c traditional wisdom - advaita ashrama · c traditional wisdom c apram`da: vigilance;bôÀjÒttlsk...

C Traditional Wisdom c

APRAMÁDA: VIGILANCE

;bôÀJÒttlsk rJr° btunlk mJo=urnltbT >v{bt=tjôgrl={trCô;rªtcÆltr; Cth; >>On the other hand, know tamas, which de ludes all em bod ied be ings, to be born ofig no rance. O scion of the Bharata dy nasty, it binds through in ad ver tence, la zi nessand sleep. (Bhagavadgita, 14.8)

v{bt=k Ji b]Àgwbnk c{Jerb ;:t~v{bt=bb];ÀJk c{Jerb >>v{bt=tÅi ymwht& vhtCJªtv{bt=t=Tc{ÑCq;t CJÂà; >liJ b]ÀgwÔgtoD{ RJtrút sà;qªt Êôg ÁvbwvjÇg;u rn >>I [Sanatsujata] say, in ad ver tence is death it self, and mind ful ness is im mor tal ity. It isdue to in ad ver tence that the asuras were sub ju gated [by de feat and death], and it isby vir tue of vig i lance that [the gods] are im mor tal. It is not death that de vours like a ti ger, for the na ture of death is un fath om able. (Sanatsujatiya, 4-5)

jÌgågw;k au‘r= raútbeM=T crnbwoFk mrªtv;uút;ô;;& >v{bt=;& v{ågw;fuUrjfUà=wfU& mtuvtlvETÿUti vr;;tu g:t ;:t >>If the mind ever so slightly strays from the ideal and be comes out go ing, then it goesdown and down, just as a ball in ad ver tently dropped on the stair case bounces down from one step to an other. (Vivekachudamani, 325)

A man must be ex tremely care ful dur ing the early stages of spir i tual dis ci pline. …You see, a man must not sway his body while climb ing to the roof; he may fall. (TheGos pel of Sri Ramakrishna, 604)

Al ways be care ful. A care ful per son is not sub ject to grief. Never for get that. Prarab-dha karma can not torment a per son who is al ways alert. (Spir i tual Trea sures: Let ters ofSwami Turiyananda, 31)

11 PB -M ARCH 2005

PRABUDDHABHARATA

Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!

Vol. 110 M ARCH 2005 No. 3

Wrút²;std{;ŒtËgJhtrªtctuÆt; >

� This Month �

Bioethics is one of the fast est grow ing dis -ci plines in ap plied eth ics and clon ing of hu -man tis sues ex em pli fies the eth i cal di lemmathat con fronts bioethicists. This month’s ed i -to rial, Bioethics and Clon ing, ex am ines thesci en tific facts about clon ing and the Vedan ticap proach to the eth i cal ques tions it raises.

PrabuddhaBharata— 100 Years Ago en -vis ages na ture as the model for ef fi cient ac -tion in ‘Hard W ork and True Play’ by Em ilyPalmer Cape, then Sec re tary, Vedanta So ci -ety of New York.

Swami Atulanandaji’s Re flec tions on the Bhagavadgita takes us through verses 33 to44 of Chap ter Eleven of the Gita. As Sri Kri -shna re veals to Arjuna the real mean ing andim pli ca tion of His uni ver sal form, the lat teris gripped by awe and breaks forth intospon ta ne ous ad o ra tion, the fa mous ‘SriKrishna Stuti’. This is the theme of the pres -ent in stal ment.

The tran scen dent truth of Advaita Ved-anta, as ex pounded by Sri Shankar acharya,lies be yond the realm of ac tion. SwamiVivekananda took the same Advaitic truthas the ba sis of his phi los o phy of ser vice andprogramme for In dian re ju ve na tion. In Ve -danta in Prac ticeSrimat Swami Gam bhira -nandaji M aharaj pro vides deep in sights intothe res o lu tion of this par a dox. In this is sue,the first part of this il lu mi nat ing dis courseex am ines the be hav iour of the siddhas andjivanmuktas and the Upanishadic upasanasbased on the per va sive ness of Brah man askeys to the prac tice of Advaita.

In the sec ond part of Bioethics for Sci -ence and Tech nol ogy: A Hindu Per spec -tive, his pre sen ta tion be fore the In ter na tional Bio ethics Com mit tee at the UNESCO head -

quar ters in Paris, Swami Jitatmanandaji dis -cusses the In dian view of hu man evo lu tionbased on con scious choice, the need to lookdeeper than genes to un der stand true hu -man po ten tial, and the spe cif ics of the Hindu view on med i cal eth ics.

The year-long cel e bra tions, in In dia andabroad, to mark Holy M other Sri SaradaDevi’s 150th Birth An ni ver sary, con cludedlast Jan u ary with a three-day programme atBelur M ath. Swami Satyamayanandaji ofAd vaita Ashrama, Kolkata, pres ents a col -our ful re port.

Sri Ramakrishna— The W orld Teacheris Smt Sudesh’s of fer ing on the oc ca sion ofSri Ramakrishna’s 169th birth an ni ver sary.Tai loring one’s mes sage to the needs of thein di vid ual, personifying of the ideal ofhouse hold ers as well as monks, and help ingthe er ratic and the un ruly to prog ress on thepath of spir i tu al ity, are some of the dis tinc -tive fea tures of Sri Ramakrishna the teacher.These the au thor, a dev o tee from Ambala,has brought into fo cus.

Paving the Path for Dhy ana is an in -sight ful anal y sis by Swami Satyamaya nan -da ji of some of the ba sic phys i o log i cal andpsy cho log i cal is sues per tain ing to pos tureand the pre lim i nary pro cesses in volved inmed i ta tion.

The eighth in stal ment of ParabrahmaUpaniøad, trans lated by Swami Atma priya -nandaji, Prin ci pal, Ramakrishna M is sionVid yamandira, Belur, con tin ues the anal ogyof the yajðopavæta as a sym bol of Brah man.

This month’s Glimpses of Holy Livescon tin ues with the in spir ing ren di tion of M a-thuradasji’s re mark able per son al ity.

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Bioethics and Cloning

EDITORIAL

The Evolution of Ethics

Eth i cal is sues have been con front ing hu -mans since pre his toric times. So cial lifeis de pend ent on in ter nal reg u la tion. Re -

straint and rec i proc ity are un avoid able ex i -gen cies of so cial liv ing. A pack of wolves willend its in ter ne cine fight once one of them dis -plays sub mis sive be hav iour while the samepack tears apart any other an i mal that hap -pens to stray into its ter ri tory. In a herd of el e -phants mov ing in search of fresh veg e ta tion, ifa calf hap pens to fall back or stray away, theherd will re turn, trace the strag gler and take italong. If the lat ter hap pens to have in jured it -self, it will be nursed and helped till it canagain move with the group. M on keys help ingde louse each other is not an un fa mil iar sight.Crow-watch ers would have come across a court of crows crow ing down or peck ing a re cal ci -trant mem ber into sub mis sion. All these actscon tain ru di ments of what in hu mans is high -ly com plex eth i cal be hav iour.

Is sues in eth i cal phi los o phy as well asnor ma tive and ap plied eth ics had en gagedthink ers in many an an cient civ i li za tion. Thecon cepts of dharma and ìta as found in theearly Ve dic texts and elab o rated later in theUpanishads, Brahmanas, Smritis, andPuranas com prise the old est com pre hen sivephi los o phy of eth ics. The Ashtanga Magga ofGautama Bud dha, the moral im per a tives ofthe Jaina tir than karas, the Tao of sim ple andwise liv ing, the ‘su pe rior-man’ of cor rect be -hav iour as en vis aged by Con fu cius, and themoral spec u la tions of the an cient Greek phi -los o phers— from Py thag o ras to Soc ra tes, Platoand Ar is totle— all con tain so phis ti cated eth i -cal con cepts that form the ba sis of much ofmod ern eth i cal thought.

The sub se quent cen tu ries saw the growth

of two dis tinct strands of eth i cal think ing: onecon nected with spe cific re li gions— the le gal is -tic tra di tions of Jew ish eth ics based on the OldTes ta ment and Is lamic eth ics de rived from the Quran, the moral the ol ogy of the Chris tianChurch, the acharas of Sanatana Dharma guid -ed by the Dharmashastras, and so on; theother strand ob tained from the works of freethink ers in post-Re nais sance Eu rope. The ma -jor themes un der pin ning eth i cal dis cus sionsun der taken by both these strands have in -cluded the fol low ing ques tions: W hy shouldwe be moral? W hat is the source of the moralim pulse? Is it nat u ral or pre scrip tive in or i gin?Is mo ral ity ra tio nal or emo tive? How does one de cide on what is moral? Is moral judge mentsub jec tive or are there uni ver sal and ob jec tiveel e ments to it? That the de bate on these is suesre fuses to die is proof of the par a dox i cal na -ture of nor ma tive judge ment that of ten im pels us to de rive the ‘ought’ (what we should do)from the ‘is’ (the facts of ex is tence), some thingthat can not be log i cally sup ported, as Da vidHume pointed out.

Prag ma tism char ac ter izes mod ern man,and the post-mod ern is marked by eth i cal rel -a tiv ism. It would there fore ap pear that ab -stract the o ries of eth ics would have lit tle prac -ti cal rel e vance in to day’s world, and this is nottotal ly un true. Yet, there is cur rently an un -prec e dented global in ter est in ap plied eth icsas is ev i denced by the var i ous move ments forhu man (and an i mal) rights and civil lib er ties,the for ma tion of var i ous ‘lib er a tion’ groupswith their par tic u lar phi los o phies and eventhe ol o gies, and the mul ti tude of ac tiv ists— the pac i fists, the en vi ron men tal ists and the like—all of whom have agenda with strong eth i calcon tent. In this bur geon ing field of ap pliedeth ics, bioethics, deal ing with the eth i cal is sues

13 PB -M ARCH 2005

raised by ad vances in bi ol ogy and med i cine,stands out for its re mark able growth and thenum ber of dis ci plines that it en gages. Thisgrowth has been the re sult of two fac tors: first,ad vances in med i cine have brought into fo cusis sues at the lim its of life— is sues re lat ing topro long ing life, eu tha na sia, non-nat u ralmeans of con cep tion and abor tion, all ofwhich im pinge on the sanc tity of life, hu mandig nity, right to life and free dom of choice;sec ond, ad vances in ge netic tech nol ogy, in -clud ing the com plete de cod ing of the hu mange nome and un der stand ing the bi ol ogy of em -bry onic cells with their po ten tial to form anytype of tis sue, now pro vide us with the abil ityto tai lor the struc ture and func tion of cells, tis -sues and even en tire in di vid u als. This, ob vi -ously, has tre men dous moral im pli ca tions.Clon ing is one tech no log i cal ad vance mentthat ex em pli fies these is sues, and a brief ex am -i na tion may be worth while.

W hat is Cloning?

A group of ge net i cally iden ti cal cellscom prise a clone. All our body cells are ge net i -cally uni form and are there fore clones of eachother. Or gan isms re pro duc ing by asex ualmeans like amoe bae, bac te ria or hy dra alsogive rise to clones— the en tire or gan ism be inga clone of its par ent. The plants that we growfrom cut tings in our gar den are also clones ofthe mother plant. In the 1980s sci en tists learntto clone mice by trans fer ring the nu cleus of anem bry onic cell into a mouse ovum from which the nu cleus (con tain ing ge netic ma te rial) hadbeen re moved. This fu sion cell, when im -planted into the mouse uterus, started di vid -ing and led to the for ma tion of a mouse pupwith all its ge netic ma te rial de rived from onepa ren tal source. In 1997, Ian W ilmut man agedto clone an en tire sheep— the fa mousDolly— by this method of ‘nu clear trans fer’.W hat was novel about W ilmut’s pro cess wasthat he ob tained the nu cleus from the ud dercell of a do nor sheep, and ud der cells are ter -mi nally dif fer en ti ated cells, that is, they are

ma ture tis sue cells that were till then thoughtin ca pa ble of tak ing part in fresh tis sue for ma -tion. The chem i cal en vi ron ment of the ovumap par ently ‘tricked’ the genes in the trans -ferred nu cleus into be hav ing like the ge neticma te rial of an em bry onic cell (called a ‘pluri-potent stem cell’ as it can par tic i pate in the for -ma tion of all types of tis sues). This pro cess,called ‘adult so matic cell nu clear trans fer’, thusled to the for ma tion of a clone with ge neticma te rial de rived from a non-re pro duc tive tis -sue.

This type of clon ing, called ‘re pro duc tiveclon ing’ be cause it is used for re pro duc tive pur -poses, raised a fu rore among ethicists who be -lieved that such meth ods ap plied to hu manscan be badly mis used. Pop u lar imag i na tiontook this to be ‘play ing God’, and pop u larwrit ers warned of the pos si bil ity of plannedcre ation of Fran ken stein’s mon sters; if oneHit ler was enough to rav age the world, whatwould hap pen if ten Hit ler clones were letloose! Con cerns were also raised about thepsy cho log i cal ef fects on the cloned off springaris ing from its ar ti fi cial birth and its to tal ge -netic iden tity with one par ent.

M ost of these spec u la tions do not standup to sci en tific scru tiny for the sim ple rea sonthat clones are highly un likely to show be hav -iour iden ti cal to their par ents, for be hav iour isheavily in flu enced by en vi ron men tal fac tors.The growth of the hu man brain is mark edlyin flu enced by the type of stim u la tion it re -ceives in the years af ter birth and this stim u la -tion keeps mould ing the brain in adult life too.So dif fer ences in en vi ron men tal fac tors willthem selves en sure against be hav ioural iden -tity. M ore over, Hit ler was as much a prod uctof his tory as he was of his genes and his up -bring ing; and a si mul ta neous re pro duc tion ofall these fac tors can safely be ruled out. Eveniden ti cal twins that are nat u ral clones rarelyshow iden ti cal be hav iour de spite sim i lar up -bring ing. Nor has their ge netic iden tity beenfound to cause any ad verse psy cho log i cal ef -fect.

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148 Prabuddha Bharata

Yet there are hardly any cred i ble sci en -tists who sup port hu man re pro duc tive clon -ing. This is be cause the pro cess is not only very in ef fi cient but also en tails con sid er able risk.The ge netic re pro gram ming re quired of theadult nu cleus for it to ini ti ate the for ma tion ofthe em bryo is hardly ever as cor rect as that ob -tained from nor mal re pro duc tive tis sue; so the cloned an i mals in vari ably have some or ganicde fect. Con se quently, there is a well-jus ti fied,ef fec tive global mor a to rium on hu man re pro -duc tive clon ing.

The prom ise of adult nu clear trans fer lieselse where, in a pro cess called ‘ther a peu tic clo -n ing’. If af ter nu clear trans fer the de vel op ingem bry onic cells, in stead of be ing im plantedinto a womb, are ar ti fi cially cul tured in vi tro,they give rise to a clone of em bry onic stemcells in stead of a foe tus. These cells can then bechem i cally in duced to trans form them selvesinto vir tu ally any type of tis sue cell which canbe re inject ed or trans planted into the orig i naldo nor to cor rect var i ous de fi cien cies in tis suefunc tion like di a be tes or Par kin son’s dis ease.This tech nol ogy holds out great hope formany in cur able con di tions and also the prom -ise of more cost- ef fec tive ther a pies.

The moral ob jec tions to ther a peu tic clon -ing are more fun da men tal. If hu man cells andem bryos are liv ing en ti ties, can ex per i men ta -tion with these be mor ally jus ti fied? Also, doesnot the com mer cial iza tion of these tis sues andpro cesses vi o late hu man dig nity? These ques -tions pro vide us with an ap pro pri ate point ofde par ture for ex am in ing the Vedantic view ofhu man life and bi o log i cal de vel op ment, for itis this un der stand ing that will help us for mu -late an an swer to these ques tions.

TheUpanishadic View ofLife and Transmigration

An un der stand ing of the Vedantic viewof life is es sen tial to an ap pre ci a tion of its eth i -cal view point. Three ideas are cru cial to thisun der stand ing: one, in di vid ual life, as per -ceived by the Upanishads, is only one com po -

nent in an in tri cately inter linked mass of Con -scious ness that is life; two, our pres ent ex is -tence as liv ing sub jects is only one of a se ries oftrans mi gra tory existences that we have beenhav ing since time im me mo rial; three, the ex -pe ri enc ing and trans mi gra tory sub ject (jivat -man) is dis tinct from the phys i cal body de -rived from ge netic ma te rial con trib uted bypar ents.

A de scrip tion of the pro cess of trans mi -gra tion is pro vided by the Brihadaranyaka Upa-ni shad. Acharya Shankara in tro duces the mat -ter in the fol low ing words: ‘Now the ques tionis, when the self loaded with knowl edge etc., is about to go to an other body, does it leave theold body and go to an other, like a bird go ing to an other tree? [This is the Jaina view.] Or is it car -ried by an other body serv ing as a ve hi cle tothe place where, ac cord ing to its past work, itis to be born? [This is the view of the devatá-vádins.] Or does it stay here, while its or gansbe come all-per vad ing and func tion as such?[This is the Sankhya view.] Or is it that so long asit re mains in the body, its or gans are con -tracted to the body’s lim its, but when it diesthey be come all-per vad ing— like the light of alamp when the (en clos ing) jar is bro ken— andcon tract again when a new body is made?[This is the Vedantic view.]’1 The Vedantic viewis sup ported by Upanishadic texts that ex pli -cate the per va sive na ture of the sense or gans(in their sub tle form) (Brihad aran yaka Upani-shad, 1.5.13) and their con trac tion to (or iden ti -fi ca tion with) the lim its of spe cific phys i calbod ies. (Ibid., 1.3.22) The same Upa nishad fig -u ra tively il lus trates the pro cess of trans mi gra -tion with the ex am ple of a mov ing leech: ‘Justas a leech mov ing on a blade of grass reachesits end, takes hold of an other sup port, anddraws it self to gether to wards it, so does theself (jivatman) throw this body aside … takehold of an other sup port, and draw it self to -gether to wards it.’ (Ibid., 4.4.3)

This al ter nate body, how ever, is not thegross body that the jivatman is fi nally des -tined to take up. It is a sub tle body, pre dom i -

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Bioethics and Cloning 149

nantly aque ous, that must first move throughsev eral dis tinct phases as de lin eated in the‘panchagni-vidya’ sec tions of the Chandogyaand Brihadaran yaka Upanishads. (Chandogya,5.3-10 and Brihadaranyaka, 6.2) Three coursesare open to the ji vatman: the bright north erncourse of the gods (devayana) for those ex clu -sively de voted to med i ta tion; the darkersouth ern course of the manes (pitriyana) forthose who have led dhar mic lives, per formedscrip tural rit u als and en gaged in wel fare ac -tiv i ties; and the third course for evil-do ers that leads to non-hu man birth, ei ther di rectly or af -ter hell ish ex pe ri ences. The devayana and pitri-yana are char ac ter ized by as cent through var i -ous states like the so lar and lu nar spheres,which are, as Swa mi Vi ve kananda ex plains,‘vi sions (that) rise in suc ces sion be fore the jiva,who him self nei ther goes nor co mes’.2 The de -scent along pitriyana is the proto typ al de scent,marked by iden ti fi ca tion in suc ces sion withclouds, rain, crops, the man eat ing these crops, and fi nally with a par tic u lar woman at thetime of con cep tion. These iden ti ties, again, areonly ab stract con cepts and not gross trans for -ma tions, as Ach ar ya Shankara has clar i fied inhis com men tary on the Brahma Sutras.3

These con cepts may not ap pear eas ily in -tel li gi ble, but they re flect the fact that Con -scious ness un der pins all ex is tence and can man -i fest in spe cific forms. This Con scious ness isnot to be con fused with aware ness, for the jiv -atman’s iden tity with rain, plants, and suchother stages in its trans mi gra tory path are notmarked by aware ness.4 Hence the conceptusin its early em bry onic and foe tal stages in themother’s womb is not con sid ered a sep a ratein di vid ual. Its in di vid u al ity is es tab lished onlywhen the jivatman ac tu ally ‘en ters’ it and es -tab lishes a psy chic iden tity, for the jivatman isnoth ing but the trans mi grat ing psy chic ap pa -ra tus com pris ing the mind and re lated senseor gans in their sub tle form. Ac cord ing to theGarbha Upanishad, a text that deals with hu -man em bry onic de vel op ment, this en try oc -curs in the sev enth month of foe tal life. This

was also the time that the foe tus was tra di tion -ally con sid ered to take to reach bi o log i cal vi a -bil ity, or the abil ity to sur vive out side themother’s womb. How ever, with ad vances inmed i cal tech nol ogy, foe tuses de liv ered sev -eral weeks ear lier can now be helped to sur -vive.

This psy chic iden tity as so ci ated with vi a -bil ity es tab lishes the in di vid u al ity of the de -vel op ing baby. It is then sub ject to aware ness(al beit in ru di men tary forms) and the Upani-shadic and Puranic texts cite many in stancesof re mark ably height ened aware ness of thebaby in the womb.

It is im por tant that though vi a bil itymarks the em bodi ment of the jivatman, yet the ear lier em bry onic stages are not con sid erednon- liv ing, for the in teg rity of cel lu lar and tis -sue struc ture is ev i dence of the pres ence of ac -tive prana (the syn onym for ‘life’). At thisearly stage, how ever, the prana is de pend enton ma ter nal sup port.5 This dis tinc tion be -tween life and its sup port ing Con scious ness isin di cated by Yajnavalkya dur ing one of thede bates in King Janaka’s court when he askshis in ter loc u tors, ‘If a tree, af ter it is felled,springs forth anew from its root, from whatroot does a man spring forth af ter be ing cutdown by death?’ and then im me di atelywarns, ‘Do not say, “From the seed”, for that is pro duced from a liv ing man.’6

Is Cloning Ethical?

From the above-men tioned facts it maybe de duced that any in jury to the vi a ble foe tusis likely to cause psy chic in jury to the jivatmanand will lead to kar mic re per cus sions. In juryor loss in the ear lier em bry onic stages are notlikely to have these ef fects, yet the pres ence ofprana de mands that even the em bryo be treat -ed with re spect.

Is ex per i men ta tion on em bry onic tis suethen mor ally wrong? The Vedantic an swer tothis ques tion de pends not so much on the actas on the at ti tude be hind the act. The en tirethrust of the Bhagavadgita is on the im por -

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tance of at ti tudes. De void of self ish mo tivesand done with the gen eral good in mind evenap par ently in ju ri ous ac tions have no moral re -per cus sions. Self ish mo tives can give evenseem ingly al tru is tic ac tions a mor ally neg a -tive charge.

The jus ti fi ca tion for clon ing and re latedis sues of bioethical con cern must there fore besought not in the spe cif ics of these pro cesses,but in the mo tives that im pel us to choosethem. It is up to the con cerned in di vid u als tobe clear about their mo tives, and for so ci ety toex er cise con trol when the mo tives of its mem -bers go astray.

An ac cu rate un der stand ing of the sci en -tific facts is, for sure, nec es sary to clear mis -con cep tions and prej u dices be fore one can ar -rive at a sound eth i cal judge ment; but deepereth i cal is sues may prove more in trac ta ble.

In ter na tional or ga ni za tions like the UNESCO

have been hold ing wide-rang ing con sul ta -tions to for mu late norms and pol i cies to reg u -late bio tech nol ogy. Swami Jitatma nanda ji’spre sen ta tion of the Hindu view of eth ics (thecon clud ing por tion of which ap pears in this is -sue) was a part of this pro cess. There are alsostrict in ter na tional le gal norms (ex em pli fiedby the Nuremberg Code) for con duct ing bi o -log i cal re search. These aim to pre vent a re peatof the un eth i cal and in hu man use of men andwomen as sub jects of bi o log i cal re search inNazi Ger many. But there are few in stru mentsto reg u late the eq ui ta ble dis tri bu tion of thefruits of re search.

