DURGA

There is a vast force behind all of phenomena. This force animates existence, creates, preserves and destroys life-forms and is the cosmic governor at whose bidding the stars shine and the vast terrain of space-time undulate in every cycle of cosmic manifestation. Impersonal is the absolute 'nature' of this force, transcendent it is as the Being, yet, intensely personal it is in its immanent form, interpenetrating phenomena while enlivening it as the Cosmic Mother.

We are the children of this Ancient Mother, the Divine Consort of the Purusho Purano (the Ancient Being). Together they have enwrapped the cosmos in their loving embrace, inseparable as they are with the faintest of distinctions for savouring love, the dual aspect of an integrated whole.

Hers is the Will that dictates Nature to do Her bidding and Hers is the freedom that transcends all limitations. She is the inscrutable authoress of this universe and innumerable universes like this, dispensing with the life of things as She wishes, supremely merciful, yet, beyond all reason. She, the Primeval Force, is the Terrible One, threading souls with Her love and destroying them with Her kiss. She, the giver of law, is beyond all law as She weaves Her web of magic worlds, creating out of debris the citadel of Her dreams, preserving the minutest worm with the warmth of Her mother's love and then, destroying it all in a frenzied mood of self-oblivion to merge things to sameness.

She remains, O She remains, beyond the reach of reason but within the caress of love, the Mother of all, the Inscrutable One, the Eternal Paradox. We, Her children, have assembled to offer Her our heart's love, our soul's adoration, our self-effacement on this eve of Durga Puja when Mother returns home.

May all beings be blissful!
May all beings be full of health!
May all beings be directed to the core of consciousness which is Mother!
Durga! Durga! Durga!   

YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW

When people pray, they commune with the one and only God who resides in the human heart. But when they rationalise thereafter, it is then that they create divisions, distinctions and differences that lead to sectarian rivalry, hatred and violence. The human heart is organically the same for all but conditioning of the human mind differs from place to place, time to time, culture to culture. If religion were left to individuals to be pursued as personal endeavour, much of the evil centering it would have not been. It is institutionalising of religion that has caused all the mischief and created seemingly unbridgeable barriers between man and man. Yet, we have to work through these divisions for the gregarious nature of the human species necessitates the formation of groups and human society inevitably throws up cultural collections as religious sects which become the mainstay of religion, develop multifarious excellence of art and architecture centering religion but which dilute the standard of spiritual perception through their programmes of scriptural indoctrination and regimentation of the flock along lines of structural suitability and organisational interests. Sages and saints, though, transcend these societal impositions and the doctrinaire cult to strike the core of their human consciousness and arrive at the universal religion of love and knowledge. But their followers subsisting at lower planes of consciousness pollute their thought in due course of time by the rationalisation process and by routinising the spiritual culture to hold the flock. This has been the lot of all great spiritual movements which began on the high note of inspiration of a seer but which inevitably petered out into a socio-political movement of sorts with spirituality remaining a fringe element. Thus, with the existence of so many world religions, humankind remains hopelessly divided along lines of warring ideologies centering a God whose children we supposedly all are. And this God is the God of love and mercy that knows no bounds by all scriptural admission! Yet, history bears testimony to religious carnage that have wiped off populations and rendered human life unbearable for centuries at a time. But their day is done and all past superstition must give way before the deluge of scientific knowledge and the universal symphony of the Vedanta orchestrated by Ramakrishna-Vivekananda.

