the Philosophy of Hatha Yoga lecture, which is based on one of his books. He was looking much better. He's doing pretty well for a man of 75, with all his traveling around the world and lecturing.

I am still giving other classes as well at Madhuban and Vrindavan Ashram. And besides that I am trying to work on this Bhagavat-sandarbha project. The big time loser is reading Internet sites related to the current American presidential election. It is something of an indulgence. It seems that there are always anarthas around to be trimmed.

Swami Vachanananda

Swami Vachanananda returned from Karnataka a day or two ago and yesterday appeared in my English class for the first time in more than a month. Swami Veda is back in India and will be here in Rishikesh sometime this week, so gradually everyone is returning to the ashram, including new teaching staff, new students, etc.

Vachanananda was full of stories, so rather than have a regular English class, I made it a mock press conference and had the students pose as reporters and ask him questions. Since they won't actually write anything (I gave them another assignment), I am summarizing a little, plus giving some background.

Swami Vachanandanaji is only 25 but has been a sannyasi in the Lingayat or Virashaiva tradition that is mainly based in the Karnataka region.

Before he was born, his parents had three girls. They went to see a Lingayat guru who told them they would have a son, but that he would be a sadhu and would renounce home life. When the mother was pregnant, the guru gave "garbha-diksha" to the infant and told the mother that throughout the pregnancy she was to chant this mantra. He also gave a ishtalinga, which is the sect's symbol and worn by everyone. When the child was born, she was to repeat the mantra to the child before giving him her breastmilk. Then a few days later, the guru came and performed the Lingadharana ceremony. But he stipulated that the child was to belong to the guru.

This was a very serious commitment, especially in that family, since Vachananda's grandparents had made a similar deal with this guru's guru, and had reneged on it. Actually the deal had been made by the father without telling his wife, and when she had twins she could not bear to part with them. The two boys were extremely talented, brilliant, musical, etc. But not long after this refusal, they both died. The parents were devastated, but they did not lose faith in their spiritual master and dedicated themselves to serving in his ashram for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, Vachananda was educated in various Lingayat schools and ashrams and finally given sannyasa after he finished college. He is a charismatic fellow and though his English is still imperfect, he has a vast knowledge of the literature of his own tradition and is a very good speaker in Kannada.

This summer he was invited by some sponsors to lead a series of yoga camps in Karnataka. Over a six week period he lectured to thousands of people and gave yoga and meditation classes to about 600 people, mostly college students. As a matter of fact, his success was noticed by various Lingayat leaders, and according to V., at least three of them have asked him to succeed them in their ashrams or missions.

Anyway, all that was to introduce you to the man. The event that was particularly notable over the summer, however, was his intervention in a Christian-Hindu riot in the Mangalore area. This is an unfortunate thing that has been going on in India this summer, with Orissa being the beginning, but the anxiety of Hindus about Christian conversions growing and spreading.

When a militant Hindu sannyasi in Orissa was killed, things flared up in the Mangalore area as well. The Christians in Mangalore have been successful in evangelizing the poorer outcaste and tribal people of southern Karnataka, to the point that they represent a considerable percentage of the population. The state government is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party, and they seem to have decided that it is in their interest to have such turmoil going on under their watch. Whatever the case, they have been either unwilling or unable to put a stop to it, much to their shame.

Vachananda was introduced to some of the perpetrators of the violence, militant youths from the Bajrang Dal or RSS, and managed to persuade the that their approach was misguided. He said, "Look, the Hindu gurus and sadhus sit in their ashrams and try to attract wealthy patrons. None of them are interested in doing outreach programs to help the poor and uneducated. The Christians are doing that kind of work. So how can you blame them if these people turn to Christianity. They can see who is helping them and who is not. So if you really want to do something, then you should try to compete on this level."

These youth were convinced and organized a meeting with the Hindu sadhus of the area, which was reported in the media. Christian leaders heard of the initiative and came to see Vachanananda to thank him for his efforts. This led to a meeting between Hindu and Christian leaders and a truce of some kind being agreed upon. This in turn led to a lull in the violence in that area, but it appears that things have flared up again since he returned here.



Anyway, I was glad to hear that he had the good sense to attempt to make peace rather than follow this unfortunate and extremely shortsighted path of narrowmindedness and violence that so many Hindus -- indeed, fundamentalists of all stripes -- seem to be taking these days. It looks like Vachanananda Swami has a good future ahead of him, and I hope that he continues to make peacemaking and setting Hindus straight on their priorities a part of his agenda wherever he goes.

See Shashi Tharoor's comments on Huffington Post

....

Another short anecdote from Gangesh Chaitanya. He was in Vrindavan for a while and stayed at the Kunja Bihari ashram on the Parikrama Marg near Purana Kalidaha. Amongst the various kinds of seva he did there, one thing was to go and collect cow urine at the Iskcon Goshalla. This would then be used for various kinds of purification rituals in the ashram, sprinkling here and there, etc.

Since the object was purity, the person collecting the urine had to be ritually pure himself. So Gangesh would bathe before he went, etc. His being a young brahmachari was part of his qualification for the job. He was told, however, that if he had a nocturnal emission, he had to tell the people in the ashram and that would disqualify him from going on that day. Someone else would be sent and this replacement would have to bring back not only cow urine, but a steaming fresh cow patty as well.

Gangesh would then be made to sit down near the well and the cowdung would be placed on his head and flattened. Then someone from the ashram would pour buckets of water over his head in such a way that his entire body was covered with the dung. After the purification bath, he was again eligible to go and collect the cow urine.