Ther a peu tic cloning prom ises a whole

range of rem e dies for pres ently in cur able con -di tions. But whether these will be avail able tothe vil lages around M ayavati or the bushmenin Af rica, and at what cost, is the big ques tion.A free-mar ket econ omy al lows few eth i calchecks on pric ing and avail abil ity. In so ci et ieswhere wel fare mea sures are in ad e quate andbud get ary allocations for health in sub stan tial(as is the case in In dia), costly and in ap pro pri -ate tech nol o gies can prove a big bur den.

The pres ence of gross socio-eco nomicdis par i ties can, there fore, of ten ren der plainbi o log i cal views of eth ics re dun dant. In fact,un der such con di tions, ‘bi o log i cal ar gu mentscan trivialize eth ics and dis tract our at ten tionfrom real moral is sues: the ways in which thege netic po ten tial of hu mans born into im pov -er ished en vi ron ments to day is stunted andthwarted’. As Leon Eisenberg of Har vardM ed i cal School has rightly ob served, ‘had wethe moral com mit ment to pro vide ev ery childwith what we de sire for our own, what a flow -er ing of hu man kind there would be.’ �

References

1. Shankaracharya’s com men tary on Brihadaran -yaka Upanishad, 4.4.3.

2. The Com plete W orks of Swami Vivekananda, 9

vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,

1997), 103.

3. Shankaracharya’s com men tary on BrahmaSutras, 3.1.22.

4. Brahma Sutras, 3.1.24.

5. Aitareya Upanishad 2.1.2.

6. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 3.9.28.4-5.

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Bioethics and Cloning 151

The goal of all na ture is free dom, and free dom is to be at tained only by per fect un self ish ness;

ev ery thought, word, or deed that is un self ish takes us to wards the goal, and, as such, is

called moral. That def i ni tion, you will find, holds good in ev ery re li gion and ev ery sys tem of eth -

ics.

—Swami Vivekananda

Act only on that maxim (or prin ci ple) which you can at the same time will to be come a uni ver -

sal law.

—Immanuel Kant

PB - M ARCH 2005 18

Prabuddha Bharata— 100 Years Ago

M arch 1905

Hard Work and True Play

How of ten the most stu pen dous work of Dame Na ture seems as if it were al most done in the spirit

of play; so eas ily, so with out fric tion do her mighty laws work!

The say ing that ‘Na ture is never at rest, yet al ways is in re pose’ strikes many a thought ful mind.

She may be filled with ac tions, but al ways calmly and surely she acts. In her most seem ingly an gry

and ter ri ble mo ments, one is con scious of the ever si lent march of her do ing. None can thwart, she si -

lently works, yet even then it seems to be but play.

We never feel the fric tions of fear in her not be ing able to ac com plish, or the ex tra ex pen di ture of

un needed force. This very ease and pos i tive way of at tain ing all her mar vel lous de vel op ments makes

us feel it but a smooth ef fect from a nat u ral cause and like a big play af ter all.

What a great les son to each of us if we but trans late this thought to our own en vi ron ments and

lives. No mat ter what the work, no mat ter how dis taste ful or dif fi cult, if a man or woman only go about

it with the spirit of free dom and power, of alert ness and ease, he will find suc cess where he ex pected

de feat. The qual ity of work lies in the man, not in the kind of work he per forms.

In dif fer ence is death. The outer ac tion al ways be speaks the in ner thoughts, and if one finds

[one self] slov enly, or halt ing or a non-de sire [sic] to do the deed to be done, alas, for that soul! It is the

heart that keeps us young in spirit. We must love our work, not the work it self but the very do ing, the

ac com plish ing of an act well. This when truly learned is a great step for ward to wards un der stand ing

the real play of life.

The man or woman who nat u rally longs to ex press him self or her self through art, mu sic or paint -

ing and finds some strong event caus ing them to turn ev ery cur rent of their in ter ests and en thu si asms

to an other di rec tion, may ei ther make or break their fu ture karma by the hard work or true play they

make of it.

A soul who re al izes that it is the cre ation of char ac ter which each of us is strug gling to gain, and

a line of nec es sary duty or im posed work of any de scrip tion may be turned into a cheer ful play, has

al ready climbed a step on the lad der of life’s evo lu tion which he will never re gret.

We are happy, con tent, cheery when we play, so if we learn to cause our minds to go qui etly, but

with vi tal ity and en ergy, and a true in ward de sire to calmly suc ceed, we will soon be laugh ing to our -

selves to feel the in tense joy and glad ness we have at tained, even while work ing at tasks which oth er -

wise would be irk some and wear ing.

Ev ery breath we breathe has a spir i tual sig nif i cance. Ev ery time you lift your hands to work, or

your voice to com mand, be con scious that it is not you, but You, who is to make ac counts. The law is

spir i tual de vel op ment, and the ear lier we each learn to feel within the sanc tu ary of our hearts that all

ac tion is but as a spir i tual chem ist, turn ing the do ing, ei ther into hard work or true play, we will learn to

com pre hend more and more our hard work, and turn it into—God’s Play.

—Emily Palmer Cape

Di vine per sons are char ac ter born, or, to bor row a phrase from Na po leon, they are vic tory or ga -

nized.—Emerson

Reflections on the Bhagavadgita

SWAMI ATULANANDA

Chap ter 11 (con tin ued)

33. There fore do you arise and ac quire fame. Af ter con quer ing the en e mies en joy a pros -per ous king dom. Ver ily by Me have they been al ready slain; be you merely an in stru men talcause, O Savyasachin (Arjuna)!

Your good karma, Arjuna, en ti tles you tofame and the en joy ment of a con quer ing prince. Peo ple will highly re gard you as

the great est of heroes. And that is right, for suchyou are. Who else can I ad dress as Savya sa chin,one able to shoot ar rows even with his left hand?You have made your self a most pro fi cient war -rior and there fore I could se lect you as My in -stru ment for this great cause. Now be happy.The war will go on any how, for My plan mustwork out. Those who are doomed must per ish,if not through you then through some one else.There is no es cape for them. Your part in thefight is re ally very in sig nif i cant. You are only atool in the hand of the mas ter. Re mem ber, I am the real ac tor; you only ap pear as such. Thatpriv i lege I give you. But the war does not de -pend on you, nei ther the vic tory nor the de -feat. You can not save any one’s life; nei ther can you take it with out My con sent. And I knowthe se cret of things. I un der stand the play. Iknow that there is no death be yond the body.And you need not fear any thing. I will tell youa se cret. Victory will be yours. Go ahead andfight.

Here is a great les son. Noth ing takes placewith out God’s con sent. What ever is done,where so ever and by whom so ever, it is all awork ing out of His plan. The sav ing of life andthe tak ing of life are in cluded in the Uni ver salScheme. The man of char ity and the rob ber,the pro tec tor of life and the mur derer, the saintand the sin ner, are all nec es sary to keep theworld-wheel turn ing. All are en gaged in Hisser vice and we are all placed where we be -

long. We all fill the place for which we are fit.The cob bler can not do the car pen ter’s work;the shoe black can not fill the pro fes sor’s chair.And so it is in the moral sphere. The saint can -not cheat and mur der. The rogue can not livethe saintly life. God uses us for that work forwhich we are fit. We have no choice. De velopyour moral and spir i tual side and He will useyou for moral and spir i tual pur poses. Rob and lie and cheat and kill, and God will use youwhere there is a va cancy for the cheat and therob ber. The law is just. As on the ma te rial plane,so on the men tal and spir i tual plane. Char ac -ter counts. We may work for a great and loftycause or we may slave sim ply to sat isfy ourpas sions.

But if we are all God’s work ers, whatthen does it mat ter what we do? True, it doesnot mat ter to those who re al ize this. But re al iz -ing it and not re al iz ing it, that is what mat ters.The man of re al iza tion works in the spirit offree dom; the ig no rant man is a tool and aslave. The one works be cause he loves to servethe mas ter; the other is forced into his place, he can not es cape. To the one life is a joy; to theother it is a bur den. To the one life means as -sist ing one dearly be loved to com plete a greatpur pose; to the other it means be ing driven bythe whip of des tiny. That makes a great dif fer -ence.

Arjuna did not re al ize it; there fore he suf -fered. When he un der stood it, all sor row lefthim. Ig no rance un nerved him. Un der stand -ing made him a man. Sri Krishna is con vinc ing him.

19 PB -MARCH 2005

34. Drona, Bhishma, Jayadratha and Karna, as well as other brave war riors, them— al -ready killed by Me— do you kill and be not dis tressed. Fight, and you will con quer your en e -mies in bat tle.

There was good rea son for Arjuna to fearhis op po nents. For some of them wereen dowed with spe cial pow ers and ce les -

tial weap ons and oth ers were con sid ered in -vin ci ble. Bhishma, for ex am ple, had his deathat his own will. He had his life un der his owncon trol, for there were only cer tain con di tionsun der which he could be killed. By avoid ingthese con di tions he was safe from all at tack.Karna was most for mi da ble in war and Indra,be ing pleased with him, had given him an un -err ing mis sile. That mis sile was sure to kill theper son at whom it was di rected. Jayadratha’sfa ther, again, was per form ing se vere aus teri -

ties in or der that who ever killed his son would him self die in stantly. And so were there oth -ers. Be sides, Arjuna had rea son to fear that hewould com mit a great sin by kill ing Drona and Bhishma. The lat ter was his grand sire whohad al ways been very kind to him and the for -mer, his great est teacher in the sci ence of ar -chery. It was Drona who had taught Arjuna all that he knew, who had made him the great estof all war riors. It is for this rea son that SriKrishna es pe cially men tions these heroes when he tells Arjuna not to feel trou bled. Vic torywill be yours and you will not com mit sin byen gag ing in the fight. Some way or other thesemen will lose their lives. I have or dained it so.

If we can trust in God, if we can al waysact to please Him, then we will not com mit any sin. We may make mis takes from a worldlystand point, but if our mo tive is to obey the will of God in all things, then no sin will be heldagainst us. It is the mo tive that counts withGod, not the deed. A truly re signed man maysuf fer on the ma te rial plane, karma may af fecthim there, but his con science will al ways beclear, he will have peace of mind un der allcon di tions. That is the re ward of the spir i tualman. Storm and stress may blow about him,he may meet suc cess or fail ure, he may en joyor suf fer, but his heart is firmly fixed in the

eter nal Spirit and he en joys abliss that passes all un der stand -ing.

The worldly man can notcom pre hend this. He can not be -lieve it. But those who havetried and suc ceeded are firmlycon vinced that no hap pi ness isgreater than the hap pi ness of

him who lives a spir i tual life. And the spir i tual life as taught in the Gita con sists in the per for -mance of our du ties, fear lessly and un self -ishly, with love for God, who is the di vinePrinciple within us, our very in ner be ing, theSoul of our soul, the Life of our life. Live in theworld, and as the lily that grows in the wa ter isnot moist ened by wa ter, so re main free fromthe con tam i na tion of the world, by putt ingyour love and trust in God while work ingamong, and for, His crea tures.

Sanjaya again re lates to King Dhrita ra -shtra the ef fect which Sri Krishna’s words ex -er cised on Arjuna.

35. Sanjaya said:

Hav ing heard these words of Keshava (Krishna), (Arjuna) the di a dem-wearer, withfolded hands, trem bling and pros trat ing him self, again spoke to Krishna in a choked voice,

PB - MARCH 2005 20


If we can trust in God, if we can always act

to please Him, then we will not commit any

sin. … If our motive is to obey the will of

God in all things, then no sin will be held

against us. It is the motive that counts with

God, not the deed.

bow ing down, over whelmed with fear.

There was still a pos si bil ity of pre vent ingthe bat tle. Had the king con sented tomake cer tain con ces sions, the other

party could have been sat is fied. And Sanjayahoped that on learn ing that his sons, amongoth ers, would be killed, the king might de -spair of suc cess and that he might bring aboutpeace. But even this the king did not lis ten to,

ow ing to mighty Des tiny. And the fight wascon tin ued.

Arjuna, quite over come by the words ofSri Krishna, hardly able to speak, trem blingand over whelmed with fear, be gins withfolded hands his ad o ra tion of the Lord in theUni ver sal Form.

36. Arjuna said:

It is meet, O Lord of the senses (Krishna), that the world is de lighted and re joices inYour glory, that rakshasas fly in fear to all quar ters and all the hosts of siddhas bow down toYou in ad o ra tion.

OLord, You are the Self of all and theFriend of all be ings. You are the mostbe loved and it is right that the world

should re joice at the sight of Your glory andthat all great souls should bow down to You in ad o ra tion.

37. Why should they not bow down to You, O mighty Be ing, greater than all, the pri malcause even of Brahma, O in fi nite One, O Lord of the gods, O Abode of the uni verse; for Youare the Im per ish able, (You are) ex is tence and non-ex is tence and all that is be yond.

In deed it is but fit that all should bow downto God, the ma hatma, the Great Soul of theuni verse, greater than even the or i gin of the

cre ator Brahma. Brahma him self is but an in -stru ment in God’s hand. He car ries out God’splan; he makes per cep ti ble that which in thedi vine Mind is supersensuous. The eter nalworld-scheme is car ried out by one Brahmaaf ter the other. But God is in fi nite, im per ish -

able, be yond the uni verse, man i fest orunmanifest, be yond sat and asat, be cause these are only His upadhis, His forms, His me di umsof ex pres sion. You are be yond all that the hu -man mind can con ceive, tran scend ing ex is -tence and non-ex is tence and what ever elsethere might be. Thus de clare all the Vedas.Well may we re joice and de light in prais ingYou!

38. O You of bound less form, You are the pri me val De ity, the an cient Be ing; You are the

su preme Ref uge of this uni verse. You are the Knower, the One to be known and the su preme

Goal. By You alone is this uni verse per vaded.

You are the su preme Ref uge of the uni -verse, for You alone re main at the timeof mahapralaya, uni ver sal de struc tion.

You are the Knower, the Spirit within us, andthe God to whom all things turn and wherethey find their rest, be ing united with You.

Where there is one ness, unity, there alone is rest and sat is fac tion; and that can be foundonly in the Spirit, the one Re al ity on which thisworld of di ver sity ap pears like the light thatplays on the sur face of the wa ter.

More over,

39. You are Vayu, Yama, Agni, Varuna, and the Moon. You are the Lord of crea tures and

the Great-grand sire. Sal u ta tions to You, my sal u ta tions a thou sand times, again and again

my sal u ta tions to You!

21 PB -MARCH 2005

Reflections on the Bhagavadgita 155

Arjuna is in ec stasy. He has be come arishi, a seer of Truth. The scrip tures arecon firmed, they lie open be fore him in

this vi sion. His sam adhi car ries him higherand higher. One truth af ter an other un folds.The Vedas are eter nal. They can be read in allages, they are stamped on the mind of ev eryone of us. Through the grace of Sri KrishnaArjuna’s spir i tual eye is opened and page af ter

page of the Vedas is re al ized by him. He is ex -alted. What can he say? Words are weak in -stru ments! How to sing the praises of his be -loved Lord? It does not sat isfy him. He is be -yond all praise. In what di rec tion shall I bowdown to You, my Lord? I adore You in the eastand in the west, in the north and in the south!You are om ni pres ent! Where are You not?What are You not?

40. Sal u ta tions to You in front, sal u ta tions to You be hind, sal u ta tions to You on all sides! O All, in fi nite in power and im mea sur able in val our, You per vade all; there fore You are all.

Ev ery thing con tains You, ev ery thing is per -vaded by You, noth ing ex ists with out You.

What more shall I say? Oh, how ig no rant Ihave been:

41. Not know ing this, Your glory, and re gard ing You merely as a friend, what ever I mayhave said pre sump tu ously, out of ei ther care less ness or fond ness, ad dress ing You as ‘OKrishna, O Yadava, O Friend’;

42. O Change less One, in what ever man ner I may have been dis re spect ful to You, in jest, in walk ing, in re pose, in sit ting, or at meals, alone or in the pres ence of oth ers; O un fath om -able One, I im plore You to for give all that.

For give my pre sump tion. I did not knowany better. I meant no of fence. Throughour close friend ship and as so ci a tion I had

lost sight of Your godly na ture. I be gan to look

upon You as my friend, be loved and re -spected, but Your di vin ity I had for got ten.Now I know better. You have in Your kind -ness opened my eyes. In deed

43. You are the Fa ther of the mov ing and unmoving world, and its ob ject of wor ship,greater than the great; O in com pa ra ble Power, no one in the three worlds ex ists equal to You.How then can any one ex cel You?

You are the Ishvara, the Lord, the Cre ator, Pre server and De stroyer of the uni -verse. Cer tainly none can be like You.

There can not pos si bly be two Ishvaras or twoLords. If there were more than one Ishvara,the world could not get on as it does. Whenone Ishvara de sires to cre ate, an other maywish to de stroy. There is no guar an tee that allthe Ishvaras would be of one mind. And as

they would all be in de pend ent of each other,the ef fort of one Ishvara in one di rec tionwould be neu tral ized by that of an other in theop po site di rec tion. There would be great con -fu sion in the uni verse. ‘Where there are two,there is fear’, says the Upanishad. And so,when even Your equal does not ex ist, how canthere ex ist a be ing su pe rior to You? There fore,

44. O ador able Lord! Pros trating my body in ad o ra tion, I beg Your for give ness. O God,as a fa ther for gives his son, a friend his dear friend, a be loved one his love, even so do Youfor give me!

For give me my of fences. (To be continued)

PB - MARCH 2005 22


Vedanta in Practice*

SWAMI GAMBHIRANANDA

(Translated by ShoutirKishore Chatterjee)

At the out set it is nec es sary to be ex pliciton one point. Like oth ers I too am a stu -dent of Vivekananda lit er a ture. There -

fore I can not claim that I have fully un der stoodthe im port of Vivekananda’s writ ings. As suchit is in ev i ta ble that there would be vague nessand in com plete ness in what I am go ing to say.Also, at pres ent I am not in a po si tion to de vote as much time and put in as much hard work aswould be re quired to do jus tice to all as pects of this vast sub ject.

Acharya Shankara and Swami Vivekananda

It was the all-per va sive ness and per fec -tion of Brah man that were taken up by SwamiVivekananda as the ba sis to for mu late hisguid ing phi los o phy of life and programme ofso cial up lift, or in other words, the frame workof his ‘Prac ti cal Vedanta’. The ear lier mas tershad said and de lib er ated a good deal aboutthis Brah man. It is nec es sary to com pre hend in what re spects Swamiji as an expounder ofBrah man agreed with and dif fered from them.Of course, so far as truth goes, there can not beany dif fer ence be tween Swamiji’s Advaitic(non-dualist) po si tion and that of the ear liermas ters. But whereas Shankaracharya is bentupon ex pos ing and show ing the truth in itsun sul lied form, Swamiji, see ing the same truth as per vad ing one and all, is de ter mined to ap -

ply it in prac tice. Whereas Shankara, at ev erystep, shows the mu tual in com pat i bil ity ofwork and knowl edge, Swamiji’s ef forts are di -rected to wards har mo niz ing the two in theprac ti cal field. Whereas the for mer re gardsknowl edge as Brah man It self, es tab lished inIts own glory, in Swamiji’s view the same is ablaz ing bea con guid ing hu man ity on the roadto prog ress. There fore to un der stand Swamiji,it is nec es sary to un der stand Shankaracharyaalso to some ex tent. I take this as my start ingpoint.

The path chalked out by Swamiji is notin de pend ent of the Upanishads and the Gita;they form the ba sis of Swamiji’s phi los o phy.There fore we have to ex am ine their re la tion toSwamiji’s think ing. Finally, we have to con -sider the plan of work for mu lated by Swamiji.We pro pose to pro ceed through these var i ousstages.

Swami Vivekananda wanted to bring Ve -danta out of for est con fines and es tab lish it inthe hab i tats of peo ple. The ser vice of man inthe spirit of wor ship that he preached is basedon this Advaita Vedanta. The path of prog ressthat he pre scribed for hu man ity is also laid out on this ground of Advaita. In this con text oneques tion nat u rally arises. Shankaracharyasum ma rized Advaita Vedanta in the words:‘Brahmasatyaó jaganmithyá; Brah man is real,

23 PB -MARCH 2005

* Trans la tion of a lec ture in Ben gali en ti tled ‘Kárye Pariîata Vedánta’, de liv ered at the VivekanandaPatha Chak ra of the De part ment of Phi los o phy, Cal cutta Uni ver sity, on 7 Feb ru ary 1958 by SwamiGambhirananda, Pres i dent of Advaita Ashrama (1953-63) and later the 11th Pres i dent (1985-88) ofRamakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mis sion. The lec ture was first pub lished in two parts in theChaitra 1364 BS and Vaishakh 1365 BS (March-April and April-May 1958) is sues of the Ben gali jour nal Udbodhan. It was later in cluded in the sec ond and sub se quent edi tions of a col lec tion of se lected lec -tures of Swami Gambhirananda, pub lished by Udbodhan Of fice un der the ti tle KaëPantháë.

the fleet ing rel a tive world is un real.’ How canthe tran scen den tal truth of this Advaita phi -los o phy fit in with the down-to-earth ideas ofwor ship ful ser vice of people or of so cial up -lift? Some mod ern think ers even say that allthe schools of re li gion in In dia are averse to the world. As long as their ba sic philo soph i calten ets do not change, how can they pro vide in -spi ra tion for worldly prog ress?

Al though the two ob jec tions be long todif fer ent cat e go ries, there is a ba sic sim i lar itybe tween them. Both the ques tions gen er ate inour mind doubts as to whether a world-ne gat -ing Vedanta, or for that mat ter any re li giousschool which is averse to the world, can pro -vide in spi ra tion for any pos i tive endeavour. Ap par ently it can not; yet Advaita Vedanta,wed ded to an ex treme form of ne ga tion of theworld, forms the ba sis of Swami Vive ka nanda’sphi los o phy and programme of ac tion. More -

over, his guru Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsaalso gave him les sons in Advaita with ut mostcare. Fur ther, af ter be com ing es tab lished innirvikalpa sam adhi, the pin na cle of Advaita,Sri Ramakrishna him self pro claimed, ‘Advaitais the last word in spir i tu al ity; with Advaiticre al iza tion in your pos ses sion, do as you wish.’This means, just like Swami Viveka nanda, hisguru Sri Ramakrishna did not see any con tra -dic tion be tween Advaitic ex pe ri ence and prac -ti cal ac tiv ity.

In terms of prac ti cal be hav iour, such ab -sence of con tra dic tion can be ob served in thelives of ear lier mas ters too. No body doubtsthe fact that Shankaracharya was a knower ofBrah man. It is also unan i mously agreed thathe is the prin ci pal ex po nent of Advaitism inthe pres ent age. Yet, even af ter at tain ing re al -iza tion, he worked for the dis sem i na tion of

Advaitism by authoring books, found ing mon-as ter ies, tak ing part in re li gious po lem ics, un -der tak ing pil grim ages, com pos ing de vo tional hymns, and so on. It is nec es sary to re solve this in con sis tency. It is pos si ble that out of such ares o lu tion will emerge a ground for the syn -the sis of du al ism and non-du al ism.