Change, however, will not be easy for scientific advancement and technological progress cannot arbitrarily quicken organic evolution of the human species. Superstitions deeply ingrained in the mind of man take millenia to drain out and no amount of rationalisation may help evolve men to see reason. Or, if even they may be convinced by the force of reason to behold their superstitious folly, they are powerless against past habit to shirk off enmasse the dead weight of their ignorance. Such is the plight of man caught in the dualistic trap of religious superstition ever fuelled by nefarious elements to perpetuate the sorrowful state of things for their own ends. Progress must then necessarily be slow in order to ease out age-old superstitions of bondage to an extra-cosmic being governing the fate of man. It will take ages for all of humanity to come to the understanding that their fates lie in their own hands and not in any outside agency however potent. But the effort must be on to rationalise education along Vedantic lines so that children may grow up at least with the notion of their inherent freedom of soul that they may be better equipped to battle against the inequities of life. However, this very endeavour to sanitise the academic process will meet with the stiffest resistance from all that is dubious in tradition and will have to be carried out with circumspection and care. And all this will be a painfully slow process much to the disappointment of those hyper-energetic activists who would grant you the millenium in a trice. So, onward with the work of slow transformation of society along lines laid down by the rishis of India ages ago when they trumpeted the spiritual oneness of sentience, nay, of all phenomena, and declared in the forest retreats and in the hills and dales that man is divine, that divinity is his birthright, that he is born of bliss and not of sin, that his earthly folly is his hallucination fraught with ignorance and not his fall from Paradise, that he is the ever-free Atman (Self), pure and effulgent and beyond all sin, that he is the maker of his own God and no God save he himself and his karma has any power over him.

This is a tall order to achieve and needs the lifeblood of thousands of spiritual heroes who will sacrifice their all to bring about the regeneration of humanity. A spiritual renaissance it will be for mankind considering that such an awakening had come about in grand old India millenia ago when the Sanatan Dharma (Eternal Religion) had been discovered on the banks of the Saraswati and the Ganga and in the high hills of the Himalayas and whose catholic principles had been lived out in the plains of the Ganga and the Sindhu (Indus) before the ravages of time sent India careering into the dark abyss of self-oblivion, a state compounded worse by machinations of foreign powers attempting to subvert the Indian spiritual culture through enforced conversion and crafty ideological indoctrination. But let none conclude that thereby India had lost her spiritual moorings. Life on the outside had been touched by the foreign aggressors. Millions had been converted to the Semitic religions Islam and Christianity by force or by circumstance. But the philosophical undercurrent of the Indian race had remained untouched for the vast majority of the population. This was because the Indian religion, that is, the religion of the Vedas is fundamentally free of institutions and its intangible element being too subtle for comprehension by aggressors abounding in grossness was beyond the ruinous range of their arsenal. Thus, destruction and desecration of stone temples and images could scarce sully the Indian ideal of the free spirit of man where enshrined lies the indestructible Self in its own majesty. Each soul is the sanctum sanctorum of the Most High, each form the temple of the Divine. And, to teach these in times of great spiritual peril for the Indian race, a succession of sages and saints, prophets and incarnations trod the holy land, the Punyabhumi Bharatvarsha, resurrecting the Eternal Religion and breathing fresh life into it. Thus has spiritual life been through its ebb and tide in India, without ever it giving way to wholesale materialism as in other lands, although, its flow has been inconsistent following the dynamics of time, now a river narrowing up in the summer heat, now a river in spate deluging all with its monsoon current. But through it all, India has held on fast to religion as the very basis of her national life and the vicissitudes of time could scarce make a dent in the fabric of her spiritual being. And where it at all did so, the outcome of the clash of spiritual forces was that the ancient religion of the Hindus sucked up the new movements of the Spirit, absorbed them and assimilated them and in its wake freshened them with the touch of the eternal Self that animates the soul of the religion of the Vedas.

India has been saved by he rishis of yore and her peoples have lived the spiritual life down the ages in peace and harmony although there were a thousand different sects operating within the ambit of the Mother Religion. Unity in diversity has been the call of India ever with her catholic spirit accepting all religions as true, be they bred in India or elsewhere. The call of the Spirit has been honoured in India like nowhere else. Here alone we hear the Upanishads declare in trumpet voice,"Hear ye, O peoples of the world who art the children of immortality. Even ye hear that reside in higher spheres. I have known the Great Being whose colour is of the radiant sun and who resides beyond the realm of darkness. Thou too shalt have to know Him if ye shalt conquer death. There is no other way."

