SWAMI BRAHMANANDA : A SPIRITUAL DYNAMO

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SWAMI SARVADEVANANDA WROTE: SWAMI BRAHMANANDA’S spirituality was his dynamo - the fountainhead of power behind his personality. It had a remarkable effect in transforming the lives of those who came to him. One day Swami Akhilananda, who was then a very young boy, was told by Swami Vijnanananda to tell Swami Brahmananda : There is something within me that needs awakening—please help me do it.’ When Akhilananda asked Vijnanananda why he himself didn’t do this awakening for him, Vijnanananda replied:’I have very little spiritual power within me. But Maharaj (that was how Swami Brahmananda was popularly known) lives in the powerhouse. He can easily do what you ask.’ Maharaj told Akhilananda that ‘for this awakening one needs initiation’ and promised to initiate him. 

According to Akhilananda:’Maharaj made us feel that spiritual awakening and God- realization are not difficult to achieve; that tremendous help will be given if we will struggle a little.’ Maharaj instructed:’Perform intense Japa, practise mental Japa with every breath. If this turns into a habit, then Japa goes on spontaneously. It even continues before and after sleep. If a boy performs meditation and Japa in right earnest, a Math can run on the merit of his practice.’ This is what Maharaj exemplified through his life. 

At the beginning of the last century the Indian media had expressed serious doubts about the viability of the fledgling Ramakrishna Order. The Calcutta newspapers criticised the monks for ‘living a luxurious life’ unconcerned about the needs of the Motherland. They suggested that the sadhus did nothing to help the freedom movement after Sister Nivedita dissociated herself from the Order to actively pursue her political work. The British government also weighed in with its own—diametrically opposite criticism; it seemed convinced that the Order was secretly harbouring and inspiring the freedom fighters. One could not have been been blamed for thinking that the very survival of the Order was at stake, caught as it was between the insinuations of the local press and the surveillance of the British government. Taking all these pressures in its stride, Maharaj protected, nurtured, and facilitated the growth of the Order with his singular spiritual power. Swami Shankarananda said: ‘We have seen him stay in an introspective mood, in a spiritual atmosphere so profound, while running the administration of the Order.’

Swami Brahmananda would keep his mind absorbed in ‘the Unchanging, Unmoving, the Eternal’ even as he lived in the world for the good of humanity. He would force it to come down to the normal workaday world by participating in mundane acts. One day at Udbodhan Swami Saradananda told his assistant, Aseshananda: ‘Do you take Maharaj to be an ordinary person? He can mould our minds into any shape he wishes, like a lump of clay!!’ This statement is indeed remarkable, coming as it does from Swami Saradananda, who was blessed with the vision of Brahman in all beings. Only a jeweller can value a priceless jewel.

Swami Vivekananda once remarked: ‘Raja(Swami Brahmananda) is the greatest treasure- house of spirituality. On another occasion Swamiji sent to Maharaj a European devotee who had come to him to have his spiritual problems solved, saying:’There is a dynamo working and we are all under him.’ Standing on the ground of his own profound experience, Maharaj could say:’Spiritual life begins after Nirvikalpa Samadhi (the highest transcendental experience). 

Maharaj was an embodiment of condensed spirituality. Once he said to a disciple of Swamiji:‘ Look here, Sukul. I find that the realm of the Absolute is separated from the realm of Lila by a fine glass screen. Now and then I feel like merging in the Absolute by breaking the barrier. But the Master doesn’t permit it’. 

—Swami SARVADEVANANDA, Assistant Minister, Vedanta Society of Southern California, Hollywood. 

- PRABUDDHA BHARATA; January 2009

Courtesy : Mr. Sudesh Garg, Facebook 

JAI THAKUR 🙏 🌹 🌷PRANAM MAHARAJ 🙏 🌹