The Acts of the Perfected

The Advaitic teach ers found that, evenaf ter at tain ment of re al iza tion, a jnani (knowerof Brah man) hap pens to give in struc tions tooth ers. In fact, un less we agree to re gard an in -struc tor as a jnani, it de tracts from the au then -tic ity of the truth taught by him. There fore,look ing at the lives of the jnanis and lis ten ingto the say ings in the scrip tures, one has to con -clude that there is a state of ex is tence called ji -vanmukti, in which one can re main es tab -lished in per fect knowl edge and yet from the

prac ti cal point of view en gageone self in ac tiv ity. Still, from ara tio nal view point, co ex is tenceof du al ism and non-du al ism isim pos si ble. So, to ex plain thisstate, terms like pra rabdha(past ac tions that have al readybe gun fruc ti fy ing), aj ðá naleùa

(rem nant of ig no rance), bádhita- anu vìtti (there ap pear ance of that which has been sublated)were brought in. Again, some say that in hisown eyes the jnani does not do any work, butin the eyes of oth ers he seems to be work ing.What ever may be the ex pla na tion, from ourlay view point, jnanis do have their ac tiv i ties.But those ac tiv i ties are not ex actly like ours.They are reg u lated by mo tives like pro vid ingguid ance to peo ple, by prarabdha, or by God’s com mand. Bhagavan Sri Krishna him self hasde scribed this state of being ac tive or inactivein the Bhagavadgita:

Naivakiðcit karomætiyukto manyetatattvavit;

Paùyaðùìîvan spìùað jighrannaùnan gacchan svapaðùvasan.

‘The self less karma yogi, hav ing re al ized


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L ik e S wami V ivek a nanda, his guru S ri

R amak rishna did not see any contradiction

between A dvaitic ex perience and practical

activity.

the Truth, even while see ing, hear ing, touch -ing, smell ing, eat ing, go ing, sleep ing andbreath ing, is firmly con vinced that the sensesare oc cu pied with their re spec tive ob jects andknows for cer tain, “I do noth ing at all.”’1

And he has pro vided the il lus tra tion:Na me párthásti kartavyaó

triøu lokeøu kiðcana;Nánaváptam aváptavyaó

vartaeva ca karmaîi.‘I have, O Partha, no duty, noth ing that I

have not gained and noth ing that I have togain in the three worlds. Yet (for the good ofpeo ple), I re main al ways en gaged in ac tion.’(3.22)

We get an other ex am ple in the life of thesage- king Janaka: ‘Karmaîaiva hi saósiddhimásthitá janak ádayaë; Ver ily by ac tion aloneJanaka and oth ers at tained saósiddhi.’ (3.20)

While com ment ing on this, Shankar a -charya said that the word saósiddhi can betaken to mean ei ther ‘pu rity of mind’ or ‘re al -iza tion’. If we say that it means pu rity of mind, then there is noth ing il log i cal in Janaka’s be ing es tab lished in saósiddhi through ac tion. And if re al iza tion be the mean ing of saó sid dhi, thenwe may con strue that for some rea son, evenaf ter the at tain ment of re al iza tion, Janaka’s ac -tiv i ties did not cease— he re mained es tab lishedin re al iza tion along with ac tiv ity. Ac cord ingto the lat ter in ter pre ta tion too, from the prac ti -cal view point, the jnani can still be in volved inwork. Shankara took the pres ence or ab senceof the idea of own er ship and de sire for re sultsas the test of work and workless ness. With outthe de sire for re sults or the at ti tude of a doer,work is no work at all. So in this case the ques -tion of mix ing work with knowl edge can notarise— ‘naitat karma yenajðá nenasamuccæyeta.’Fur ther more, this state, one of ac tiv ity to allap pear ances, rep re sents in truth the acme ofknowl edge. The sage-king Janaka re mainedes tab lished in such knowl edge. How ever thatmay be, herein we have an ex pla na tion as tohow some one who has reached the Advaiticex pe ri ence can still re main en gaged in ac tiv -

ity. We have also to keep in mind that whenthe an cient mas ters de nied the co ex is tence ofknowl edge and work, they were ex am in ingthe is sue not at the worldly (or phe nom e nal)level but rather from the ab so lute stand point.Al though from the ab so lute view point knowl -edge and re nun ci a tion of ac tiv ity are in sep a ra -bly con nected, they did not em pha size ex ter -nal re nun ci a tion from the point of view ofprac tice. Even Shankara charya’s line of rea -son ing here is mainly con cerned with the stateof the mind. From the point of view of psy -chol ogy there is an in su per a ble bar rier be -tween the two modes of think ing— ‘I am do -ing work’ and ‘I am the ac tion less At man’.Even Anandagiri in his gloss on Shankar-acharya’s ex po si tion of the Shruti text tapasávápyaliïgát (the knowl edge of At man can notbe at tained by aus ter ity alone, with out for malre nun ci a tion or san nyasa) has both Upani-shadic think ing and prac ti cal con sid er ationsin mind when he ob serves: ‘But is there notmen tion of re al iza tion of At man by Indra,Janaka, Gargi, and oth ers in the Ve dic texts?Truly it is there. As they had no idea of pos ses -sion, they too had that in ter nal re nun ci a tion of ev ery thing which san nyasa stands for. In -deed, “the as sump tion of ex ter nal signs of re -nun ci a tion” is not the mean ing in tendedherein.’2

It is a long-stand ing prac tice that a spir i -tual as pi rant makes prog ress along the spir i -tual path by as crib ing to him self the state of aper fected per son. That is why Shankar-acharya, in the course of his pref a tory re marks on the the char ac ter is tics of a sthitaprajna (per -son of steady wis dom) in the sec ond chap terof the Gita, writes, ‘In all spir i tual lit er a ture,cul ti va tion of the at trib utes of a per son whohas reached per fec tion is pre scribed as spir i -tual prac tice. This is be cause such cul ti va tionre quires a good deal of ef fort.’ This leads us tothe fol low ing con clu sion: For var i ous rea sons,lib er ated per sons, in spite of be ing be yond all bond age of duty, ap pear du ti ful to peo ple; aspir i tual as pi rant can prog ress by as crib ing to

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Vedanta in Practice 159

him self this state of a lib er ated be ing. For thisrea son, in the Gita Sri Krishna ad vises as pi -rants to sim u late the con duct of ear lier mas -ters and per fected souls as re gards ‘do ing nowork in the midst of ac tiv ity’.

The Jnani’s View of the World

In this con text an other ques tion nat u rally arises in our mind. If, to a jnani, the worldman i fests as a re ap pear ance of what has al -ready been tran scended, how then does he re -late to it? He may re gard the uni verse cre atedby maya as il lu sory like a dream and at tach noim por tance to it. That is, even though it ap -pears re flected like a dream in his psy che, hemay dis dain fully with draw his mind and paylit tle at ten tion to it. Sec ondly, he may re gard itas the man i fes ta tion of God’s power, look at itcur so rily, and yet keep him self aloof. We mayre call that Shankaracharya con cedes that mayais the in con ceiv able power of God. Thirdly, in -stead of evinc ing such ap a thy, he may see theworld as the man i fes ta tion of the ex qui sitebeauty of God en dowed with maya, and es -tab lish a lov ing re la tion with it. All these at ti -tudes may be found among Advaitists. Evenmonks re cite rev er ently a good many de vo -tional hymns, tra di tion ally at trib uted to Shan-kara charya. One of his hymns con tains the fol -low ing verse:

Satyapi bhedápagame náthataváhaó namámakænastvam;

Sámudro hi taraïgo nakvacanasamudrastáraïgaë.

‘O Lord, even though there is no dis tinc -tion be tween you and I, yet I be long to you; itdoes not be hove me to say, “You be long tome.” Al though it is true that there ex ists not abit of dis tinc tion be tween the sea and thewave, yet peo ple say that the wave be longs tothe sea; no body says that the sea be longs to the wave.’3

Madhusudana Saraswati too con sciously har mo nized knowl edge and de vo tion. The fol -low ing well-known verse is at trib uted to him:

Advaitasámrájya pathádhiréõhás

tìîækìtákhaîõalavaibhaváùca;Ùaôhenakenápi vayaó haôhena

dásækìtágopavadhéviôena.‘We have em barked on a jour ney to the

Advaitic em pire and have spurned Indra’sriches as though they were mere grass. Yet wehave some how been forc ibly en slaved by thatde ceit ful se ducer of the gopa women.’

Shridhara Swami too is a way farer on thesame road. And the au thor of the Bhaga vatawrites:

Átmárámáùca munayonirgrantháapyurukrame;

Kurvantyahaitukæó bhaktimitthambhétaguîo harië.

‘Sages who re main ab sorbed in the At -man are de void of all at tach ments, yet they re -main de voted to the Lord with out any mo tive; such is the glory of the Lord.’4

The con clu sion we reach from the abovedis cus sion is that, even in the Advaitic tra di -tion, there are cer tain stages in the life of an il -lu mined per son wherein there is si mul ta -neous man i fes ta tion of knowl edge, work andde vo tion, at least as seen by an em pir i cal ob -server; an as pi rant cul ti vates the same con -sciously in his life. It is nat u ral to pre sume thatthis per spec tive af fected to a great ex tent thethink ing of Swami Vivekananda, an Advaitinthat he was. Fur ther more, in his opin ion suchan ac tive Advaitism alone can be the start ingpoint and un shak able ba sis of ev ery re li gion,mo ral ity and so cial or der. There is no other doc -trine which has such a uni ver sal and lib eralout look and which calls peo ple to march un -wa ver ingly to wards the Truth. Fix ity of thegoal com bined with a cease less on ward strug -gle to reach it, can be found in Advaita alone;and we will be dis cuss ing this point in duecourse. Let us first take up the ap pli ca tion ofAd vaitism in the field of spir i tu al ity.

Reconciling ‘Neti, Neti’ and‘Sarvaó Khalvidaó Brahma’

As we pro ceed to dis cuss Advaitic spir i -tual prac tice as de lin eated in the Upanishads,


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two spe cial phrases pres ent them selves tous— one is ‘neti neti; not this, not this’ of theBrihadaranyaka and the other, ‘sarvaó khalv-idaó brahma; all this is ver ily Brah man’ of theChandogya. These two sen tences ap pear to bemu tu ally con tra dic tory, yet ac cord ing to Shan-karacharya they both have the same mean ing.The first sen tence in tro duces Brah man in aneg a tive way; the sec ond also in tro ducesBrah man, and not ‘all’. In deed this is so fromthe point of view of the ory. But is it so as re -gards spir i tual prac tice too? The o retically,knowl edge de stroys ig no rance, which is itsan tith e sis. For de struc tion of ig no rance noth -ing else can be ac cepted as an aid or aux il iaryto knowl edge of Brah man. Knowl edge alonede stroys ig no rance, in de pend ent of all otherthings. When ig no rance is dis pelled Brah manman i fests It self spon ta ne ously; any other pos -i tive ef fort for Its man i fes ta tion is point less.

In semi-dark ness one may mis take apiece of rope for a snake. To rec tify that mis -take one needs to bring light. But this ac tiondoes not cause the ap pear ance of any newprop erty such as ‘man i fes ta tion’ in the rope.When ev ery thing else is ne gated through dis -crim i na tion and de lib er a tion— ‘not this, notthis’— Brah man man i fests It self of its own.

On the other hand, the Chandogya says,‘This uni verse is ver ily Brah man It self; for it isborn out of That, dis solves into That, and ex -ists in That. There fore one should med i tate bybe com ing calm. A per son is iden ti fied with(his) con vic tion. As is a man’s con vic tion inthis world, so does he be come af ter de part ingfrom here. There fore he should firmly take tothat form of med i ta tion which con sists in re -main ing en grossed in the thought of That.’5

As re gards the mode of med i ta tion, the Upani -shad says, ‘This At man of mine sit u ated in thelo tus of my heart is smaller than a rice or bar -ley or mus tard or ùyámáka seed or the ker nel ofa ùyámáka seed. This At man of mine sit u atedin the lo tus of my heart is greater than theearth, greater than the in ter me di ate space,greater than heaven— it is vaster than all these

worlds. That which is the per former of all ac -tions, is pos sessed of all good de sires, is pos -sessed of all good smells, is pos sessed of allgood es sences, ex ists per vad ing all this … thatvery en tity is sit u ated in the lo tus of my heartas my At man— it is Brah man.’ (3.14.2-4) Thusthe iden tity of At man and Brah man is es tab -lished in stages in var i ous ways. The first verse of the Isha Upa nishad re flects this pro cess andthis feel ing of iden tity:

Æùávásyam idaó sarvaóyat kiðcajagatyáó jagat;

Tenatyaktenabhuðjæthámá gìdhaëkasyasvid dhanam.

‘All that is change ful in this uni verseshould be cov ered by the Lord. Pro tect (yourSelf) through this de tach ment. Do not covetany body’s wealth. Or, do not covet, (for) whoseis (this) wealth?’

Upanishadic Upasanas:The Stairways to Advaita

In the Upanishadic con cep tion of med i ta -tion Swami Vivekananda found a grad u atedscheme for the es tab lish ment of the jiva’s iden -tity with Brah man and hints about bas ing hu -man life on Advaitism in ac cor dance with that.He ob served and men tioned how Satya kamaJabala of the Chandogya Upanishad, or dered byhis guru Haridrumata Gautama, went to thedeep for est to graze cows and re al ized thatsarvaó khalvidaó brahma there. The bull said tohim, ‘The east ern side is one part, the west ernside is one part, the south ern side is one part,and the north ern side is one part of Brah man.This, my dear, is one foot of Brah man, con sist -ing of four parts and called the Man i fested.’The fire said to him, ‘Earth is one part, in ter -me di ate space is one part, heaven is one part,and the ocean is one part. O dear one, this issurely one foot of Brah man, hav ing four partsand called the Lim it less.’ The swan said tohim, ‘Fire is one part, the sun is one part, themoon is one part, and light ning is one part. Odear one, this is surely one foot of Brah man,hav ing four parts and called the Ef ful gent.’

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The diver-bird said to him, ‘The vi tal force isone part, the eye is one part, the ear is one part,and the mind is one part. O dear one, this issurely one foot of Brah man, hav ing four partsand named Áya tanaván (pos sessed of anabode).’ (4.4-9) Ac cord ing to Shankaracharya,words like bull are to be un der stood in thesense of the pre sid ing de i ties of the di rec tionsand so on. Al though Swa mi Vi vekananda didnot re ject that view, he said that Satyakama,with his nat u ral spir i tual in quis i tive ness, be -came de ter mined to re al ize Brah man eventhrough such an or di nary work like graz ingcat tle. As a re sult, com mon place crea tures and ob jects like bull, fire, and the rest had to be -come el o quent and lead him to the truth sar -vaó khalvidaó brahma. The next story of the

Chandogya is also sim i lar. The guru went out of sta tion with out in struct ing the dis ci ple. Yetthe fires, be ing tended by the dis ci ple, be camepleased and in structed him about Brah man,‘Prana (the vi tal force) is Brah man, ka(Bliss) isBrah man, kha (Space) is Brah man.’ Then eachfire in structed him sep a rately. The fire knownas Gárhapatya said, ‘Earth, fire, food, and sunare my body. The Per son that is seen in the sun,that I am.’ Then the fire named Anváhárya- pacana (Dakøiîágni) said, ‘Wa ter, di rec tions,stars, and the moon (are my body). This Per -son that is seen in the moon, that I am.’ TheÁha vanæya fire said, ‘Vi tal force, space,heaven, and light ning (are my body). This Per -son that is seen in light ning, that I am.’(4.10-14) Here also sarvaó khalvidaó brahma isspon ta ne ously man i fest ed in the heart of the

dis ci ple.Brah man is all-per va sive; It is bhémá (In -

fi nite). In Vedanta this all-per va sive ness ofBrah man has been ac cepted and de scribed inmany ways, us ing many terms. The dif fer entUpanishads pre scribe meth ods for see ingBrah man ev ery where and re al iz ing one’s Selfev ery where through var i ous med i ta tions onBrah man. Fur ther, it is ac cepted that prog resson the path of re al iza tion oc curs in stages— thisbe ing a cease less ex pe di tion from the smallerto the greater. Com mon ob jects of our ev ery -day world are also not ex cluded from thesweep of this all-per va sive vi sion. The Taitti ri -yaUpanishad pre scribes med i ta tion on food,vi tal force, mind, and other things as Brah -man. Con sider ing all this, Swami Viveka -

nanda reached the con clu sionthat at least in the age of theUpani shads med i ta tion onBrah man was thus har mo nizedand iden ti fied with life and as are sult the whole of life be cametrans formed into one sin glemed i ta tion. A fur ther hint orproof of this is avail able in thePurusha Yajna of the ChandogyaUpanishad. (3.16) There it is stated

that a man in deed is a sac ri fice. The firsttwenty-four years of his life rep re sent themorn ing savana (li ba tion). The Vasus are as so -ci ated with the morn ing savanaof this ‘sac ri -fice that is man’. The vi tal forces are in deed the Vasus. The next forty-four years of life rep re sentthe mid day savana. … The last forty-eightyears of life are the third savana, and so on.Then it is said that the hun ger, thirst and lackof hap pi ness of the per former of the PurushaYajna con sti tute his ini ti a tion (into the sac ri -fice). (3.17) His eat ing, drink ing, and feel inghappy are sim i lar to the par tak ing of food thatfol lows ini ti a tion. His aus ter ity, char ity, sin -cer ity, non-in jury and truth ful ness are the dak-øi îás (of fer ings to the priest) of the PurushaYajna. This is some what like the well-knownBen gali song: ‘My ly ing down I con sider as


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T he different U panishads prescribe methods

for seeing B rahman everywhere and

realiz ing one’s S elf everywhere through

various meditations on B rahman. …

C ommon objects of our everyday world are

also not ex cluded from the sweep of this

all-pervasive vision.

pros tra tion and my sleep med i ta tion uponMother; and when I take my food, I think that I am of fer ing an ob la tion to Mother Shyama.’

Af ter this, when the Taittiriya Upanishadpro claimed the man tra ‘M átìdevo bhava, pitì de -vo bhava, atithidevo bhava; May you be one towhom mother is God, fa ther is God, the guestis God’, it was easy for Swami Viveka nan da totune in with daridradevo bhava (’may you beone to whom the poor is God’) and so on. Thisis the cul mi na tion of the think ing of theUpanishads and is a most up-to-date pre scrip -tion of spir i tual prac tice well within thebounds of Advaita Vedanta.

But even this could not bring peace to themind of Vivekananda. The line of think ingwhich ex tended so far in the Upanishadic agecan not pos si bly ter mi nate at this point; its mo -men tum can not re main ar rested here. If wepen e trate into its heart, then we would have topro ceed fur ther, much fur ther ahead. TheShvetash va tara Upanishad con tains the verse

Tvaó stræ tvaó pumán asitvaó kumárautavákumáræ;

Tvaó jærîo daîõenavaðcasitvaó játo bhavasi viùvatomukhaë.

‘You are the woman, You are the man,You are the youth, and the maiden too; Youare the aged man who tot ters along lean ing onthe staff; You, be ing born, as sume var i ousforms.’6

This idea must not re main con fined to the scrip tures; we need to ex pe ri ence it in ev ery -day life and re al ize it in prac tice. We have tocom pre hend the in te gral view of Brah man be -yond Its in di vid u ated man i fes ta tion, which isde scribed in the PurushaSukta and the Shvet-ashva tara Upanishad. Thus the man tra says:

Sahasraùærøá puruøaësahasrákøaësahasrapát;

Sabhémió viùvato vìtvá’tyatiøôhad daùáïgulam.

‘That per fect Being has in fi nitely manyheads, in fi nitely many eyes, in fi nitely manyfeet; al though per vad ing the en tire uni verse, It

sit u ates It self in the heart at a dis tance of tenfin ger-breadths above the na vel.’7

Sarvataëpáîipádastatsarvato’køi ùiromukham;

Sarvataëùrutimalloke sarvamávìtyatiøôhati.

‘The hands and feet of all crea tures re allybe long to Brah man; so do the eyes, heads, andmouths of all liv ing be ings; so also the ears ofall crea tures. That per vades ev ery thing andex ists in the bod ies of all liv ing be ings as thepra tyag átman.’8

This in di vid ual and col lec tive man i fes ta -tion of the In fi nite is not to re main an ob ject ofmed i ta tion or an ex pres sion of truth alone; itmust be made an ob ject of wor ship in the prac -ti cal world. It is de sir able to do away with thehi a tus cre ated be tween life and the con cept ofBrah man. That is why Vivekananda wrote:

From highest Brahman to the yonder worm,And to the very minutest atom, Everywhere is the same God, the All-Love;Friend, offer mind, soul, and body, at their

feet.These are His manifold forms before thee,Rejecting them, where seekest thou for God?Who loves all beings without distinction,He indeed is worshipping best his God.9

(To be concluded)

References

1. Bhagavadgita, 5.8.2. Anandagiri’s gloss on Shankaracharya’s com -

men tary on M undaka Upanishad, 3.2.4.3. Shankaracharya, Shatpadi, 3.4. Bhagavata, 1.7.10.5. Chandogya Upanishad, 3.14.1.6. Shvetashvatara Upanishad, 4.3.7. Purusha Sukta, 1.8. Shvetashvatara Upanishad, 3.16.9. The Com plete W orks of Swami Vivekananda, 9

vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), 4.496.

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PB - MARCH 2005 30

Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu

Perspective

SWAMI JITATMANANDA

(Continued from the previous issue)

Struggle for Existence IsNot the Way to Higher Evolution

The dualistic world of New ton slowly sep -a rated mind from mat ter and grad u ally broughtthe vi sion of a world where there is sep a ra tionof man from man, man from God, and in thelong run, na tion from na tion. Dar win’s ideasof strug gle for ex is tence and sur vival of the fit -test com bined with the New to nian vi sion of adualistic uni verse; and civ i li za tion emerged‘red in tooth and claw’.

Dur ing his stay in Eu rope in 1895, SwamiVivekananda fore saw the dark fu ture of theWest ern civ i li za tion based on the new the o ries of strug gle for ex is tence and sci en tific ma te ri -al ism. He proph e sied a bloody fu ture for theWest, and the proph ecy came true through the two World Wars, where the dis cov er ies of sci -ence were used for mu tual de struc tion. Eth icsen cour ages mu tual love and ser vice. Hu man -ity saw in the ac tions of ap plied sci ence a flout -ing of eth ics.

When the World Trade Cen tre fell to adev as tat ing air craft at tack on 11 Sep tem ber2001, with the in stant death of sev eralthousand in no cent peo ple, the world re al izedlike the cit i zens of Den mark in Shake speare’sHam let: ‘Some thing is rot ten in the state ofDen mark.’ ‘All they that take the sword, shallper ish with the sword,’ said Je sus Christ. Suchacts of his toric de struc tion in vite, as SwamiVivekananda called it, ‘the ven geance of his -tory’.

Dur ing his ex ten sive re search on the evo -lu tion of flow ers with or nate or chids, Dar winreached the con cept of co-evo lu tion, and ver i -

fied that flow ers and in sects af fect one an -other. Karl Zimmer in his lat est book Evo lu tionwrites, ‘Not long af ter Dar win fin ished his Or i -gin of Spe cies he dis cov ered just how dras ti -cally flow ers and in sects could af fect one an -other.’1 This was the new con cept known asco-evo lu tion.

If plant evo lu tion de pends on such so -phis ti cated co op er a tion be tween plant life and an i mal life, will not higher hu man evo lu tionneed more so phis ti cated, well-thought-out co -op er a tion be tween hu mans and other lifeforms in the en vi ron ment?