Time it is that this message of the Shvetashwatar Upanishad addressing humanity as children of immortality is disseminated across the wide world, that this uplifting hopeful principle of the Vedanta will raise the consciousness of man by whatsoever measure and help usher in a golden age of peace and light, amity and goodwill in the remote future when man will have learnt to live with brother man in love and not in hate, respecting each other's difference of perspective in the envisioning of the same integral truth. Now no hour of rest. Upon our labour of love lies the fulfilment of the future age, the birth of a peaceful posterity. Shall we fail our children? No, certainly not. So, friends, let us combine the forces of good as Vivekananda was wont to saying and combat the prevailing darkness of the world that the light of the coming age may shine through the future inhabitants of this storm-tossed planet and render them whole, that fratricidal battles may be a distant nightmare never to haunt humanity for ages to come and that civilisation may for once get a chance to speak for itself.

Jai Ma! Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Swamiji! Victory to humanity!                         

ABHEDANANDA

A direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, preacher of Vedanta for 25 years in the West, an erudite scholar, orator and a prolific writer, founder of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Order, re-discoverer of the manuscript related to Christ's passage to India in the Hemis Monastery after Notovitch, President of the Centenary Committee for Celebration of Sri Ramakrishna's advent and composer of the hymn dedicated to Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi,"Prakriting paramang abhayang varadang...", Swami Abhedananda or Kali Maharaj to this day remains a shining testament of Sri Sri Thakur's grace unto humanity.

RESPONSE TO A QUERY BY A DEVOTEE AS TO THE VERACITY OF THE STATEMENT THAT SWAMI NIRMALANANDA WAS A DIRECT DISCIPLE OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA

Dear devotee,

This is not a piece of information that I have unearthed but has rather been brought to my notice by consistent posts by devotees and followers of Swami Nirmalananda over facebook. They have provided documentary evidence in their pages on Swami Niramalananda. Kindly peruse through these pages and draw your own conclusions. However, my standpoint is clear. I am but a recorder of facts brought to my notice and cannot judge their veracity as such. I am an ardent devotee of Sri Ramakrishna and his Divine Sangha and I feel happy to be given proof of Nirmalanandaji being the 17th direct disciple of Thakur. This does not in any way make me less devoted to Thakur's Mission, rather I feel a fuller sense of joy to behold a 17th disciple. You are like anyone else at liberty to study facts for yourself and accept or reject them as your faculties direct you to. You may also read biographical studies of Swami Nirmalananda and there you may find all the facts as the devotees of Nirmalanandaji have presented. Then you may compare notes with the Belur Math versions of the aforesaid matter and everything ought to be crystal-clear if you read with a discerning eye. However, do not be hasty in judgement as you will then miss the mark and do a grave injustice to the Cause either way. As for myself, I am in no way claiming infallibility in judging the case and I will happily stand rectified either way for I am a devotee of both the Belur Math and Swami Nirmalanandaji who I personally, having perused evidence in books and over facebook, hold as being the 17th venerable disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and as such, despite his expulsion from the Mother Order, an integral part of Sri Ramakrishna's Mission whose principal but not sole custodian, in my opinion, is the Belur Math. To me Thakur is self-fulfilled and these aberrations do not affect him or his Belur Math or his Tulsi(Swami Nirmalananda). I here lay down my pen in reverential prostrations to all the monks and devotees on either side of the fence who may have had or may be having major differences of opinion, nay, even evidence if it so be, regarding the facts of the case as to the identity of Swami Nirmalananda as being or as not being Sri Ramakrishna's direct disciple. Myself am inclined and happy to believe in his discipleship though, for it gives me greater fullness of feeling for Thakur's spiritual greatness in the light of Nirmalanandaji's sterling achievements for the Mission in South India as also because I find it hard to believe that a person who had seen Thakur at Dakshineswar and been an ascetic at Baranagar Math was not a direct disciple of Thakur. It has been posited by detractors that he was Swamiji's first monastic disciple and therefore not Thakur's disciple. Now, consider these cases: Swami Yogananda, Swami Trigunatitananda and Master Mahashay Mahendranath Gupta (M) were all initiated disciples of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi but are regarded, nonetheless, as Sri Ramakrishna's direct disciples although as it is plainly evident that technically they were not so unless, of course, the canvas of discipleship is extended to include proximity with the spiritual preceptor and receiving his grace by not solely verbal initiation but by touch, glance and wish or will of the spiritual master as well, especially, one as powerful as an Avatar who can liberate any soul in a trice by a mere wish. So, there you see, there are very obvious anomalies that have existed right from the beginning of the Ramakrishna Movement which are hard to fathom but delicious for a historian to delve in and make a study of and, perchance, arrive at a startling discovery of a spiritual principle that lies in wait in the womb of posterity. There is obviously the imperative of the immediate, the call of the microcosm, but there is also the higher call of the progressive evolution of the human spirit that beckons us on to the golden harvest of the harmony of forces, the integration of all divergences and the realization of the oneness of all the verities and all the anomalies of life. Jai Ramakrishna!