Con tra dicting Dar win’s idea of strug glefor ex is tence for higher evo lu tion, Swami Vi-ve kananda ex plained the Hindu idea of higher evo lu tion through con scious choice andthought power, in his in ter pre ta tion of Pa tan -jali’s YogaSutras:

Com pe ti tions for life or sex-grat i fi ca tion areonly mo men tary, un nec es sary, ex tra ne ous ef -forts, caused by ig no rance. Even when all com -pe ti tion has ceased, this per fect na ture be hindwill make us go for ward un til ev ery one has be -come per fect. There fore there is no rea son to be -lieve that com pe ti tion is nec es sary to prog ress.In the an i mal the man was sup pressed, but assoon as the door was opened, out rushed man.So in man there is the po ten tial god, kept in bythe locks and bars of ig no rance. When knowl -edge breaks these bars, the God be comes man i -fest.2

No bel phys i cist Erwin Schrödinger saysthat for en sur ing the se lec tion of a spe cies forsur vival ‘the be hav iour’ and the ‘hab its of life’are of ‘out stand ing im por tance and de ci sivein flu ence’. With out these, Schrödinger ar gues,

Bioethics for Science and Technology:

A Hindu Perspective

the or i gin of spe cies could notbe un der stood. And what arebe hav iour and hab its? They areprod ucts of our thoughts and vo -li tions, both prod ucts of hu mancon scious ness. So a con sciousstrug gle against the old state ofex is tence plays the most im por -tant role in hu man evo lu tion.Schrödinger writes:

If this is granted, it fol lows that con scious nessand dis cord with one’s own self are in sep a ra blylinked up, even that they must, as it were, bepro por tional to each other. This sounds a par a -dox, but the wis est of all times and peo ples have tes ti fied to con firm it. Men and women forwhom this world was lit in an un usu ally brightlight of aware ness, and who by life and wordhave, more than oth ers, formed and trans -formed that work of art which we call hu man -ity, tes tify by speech and writ ing or even bytheir very lives that more than oth ers have theybeen torn by the pangs of in ner dis cord. Let thisbe a con so la tion to him who also suf fers from it.With out it noth ing en dur ing has ever been be -got ten.3

Through strong or ga niz ing prin ci ples, life moves with the power of thought to pro gres -sively higher or ga ni za tional lev els. Abra hamMaslow said that if one has to learn run ning,one better fol low Olym pic run ners. If one hasto find what is the high est hu man evo lu tion, oneshould look to a Christ, Bud dha or Rama kri -shna.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutrashave pre scribedtwo con di tions for evo lu tion. First, the changeor evo lu tion of one spe cies into an other oc curs by the in fill ing of na ture (Játyantarapariîámaëprakìtyápérát, 4.2), which means, evo lu tionhap pens when the in com plete ness felt by theor gan ism is com pleted by new ad di tions to it,which are the ex pres sions of its own in her entpo ten tial. Small fish chased by big ger hun gryones may have de vel oped wings, and by be -com ing birds evaded the jaws of death. Sec -ond, Patanjali says, a new en vi ron ment bringsout the or gan ism’s hid den de sires which can

be ful filled in that en vi ron ment (Tatas tad vipákaanuguîánám evaabhivyaktirvásanánám, 4.8). Noknowl edge of life or genes will be com plete un -less it takes note of both the ex ter nal en vi ron -ment and the in ter nal hid den pos si bil i ties ofthe liv ing or gan ism it self.

Genetic Science Needs a New Orientation

What is a gene? In a 2003 pub li ca tion,phys i cist Fritjof Capra writes:

All we can say about genes is that they are con -tin u ous or dis con tin u ous DNA seg ments whose pre cise struc tures and spe cific func tions are de -ter mined by the dy nam ics of the epigenetic net -work and may change with chang ing cir cum -stances.

The gene in dus try be gan in the 1960s when prop erty rights were given to plant breed ersfor new va ri et ies of flow ers through ge neticen gi neer ing. In 1980, the US Su preme Courtgave the land mark de ci sion that ge net i callymod i fied mi cro-or gan isms could be pat ented. This led a group of sci en tists from harm lesspat ent ing of life to ‘mo nop o li za tion of life’through ad vanced biotechnology re searchesre sult ing in mar ket monopolies. New threatswere per ceived. In the book Ge netic En gi -neering— Dream or Night mare? ge net i cist MaoWan Ho writes that the emer gence of ‘new vi -ruses and an ti bi otic re sis tance in the past de -cade may well be con nected with thelarge-scale com mer cial iza tion of ge netic en gi -neer ing dur ing the pe riod’.4

More over, Capra writes that it has beenex per i men tally con firmed that ‘gene ex pres -sion de pends on the ge netic and cel lu lar en vi -ron ment and can change when genes are put

Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu Perspective 165

31 PB -MARCH 2005

W hat are behaviour and habits? T hey are

products of our thoughts and volitions, both

products of human consciousness. S o a

conscious struggle against the old state of

ex istence plays the most important role in

human evolution.

into a new en vi ron ment. The sit u a tion is un -likely to change un til ge net i cists be gin to gobe yond genes and fo cus on the com plex or ga -ni za tion of the cell as a whole’. Dr CandacePert, a di rec tor of the Na tional In sti tute ofMen tal Health, USA, af ter her suc cess ful ex -per i ments, pre fers to say that the DNA be longsequally to mind and body. She uses the termbody-mind.5 ‘Trans ferring the genes into anew en vi ron ment and ex cit ing them to dotheir jobs has, so far, proved too dif fi cult a taskfor mo lec u lar ge net i cists,’ writes Da vid Wea-ther all, Di rec tor, In sti tute of Mo lec u lar Med i -cine, Ox ford Uni ver sity. The fi nal pic ture ofgene func tion ing co mes from ‘the com plexreg u la tory dy nam ics of the cell as a whole,’writes sci ence his to rian Fox Keller. Ac cord ingto Keller, in the ab sence of the knowl edge ofthe whole back ground of life, the dream ofgene de vel op ment or gene re pair ing for dis -eases ‘re cedes fur ther into the fu ture’.6

Hindu Ethics for Medical Science

Med i cal in ter ven tion is sought for im me -di ate al le vi a tion of suf fer ing as well as forlong-term gains. Those pro ce dures whichyield more last ing re sults must be pre ferred.But fa cil i ties and pos si bil i ties for med i cal in -ter ven tion to pro long and improve the qual ityof life are not equally avail able to all. Ac cord -ing to a re cent World Bank re port, in spite ofan op ti mis tic es ti mate of eco nomic growth,600 mil lion peo ple in the de vel op ing coun tries were trapped in ab so lute pov erty in the year2000. This is de fined as a con di tion of life sochar ac ter ized by mal nu tri tion, il lit er acy, dis -ease, high in fant mor tal ity, and low life ex pec -tancy as to be be neath any rea son able def i ni -tion of hu man de cency. Un der these ap pall ing con di tions, can a few priv i leged in di vid u als(or na tions) be al lowed to en joy ex ces sive useof med i cal fa cil i ties for mod i fy ing their lifepro cess to make it more plea sur able, when afrac tion of the amount of money so spent canpre vent thou sands of in fants from death dueto mal nu tri tion and de hy dra tion?7

Ter mi na tion of preg nancy by med i callyin duced abor tion to pre vent the birth of a vi a -ble child poses a num ber of socio-eth i cal prob -lems. It is not gen er ally en cour aged in or tho -dox cul tures and com mu ni ties, and is con sid -ered sin ful. It can be re sorted to on strictlymed i cal grounds, for ex am ple, if child birththreat ens the mother’s life. Only re cently hasabor tion been le gal ized in In dia (251), and that to stem the in or di nate pop u la tion ex plo sionthreat en ing global econ omy. Kill ing of the foe -tus in the mother’s womb, bhréîahatyá, is agreat sin ac cord ing to Hin du ism.

In dian cul ture teaches not only an idealway of life but also the ideal man ner of death.In fact, a de vout per son in In dia pre paresthrough out his life for an ideal, peace ful deathas de scribed in the scrip tures. (253)

The mod ern sci en tific view has of ten em -pha sized the dig nity of the in di vid ual and hisright to take de ci sions for him self. In dian cul -ture, how ever, lays greater stress on the role ofso ci ety in de ci sion mak ing in health care. In -ter fer ence in the pro cess of birth in the form ofpre ven tion of con cep tion, abor tion or ge neticen gi neer ing is not en cour aged in the In diantra di tion. Sex as a source of plea sure apartfrom con cep tion, too, is not ap pre ci ated. Sex is le git i mately al lowed only for the birth of achild. Sex for plea sure alone is con sid ered a far too in fe rior and un wor thy at ti tude. In thiscon nec tion it may be men tioned that the onlyfool proof method of pre ven tion of AIDS(which has been of fi cially ad vo cated by ex -perts in In dia) is ab sti nence from sex— some -thing which the Hindu and In dian cul turenor mally ac cepts. (260-1)

Hin du ism even ex per i men tally de vel -oped a sci ence for the birth of good chil dren. A mother de sir ing a God-fear ing child lis tens tosto ries of saints and sages, and spends herdays of preg nancy in de vo tional activities.An other mother seek ing a war rior child en -gages in lis ten ing to and read ing sto ries ofwars and war riors, and so on.

Ac cord ing to the Jaina tra di tion, the foe -

PB - MARCH 2005 32


tus of Lord Mahavira was taken out be fore hisbirth from the body of a mi serly brahminmother and transplanted into the womb of agen er ous queen.

A sage was chant ing holy texts in thepres ence of his preg nant wife. On hear ing thechant, the foe tus in the womb of the ladyspoke from in side that the in to na tions werenot cor rect. This en raged the sage. He cursedhis son in the womb that since he had acrooked mind, his body too would be comecrooked. The story goes that the child wasborn with eight de for mi ties. He be came thegreat and in tel lec tu ally bril liant sage Ashta-vak ra.

Arjuna, the great hero of the Maha bha ra -ta war, had a pro di gious son, Abhi manyu.While still in the womb, Abhimanyu hadlearnt a spe cial mil i tary se cret that his fa therde scribed to his mother. But since the moth erfell asleep and did not lis ten to the whole se -cret, Abhimanyu too ob tained only a par tialknowl edge. With the help of this knowl edgehe was able to break and en terthe spe cial army for ma tion ofthe en emy called chakravyuha.But due to in com plete knowl -edge, he could not come out of it and was killed.

Ashwatthama, an otherhero from the Ma habharata, out of in tense ha -tred for the righ teous Pandavas, fired thedeadly and in fal li ble weapon brahmastra to de -stroy the em bryo of Parikshit, the lone suc ces -sor to the Pandavas. The em bryo was saved by Sri Krishna, God in car nate. Ashwatthama was cursed with ex treme suf fer ing for an in fi nitepe riod of time with an open, pain ful woundon the fore head.

Myth o logically, Brahma stands for thein tel lect. Brahmastra, there fore, means the weap -on or in stru ment ob tained as a gift of the in tel -lect. The leg end of Ashwatthama is thus sym -bolic of the use of in tel li gence for the de struc -tion of the em bryo or foe tus, which is con sid -ered an un par don able sin. The leg ends show

that al though it is pos si ble to mod ify the foe -tus in the womb, it is not free from dan ger. Re -spect for life in the mother’s womb and of fer -ing better in tel lec tual and spir i tual en vi ron -ment to the ex pec tant mother— these two arethe ba sic eth ics of Hin du ism. (262, 271)

Conclusion

Sci ence has opened two av e nues for us:power and knowl edge. Power cor rupts andab so lute power cor rupts ab so lutely. Hu manbe ings are gen er ally more drawn to the poweras pect of sci ence brought about by the tech no -log i cal rev o lu tion. In the glare of tech nol ogywe have some times lost sight of the knowl -edge as pect of sci ence, which alone en cour -ages ho lis tic eth ics and el e vates us from thesnares and pulls of a purely in di vid u al is tic,self- cen tred ex is tence, and unites us with thewhole of man kind.

Tech no logically ad vanced so ci et ies, both in the East and in the West, are in the grip of adeep socio-eth i cal tur bu lence. Amer i cans,

forty- eight per cent of whom use guns, havefound them selves in a sort of ‘gun civilization’(Time, 10 December 1992). Eth i cal prob lemsare knock ing even at the doors of the biggestpo lit i cal power. Seven thousand crime re -cords and 15000 crime en qui ries were madeev ery day in 1997 in the city of St Pe ters burgalone (Asiaweek, 10 October 1997). Sci ence andtech nol ogy have en riched ex ter nal life in athou sand ways, but in many places have cre -ated more and more of vac uum in in ter nal lifebe cause of con fused eth i cal val ues.

Prof Maurice H Wilkins, who shared theNobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 with Fran cisCrick and James Wat son, re vealed in an in ter -view held in Bom bay in Jan u ary 1986 that

33 PB -MARCH 2005

Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu Perspective 167

‘T he effort to understand the universe is

one of the very few things that lifts human

life a little above the level of farce, and

gives it some of the grace of tragedy.’

most sci en tists shy away from the po lit i cal,psy cho log i cal, spir i tual, and other di men -sions of their work. Normally, the whole ques -tion of these other di men sions is pushed out of the scene. Ste phen Hawking, for in stance,feels the need for a su per vis ing God who must de cide on what hap pens at the edge of uni -verse. Yet Hawking’s God is only a causal andlog i cal prin ci ple. ‘There would not be a con -nec tion with mo ral ity,’ he pointed out.8

On the con trary, in 1979, No bel phys i cistSte ven Wein berg ex pressed an idea that is incon so nance with the lan guage of mys tics, andtra ge di ans like Soph o cles or Shake speare. Hesaid, ‘The ef fort to un der stand the uni verse isone of the very few things that lifts hu man lifea lit tle above the level of farce, and gives itsome of the grace of trag edy.’9 That is trueknowl edge which makes one free from the fet -ters of an i mal im pulses and makes for di vin ity (sá vidyáyávimuktaye), teaches Hin du ism. This is ech oed in Einstein’s celebrated state ment:

The most beau ti ful emo tion we can ex pe ri enceis the mys ti cal. It is the power of all true art andsci ence. He to whom this emo tion is a strangeris as good as dead. To know that what is im pen -e tra ble to us re ally ex ists, man i fest ing it self asthe high est wis dom and the most ra di antbeauty which our dull fac ul ties can com pre -

hend only in their most prim i tive forms— thisknowl edge, this feel ing, is at the cen ter [of] truere li gious ness. In this sense, and in this senseonly, I be long to the ranks of de voutly re li giousmen.10

�

References

1. Karl Zimmer, Evo lu tion (Ar row Books, 2003),230.

2. The Com plete W orks of Swami Vivekananda, 9vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), 1.293.

3. Erwin Schrödinger, W hat is Life (Cam bridgeUni ver sity, 1967), 100-1.

4. Fritjof Capra, The Hid den Con nec tion (Lon don:Fla mingo, 2003), 154, 175, 141.

5. Deepak Chopra, Quan tum Healing (New York: Ban tam, 1981), 71.

6. The Hid den Con nec tion, 142, 141, 71, 150, 157.7. Swami Brahmeshananda, Health, M ed i cine and

Re li gion (Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math,2004), 248-9.

8. Renee Weber, Di a logues with Sci en tists andSages— The Search for Unity (Lon don:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 209.

9. Heinz Pagels, The Cos mic Code (New York:Ban tam, 1983), 278.

10. Di a logues with Sci en tists and Sages, 203.

PB - MARCH 2005 34


Test of Dharma

rJÅÂØ& murJ;& mÂØ& rlÀgbÅuMhtrdrC& >†=gultÇglwÒtt;tu gtuÆtboô;rªtctuÆt; >>

Know dharma to be that which is prac tised by the wise and the hon est, who are free of ha tred

and at tach ment, and that which is ap proved by one’s own con science.

—Manu Samhita, 2.1

Natural Selection of Morals

The war of nat u ral se lec tion is car ried on in hu man af fairs not against weaker or in com pat i ble

in di vid u als, but against their ide als or modes of life. It does not suf fer any mode of life to

pre vail or per sist but one which is com pat i ble with so cial wel fare.

—Samuel Alexander

iewing the vast concourse of devotees from a vantage point during the concluding celebrations of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi's 150th birth anniversary, one got the impression that concluding was a V

misnomer and continuing was more appropriate. The celebrations had commenced last year at Holy Mother's tithi puja day at her home in Jayrambati. This 'concluding ceremony' seemed just a highpoint of the massive wave inundating the world; an inundation that saves, being spiritual in content and maternal in instinct.

The 9,000-odd devotees, rather Mother's children, who had assembled at Belur Math from across the country, and a few also from abroad, were united in their homage to Holy Mother in consonance with their deepest feelings of what is true and good. Everything bespoke Mother at Belur Math: her presence in the beautifully decorated temple temporarily made to look like her Jayrambati home, the huge gate leading to the tastefully decorated pandal and stage that hosted the celebrations, spruced-up grounds, decorated arches depicting her triumph over human hearts, elevating music and perfect weather. All this added to the holy precincts of Belur Math with the Ganga flowing close by was an experience that made a deep

impression on everybody's minds. The Ramakrishna Mission, sensing the need of the times, had decided on a year-

long celebration. During the past year lakhs of people in urban, rural and even remote areas of the country had viewed, entertained and worshipped Holy

Mother in her image, carried on rathas (chariots). Cultural programmes, elocution and essay competitions, debates, film shows, dramas, discourses,

distribution of Holy Mother's pictures and literature, programmes initiated for the welfare of women and children, distribution of food and clothes

to the needy, publication of literature commemorating Holy Mother, launching of websites, and so forth were conducted throughout the

35 PB-MARCH 2005

C

Coonncclluuddiinngg PPrrooggrraammmmee aatt RRaammaakkrriisshhnnaa MMaatthh,, BBeelluurr MMaatthh ((44 ttoo 66 JJaannuuaarryy 22000055))

The Inaugural Session

county. Thus Mission centres, with the help of innumerable Bhava Prachar centres and devoted individuals working in tandem, had succeeded in reaching Holy Mother to millions, cutting through economic, social, sectarian and astonishingly different religious barriers. The natural flame of devotion to God, smothered by the grind of daily living, was fanned by all these activities. The response everywhere was overwhelming and unprecedented. Holy Mother has herself said: 'He (Sri Ramakrishna) left me behind to manifest the Motherhood of God.'

Many must have wished to be present at Belur Math but only a few of those who had participated and helped in the year-long celebration could make it. The delegates, though from different states, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds were bound by the common cord of Holy Mother's love. They were housed in the sprawling educational institutions of Ramakrishna

Mission Saradapitha adjacent to Belur Math. Sumptuous food and refreshments were arranged for them and for the sizable local delegates at the Math premises. The dignity and demeanour of the participants was throughout enhanced by a camaraderie that can be best described as filial. This was an added recompense to hundreds of monastics and non-monastics that worked tirelessly round the clock to synchronize all arrangements, big and small.

O rdinarily, visitors throng Belur Math daily. O n utsava or celebration days the Math is packed. Holy Mother's tithi puja on 3 January 2005 saw devotees streaming in continuously. Suddenly the expansive grounds of Belur Math seemed woefully inadequate. Devotees waited patiently in serpentine queues for their turn to pay obeisance to Holy Mother and also at the other temples. The tremendous attraction for Holy Mother overawed even skeptical minds. There was no vestige of doubt that this setting would endure for the next three days and continue even after the celebrations. Sri Ramakrishna had said of Mother that 'she is a cat under ashes', meaning, her true nature was not easily recognizable. Going by what can be seen around, the ashes have been blown away, revealing Mother and vindicating Swamiji's words: 'You have not understood the wonderful significance of Mother's life— none of you. But gradually you will know. W ithout Shakti there is no regeneration for the world.'

The inaugural session on 4 January saw devotees sitting expectantly by 9 am. Mother's huge picture was beaming down benignly on everybody from high above the stage. The proceedings commenced with the auspicious Vedic mantras chanted by brahmacharins. Swami Smaranananda, General Secretary, Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, then welcomed the assembled devotees. All eyes were riveted on Most Revered Ranganathanandaji Maharaj, President, Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, for his benediction. Most Revered Maharaj, was his usual spirited self despite ill health and advanced age, and exhorted all present to make Mother the centre of their lives for individual and social good. The benediction was then translated into Bengali and Hindi for the benefit of all. Srimat Swami Gahananandaji, Vice President of the O rder, then read out his comprehensive inaugural address that showed how Holy Mother was becoming the focus of our lives. This session closed with a beautiful song on Mother by Swami Sarvagananda and delegates took time out for tea and snacks.

The second session chaired by Srimat Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj, Vice President of the O rder, commenced at 10:20 am with a devotional song by Swami Ekavratananda. Swami Prabhananda then delivered a learned discourse in English on 'The Mother of All', which was followed by Dr Kedarnath Labh's 'Mother as a great karma-yogini' in Hindi. A chorus song preceded Prof Shankari Prasad Basu's talk on 'Mother and Swamiji', which the speaker delivered with academic finesse. Then Swami Atmasthanandaji

36PB-MARCH 2005

Prabuddha Bharata170

H oly M other's Shrine

spoke on Mother with his remarkable candour. The closing song by Swami Divyavratananda was followed by the lunch and tea break, during which Bhava Prachar members along with some monastics got together for an informal business session.

The third session, with Swami Mumukshananda in the chair, commenced at 3:15 pm with Swami Animeshananda's song. Swami Atmapriyananda spoke on Mother's simple and practical solutions to deep spiritual truths. Swami U mananda, spoke in Bengali on Holy Mother and Sister N ivedita. Dr Raj Lakshmi Varma drew thought-provoking parallels between Sri Sarada Devi and Sita, in Hindi. Then there was a chorus song led by Swami Satyasthananda, after which came Swami Devarajananda's discourse in clear Bengali on Mother's natural divinity. The chairperson summed up the main thoughts in English and the session closed with a song by Swami Girijeshananda. After the vespers a sitar-tabla duet by U stad Shahid Parvez and Pundit Shubankar Banerjee held the appreciating audience in thrall.

The fourth session began on the second day (5 January) at 8:30 am under the chairmanship of Swami Asaktananda. Students of Belur Math's Veda Vidyalaya chanted Sama Veda mantras. Swami Brahmeshananda spoke in English on Mother's Shakti aspect. Swami Satyarupananda speaking in mellifluous Hindi, indicated how Mother was an ideal for both monastics and the married. That Holy Mother and Sri Ramakrishna are identical was brought home in literary Bengali by Swami Sarvalokananda. Brahmacharins then sang a devotional song in chorus. Swami Jitatmananda endeared himself to everyone by showing, with great flourish, Mother's relevance to modern society. A tea break preceded Swami N ikhileshwarananda's Hindi lecture on how Mother embodied the four yogas. Swami Divyananda spoke in Bengali on Mother as Sangha Janani, Mother of the Ramakrishna O rder, and Swami N ikhilatmananda sang a bhajan before everybody broke for lunch.

At 3:00 pm, after tea, the fifth session saw Srimat Swami Gitanandaji Maharaj, Vice President of the O rder, in the chair. As usual the session began with a devotional song. Swami Harshananda, speaking in deliberate English showed Mother as a great practical Vedantist. Swami Vishwanathananda spoke of Mother as an ideal householder and ideal sannyasini in Bengali and Swami Atmaramananda presented her as a perfect symbol of unselfishness. A Sanskrit hymn was sung in chorus by monks of Advaita Ashrama after which Swami N ikhilatmananda spoke in wonderful Hindi about Mother as a unique world teacher. After Swami Gitanandaji's address the session closed with Swami N arendrananda's song. An entertaining and educative Hindi drama was staged by students of Ramakrishna Mission, N arainpur, Chattisgarh, showing select incidents in Swami Vivekananda's life. A Bastar Tribal dance performed by the same students won everybody's heart.

37 PB-MARCH 2005

Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi's 150th Birth Anniversary Celebration 171

The v arious sessions in p rogress

The sixth session opened on the third and last day (6 January) at 8:30 am. This session was conducted by the sannyasinis of Sarada Math, Dakshineshwar. Pravrajika Amalaprana, General Secretary, Sarada Math and Mission, presided. Students from the N ivedita Girls' School chanted Vedic hymns and sang devotional songs after which Dr Kamala Jaya Rao spoke with practiced ease on Holy Mother's universal message of love and harmony. Pravrajika Vedantaprana gave a charming discourse on Mother's three rare characteristics of forbearance, compassion and sacrifice, and Dr Bandita Bhattacharya dilated on Sister N ivedita's succinct observation about Mother: 'Her life was one life stillness of prayer.' Following a song by the sannyasinis of Sarada Math, Pravrajika Satchitprana spoke in Hindi of Mother as an ideal for all women everywhere. After the tea break, Dr Anjali Mukherjee painted a glowing profile of Mother's human aspect in Bengali. Smt Subrata Sen then described Mother's role in the awakening and liberation of women. The meeting adjourned for lunch after Pravrajika Amalaprana's presidential address and a closing song.

Swami Gokulananda chaired the seventh session that commenced at 3:00 pm with Vedic chanting by the sannyasins of Belur Math. Ms. Barbara Piner from the U S, Dr Purba Sengupta of Kolkata and Sri Dharam Vir Seth of Delhi spoke in English, Bengali and Hindi respectively about what appealed to them in Holy Mother. Smt M S Shasikala from Hyderabad spoke in English on how Mother's message can be spread and the role devotees can play towards achieving this end. Sri G N Mallick of Raipur dwelt on the same topic in Hindi.

The valedictory session at 4:15 pm had Swami Smaranananda in the chair. Swami Purnatmananda spoke of Mother's combination of tradition and modernity in Bengali. Swami Shasankananda then showed, in Hindi, how Mother could be our ideal in our daily life. After the chairman's address, Swami Shivamayananda, Assistant Secretary, Ramakrishna Math and Mission presented the vote of thanks. The closing song by Swami Purushottamananda lifted the devotees' minds. The cultural programme after Sri Ramakrishna's arati was on 'Maha Ras'. The N ikunja Bihari Raslila Mandal enacted the Krishna-Radha scenes of Vrindavan with music and dance. Thus ended the celebrations.

The apprehension that too many lectures might tire the delegates was clearly unfounded. Delegates were all well grounded in the Ramakrishna-Sarada-Vivekananda literature and this is what helped, besides the high quality of the discourses. Each speaker was vastly experienced and each discourse appeared better than the preceding one. Devotional songs helped enliven the talks and speeches— as did the tea and snacks! Devotees have a caste of their own said Sri Ramakrishna and this was apparent in a magnified form during these three days. N o one was a stranger. The devotees introduced themselves to each other and talked about their love for Holy Mother. Even the long wait in queues for lunch and dinner could not dampen the spirit of the devotees. The sessions in the morning were open only to delegates but the gates were open during the evening sessions and the cultural programmes for one and all. Chairs were provided for everyone and the eastern lawn of the temple was like a sea of heads. The entire event testified to Mother's all-embracing love and also her great power of attracting people of all kinds. Clearly, the future belongs to Mother. W ho really is Mother entering into every heart? In the words of Sri Ramakrishna: 'She is Sarada, Saraswati; she has come to impart knowledge. She is the bestower of knowledge; she is full of the rarest wisdom. Is she of the common run? She is my Shakti.'

38PB-MARCH 2005

Prabuddha Bharata172

Sri Ramakrishna—The World Teacher

SUDESH

Our fa ther and mother give us the phys i -cal body, but our guru gives us re birthin the soul. The guru is the bright mask

which God wears in or der to come to us and as guru he teaches us the way to spir i tual il lu mi -na tion. He is a tre men dous spir i tual dy namothat trans mits its power to the im me di ate dis -ci ples and through them to fu ture gen er a tions.

Spir i tu al ity does not ex ist in books or the -o ries or phi los o phies. Book learn ing and schol -ar ship are not pre con di tions for spir i tualgrowth. Books can, at best, give us a hint re -gard ing the path and the goal but can not il lu -mine our hearts. It is the magic touch of theguru and the liv ing power of the holy name ofGod that trans form life in a mo ment. His verypres ence ine bri ates the dev o tees with pure joyand all their doubts and con flicts are re solvedeven with out for mal ques tion ing. The guru in -tro duces us di rectly to the life of the Spirit andar ranges for the un ion of the in di vid ual soulwith the Be loved, the Di vine Spirit. Such in -deed is Sri Ramakrishna—the unique guru ofhu man ity.

The World Teacher

Sri Ramakrishna is a world teacher. Hisvery life val i dates the au then tic ity of the worldscrip tures, his very life ex em pli fies Vedanta.Bhairavi Brahmani, Totapuri, Jatadhari, andall oth ers who came to him as his teach erswere strength ened and en riched; their in nerper cep tion was wid ened and hearts broad -ened by com ing into con tact with this strange,uncon ven tional pu pil, the guru of all gu rus.Blessed were the dis ci ples who sat at his feet to learn from him the prin ci ples of spir i tu al ity;their ego was de stroyed in just ‘three croaks’,as it were, their pride hum bled and their in nervi sion opened in the pres ence of this em bodi -

ment of hu mil ity.Such was Sri Ramakrishna’s hu mil ity

that he used to say three words pricked himlike thorns—when he was called guru, fa theror mas ter. If some one ad dressed him as guruor fa ther, he would say that there was noteacher ex cept satchidananda; It alone took oneacross the ocean of the world. And he was theeter nal child of God, how could he be a fa ther?Yet he was an ex tra-or di nary guru—the guruof the uni verse. Rakhal, later Swami Brahma-nanda, said: ‘… he gra ciously re vealed to methat (he) my guru is also the Guru of the uni -verse’.1

Sub lime and gen tle was the in flu ence SriRa makrishna ex erted on oth ers. Pratap Chan-dra Mazumdar, a well-known Brahmo preach -er in Eu rope and Amer ica, could not es capethe spell of the Mas ter’s per son al ity. He wrote:

What is there in com mon be tween him and me?I, a Europeanized, civ i lized, self-cen tred, semi- sceptical, so-called ed u cated rea soner, and he, a poor, il lit er ate, un pol ished, half-idol a trous,friend less Hindu dev o tee? Why should I sitlong hours to at tend to him, I, who have lis tened to Dis raeli and Fawcett, Stan ley and Max Mul -ler, and a whole host of Eu ro pean schol ars anddi vines? … And it is not I only, but doz ens likeme, who do the same. … He wor ships Shiva, hewor ships Kali, he wor ships Rama, he wor shipsKrishna, and is a con firmed ad vo cate ofVedantic doc trines. … He is an idol a ter, yet is afaith ful and most de voted meditator on theperfections of the One Form less, Ab so lute, In fi -nite De ity. … His re li gion is ec stasy, his wor ship means tran scen den tal in sight, his whole na tureburns day and night with a per ma nent fire andfe ver of a strange faith and feel ing. … So long ashe is spared to us, gladly shall we sit at his feet to learn from him the sub lime pre cepts of pu rity,unworldliness, spir i tu al ity, and ine bri a tion inthe love of God. He, by his child like bhakti, by

39 PB -MARCH 2005

his strong con cep tions of an ever-ready Moth -er hood, helped to un fold it (God as our Mother) in our minds won der fully. … By as so ci at ingwith him we learnt to re al ize better the di vineat trib utes as scat tered over the three hun dredand thirty mil lions of de i ties of myth o log i cal In -dia, the gods of the Puranas.

2

Redeemer of the Lowly

Was Sri Ramakrishna the guru of the vir -tu ous only? His glory lay in up lift ing his way -ward chil dren. The drunk ards and the de -bauchees, pros ti tutes and thea tre-women, bo -he mi ans and re bels, ag nos tics and scep tics, allfound ref uge at his feet and re ceived his grace.Af ter all, what glory lay in mak ing a vir tu ousman good? The glory of a great spir i tual teach -er lies in re deem ing the fallen by up root ingtheir in her ent ten den cies and bring ing about a mi rac u lous trans for ma tion—in mak ing saints of re pent ing sin ners. This phy si cian of hu manmal a dies ap plied the cur ing herb gently. Hedid not try to root out one’s deep- rooted sams-ka ras forc ibly, for this could cause a lot of suf -fer ing and ef fect only a tem po rary cure, themal ady re cur ring with greater in ten sity. Anex pert phy si cian al lows the boil to come to ahead and then cuts it open with a knife; sim i lar was Sri Ramakrishna’s way of deal ing withhu man fol lies and weak nesses, which en suredcom plete and per ma nent trans for ma tion. Hetoo brought one’s samskaras to the sur faceand then over pow ered them with his all-en -com pass ing di vine love. Getting a lit tle taste ofjoy in higher things, one be comes freed fromone’s base pas sions and un de sir able hab its, un -wit tingly, with out feel ing the pain of sup -press ing or sub du ing them forc ibly.

Girish Chandra and Kalipada Ghosh aretwo ex am ples of this trans form ing power ofSri Ramakrishna. Girish Chandra Ghosh rem i -nisces:

From my early child hood it had been my na ture to do the very thing that I was for bid den to do.But Sri Ramakrishna was a unique teacher.Never for one mo ment did he re strict me, andthat in it self worked a mir a cle in my life. …

Sri Ramakrishna has taken full pos ses sionof my heart and bound it with his love. But sucha love can not be mea sured by any earthly stan -dard. If I have ac quired any vir tues, it is notthrough my own ef forts, but solely due to hisgrace. He lit er ally ac cepted my sins and left mysoul free. …

The sig nif i cance of the word guru hasdawned on me grad u ally. It was a slow pro cess, but its ef fect was deeply pen e trat ing. Now Ihave re al ized that the guru is ev ery thing. … Tothis re deemer of my soul I have paid lit tle hom -age. In a drunken state I have abused him.When given the op por tu nity to serve him, Ihave ig nored it. But I have no re grets. In my at -tempts to es cape all dis ci pline I found my selfdis ci plined with out know ing it. Such is myguru’s grace—an in fi nite ocean of mercy, notcon ferred be cause of merit, nor with held be -cause of sin, but lav ished on saint and sin neralike. With a love tran scend ing rea son, he hasgiven me sanc tu ary, and I have no fear.3

It was Sri Ramakrishna’s gi gan tic heartwhich made him see the Bliss ful Mother evenin the street women. Seeing one, he bowed toher, ex claim ing, ‘Mother, in one form You arethis and in an other form You are in the tem -ple.’ Due to his tre men dous love for all, heblessed Bino dini, who had played the role ofSri Chaitanya in the Chaitanya Lila, say ing,‘Moth er, be il lu mined!’ Sri Ramakrishna’s lov -ing, hope ful mes sage sus tained her all her lifeand she wrote: ‘I don’t care if peo ple of theworld look down upon my sin ful life. I wasblessed by Sri Ramakrishna. His lov ing, hope -ful mes sage still sus tains me.’4 It was Sri Ra-ma krishna’s all-em brac ing love and firm con -vic tion in the po ten tial di vin ity in all that acted as a pu ri fy ing in flu ence and helped even thedrunk ards and the women of ill-fame to man i -fest this di vin ity in life. Sav iour of the fallen hetruly was!

Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, whosemere touch, or be nign glance, or word wasenough to awaken one’s spir i tual con scious -ness, was at the same time to tally un touchedby the idea of be ing a teacher. He re mained forever the child and a will ing in stru ment in the

PB - MARCH 2005 40


hands of the Di vine Mother. His method of in -struc tion was as stately as his teach ings weresub lime. He never said ‘do this’ or ‘do that’nor pre scribed hard and fast rules about fast -ing and prac tis ing aus teri ties.

This bliss ful child of the Di vine Motherhad a sweet, in no cent way of say ing, ‘I saidthis to Keshab’, ‘The Gita also says so’, ‘It wassuch and such a holy man who told me ofNarada’s path of de vo tion as es pe cially suitedto the peo ple of Kaliyuga’, ‘I have heard it fromNan g ta, once for all, that this uni verse is only afrag ment of Brah man’, and so forth. This great teacher did not con fuse the mind with in tri -cate phi los o phy or ab struse doc trines. Hetaught through sim ple ut ter ances and in ter est -ing tales and par a bles the pro found mys ter iesof spir i tu al ity. Again, he taught by liv ing thelife. But what depth of mean ing, pro fun dity ofthought and pu rity of in ten tion do we find inthe or di nary daily con duct and ut ter ances ofthe Mas ter! The only thought in his mind wasto save and el e vate to a higher plane the er ringmor tals drowned in the mire of world li ness.Blind ed by maya (lust and lu cre) hu man be -ings are in a state of chronic in tox i ca tion. Heap pealed in all ear nest ness, ‘I fall at your feetand beg of you to chant the name of Hari.’With out ever get ting an noyed, he, the ocean ofin fi nite mercy, re peated the same sage in struc -tions over and over again. So hum ble and socom pas sion ate was he that in stead of tak ingser vice from his dis ci ples, he him self servedthem so that they could prac tise spir i tual dis -ci plines. Once he ob served, ‘Rakhal is get tinginto such a spir i tual mood that he can not doany thing even for him self. I have to get wa terfor him.’5

His M ethod: Catering to Individual Needs

The most strik ing fea ture of Sri Rama-krishna’s method is that to each in di vid ual orpar tic u lar sect he pre scribed the rem edy thatsuited the mal ady and the in di vid ual re quire -ment. To the Brahmos he said, ‘Why should Ipro duce only a mono tone when I have an in -

stru ment with seven holes? Why should I saynoth ing but “I am He” or “Brahma, Brahma”. I want to make merry with God through all themoods.’ And to the Vaishnavites he said, ‘Whyshould I be one-sided? The wor ship pers ofVish nu and the wor ship pers of Shakti will allul ti mately reach the same goal.’ To the Ve dan -tist he would say, ‘Let us now give up “I amHe” and keep “Thou and I” to en joy the fun.’To the Shaktas he said, ‘Shiva, Kali, Hari arebut dif fer ent forms of that One. Brah man andShakti are iden ti cal.’ To those who be lieved inGod with form and oth ers who be lieved in theForm less Re al ity and fought over it, he ex -plained that the same satchidananda as sumedforms un der the cool ing in flu ence of bhaktiand again be came formless with the rise of thesun of Knowl edge.

On many oc ca sions we see that Sri Rama-kri shna gave com pletely con tra dic tory ad viceun der sim i lar sit u a tions and cir cum stances: In early life, Nityaniranjan Ghosh, a dis ci ple ofhis, had a vi o lent tem per. One day, as he wascom ing in a coun try boat to Dak shineswar,some of his fel low pas sen gers be gan to speakill of the Mas ter. Find ing his pro test fu tile,Niranjan be gan to rock the boat, threat en ing tosink it mid stream. That si lenced the of fend ers.When he re ported this in ci dent to the Mas ter,he was re buked for his in abil ity to con trol hisan ger. Jogindranath, another dis ci ple, was onthe other hand gen tle to a fault. One day, un -der sim i lar cir cum stances, he curbed his tem -per and held his peace. The Mas ter on learn ing of his con duct scolded him roundly. The guruwas striv ing to de velop in the first in stancecom po sure, and in the sec ond met tle.

Harinath had led the aus tere life of abrahmacharin even from his early boy hoodand had an aver sion for women. When he said to the Mas ter that he could not al low evensmall girls to come near him, the Mas ter said:‘Why should you hate women? They are theman i fes ta tions of the Di vine Mother. Re gardthem as your own mother and you will neverfeel their evil in flu ence. The more you hate

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Sri Ramakrishna—The World Teacher 175

them, the more you will fall into their snare.’To Hariprasanna, an other dis ci ple of his, theMas ter ad vised: ‘Even if a woman is pure asgold and rolls on the ground for love of God,do not look at her.’

On hear ing that Ishan was build ing ahouse on the bank of the Gan ga to practisespir i tual dis ci pline, the Mas ter ob served, ‘Letme tell you that the less peo ple know of yourspir i tual life, the better it will be for you. De -votees en dowed with sattva med i tate in a se -cluded cor ner or in a for est or with draw intothe mind. Some times they med i tate in side themos quito net.’ On the other hand, he ad visedShyam Babu, an el derly man who wanted tode vote his time to con tem pla tion, to build aquiet place for med i ta tion upon God, say ingthat the worldly life was all hol low and that itwould not be pos si ble to think of God amidstworldly con fu sion.

The Ideal of M onks

Truly Sri Ramakrishna is the ideal ofmonks. The rules en joined upon a monk by Sri Ra makrishna are strict in deed, the path be ingone of to tal re nun ci a tion. There is ab so lutelyno scope for any com pro mise since the ideal isvery pure and high. The monks be long to therealm of un sul lied spir i tual ar is toc racy and sothey should be very care ful to stick to prin ci -ples and highly sen si tive to de grad ing in flu -ences.

The sannyasins be ing world teach ers, forthem self-con trol is im per a tive, ab so lute, andfi nal. They are men of un bro ken celibacy.Their lives should be un stained by ‘womanand gold’. A sannyasin must not sit near awom an, nor talk to her for a long time, even ifshe be pi ous and a sin cere dev o tee of God. Hemust not even look at the por trait of a womanwhich may evoke lust. Even though he hassub dued his pas sions, a sannyasin should notas so ci ate with women, to set an ex am ple tooth ers. The sannyasin’s way of liv ing is likefast ing on the ekadashi day, with out tak ingeven a drop of wa ter. He should re gard all

women as his own mother in which at ti tudethere is not the slight est trace of sen sual en joy -ment. Like women, money too is dan ger ouslike poi son to a sannyasin. It causes worry,pride, an ger, and cal cu la tion, and in flamesone’s de sire for phys i cal com fort—rajas, whichbrings tamas in its train and makes one for getGod. He must not set store for the mor row de -pend ing one hun dred per cent on God. Hewho eats no ‘mo las ses’ must not even keepmo las ses about. If he does, and yet tells oth ersnot to eat mo las ses, they won’t lis ten to him.Peo ple will say that he en joys mo las ses se -cretly. Even so, a true sannyasin must re -nounce ‘woman and gold’ both men tally andout wardly. He fights the bat tle stay ing in theopen and not from within a fort.

A sannyasin, be ing in very lit tle need ofworldly ob jects, is like the bee which alightsonly on flow ers in or der to sip honey, whereasa house holder is like the or di nary fly whichnow sips honey but the next mo ment sits onfilth and fes ter ing sores. A sannyasin shouldal ways med i tate on the lotus feet of God anddive deep into God-con scious ness. He mustmerge his life, mind and in ner most soul inGod. Thus en joy ing the sweet ness of God’sbliss, a monk must re main al ways bliss ful andcheer ful. Hear ing the name and glo ries of God from such a one, see ing his ec static love forGod, love is awak ened in the hearts of theworldly-minded too.

A sannyasin is im bued with a strongspirit of dis crim i na tion, dispassion, truth ful -ness, non-ac cu mu la tion, chas tity, and re nun -ci a tion. In such a pure heart God takes his seatand man i fests His spe cial power. By his per -sonal ex am ple, the sannyasin strives to in stilthe spirit of re nun ci a tion, love of God, andspir i tual fer vour even in a worldly man, un -mind ful of his own com forts.

His knowl edge is like that of the shin ingsun which gives warmth and light to all. Thesannyasin’s mind soars high in the spir i tualfir ma ment but co mes down to en lighten world -ly men grop ing in dark ness and ig no rance. He

PB - MARCH 2005 42


is com pas sion ate, lov ing, free from ego, hum -ble, and tol er ant to wards the fol low ers of allspir i tual paths. When a sannyasin gives some -thing to an other, he knows that it is not he who gives and that com pas sion be longs to Godalone. Like wise, in re ceiv ing gifts from any -one, the sannyasin knows that God alone is the sup plier of his needs. As a sannyasin does noten tan gle him self in worldly life, he is moreper cep tive and gives dispassioned ad vice tothe af flicted and the mis er a ble.

Advice to Householders

No less pro found and sig nif i cant are Pa-ra mahamsa Deva’s teach ings to the house -holder dev o tees of God. While lead ing a world -ly life and as pir ing to re al ize God, one must beup and do ing and not like ‘el der, the pump kincut ter’ of the par a ble. One must per form one’sdu ties as well as keep one’s mind fixed on theLord by read ing books of de vo tion, by sing ing his name and glo ries, and through japa andmed i ta tion. One should seek holy com pany,and now and then re tire into sol i tude to call on God in tensely, dis tanc ing one self from allworldly thought. A worldly man should prayto God sin cerely for knowl edge and de vo tionalone, and not for crea ture com forts, health orpos ses sions. He should take shel ter in Godand weep for His vi sion. Tears shed for God- vi sion wash away the dirt and dust of world li -ness—an i mal pas sions and greed. Amidstone’s sec u lar work one must set aside sometime for prac tis ing one’s spir i tual dis ci plines.Even while en gaged in ac tiv i ties one shouldhold on to God; oth er wise while whirl ing rap -idly around one will feel giddy and suf ferfrom trou bles and tur moil. Ev ery day oneshould im merse one self in the bliss of God- con scious ness and even while per form ingdaily du ties al low that ro se ate in tox i ca tion tore main.

‘It is nec es sary to do a cer tain amount ofwork. But one must fin ish it off speed ily,’ saysSri Ramakrishna. Must we re main en grossedin mean ing less ac tiv ity all our lives and at all

hours of the day? One should fin ish the fewdu ties at hand and not take up fresh ones. Oneshould pray to God to lessen one’s du ties, asthese tend to make one for get God, and mustper form such works in an un self ish way. Aslove of God grows in the heart, all worldly du -ties re cede more and more into the back -ground and God be gins to cap ture our mindmore deeply. As one’s yearn ing for God be -comes in tense, one will no lon ger bother tothink what will hap pen to one’s fam ily if onedoes not look af ter it. A man in tox i cated withdi vine bliss can only say, ‘O Mother, O Mother,… not I but You; do with me as it pleases You;teach me to merge my will into Yours; withun flag ging love I seek You and You alone, OMother!’ If a man is so ine bri ated with the loveof God, then he has no more du ties to per form. God Him self will take care of his mor row.Drinking deep the elixir of di vine Love, he will glide like a swan straight to wards the goal.And then will van ish for him this samsara ofmaya ‘where “self”, “self”—this al ways theonly note’, ‘where war and com pe ti tion cease -less run’, ‘where dark ness is in ter preted aslight’! All his in nate cling ing to duty and allfalse iden ti fi ca tion and as so ci a tion will van -ish. Then only shall he wake up from this bru -tal iz ing dream about the re al ity of the worldand re al ize that he is ‘heir to im mor tal bliss’.

Conclusion

Thus we see what a unique and all-en -com pass ing mes sage we have in Sri Ramakri-sh na. Truly he is a sav iour with the power totrans form lives. Swamiji says in a lec ture on‘Dis ci ple ship’, de liv ered at San Fran cisco, thatour prep a ra tion must go on till the guru co -mes; that he is noth ing less than God and mustbe wor shipped as God; that as one steadilylooks on, the guru grad u ally melts away. Theguru pic ture gives place to God Him self.6

Blessed are those who have taken shel ter at the feet of Sri Ramakrishna for he him self is theguru who co mes through the con duit of a hu -man form out of his in fi nite love for dev o tees;

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Sri Ramakrishna—The World Teacher 177

he is the way as well as the goal. Pandit Gauri,a pro fi cient and ad vanced soul, de clared thatSri Ramakrishna was that ‘Mine of Spir i tualPower’ only a frac tion of which de scended onearth from time to time in the form of an In car -na tion. As one med i tates on him, he re vealsmore and more of his at trib utes and glo ries,and to some for tu nate souls he even grants hisvi sion.�

References

1. M,The Gos pel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami

Nikhilananda (Ma dras: Sri Ramakrishna Math,

1994), 952.