THE MASTER STEERS THE BOAT

A compilation original and authentic of the photographs of the 17 direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna along with the Master and Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi with Swami Nirmalananda right-hand most in the lowest row beside Swami Vijnanananda is now no more in vogue. This compilation, it is learnt from reliable sources, was organized by Jnan Maharaj of hallowed memory and was advertised in the Prabuddha Bharata. A sidelight here of some moment, Jnan Maharaj was Swami Vivekananda's disciple and remained a Brahmachari lifelong somewhat akin to Sister Nivedita, another disciple of Swamiji, who remained a Brahmacharini throughout her tumultuous life. And, whether it is the truth or a travesty of it, Swami Nirmalananda has also been claimed by some sections as being a disciple of Swamiji and not of Thakur. To add fuel to the feud of Nirmalanandaji's discipleship, it has been posited that Nirmalanandaji had himself claimed to have been Swamiji's first disciple. Be it as it may, for truth concealed will ever self-reveal in the fullness of time, it is significant though that nowadays one does not see Nirmalanandji's photograph along with the photographs of Thakur's other monastic direct disciples as in the early days of the Movement, an omission which is so glaring only after one has learnt the truth of the matter that he was indeed the Master's 17th venerable monastic disciple as is evident from the compilation of photographs under consideration here as also from an overwhelming amount of documented evidence.

In the late 1920s and mid 1930s trouble shot within the ranks of the Mission over administrative issues of certain centres leading to lengthy legal wranglings which resulted in a splinter-group led by Swami Nirmalananda seceding from the Math and Mission. It was a dark day for the Mission of the Prophet of Harmony who had striven lifelong to bring about the harmony of disparate sectarian forces through his supernal love and sublime spirituality. His apostle extraordinaire Swami Vivekananda had laid down his life in his bid to establish spiritual fraternity among the peoples of the world and had knit up his brethren at Baranagar, Alambazar and Belur into a cohesive unit bonded in fraternal love.