2. Ibid., 44-5.

3. Ramakrishna As We Saw Him, ed. and trans.

Swami Chetanananda (St Louis: Vedanta So -

ci ety of St Louis, 1990), 338-9.

4. Swami Chetanananda, They Lived with God

(Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1991), 269.

5. Gos pel, 458.

6. The Com plete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9


1997), 8.114, 117.

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For the first time I had found a man [Sri Ramakrishna] who dared to say that he saw God, that

re li gion was a re al ity to be felt, to be sensed in an in fi nitely more in tense way than we can

sense the world. I be gan to go to that man, day af ter day, and I ac tu ally saw that re li gion could

be given. One touch, one glance, can change a whole life.

—Swami Vivekananda, My Master

Amonk called Hung Chou came to visit Ma Tsu and asked: ‘What is the mean ing of

Bodhidharma’s com ing from the West?’ Ma Tsu said: ‘Bow down to me, first.’ As the monk

was pros trat ing him self, Ma Tsu gave him a vig or ous kick in the chest. The monk was at once en -

light ened. He stood up, clapped his hands and, laugh ing loudly, cried: ‘Oh, how won der ful this

is, how mar vel lous this is! Hun dreds and thou sands of Samadhis and in fi nite won ders of the

Truth are now eas ily re al ized on the tip of a sin gle hair!’ He then made obei sance to Ma Tsu. Af -

ter wards he said to peo ple: ‘Since I re ceived that kick from Ma Tsu, I have been cheer ful and

laugh ing.’

—Chang Chen-Chi, The Practice of Zen

‘The Mas ter was look ing at me [Swami Vijnanananda] in tently. I thought it was time for me

to de part, so I pros trated be fore him. As I stood up to go, he asked: “Can you wres tle?

Come, let me see how well you wres tle!” With these words he stood up, ready to grap ple with

me. I was sur prised at this chal lenge. I thought to my self, “What kind of holy man is this?” But I

re plied, “Yes, of course I can wres tle.”

‘Sri Ramakrishna came closer, smil ing. He caught hold of my arms and be gan to shove me,

but I was a strong, mus cu lar young man and I pushed him back to the wall. He was still smil ing

and hold ing me with a strong grip. Grad ually I felt a sort of elec tric cur rent com ing out of his

hands and en ter ing into me. The touch made me com pletely help less. I lost all my phys i cal

strength. I went into ec stasy, and the hair of my body stood on end. Re leasing me, the Mas ter

said with a smile, “Well, you are the win ner.”’

—Swami Chetanananda, God Lived with Them

Paving the Path for Dhyana

SWAMI SATYAMAYANANDA

The Classical Posture and Its Obstacles

‘Body, head and neck erect and still, be -ing steady, gaz ing at the tip of one’sown nose, and not look ing around.’1

This in struc tion re gard ing pos ture for yoga isnot to be in ter preted to mean that the as pi rantwill sit stock-still and squint-eyed study ingthe nose. Sri Shankara charya in his com men -tary on this stanza of the Bhagavadgita makesit clear: ‘The words as it were are to be un der -stood … it is fix ing the gaze of the eyes bywith draw ing them from ex ter nal ob jects …with a view to con cen trat ing the mind … onthe At man.’ The pro cess com mences with gaz -ing fixedly; then ‘the sense or gans are with -drawn into the heart with the help of themind.’2 This is the clas si cal pos ture and at ti -tude for dhy ana, med i ta tion. This brief ar ti cleuses the word dhy ana in the sense of pro foundone-pointed con cen tra tion. Some in ter pre ta -tions, bor der ing on the ab surd, as to why one’s gaze ought to be fixed on the nose, float about.But Madhusudana Saraswati in his Gudhartha-dipika has, fol low ing tra di tion, pointed outtwo rea sons: one, to elim i nate laya, tor por, and two, to ar rest vikshepa, dis trac tion.3

W hether one sits with eyes closed or half-closed the re duc tion of sen sory stim uli reach -ing the psychophysical or gan ism is in ev i ta ble. This, plus the con scious will to with draw from all stim uli, makes a mind that is steeped in ex -tro ver sion feel a vac uum. Then as a con se -quence co mes sleep, ‘a mod i fi ca tion (of themind) that em braces the feel ing of voidness.’4

If an as pi rant’s mind is not sub ject wholly to thefirst ob sta cle of laya, then an equally strongsec-ond ob sta cle of vikshepa takes over. Here oneex pe ri ences more viv idly, un con trolled sub con -scious thoughts and feel ings as well as con -scious thoughts, over whelm ing and de stroy -

ing the force that is try ing to sub due them asthough some papier-mâché were be ing ripped.These two pow er ful ob sta cles frus trate and pulldown most as pi rants. They are, how ever, morepro nounced for those who sit with eyes shut.

Binocular Vision andIts Connection with Thoughts

If hu mans were born like the Cy clops, arace of gi ants met with in Greek my thol ogywith only one eye in the cen tre of the fore head, we could have gazed at the tip of our nosewith out dif fi culty be cause of mon oc u lar vi -sion. If med i ta tion strictly meant ‘gaz ing at the tip of one’s own nose’ these Cy clops couldhave be come great yo gis. But the dis ad van -tage in mon oc u lar vi sion is the in ad e quacy ofdepth per cep tion. There fore ac cu rate lo ca tionof ob jects in space be comes dif fi cult for one- eyed crea tures, and this may af fect sur vival.Be ings equipped with bin oc u lar vi sion arebetter equipped to per ceive the world andform a rel a tively cor rect im pres sion of the lo -ca tion and fea tures of ob jects in theirenvironment. These eyes, so acute and re li -able, have their own lim i ta tions and strange -ness. One of these be comes ap par ent whilegaz ing at ob jects close to the nose. To see forour selves: hold the two fore fin gers, pointed ateach other, half an inch apart, about two tothree inches from the tip of the nose, and gazeat them with both eyes open. One sees the cu ri -ous sight of a small fin ger with round ed endsfloat ing be tween the fore fin gers. Truly speak -ing, per cep tion oc curs in the brain. The au -thors and com men ta tors on Yoga ev i dentlyknew that fo cus ing on the tip of the nose is dif -fi cult due to bin oc u lar dis par ity but this rulewill be ap pre ci ated better when it is re mem -bered that thoughts are per ceived in the space

45 PB -MARCH 2005

in and around the eyes and not at the back ofthe head or its sides. It is also an ac knowl -edged fact that by the con trol of the eye balls, apar tial con trol of thought is ef fected. HenceSwamiji, a great yogi him self, ex horts, ‘Sitstraight, and look at the tip of your nose. Lateron we shall come to know how that con cen -trates the mind, how by con trol ling the twoop tic nerves one ad vances a long way to wards the con trol of the arc of re ac tion, and so to thecon trol of the will.’ 5

Intensity of Thought Shuts Out the External World

Many as pi rants ex cuse them selves fromthis time-tested in struc tion by say ing thatkeep ing the eyes half-closed and gaz ingfixedly does not help with draw the mind from ex ter nal ob jects. They find keep ing the eyesshut more com fort able. This is of ten sim ply an ex cuse to sit pas sively in the name of dhy anaand be over come by leth argy in de grees.These same as pi rants, when ab sent-minded or pre oc cu pied with some ab sorb ing thoughts,can sim ply shut out the ex ter nal world, evenin the midst of tre men dous sen sory stim u la -tion as oc curs in a busy street or a ba zaar. Theywould then say, ‘My mind was else where, Idid not see it; my mind was else where, I didnot hear it.’6 In Sri Rama krishna’s sim plewords, dur ing dhy ana ‘the senses stop func -tion ing; the mind does not look out side. It islike clos ing the gate of the outer court of thehouse. The five ob jects of the senses: form,taste, touch, smell, and hear ing … are all leftout side.’7

The Necessity of Immobility

Be fore ‘gaz ing at the tip of one’s ownnose’ it was ad vised to sit erect and still. Swa -mi ji clar i fies why: ‘The spi nal cord al thoughnot at tached to the ver te bral col umn, is yet in -side of it. If you sit crook edly you dis turb thisspi nal cord, so let it be free. Any time you sitcrook edly and try to med i tate you do your selfan in jury.’8 Or di narily, be ing alert straight ens

the spine, light ens the breath and makes theeyes fo cused. Yoga de mands this alert ness infull mea sure. Re gard ing this the Brahma Sutrassay: ‘Acalatvaó cápekøya; (Med i ta tion is) at trib -uted from the stand point of mo tion less ness.’9

There has to be ab so lute still ness so as to leaveun dis turbed the kin es thetic sense. This kin es -thetic sense is at trib uted to four types ofnerves that are widely dis trib uted in the joints, mus cles, and ten dons all over the body. Thesenerves, with dif fer ent types of end ings, sensethe con trac tion and stretch ing of the mus clesand joints; they also reg u late the re flex andvol un tary move ments. All sen sa tions ofmove ment, even the mi cro scopic, are trans -mit ted via these sen sors to the spi nal cord andbrain. Here they in ter act with both the au to -nomic and vol un tary cen tres re spon si ble forcon trol ling bodily move ments. Hence move -ment will keep the nerves, spi nal cord, andparts of the brain busy enough to dis tractmed i ta tion. In fact, the main func tion of thekin es thetic or proprioceptive sense is to makethe sub ject con scious of the sense of self (body).

Nystagmus: Movement andTremors of the Eye

There are two ob sta cles to still ing theeyes. First is the ves tib u lar sense that takescare of the body’s ori en ta tion and bal ance, and for which the in ner ear is re spon si ble. Thesefluid-filled ca nals of the in ner ear are linedwith cells with very fine hairs pro ject ing intothe fluid. Any move ment of the body dis turbsthis fluid, these dis tur bances gen er ate elec tri -cal im pulses in the nerves at tached to the ‘haircells’, and these im pulses are trans mit ted tothe mo tor nerves that then make the eye ballsmove. This move ment is called ves tib u lar nys -tag mus. Of course, it goes with out say ing thatthe slight est move ment of the eyes will dis turb con cen tra tion. The sec ond type of nys tag musis the high-fre quency tremor of the eyes. Theeye per forms not like a fixed cam era but amov ing one, al beit with a dif fer ence: it con -stantly keeps mov ing back and forth while fo-

PB - MARCH 2005 46


cus ing on a mov ing scene. If one stares at asmall ob ject, say a point of light, iso lated andfixed, it will seem to move; ac tu ally it is the eye that is hav ing high-fre quency trem ors. On theother hand, if some how the nystagmic trem -ors can be ar rested and the ob ject too is still asbe fore, then the perceiver will, for a frac tion ofa sec ond, have an en hanced im age which willim me di ately blur and then dis ap pear, re ap -pear bro ken up, again dis ap pear, and so on.These high-fre quency trem ors of the eyes,tech ni cally called autokinetic nys tag mus, arean in ex tri ca ble part of fo cussed vi sual per cep -tion. W hen nys tag mus is op er a tive it im pliesthat the per ceiver is aware of ex ter nal ob jectsand is not yet in the med i ta tion mode.

The Leader

The word netra, mean ing ‘leader’ or ‘con -duc tor’, is the San skrit for eye. Among the fivesenses—vi sual, gus ta tory, ol fac tory, tac tile,and au di tory—the con spic u ous leader is thevi sual or gan. From the ear li est times hu manswere aware of their hand-eye co or di na tionand used it well to sur vive in a com pet i tiveand dan ger ous en vi ron ment. Finely tunedhand- eye co or di na tion is gen er ally seen insports persons; hence their ac tions are so fluidand con trolled. Con trari wise, a per son withpoor hand- eye co or di na tion is called clumsy.Be fore a ten nis player can lunge to re turn theball, its flight will have to be closely fol lowed;if the eyes are not fo cused then ac tions be come er ratic. It is a fact that rest less or ner vous per -sons are quickly no ticed by the way their eyesand body, down to the fin gers, be have. A calm per son will have a steady look in his eyes. ‘Thehands, feet and eyes of an as cetic are not rest -less, also his words are not un re strained; theseare the signs by which the wise [one] isknown.’10 Thus it be comes clear that the eyeshave a sort of con trol ling power on the body.

Japa as Preparatory to Meditation

Japa is rec om mended for those hav ing an in cli na tion for a med i ta tive life but whose na -

ture al ter nates be tween rest less ness and calm -ness. Japa is rec om mended pre pa ra tory tomed i ta tion be cause the ten dency to rest less -ness is re moved by having that rest less en ergyvi brate har mo ni ously and rhyth mi cally, mak -ing it pli ant for con trol. This is done by re peat -ing the man tra at a set speed, with de vo tion,while keep ing count with the help of a ro saryor one’s fin gers. Par al lel to japa the as pi rant isad vised to with draw the mind in side by vi su -al iz ing the de ity in the heart. ‘From that isgained (the power of) in tro spec tion, and thede struc tion of ob sta cles.’11 Japa done withreg u lar ity will change the way one walks,talks, looks, and be haves; this is due to the se -ren ity that co mes over the en tire psycho-physical sys tem. W hen this is ac com plished,the mind it self will want to go deeper into it -self for it has found a new di men sion far re -moved from what the senses con stantly de -liver. Thus is set the stage for dhy ana.

Hatha Yoga

Hatha yoga is sud den, forc ible yoga. This yoga does not like to waste time do ing thingsslowly. It has a tai lor-made dis ci pline to elim i -nate laya and vikshepa known as tráôaka. Tomod ify it for our pur pose, a pleas ant ob ject (apic ture of God or a sym bol like Om or, morecom monly, a burn ing can dle) is placed at eyelevel and at a com fort able dis tance of about ametre. The body is kept steady and the ob jectis gazed upon with full at ten tion, scru ti niz ingev ery de tail. The eyes should not wa ver norshould there be con scious blink ing. Af ter a fewmin utes (the du ra tion de pends on in di vid ualca pac ity), as a dull ache com mences in the eye -balls or the tear ducts be come ac ti vated, theeyes must be shut. The im age of this ob jectnow has to be gazed upon in the mind, thepro cess kept up till the men tal im age be gins tofade. Then the eyes have to be opened againand the gaze re-fixed on the ob ject. Al ter nat ing like this helps the mind de velop the power ofcon cen tra tion, both in ter nal and ex ter nal. Astráôaka ma tures, the ex ter nal ob ject is done

47 PB -MARCH 2005

Paving the Path for Dhyana 181

away with, for its sup port is no lon ger re -quired. This prac tice has to be taken up cau -tiously and per sons with eye or re lated prob -lems are de barred for ob vi ous rea sons, al -though hatha yoga claims that tráôaka cureseye dis eases. The books also men tion thattráôaka is like a trea sure chest and ought to bemain tained with care.12 It may be in ter est ingto com pare the fol low ing med i ta tion as de -scribed by Sri Ramakrishna: ‘I used to med i -tate on a flame of light. I thought of the redpart as gross, the yel low part in side the red assub tle, and the stick-like black part, which isthe in ner most of all, as the causal.’13

Though not cen tral to this ar ti cle, itshould also be men tioned that hatha yogamakes use of var i ous asanas, kriyas, and mud-ras (pos tures, purifications, and sym bolic ges -tures) to dis till the body of its im pu ri ties. It isbe lieved, and rightly so, that only a body thatis clean from the in side can sit still for a longtime un dis turbed. Per haps the most pop u lardis ci pline pre scribed in hatha yoga is prana-yama. Pra na yama, the con trol of prana, ex e -cuted cor rectly un der a guru, gives a won der -ful con trol over the body and mind, and even -tu ally leads to yoga.

The Psychological Present

Met a phorically speak ing, a mo ment oftime steps out from be hind the dark cur tain ofthe fu ture, ap pears briefly on stage, and thenquick ly van ishes into the gloom of the green -room called the past. Time seems de pend enton two events one pre ced ing and the othersuc ceed ing; but both have to be per ceived forthe idea of suc ces sion to arise along with thatof time. W hen we are ab sorbed in a task, timeflies; sit idly and time seems to crawl. Be sidesbe ing en tirely de pend ent on our state of mind, time is also one of its very foun da tions. Dur ingone-pointed con cen tra tion, stim u lus de pri va -tion and a high level of mo ti va tion make a mo -ment seem to hang on and on. This is the psy -cho log i cal pres ent; this is dis turbed by even the slight est of kin es thetic or ves tib u lar activity.

The Leader behind the LeaderThe ner vous sys tem is de signed in such a

way that ev ery sen sory im pulse (ac tion) istrans lated into a mo tor im pulse (re ac tion).The senses un doubt edly lead the body (imag -ine some one with out sense or gans; thatperson will be a veg e ta ble). It was shown thatthe eyes lead the rest of the senses. The scrip -tures and also com mon sense are unan i mousthat the mind is ob vi ously higher than thesenses and is their real leader. It was also dem -on strated that per cep tions, thoughts, and feel -ings are largely re spon si ble for mak ing theeye balls move. That there is a con nec tion be -tween the eyes and thoughts needs no proof,for we are the proof. In fact, the eyes are said to be an ex ten sion of the brain. Our thoughts getre flected in our eyes, that is why eyes arecalled ‘win dows of the soul’. Tell some bodysome thing nice and see the de light in the per -son’s eyes. On the other hand, if a child knowsyou are fib bing, see how your eyes shift andyou be come un com fort able. This ir re vo ca blecon nec tion is no tice able not merely in ourday time ac tiv i ties, but also when we dream.Though un con scious of the ex ter nal world,the eyes move rap idly dur ing dreams, andhence the dream state is la belled REM (RapidEye Move ment). Thus it be comes clear that bycon trol ling the mind, the senses, and the bodytoo, can be con trolled. But yoga rec om mendsap ply ing this con trol ling power to the body,then ris ing up to the op tic nerves and to thebrain, and finally to the mind.

The Goal of Dhyana

Dil i gence de stroys the two de monscalled laya and vikshepa. Seated in the clas si calpos ture main tained by ‘think ing of the un lim -ited’,14 the yogi snaps the ‘arc of re ac tion’, im -ply ing that the arc of ac tion––the sen sory stim -u lus en ter ing the brain—will fail to elicit a re -ac tion in the form of cog ni tion. The pos ture isstill, re laxed, and yet full of con trolled en ergy.To the on looker, the yogi’s eye balls ap pearsteady but with a blank look, gaz ing at the tip

PB - MARCH 2005 48


of the nose. This will also mean that the eyesare be reft of nys tag mus. The nat u ral rhythmsof res pi ra tion, cir cu la tion, me tab o lism, tem -per a ture, and other func tions have as ton ish -ingly quiet ened. The yogi feels tran quil, alert,and very far re moved from the body be causehe has with drawn the senses ‘like a tor toisewith draw ing its limbs’.15 As med i ta tion in ten -si fies, one feels as if one is en ter ing into a vastin ner space. It is like step ping out of a dank,dark dun geon into the bright world out side.As med i ta tion be comes pro founder, knowl -edge and bliss arise si mul ta neously. The yogiap pears to the on looker unmoving and de -void of life. Sri Ramakrishna says, ‘By cer tainsigns you can tell when med i ta tion is be ingrightly practised. One of them is that a birdwill sit on your head, think ing you are an in ertthing.’16 This in ert ness might seem ri dic u lous, re pul sive or alarm ing but the Katha Upa nishadas sures us: ‘W hen the five sen sory or gans ofknowl edge come to rest to gether with themind, and the in tel lect, too, does not func tion,that state they call the high est.’17 Con scious -ness, hav ing with drawn from ev ery thing,leaves just a trace of it self in some ar eas of thebrain. The yogi has gone be yond the ken of hu -man un der stand ing. To let SwamiAbhedananda take over as the on looker andre late one of Sri Ramakrishna’s pe ri odic ex pe -ri ence of this state:

One day the Mas ter was in deep sam adhi,seated on his bed like a wooden statue. He hadno outer con scious ness. Dr Mahendralal Sarkarchecked his pulse and felt no throb bing. Hethen put his stetho scope on the Mas ter’s heartand did not get a heart beat. Next, Dr Sarkartouched the Mas ter’s eye balls with his fin ger,but still the Mas ter’s outer con scious ness didnot re turn. The doc tor was dumb founded.

18

Yoga of course does not need the ser vicesof a doc tor to ver ify its ex pe ri ences. But broad -ly speak ing, a doc tor will be even more dumb -founded than was Dr Sarkar when, on the re -ac ti va tion of the vi tal signs in the body, it willbe seen that the in tense sub jec tive ex pe ri encehas trans formed ev ery thing. The yogi has nowbe come a knower of At man, a sage, a bless ingto hu man ity. This is the goal of dhy ana. �

References

1. Bhagavadgita, 6.13.

2. Shvetashvatara Upanishad, 2.8.

3. See Madhusudana Saraswati’s com men tary

on Gita, 6.13.

4. Yoga Sutras, 1.10.

5. The Com plete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9


1997), 1.192.

6. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.5.3.

7. M, The Gos pel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami

Nikhilananda (Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math,

2002), 745.

8. CW, 1.166.

9. Brahma Sutras, 4.1.9.

10. Swami Vidyaranya, Jivan-mukti-viveka, trans.

Swami Mokshadananda (Cal cutta: Advaita

Ashrama, 1996), 168.


12. Hatha Yoga Pradipika, 2.31-2.

13. Gos pel, 604.


15. Gita, 2.58.

16. Gos pel, 604.

17. Katha Upanishad, 2.3.10.

18. Swami Chetanananda, God Lived with Them

(Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 2001), 449-50.

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Paving the Path for Dhyana 183

jgu mkctuÆtgur”tútk rJrG¹tk NbguÀvwl& >mfUMtgk rJstlegtÀmbv{t¹tk l atjgu;T >>

If the mind falls asleep, arouse it (from laya); if dis tracted, re store it to tran quil lity. U n der -

stand the nature of the mind when it is tinged with de sire (though la tent); and when the mind

has at tained equi poise, do not dis turb it again.

—Mandukya Karika, 3.44

PB - MARCH 2005 50

Parabrahm a UpaniøadTRANSLATED BY SWAMI ATMAPRIYANANDA

Attainm ent of purification of mind through karma (selfless action) (continued)

… nkmur;JKoÅgultà;&rNFtuvJer;ÀJk rlr´tÀg, c{tÑKÀJk c{ÑÆgtltnoÀJbT, gr;ÀJbjrG;tà;&rNFtuvJer;ÀJbT,YJk crnjorG;fUborNFtÒttltuvJe;k d]nô:ôg, ytCtmc{tÑKÀJôg fuUNmbqnrNFtv{ÀgGfUtvtom;à;wf]U;tu vJe -r;ÀJbT > a;w&a;wdowKef]UÀg a;wrJoUkNr;;úJtvt=l;à;wf]UÀJbT, lJ;úJ bufUbuJ vhk c{Ñ, ;Àv{r;mhgtuÉgÀJt=T-cnwbtdoJ]rútk fUÖvgÂà; > mJuoMtk c{Ñt=eltk =uJMeoKtk blw˜gtKtk bwrÿUhufUt c{ÑifUbuJ c{tÑKÀJbufUbuJ > JKto-¶ btathrJNuMt& v]:¢v]:fTU, rNFt JKto¶rbKt bufUbuJ, yvJdoôg g;u& rNFtgÒttuvJe;bqjk v{KJbufUbuJ J= Âà; > nkm& rNFt, v{KJbwvJe;bT, lt=& mkÆttlbT > YM Ætbtuolu;htu Ætbo& > ;ÀfU:rbr; > v{KJtu nkmtu lt=r t̄J]ÀmqºtkôJ†r=ai;àgu r;˜Xr; > rºtrJÆtk c{Ñ ;rÅrõ > v{tvÂ½tfU rNFtuvJe;k Àgsu;T >>5>>5. … with the let ters of [the word] haósa one should [de ter mine, that is,] at tain a con vic tionabout the na ture of the in ner tuft and sa cred thread;1 bráhmaîa-hood is [the at tain ment of] ‘de -serv ing ness’ [or wor thi ness] to med i tate on Brah man; monkhood is the state of in vis i bil ity of[the ex ter nal] tuft and sa cred thread;2 thus for a house holder [there is] the ex ter nally vis i ble tuftfor [the sake of per for mance of] rit u als and the sa cred thread for ac quir ing knowl edge; for onewho has merely a sem blance [or ap pear ance] of bráhmaîa-hood, there is the tuft con sist ing of amass of hair [on the head] and the sa cred thread made up of cot ton yarn, both of which are out -wardly vis i ble.3 [Al though the brahmasétra is one and one alone,] it is ren dered into four [asviùva, viráj, otì and turæya] by qua dru pli ca tion; the twenty-four tattvas con sti tute its threads, thenine tattvas4 com prise the One Su preme Brah man; [but] since it is ca pa ble of be ing con ceived of[or imag ined in di verse ways in ac cor dance with the com pul sions of one’s own in tel lect, peo ple] en vis age so many paths [de pend ing on the var i ous men tal] pro cliv i ties (in cli na tions) [as meansto at tain It]. Lib er a tion (mukti) is one [and the same] to all—to [gods like] Brahmá, to di vinesages, [and] to hu man be ings; Brah man is One alone; bráhmaîa-hood is one alone.5 Castes(varîas), stages of life (áùramas), [and] spe cial ob ser vances are dif fer ent—[all] dif fer ent from onean other; the tuft of hair on the head is one [and the same] for [all] castes and stages. For the monk (as cetic) [de voted to the pur suit] of lib er a tion, the root (ba sis, foun da tion) of the tuft of hair andthe sa cred thread is the praîava (the sa cred man tra ‘om’) alone, [so] say [the wise]. The haósa isthe tuft, the praîava is the sa cred thread and the náda is the con join ing link. This is dharma; there is no other dharma [be sides this]. How that is so [is be ing ex plained]. [These three—] praîava,haósa, and náda [con sti tute] the tri par tite sétra (string or thread),6 re sid ing in Con scious ness(Aware ness, or caitanya) [that is iden ti cal with] one’s [own] Heart.7 Know that to be the three -fold Brah man.8 [The as cetic monk] shall dis card (re nounce) the worldly tuft and sa cred thread.

(To be continued)Notes

1. Upaniøad Brahmayogin com ments here that haósa is re lated to so’haó bhávaná(the in tu itive feel ing of

‘I am He’—the iden tity of jæva and Brah man), so’ham be ing ob tained by re vers ing haósa. Thus, rep e ti -

tion of haósa sev eral times would au to mat i cally re sult in so’ham. ‘So’haó haósaë’ and ‘haósaëso’ham’

are mantras whose men tal rep e ti tion re minds the spir i tual as pi rant of his true na ture as the In fi nite

Self or At man/Brah man. Sannyásins, in par tic u lar, con stantly re peat mantras such as these, which

51 PB -MARCH 2005

Parabrahma Upaniøad 185

lead to non-dual aware ness. For sannyásins, who re nounce the ex ter nal tuft (ùikhá) and sa cred thread

(ya jðasétra), the con stant and con tin u ous ab sorp tion in the bhávaná, or di vine mood, gen er ated by the

rep e ti tion of ‘haósaëso’ham’and ‘so’haó haósaë’ con sti tutes the in ter nal tuft and sa cred thread

(brahma sétra).

2. A beau ti ful def i ni tion of bráhmaîa-hood is found here. The Upaniøad cat e gor i cally states that bráh -

maîatva is brahma-dhyána-arhatvam, that is, any as pi rant who is a seeker of lib er a tion will be el i gi ble to

be called a bráhmaîa, pro vided he ac quires the ca pac ity and wor thi ness to med i tate upon Brah man

and pur sue It as the one su preme goal of life. Also, monkhood (yatitva) is in ter preted as the ab sence of

all ex ter nal signs (like the ex ter nal tuft and sa cred thread), the in ner trans for ma tion of a monk lead ing

him to a state in which all ex ter nali ties are ren dered re dun dant and with out any sig nif i cance.

3. In the case of such a per son, with no in ner trans for ma tion, bráhmaîa-hood—the wear ing of ex ter nal

signs like tuft and sa cred thread—is just a mock ery; he wears these signs as a mere sign board.

4. Per haps mean ing the nava-brah man, al ready re ferred to.

5. Upaniøad Brahmayogin’s com men tary: On ac count of the attributelessness (nirviùeøatva) of Brah man

at the be gin ning and at the end, It is attributeless even in the mid dle, and there fore one; for the smìti

text says: ‘Yannádau yacca nástyante tanmadhye bhátamapyasat.’ Also, a won der ful def i ni tion of

bráhmaîa-hood, which is uni ver sal in na ture and ra tio nal in con tent, is pro vided here by Upaniøad

Brahmayogin: ‘Brahma-niøôha-prabhava bráhmaîatvam ekameva’, that is, bráhmaîa-hood is born of

one-pointed de vo tion to Brah man, and hence is one alone.

6. Praîava is the turæya-oïkára and its real im port. The mean ing of the man tra ‘turyátætaó brahma haósaë’

also es tab lishes the iden tity of the in ner Self with the Su preme Self. Paramátman, al though the re cep ta -

cle of náda-laya (sound ca dence), is It self the triad of praîava, haósa and náda, and this triad is spo ken

of as the tri par tite sétra (trivìt-sétra). The ref er ence to náda and laya in this con text re quires greater

clar i fi ca tion, which is not pro vided by the com men ta tor.

7. In an swer to the query ‘W here is the seat of the above triad of praîava-haósa-náda that is iden ti fied

with the trivìt-sétra?’ the Upaniøad says that it is in Con scious ness, which is iden ti cal with one’s own

Heart. The mean ing is that It re mains by It self shin ing in Its own glory (‘sve mahimni svayaó tiøôhati’).

8. Upaniøad Brahmayogin com ments that the Brah man spo ken of here is to be known as the two fold di -

vi sion of para-brah man and apara-brah man. This is the well-known hi er ar chy in Vedanta—para-brah -

man is su preme, attributeless (nirviùeøa) and qualityless (nirguîa), while apara-brah man is en dowed

with at trib utes (saviùeøa) and qual i ties (saguîa). Apara-brah man is also called hiraîyagarbha, of ten iden -

ti fied with æùvara.

Types of Upasana

To meet the needs of three dif fer ent men tal types, three kinds of upasana have been de vel -

oped: pratikopasana (med i ta tion on vi sual im ages), namopasana (med i ta tion on sound sym -

bols) and ahamgrahopasana (med i ta tion on the self). Each as pi rant should know which type

of mind his is: form-ori ented, name-ori ented or self-ori ented. … Ve dic pratikopasana was of

two types: sampad and adhyasa. In sampad upasana an in fe rior ob ject is used as a sym bol to

rep re sent su pe rior Re al ity. The sym bol is un im por tant, the at trib utes of the higher Re al ity dom -

i nate the med i ta tive field. In adhyasa upasana the sym bol cho sen is it self a su pe rior ob ject and

dom i nates the med i ta tive field. U pon this sym bol the at trib utes of the Re al ity are su per im -

posed, but the sym bol is as im por tant as the at trib utes.

—Types of Meditation II, Prabuddha Bharata, June 1981

Glimpses of Holy Lives

SadhuMathuradas

(Continued from the previous issue)

‘Let Everybody Become Like Me’

It was win ter in Hardwar. Icy winds sweptdown from the moun tains and the townreeled un der the bit ing cold. To make mat -

ters worse, it rained ev ery now and then un tilit all be came quite un bear able. Mah endranathand the Sevashrama work ers were wor riedabout Mathura dasji. It had been quite a fewdays since the sadhu had come to the Seva-shrama. That was some thing un usual for areg u lar vis i tor.

Some more days passed be fore Mathura-dasji turned up again. The rea son for his longab sence was this: A Ramavat sadhu had re -cently arrived at Satikund. He was a run- of- the- mill wan der ing men di cant, ex cept that hewas bur dened with too many be long ings—which in cluded a tam bou rine and a pair ofcym bals, both of which he put to good use!And was he gar ru lous! If he stopped sing ing,he would start talk ing, and when he was do -ing nei ther, he would be snor ing heavily! Infact he had all but taken over poor Mathura-das ji’s hut. ‘I just could not put up with all that noise, so I ran away from Sati kund,’ Mathura-dasji said sim ply.

More than his guile less in no cence, Mah-endranath was struck by Mathuradasji’s un -com plain ing ac cep tance of such a dif fi cult and un pleas ant sit u a tion. Mathuradasji could verywell have or dered the in sen si tive sadhu toclear out; he had lived in that hut for so manyyears af ter all. Yet, rather than in con ve nience aguest, though un in vited, he had him selfmoved out. And it had taken him no time tofor get his hut.

‘So where are you stay ing now?’ probedMahendranath. ‘In Bilwakeswar.’ W hat!’ criedMahendranath in dis be lief. ‘You have started

liv ing in Bilwakeswar?’ The for bid ding for estlay far out side Hardwar town. No won derMa thura dasji was un able to come to the Seva-shrama as usual. ‘You mean you spend thenights in Bilwa keswar?’ asked Mahendra nathonce again, doubt ing if he had heard right.‘Yes,’ re plied Mathuradasji, ‘there is a large,smooth slab of rock on which I can sleep com -fort ably.’ ‘But how can you pos si bly sleep oncold stone out in the open—in this weather? Itwas pour ing all through last night.’ ‘So what ifit rained?’ Mathuradasji said. ‘It was en joy -able, most en joy able; I was de lighted.’ Mahen-dranath’s jaw dropped; he did not know whatto say. There he was, wrapped in a quiltedblan ket, drink ing hot tea sit ting by the fire side,and still feel ing cold. Mathura das ji was thirtyyears older.

Mahendranath con tin ued: ‘But Bilwak -eswar for est must be a treach er ous place. They say ti gers and el e phants roam about even dur -ing the day. Are you not afraid of them?’ Ma-thuradasji did not know what fear was. ‘W hyshould I be afraid?’ he said, look ing puzzled.‘There is no rea son why they should hurt mewhen I don’t hurt them.’

This was an ob ject les son to Mahendra-nath. All en mi ties cease in the pres ence of ayogi who is es tab lished in ahim sa, so say thescrip tures. Mahendranath had also heard thesannyasin dis ci ples of Sri Ramakrishna say:‘W e see the world as we are. W hat we have in -side, we see outside.’

The ex am ples of saints like Mathuradasjiin deed hold great les sons for us. The GreatW ar was then rag ing in Eu rope. Mathura dasjiwas at the Sevash rama lis ten ing to the monksdis cuss ing the war’s mon stros i ties. ‘How manypeo ple are dy ing, how many women are los -

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ing their hus bands and sons, how many chil -dren are be com ing or phans! W hen will thisever end?’ Swami Atulanandaji sadly ob served.‘W ell, Ma th uradasji, what do you say?’ ‘Thereis a so lu tion,’ Mathura dasji said qui etly. ‘Letev ery body be come like me. Un til peo ple give uphy poc risy, pride and ar ro gance, wars arebound to hap pen.’

‘Please Don’t Disturb’

Fac ing death is no laugh ing mat ter. None but the per son who has com pletely con quered the body- idea can face death with equa nim ity. A sadhu once told Mahendranath how Math-uradasji had actually laughed in the face ofdeath. The story it self was funny, but it left nodoubt in Mahen dranath’s mind that Mathura-dasji was a jivanmukta.

One night Mathuradasji was sleep ing un -der a tree in a farm when some rob bers scaledthe fence and came in. They had planned torob the farm house and were armed with stavesand spears. Be fore set ting about their busi -ness, how ever, they wanted to make sure thatev ery thing was all right. As they sur veyed thearea si lently, their eyes fell on a sleep ing fig ure un der a tree. In the pale moon light it was dif fi -cult to make out who it was. Sea soned crim i -nals that they were, they ap proached thesleep ing per son cau tiously, arms at the ready.Giving him a quick look, they con cluded thatit was the night watch man and de cided to killhim with out more ado.

The leader of the rob bers gripped hisspear and aimed it at the heart of the sleep ingman. But their whis pers had bro ken Mathura-dasji’s sleep. He had heard—and was see ing—ev ery thing, but did not care to save his ownlife! Just when the rob ber was about to strike,he cleared his throat and turned on his side.The rob bers froze! The voice sounded fa mil -iar. ‘W ho is it?’ the leader gasped in hor ror.‘Nanga Baba?’ ‘Ha! Ha! W ho else?’ Mathura-dasji laughed out loud. ‘But … Babaji, do youre al ize how close you had come to los ing yourlife?’ re mon strated the rob ber. ‘Never mind

my life, why can’t you peo ple let a man sleep?’re torted Mathuradasji. ‘Go away, don’t dis -turb me now, please.’

Their plans ru ined, the confused rob bersmelted away into the dark ness, and Mathura-dasji went back to sleep.

‘So I Got Rid of It’

One hot sum mer morn ing Mathuradasjiap peared at the Sevashrama—stark na ked! Itwas about eleven o’clock. He found him self an easy chair and set tled down with a hoo kah.‘W hat is the mat ter, Mathura dasji? W here isyour kaupina?’ peo ple asked him. ‘I could nothelp it,’ said Mathuradasji in a some what ir ri -tated tone of voice. ‘Help what?’ they per sisted. ‘Losing my kaupina. I was walk ing down theroad when all of a sud den a group of Punjabiwomen blocked my way. They wanted to makepra nams and take the dust of my feet. I don’tlike these things, but to day I was com pletelytrapped. I tried to el bow my way out, butsome body—a man, mer ci fully, be cause therewere one or two men in the group—caughthold of my kaupina from be hind in or der tostop me. W hat else could I do? I got rid of thekaupina and ran away, and they were left hold -ing the rag.’

Mathuradasji nar rated his ad ven ture like a boy of seven or eight. Peo ple had a heartylaugh over the story but were also amazed atthe sadhu’s sim plic ity. Nischaya nand aji wantedto make him a kaupina from a new length ofcloth. ‘See that it is not more than three incheswide,’ Mathuradasji told him. Nischayanan-da ji made the kaupina as told and him self tiedit round Mathuradas ji’s waist.

Mahendranath had once seen with hisown eyes how much Mathuradasji loathedhon our and ven er a tion. On that oc ca sionMathuradasji, in or der to avoid a crowd of en -thu si as tic dev o tees, had vaulted over a crum -b ling wall know ing very well that the groundon the other side was bristling with thornybushes!

(To be concluded)

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Glimpses of Holy Lives 187

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& Reviews&

Rámacaritamánasa in South Af rica. UshaDevi Shukla. Motilal Banarsidass, 41-UABun ga low Road, Jawahar Nagar, NewDelhi 110 007. E-mail: [email protected]. 2002.xxiv + 228 pp. Rs 325.

There is a scene in Kam ban’s Tam il Ram ayanawhere Ha nu man re veals him self to Sita in the

Ashoka grove. Sita’s mind is in tur moil. A m on keyspeak ing in hu man tongue and call ing out, ‘Ram a,Ram a’! Had n’t she been de ceived by Ravana oncebe fore when he had come to her for est res i dence inan as cetic’s garb? W hat if he has now come in thismon key form? But then, she tells her self:

Be he the rakshasa; or an im m or tal;/ Or one ofthe mon key race; or evil;/ Or good; he cam ehere to tell/ My Lord’s name and melt mythoughts/ Giving me a new lease of life; canthere be/ A greater help than this?How very true! Ever since Valmiki in dited his

epic, there have been thou sands of ver sions inmanylan guages and coun tries, and each re tell ing isnecta rean to the as pi rant heart. From the tenth cen -tury on wards, In dian di a lects be cam e m a jor lan -guages by trans lat ing or trans creating Valmiki’sepic. Ac cord ing to Sri Auro bindo, only two of theseepic cre ations can be termed su preme mas ter -pieces:the ver sions of Kam ban and Tulsidas. Of the lat ter, Rámacaritamánasa, he says that it com bines‘with a sin gu lar mas tery, lyric in ten sity, ro man ticrich ness and the sub lim ity of the epic imag i na tion,and is at once a story of thedi vine avatara and along chant of re li gious de vo tion’.

W hen Ve dic Hin du ism was at a low ebb dur ingIs lamic rule in North In dia, the bhakti move mentini ti ated by the Alvars of South In dia in the thirdcen tury came to the res cue of Sanatana Dharm a. Ifthesix teenth cen tury was a dark pe riod for the na -tive re li gion, in this very dark ness rose the sun ofTulsidas. Com ing in the spir i tual line of Rama nuja’sdis ci ple Ramananda, Tulsidas wrote his epic in Ava-dhi, the di a lect of the com m on m an. The ef fect onthe pop u lace was elec tric. To this day, the Ráma ca ri -

ta mánasa has re mained ev ery one’s fa vour ite in theHindi-speak ing belt.

From 1860 on wards, a large num ber ofpoorpeo ple from this area went over to South Af rica asin den tured la bour ers to work in the sug ar caneplan ta tions. Liv ing con di tions were harsh, and thealien at mo sphere was de press ing. Yet the In di answorked hard and sta bi lized the sugar in dus try inits early stages thanks to their agrar ian back -ground. W hat sus tained them was, per haps, the Rá-macaritamánasa. The ma jor ity of the im mi grantswere Hin dus and whether they could read or notthey learnt to re vere the book (‘the Rámacarita mánasacon tains ev ery thing that one needs, but most im -por tantly Sri Rama, the Su preme God per me ates its pages and to gether with Him are found the manygods and god desses of the Hindu pan theon’), andby lis ten ing to read ings and ex po si tions, these self- ex iles in an alien clime gained a firm knowl edge ofthe poem’s con tents. So the Tulsi ver sion was hand -ed down to fu ture gen er a tions as a spir i tual raft tohold on to, am idst the m yr iad prob lem s that con -fronted the In di ans in South Af rica.

‘TheRámacaritamánasa ful filled var i ous needsof the early set tlers. It was scrip ture and there fore asource of re li gious learn ing; the story, with its var i -ous sub-plots, when read or heard served as apleas ant di ver sion; it fur ther served as a text bookfor the study of Hindi and led hun dreds of peo plefrom il lit er acy to lit er acy; in deed it was like a mul ti -fac eted gem which rep re sented In dia and re flectedIn dian life in its mul ti plic ity and va ri ety. Thosewho car ried theRámacaritamánasa to South Af ricabrought along with them a part of In dia.’(113)

Usha Devi Shukla has col lected in for ma tionabout the state of Rámacaritamánasa stud ies, rit u als,andsatsang in Hindi-speak ing fam i lies in South Af -rica to day. It is mov ing to know how the knowl -edge of Hindi and re li gious faith were kept alive bythe set tlers and how they im proved their lit er aryskills and built tem ples for com mon wor ship, allthe time keep ing alive their faith through Tulsi’sepic. These set tlers also ini ti ated Ram ayana sabhas

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where two or more peo ple cam e to gether reg u larlyto study and dis cuss theRámacaritamánasa. In ef fectit has been the sourcebook for guid ance re gard ingfes ti vals, fam ily ob ser vances, and pu rif i ca tory rit u -als.

Not that his tory has al ways been a suc cess ful,up ward move ment. Floods, as well as the step- m oth erly treat ment meted out to set tlers by theSouth Af ri can gov ern ment, have played havocwith Rámacaritamánasa stud ies. Eng lish ed u ca tionhas weak ened the knowl edge of Hindi in the youn -ger gen er a tions and hence there has been a wid en -ing of the gap be tween the scrip ture and the peo ple.W est ern val ues, Chris tian ity, theGroup Areas Actwhich dis rupted joint fam i lies, and the in creas ingpref er ence for nu clear families have also played astrong part in weak en ing the hold of the epic on thepop u lar psy che.

Rámacaritamánasa in South Af rica stud ies allthese fac tors care fully and con cludes with a studyof the re sur gence in Ramayana stud ies in South Af -rica thanks to in sti tu tions like Di vine Life So ci ety,Ram akrishna Math and the South Af ri can chapterofVishwa Hindu Parishad. Ms Shukla’s anal y sis ofat ti tudes to the Ram ayana char ac ters re corded byher re spon dents is very in ter est ing, for it shows that peo ple have now be gun to cog i tate about the epic,in stead of of fer ing blind ad her ence. How ever, their faith in Tulsi is com plete: ‘The in creas ing ap peal oftheRámacaritamánasa in a world far re m oved fromthat of Tulsidas in space and tim e, can best be ex -plained by Tulsidas’s ac cu rate prog nos ti ca tionsaboutKaliyuga and the in creas ing ne ces sity for thepan a cea, Rama Nama. Thus the in di ca tions are thattheRámacaritamánasa will gain yet fur ther in pop u -lar ity, par tic u larly with the in sti tu tional sup port ithas been re ceiv ing in the last de cade.’ (201-2)

The first half ofthe book deals with the his toryof the bhakti move ment, the emer gence of Tulsidas,the Is lamic at tack on Sanatana Dharm a dur ing thelast one thou sand years and m ore; and fi nally, theBabri Masjid im bro glio. W ritten with ad mi ra tionand com pas sion forthe at tempts of In dian im mi -grants to safe guard the age less re li gious and spir i -tual cul ture of In dia, Rámacaritamánasa in South Af -rica is in deed a very im por tant ad di tion to Ram a -yana stud ies all over the world.

Dr Prema NandakumarResearcher and Literary Critic

Srirangam

Sri Chaitanya and the Chaitanya M ove -ment. Amarnath Chatterjee. As so ci atedPub lishing Com pany, 8788 Rani JhansiRoad, PO Box No 2679, Karol Bagh, NewDelhi 110 005. E-mail: [email protected]. ix + 274 pp. Rs 495.

Chaitanyaism is an ep och-mak ing event in thehis tory of Ben gal and it in flu enced the re li gious

his tory of north ern In dia in var i ous ways. Thoughpre dom i nantly a re li gious move ment, its in flu enceon the life of Ben gal was fairly wide spread. It wasin stru men tal in bring ing about a re nais sance in thecul tural and so cial life of Ben gal, and pro vided anun prec e dented stim u lus to lit er ary cre ativ ity. It in -jected a new life and vi tal ity into the mor i bundmen tal ity of the peo ple of Ben gal who had lost theirman li ness and self-re spect ow ing to op pres sivesub ju ga tion. In the lit er ary sphere, Chaitanya’s life,ac tiv i ties, and teach ings enkindled the cre ativeimag i na tion of po ets and writ ers, both Vaishnavaand non- Vaishnava. As a re sult, there was a phe -nom e nal growth in lit er ary ac tiv ity. Ben gal Vaish -nav ism stands out as a shin ing ex am ple of man’sun ceas ing quest for God. It has shown the way todivinize hu man love.

To treat Chaitanyaism sep a rately from Ben galVaishnavism is to leave one self open to the chargeofavyápti, non-in clu sion of a part of the thing de -fined, a log i cal fal lacy. Chaitanyaism is not only aspir i tual move ment but also a mighty so cial forcere leased by one of the great est hu man ists that In diahas pro duced. Chaitanya preached a new re li gionof love based on in tense de vo tion, pu rity and sim -plic ity, and also love for man kind. In mod ern so ci -ety, which is be ing in creas ingly de prived of loveow ing to the de hu man iz ing ef fects of ra tio nal ismand gross ma te ri al ism, Chaitanya’s all-em brac inggos pel of love is an im per a tive need.

Vaishnavism, as we un der stand it to day, wasfirst de vel oped into a co her ent sys tem by Ram a-nuja (1017-1137 CE), who syn the sized to gether thelu mi nous thoughts and in sights of past saints andsa vants and es tab lished them on the sound foun da -tion of Vedantic meta phys ics. Nimbarka and Ma-dh va are im por tant Vaishnava sa vants who flour -ished in South In dia from the elev enth to thir teenthcen tu ries. Vallabha, a Tel ugu brah min of the fif -teenth cen tury, ex alted the wor ship of Radha- Krish na which cam e to be rec og nized as a char ac -ter is tic fea ture of Ben gal Vaishnavism in later

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years. The Radha- Krishna cult and the path of de -vo tional love, which are the marks of neo- Vaish -navism (known as Ben gal or Gaudiya Vaishnav ism)ac ti vated by Chaitanya, found ex pres sion in andthrough the po et i cal com po si tions of a gal axy ofpo ets in Ben gal, of whom spe cial men tion must bemade of Jayadeva, Vidyapati and Chandidas.

The book en ti tled Sri Chaitanya and the ChaitanyaM ove ment, writ ten by Am arnathChatterjee, an er u -dite scholar on Vaishnavism, gives us a pic ture oftheChaitanya move ment of Ben gal, par tic u larly inthe light of Chaitanya. Ex plaining the back groundof the Chaitanya move ment of Ben gal, Sri Chatterjeehas given us an in ti mate and in-depth study of thelife and mis sion of Chaitanya which is ab so lutelynec es sary for un der stand ing the phi los o phy of theKrishna-bhakti move ment.

W hile dis cuss ing Chaitanya’s gos pel in thefourth chap ter of the book, the au thor has pointedout that Chaitanya is best un der stood when in ter -preted in the light of Radha’s em o tion (rádhábháva).Philo sophically and meta phys i cally she is hládinæem bod ied, the single and sole re pos i tory of mahá-bháva (the high est emo tion of love mount ing to thepoint of sat u ra tion). Bhakti is re garded as the bestof ways and means for the at tain ment of the high est bliss. W hile ac tion and knowl edge are de pend enton de vo tion, de vo tion it self is in de pend ent. Now,what is bhakti? It is su preme at tach ment to God. Itis the most dis in ter ested and con cen trated ded i ca -tion of the senses to the ser vice of the Lord of thesenses.

There have been var i ous ap proaches to the con -cep tion: po etic, hu man is tic, philo sophic, mys tic,sym bolic, and so on. But the po etic-hu man is tic in -ter pret ers would have us be lieve that the con cep -tion of Radha, orig i nally hu man and sec u lar, hasbeen sub li mated into the di vine. Ac cord ing to thisview, she rep re sents the yearn ing of a woman inself-for get ting love for a man, and out-of-the-waylove, de fy ing ac cepted no tions of sex ual mo ral ity,cre ated the Radha myth. In fact, it was Rabindra -nathTagore who set the ball roll ing and spon soredthe idea of the secularity of Radha. In his fa mouspoem ‘Vaishnava Kavita’ in So nar Tari, he poses theques tion: ‘Satya kare kaho more he vaishnava kavi/ Ko-tha tumi peyechile ei prema-chavi/ … Radhikar chittadirna kari tivra vyakulata/ Churi kare layecho kar mukh,kar ankhi hote; Tell me, in truth, O Vaishnava poet,where did you get this im age of love? … This great yearn ing pierc ing Radha’s heart, from whose lips

and eyes did you steal?’In Chap ters 5 and 6 of the book Sri Chatterjee

has dis cussed in de tail the in flu ence of the Chaitanyamove ment on so ci ety and lit er a ture. A hur riedglance at the eco nomic his tory of me di eval Ben galgives us an idea as to how Vaishnavism was ac -cepted and es poused by a large num ber of peo plebe long ing to the ar ti san classes, which also in -cluded weav ers. Their en thu si asm in ac cept ingVai shnavism was prompted by an as sur ance of so -cial dig nity, which was de nied to them by the thenor tho dox so ci ety. So the lib er al ism of Chaitanyaand his creed suited their need per fectly. Even theland less peas antry of Ben gal was at tracted by themass ap peal of Vaishnavism with its lib eral tra di -tions and be lief in un or tho dox val ues. Chaitanya’sideal of love as the ba sic moral vir tue had a tre men -dous im pact on non-Vaishnavas too.

Chaitanya and other Vaishnava lead ers did agreat ser vice by up hold ing the cause of women and im prov ing their po si tion in so ci ety. As against or -tho dox tra di tions, there was no bar against ini ti a -tion of wom en in the Gaudiya sect. The au thor hasrightly pointed out that the in flu ence of Chaitanya’sVaishnavism m ade a great im pact on two of Ben -gal’s neigh bour ing prov inces, Orissa and Assam.

One of the re mark able fea tures of Chaitanya’sin spi ra tion is ev i denced in the vast lit er a ture pro -duced by his fol low ers, both in the an cient clas si callan guage and in the spo ken ver nac u lars of the peo -ple: Ben gali, Oriya, and Hindi. Among the bio -graph i cal works Sri Krishna Chaitanya Charitamrita,Chaitanya Bhagavata, and Chaitanya Charitamrita areworth men tion ing. Ben gali lit er a ture has been great -ly en riched by Vaishnava padávalæ. So Chaitanya is nomyth. His achieve ments con sti tute his tory, hav inggone into the very tex ture of Ben gal’s cul ture andthe fine sus cep ti bil i ties of the Ben gali na ture. W e inBen gal are proud of our po etry and mu sic. Thesetwo price less as sets are our her i tage, for which weare in debted to two per son al i ties, the as ceticChaitanya and the in ter na tion ally ac claim ed Ta-gore.

At a mo ment of dis turbed se ren ity over thehap pen ings in the con tem po rary strife-torn world,Tagore gave vent to the ag o niz ing writhings of hissoul: ‘Lord, you have sent your mes sen gers to thismer ci less world time and again; they said, for giveall, love all, and de stroy the poi son of ha tredwithin.’ W ho would an swer better to Tagore’s de -scrip tion of God’s mes sen gers than the man of love

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from Nadia? The peo ple who ral lied round thiswon der ful m an be longed to all ranks and strata ofso ci ety, which in cluded the Mus lim rul ers of thecoun try and the sons of the soil whom they ruled;the scholar and the dia lec ti cian; the purse-proudaris to crat and the im pe cu nious com moner; the vir -tu ous and the most sin ful among men; and the ig -no rant masses. So the sin cere and soul ful out burstof pop u lar ap pro ba tion reached the sky from thecore of the dev o tees’ hearts in these sol emn, so no -rous words of sal u ta tion: ‘W or ship Gauranga andre peat his name/ He who wor ships him is alonedear to me.’

Last but not least, the merit of Prof Chatterjee’sbook has been greatly height ened by the in clu sionof a num ber of ap pen di ces, where he has dis cussedthe eth ics of Chaitanya’s move ment, his mes sage tocon tem po rary so ci ety, and the gen e sis of the move -ment for Krishna-con scious ness. A rich bib li og ra -phy is an ad di tional at trac tion. The book is an as setfor re search-minded teach ers and stu dents.

Prof Amalendu ChakrabortyFormer Head, Department of Philosophy

Presidency College, Kolkata

Spir i tual Ed u ca tion. Purnima Zweers. In -dica Books, D40/18 Godowalia, Varanasi221 001. E-mail: [email protected]. 224 pp. Rs 225.

Ed u ca tion, in mod ern times, is usu ally clas si fiedinto two groups: sec u lar and spir i tual. In an -

cient times in In dia, there was no such ar ti fi cial di -vi sion, since all knowl edge was con sid ered sa credand spir i tual. It is only since the be gin ning of thenine teenth cen tury, when Eng lish was in tro ducedas a me dium of in struc tion, that this ar ti fi cial cleav -age oc curred in the field of education.

In spite of this, tra di tional val ues were re spect -ed and taught in fam ily cir cles, even though schools and col leges con fined them selves to sec u lar ed u ca -tion. This was the state of af fairs till 1947. Af ter in -de pend ence, suc ces sive com mis sions on ed u ca tionmade many al ter ations in the ed u ca tion sys tem.Very grad u ally, even the bit of spir i tual ed u ca tiontaught in schools in the form of moral science wasre m oved from the cur ric u lum .

It is in this con text that the book un der re viewas sumes sig nif i cance. The au thor is a so cial workerand a teacher from Hol land who has worked forsev eral years in In dia and has com e into con tact

with sev eral spir i tual mas ters. This book is the out -com e of her con cern over fall ing stan dards of theIn dian way of life and the ero sion in the value sys -tem.

The book com mences with a brief in tro duc tionto the sub ject mat ter and the im por tance of spir i tual val ues in hu man life. The sec ond chap ter com paresspir i tual ed u ca tion with ordinary ed u ca tion. Theau thor quotes at this stage sev eral great per son al i -ties of In dia who have ei ther con trib uted to the ed u -ca tion sys tem or have in spired teach ers. The per -son al i ties quoted are Swami Shivananda, J Krish-namurti and RabindranathTagore.

The third chap ter in tro duces the con cept ofyoga. But the core of the book is the fourth chap ter,which gives in de tail the ex pe ri ence of the au thorher self in the field of spiritual education. The fifthchap ter is about two schools, one in the UnitedStates (YogavilleVidyalayam in Vir ginia) and theother in Hol land (Plato School in Am ster dam),which have in tro duced a spir i tual com po nent intotheir education system. The last chap ter, of greaterin ter est to In dian read ers, is about Am ri ta Vidya -layam run by the Mata Am ritanandam ayi move -ment in Kerala, the Vedapathashala of Sri Ram ana -sram am in Tamil Nadu, the Kanyapeeth of MaAnandam ayee Trust in Varanasi, the Al ice Pro ject,run by two Ital ians, in Sarnath, and Anandashramof Swami Ramdas in Kerala. The last men tioned isnot a reg u lar school, but has in spired a large num -ber of peo ple in in tro duc ing a spir i tual con tent inschool cur ric u lum.

Per haps, the most ap peal ing part of the book isthe col lec tion of a large num ber of let ters writ ten bychil dren to God, printed in fac sim ile. Some of thethoughts ex pressed by the chil dren are sim ply cap -ti vat ing, show ing how close chil dren can feel toGod if only they are in tro duced to spir i tual ed u ca -tion at a young age.

The au thor writes with to tal com mit ment and is thor oughly con vinced of the val ues of spiritualeducation in the life of a child. No per son in theproper frame of mind would dis agree with her. Shemust be con grat u lated on pro duc ing this short butpro found book, which should be read by all in ter -ested in the spir i tual growth of the fu ture cit i zens of the world.

Dr N V C SwamyFormer Director, Indian Institute of Technology

Chennai

Reports

Holy M other Sri Sarada Devi’s150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations

The fol low ing cen tres cel e brated the150th birth an ni ver sary of Holy Mother (mainprogrammes are given in pa ren the ses):

Agartala (3 spir i tual re treats and a sem i -nar), Along (paint ing and es say com pe ti -tions), Asansol (speeches, songs, and rec i ta -tions), Baranagar M is sion (pub lic meet ings, adev o tees' con ven tion ad dressed by SwamiSmarananandajiMaharaj, Gen eral Sec re tary,Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mis -sion, and cul tural programmes), Chandigarh(a pub lic meet ing ad dressed by Srimat SwamiGahananandajiMaharaj, Vice Pres i dent, Ra -makrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mis sion,speeches at var i ous places in Himachal Pra-desh and Punjab, an ex hi bi tion at So lan, Him -achal Pradesh, and de vo tional songs by blindchil dren), Chandipur (cul tural com pe ti tions,a pub lic meet ing, a dev o tees' con ven tion, acul tural programme, and an ex hi bi tion), CoochBehar (a dev o tees' con ven tion and an ex hi bi -tion), Delhi (JagaddhatriPuja), Gol Park (asym po sium and panel dis cus sion, cul turalprogrammes, and a dev o tees' con ven tion),Itanagar (a pub lic meet ing pre sided over bySrimat Swami Atmasthanandaji Ma haraj,Vice Pres i dent, Ramakrishna Math andRamakrishna Mis sion, and a cul tural pro g -ramme), Kankhal (a pro ces sion, pub lic meet -ings, JagaddhatriPuja, a cul tural programme,a film show, and an ex hi bi tion), Kankur ga -chhi (cul tural com pe ti tions, a pro ces sion, re -lease of an au dio cas sette and CD by Sri Shya-mal Datta, Gov er nor of Nagaland, and a pub -lic meet ing ad dressed by Swami Gahana nan -daji, Sri Shyamal Datta, and oth ers), Kan pur(a pub lic meet ing pre sided over by Swami Ga-ha nanandaji and re lease of a sou ve nir by him), Lucknow (a pub lic meet ing ad dressed bySwamiGahananandaji), Narendrapur (a pro -

ces sion, pub lic meet ings at var i ous places in 7dis tricts of W est Ben gal, ex hi bi tions, cul turalpro grammes, and re lease of a book let), Narot -tam Nagar (lec tures and group dis cus sions,bha jans, dis tri bu tion of clothes, and start ing of a coach ing cen tre and a weav ing cen tre), Pur-ulia (speeches, a cul tural programme, an ex hi -bi tion, and re lease of a book let), Rahara (cul -tural com pe ti tions, pub lic meet ings ad dress -ed by Swam i Smarananandaji and oth ers, adrama, and dis tri bu tion of about 1,00,000book lets on Holy Mother among stu dents of70 schools), Rajkot (spir i tual re treats and cul -tural programmes), Sarisha (a dev o tees' con -ven tion and re lease of a sou ve nir), and Chit-tagong, Ban gla desh (a pro ces sion, a pub licmeet ing, and a cul tural programme)

News from Branch Centres

Srimat Swami AtmasthanandajiMaha-raj, Vice Pres i dent, Ramakrishna Math andRa makrishna Mis sion, laid the foun da tionstone for a new OPD build ing at Ramakri shnaM is sion Hos pi tal, Itanagar, on 26 No vem ber. The cen tre cel e brated its sil ver ju bi lee from 1to 3 De cem ber. Sri GegongApang, Chief Min -is ter of Arunachal Pradesh, un veiled a bronzestatue of Swami Vivekananda in front of thehos pi tal on 1 De cem ber. Swami Atmastha-nandaji pre sided over the pub lic meet ing heldon this oc ca sion. Sri C C Sing pho, Min is ter ofHealth and Fam ily W el fare, Gov ern ment ofArunachal Pradesh, re leased a sou ve nir. Cul -tural programmes and a photo ex hi bi tion onthe ac tiv i ties of the Ramakrishna Mis sion inArunachal Pradesh formed a part of the 3-dayfunc tion.

On 15 De cem ber, Swami SuhitanandajiMa haraj, As sis tant Sec re tary, RamakrishnaMath and Ramakrishna Mis sion, in au gu rated‘Bisra Awas’, a col ony of 39 houses for theprim i tive tribal fam i lies of Basukocha vil lage

PB - MARCH 2005 58

in Ranchi dis trict built by Ramakrishna M is -sion Ashrama, M orabadi.

Ramakrishna M ath, Bangalore, cel e bra -ted its cen te nary from 25 to 28 De cem ber. Apub lic meet ing, two sem i nars, and re lease of asou ve nir formed a part of the 3-day func tion.

A class X stu dent of the school run byRamakrishna M is sion, Along, stood first inthe state-level es say com pe ti tion on ‘Need forEn ergy Con ser va tion’ con ducted by the De -part ment of Power, Gov ern ment of Aruna-chal Pradesh.

Relief and Rehabilitation W ork (December 2004)

Fire Re lief

Dis tress Re lief

Flood Re lief

Cy clone Rehabilitation

A col ony of 29 houses for cy clone vic tims un der a ‘Build Your Own House’ scheme withthe help of build ing ma te ri als sup plied by Ramakrishna M ath, Cooch Behar, was in au gu ratedon 26 De cem ber.

59 PB -MARCH 2005

Reports 193

CentreState/

CountryItems Distributed

Number ofBeneficiaries

Shillong Meghalaya Khichuri and 68 blankets 27 families

Puri(Mission)

Orissa233 kg rice, 50 kg dal, 250 kg potatoes, 76 kgbrinjals, 124 cauliflowers, 53 saris, 53blankets, 53 towels

53 families

Chittagong Bangladesh300 kg rice, 55 kg potatoes, 5 lt oil, 33 saris, 11 dhotis, 44 chadars, 11 buckets

33 families

Centre State/Country Items Distributed

Along Arunachal Pradesh 900 sweaters, 200 blankets

Baranagar (Mission) W est Bengal 400 dhotis, 400 saris, 150 blankets

Ramharipur W est Bengal400 dhotis, 1100 saris, 150 sets of children’sgarments

Chittagong Bangladesh 1100 blankets

Centre(s) Area of Operation Items Distributed

Guwahati,Karimganj,Silchar

Morigaon, Kamrup,Darrang, Nagaon, Nalbari

1250 dhotis, 2350 saris, 116 chadars, 151assorted garments, 1905 blankets

PatnaSamastipur, Darbhanga,Madhuvani

3858 dhotis, 12,296 saris, 5000 blankets

Sargachhi,Belgharia

Murshidabad, North24-Parganas

1848 kg chira, 437 kg sugar, 6031 dhotis, 6000saris, 150 packages of assorted garments, 40quilts, 11,960 blankets, 1,25,000 halazone tablets

A Brief Report of Ramakrishna Mission Tsunami Relief Work as of 1 February 2005

Be gin ning from the day the killer tsu -nami struck coastal In dia and Sri Lanka, Ram -akrishna Math and Mis sion cen tres have tilldate served through scores of re lief campstens of thou sands of vic tims with food, cloth -ing, tem po rary hous ing and med i cal aid.Given be low are some im por tant high lights ofthe re lief op er a tions.

Ramakrishna Math, Chennai

Re lief work started when hun dreds ofstricken peo ple from nearby coastal col o niesthronged the cen tre on the morn ing of 26 De -cem ber 2004. They were served cooked foodand ar range ments were made to ac com mo -date them in mar riage halls. Im me di ately af -ter, monks and vol un teers of the Math vis itedthe af fected ar eas of the city and, later, withthe help of a host of un af fil i ated cen tres of theOr der, ini ti ated pri mary re lief work inNaga pattinam, Cuddalore, Kanyakumari,Kanchipuram and Villi puram dis tricts.The worst-hit among them was Naga -pattinam, a town with a thriv ing ma rinebusi ness. Re lief was given to 5000 fam i liesthere. The cen tre plans to ad dress the eco -nomic need of the lo cals by pro vid ing them with 240 mech a nized boats. In Cud dalore,9 acres of land were bought in or der tobuild houses for over 100 fam i lies, whosehuts were washed out of a nearby is land;the fam i lies will also be given 54 boats and

fish ing nets. In Kanya kumari, the Math joinedhands with Viveka nanda Ash rama,Vellimalai, and dis trib uted re lief ma te ri alsacross 58 vil lages. Plans have been drawn upto re ha bil i tate 15 vil lages near Kalpakkam,Chengalpattu. In ad di tion to pro vid ing pri -mary re lief in Chennai city and its sub urbs,dur ing which 90 tonnes of rice and dal were

dis trib uted, the cen tre also op er ated awell- equipped mo bile med i cal unit treat -ing thou sands of pa tients.

Steps are be ing taken to coun sel thetrau ma tized, pro vide ed u ca tional aids tostu dents, con tinue med i cal ser vices, andor ga nize programmes of a con fi dence- build ing na ture.

The cen tre has so far spent over Rs 1crore and dis trib uted, through 43 re liefcamps, 106 tonnes of food stuffs, 12,225 gro -cery pack ages, 1,04,050 items of cloth ing and17,950 sets of uten sils, ben e fit ing morethan 76,600 peo ple.

Ramakrishna Mission, Port Blair

In spite of be ing it self badly hit, Ra -makrishna Mis sion, Port Blair, took charge ofa re lief camp set up at a gov ern ment school inHadoo, where Nicobari tribals had taken shel -ter. Here it served cooked food to the vic timsthree times a day. Soon it ex tended its work to44 more re lief camps in and around Port Blair,dis trib ut ing, apart from food and cloth ing, ar -

PB - MARCH 2005 60


Andaman tribals at a temporary shelter

The devastation in Nagapattinam

ti cles of daily use like blan kets and bed sheets,can dles and lan terns, mos quito nets and in sect repellants, and toi let ries and dis in fec tants. Italso pre pared food pack ets for air drop overthe most un reach able is lands. Be sides theabove camps, the cen tre worked at Hut Bay inLit tle Anda man, 8 hours by sea from Port Blair,where a 12 sq km area of land had been wash -ed away by the waves. It also dis trib uted es -sen tial re lief ma te ri als at Neil Is land.

The cen tre’s ef forts bene fited 40,500 peo -ple in all: 37,800 ki los of food stuffs, 4170 gro -cery pack ages, 41,830 gar ments and 2215 setsof uten sils were dis trib uted through 47 camps.

Ramakrishna Mission, Colombo

Ramakrishna Mis sion, Co lombo, and itsBatticaloa sub-cen tre com menced re lief workim me di ately af ter the di sas ter struck. The for -mer set up 4 camps, where peo ple were givendry ra tions along with ar range ments for cook -ing, while the lat ter, through its 57 camps, dis -

trib uted a large num ber of pack ages of cook -ed food. Both cen tres also dis trib uted a hugequan tity of es sen tial com mod i ties, in clud ingmed i cines.

In all, 28,745 ki los of food stuffs, 35,9 78gro cery pack ages, 11,555 items of cloth ing and2552 sets of uten sils were dis trib uted by the 6 1 camps, ben e fit ing nearly 81,800 peo ple.

Reports 19 5

6 1 PB -MARCH 2005

W ith the afflicted in Andaman

Distributing foodstuffs at a Batticaloa camp

An Appeal

Af ter con duct ing ex ten sive pri mary re -

lief work in tsu nami-af fected ar eas in

In dia and Sri Lanka, the next phase in

Ramakrishna Mis sion’s ser vice is RE HA BIL I -

TA TION of the af fected peo ple. A sur vey of

their re quire ments is in prog ress. Steps

are be ing taken to pro vide new boats (cat -

a ma rans), fish ing nets, and shel ters to the

fisherfolk—the main suf fer ers in the

worst-af fected ar eas. Ef forts are also be -

ing made to re ha bil i tate chil dren or -

phaned by the di sas ter in Andaman Is -

lands.

The Re ha bil i ta tion work will be ex -

tended fur ther, de pend ing upon the avail -

abil ity of funds. The to tal cost is likely to

ex ceed Rs 10 crore.

For de tailed re ports of Tsu nami Re lief

and for in for ma tion re gard ing the mode of

send ing do na tions, please visit www.sri -

ramakrishna.org/tsu nami and www.sri -

ramakrishnamath.org.

All do na tions paid in cash or by

cheque/draft drawn in fa vour of ‘Rama-

krishna Math’ and ‘Ramakrishna Mis sion’

are ex empt from in come tax un der sec tion

80-G of the In come Tax Act.

Do na tions may please be sent to:

(1) The Gen eral Sec re tary, Ramakri-

shna Mis sion (Head quar ters), PO Belur

Math, Dist How rah, West Ben gal 711 202

(Fax: 91-33-26544346; E-mail: rkmhq@vsnl.

com) or (2) The Pres i dent, Ramakrishna

Math, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004, Tamil

Nadu (Fax: 91-44-24934589; E-mail: srk -

[email protected]).

c traditional wisdom - advaita ashrama · c traditional wisdom c apram`da: vigilance;bôÀjÒttlsk...

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