But the Master used to say that the Divine Play is never fulfilled without the interplay of opposing forces, Jatila and Kutila. He used to quite savour situations that smacked of such opposition in innocence as in the case of Hazra who played the devil right under his nose. But when things turned sinister as in the late 20s and mid 30s of the last century with the Mission of the Master threatening to split into two, what was his response? He sat impassive witnessing the drama of his phenomenal play even as his children, armed in truth as they understood, battled it out in law-courts to settle the dispute of disrepute. It was a sad, sad day for the youngest of the spiritual Orders of the world which was destined to bring about a golden age of harmony and truth in this much-molested world. Each side had its argument as is always the case in a dispute and battled tooth and nail to set justice right, and when the dust had settled, brothers had separated. Ah, what a horrendous blow to the hearts of Shivananda, Akhandananda, Vijnanananda, Abhedananda and Nirmalananda as they witnessed the foul play of Maya undoing their lives' attainments of brotherly love and unity of purpose. Aged as they all were, one wonders how great must have been the pain and sense of devastation in their mother-hearts and the feeling of utter desolation of Nirmalanandaji as he stood alone among the ruins of a lifelong of sterling attainments that had galvanized the Movement of the Master south of the Vindhyas. It was a case of material malajdustment of souls supernally pure, spirits free and buoyant, dedicated to the Cause of the Master whose fractions they all were. How such things come to pass among Brahmajnanis is beyond the comprehension of ordinary souls like us who hasten to judge in folly even Apostles of God! That Prarabdha Karma is the explanation is also hard to digest as the eternal companions of the Master are perhaps free souls who are beyond karmic bonds, or, is it that some of the direct disciples were in their last terrestrial life who had been attracted by the Master towards himself to enact his divine play and who were in fact carrying the baggage of past karma? A like statement one comes across in Swami Abhedananda's autobiographical study 'Amar Jeebon Katha' where he says that Thakur had told him that he was in his last terrestrial life. Which then boils down to the fact that some of the Master's direct disciples were his eternal playmates and were ever-free souls (Nityasiddhas / Ishwarkotis) without any karmic baggage whatsoever, some others were perfected seers of the past who had been attracted by the Master to help enact his divine play who also were free of earthly contamination and immune from the snares of Maya while a third and last set of direct disciples were those that were in their last terrestrial life and had by good karma attained to proximity with him but who by the very same laws were carrying their prarabdha karma with them whose malefic influence they were not wholly immune from. These are but surmises that are facile and hold not much ground in explaining the anomaly of the case under consideration and are being posited merely out of a sense of bewilderment at the sequence of events from the late 20s to this day. Why was there a legal battle between illumined sages over such a trifling thing as executive control of a few monasteries? Could not an amicable solution be arrived at? Would such a thing come to pass if the great Swami Vivekananda or Swami Brahmananda had been alive? Did not Swamiji himself show his displeasure at the breakaway tendency of a brother disciple from the early days of the Movement? Did he not always exhort his brother disciples to stay together bonded in fraternal love and in their supreme love for the Master? Did he not give them so much love that they rediscovered the Master as incarnate in their beloved leader? Was Swamiji ever culpable of neglecting his spiritual brothers out of the renunciate's supreme aspiration for spiritual freedom? Did he not ever remember his Master's exhortation,"I leave these boys, Naren, in your care. See to it that they stay together and devote their lives to God."? And did not the young Narendranath act as foster father to these lads who had none but him to look up to and the memory of their departed Master to hold on to for even the Holy Mother was then recovering from her great bereavement? When one reflects on this supreme bond of love that held the Apostles of the Master together in the early days at Baranagar, Alambazar and Belur one wonders how such a fratricidal battle over earthly property or even ideals could ever break out between them. It is baffling, disconcerting, devastating to behold a Spiritual Order idolized by one entering into legal wranglings over matters material. But then everything has its flip side and a spiritual organization also has its material element for it functions within the parametric bounds of the material world in so far as its welfare activities are concerned and allied institutions necessarily involve transactions which are fraught with material contamination in the slightest degree which in troubled times can assume gigantic proportions and derail even the most secure of spiritual movements. Such has been the experience of history from Buddhistic times and seems to be the lot of all spiritual movements as if in fulfilment of a natural scheme of things. This unholy wedlock of the spiritual and the material is the progenitor of all worldly good and is the root cause of the associated evil as well. Yet, this is the only way the world may function, itself being a curious admixture of truth and untruth.

From the standpoint of the interest of the Order though and with it the supposed well-being of the Movement, the cohesion of the Mother Church is paramount and necessitates scalpel-precision surgical operations eliminating nefarious elements to preserve the sanctity and wholesomeness of the Order. The great Swami Vivekananda had deliberated on the relative merits of organizing his Master's Movement with his famous pronouncement:,"To organize or not to organize? If I organize, the spirit will diminish. If I do not organize, the message will not spread." On another occasion he had written,"Organization breeds new evils." And yet, the Swami had gone ahead with the mandate of his divine Master as he understood it, that is to keep his brother disciples together as a spiritual fraternity, by founding the Divine Sangha which he pronounced to be the vast visible form of Sri Ramakrishna. A Rishi's apprehensions are always founded in the envisioning of the future course of events and cannot falsify. Sarat Chandra Chakrabarty, a lay disciple of Swamiji, in conversation with him had once asked him if in the future succeeding generations of disciples of the Master might part ways on account of their many differences of opinion, perspective and interpretation of ideals. Here, I may add a sidelight that after the Mahasamadhi of the Master, there was a dispute over the possession of his earthly relics between the lay disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and his monastic disciples and much unpleasantness thereof so much so that the bereaved widow of the departed sage, Sri Sarada Devi, bemoaned to her associate and confidant Golap Ma,"Look at them Golap. The man of gold has gone away and they are bickering over his ashes." It was Narendranath then who had drawn the attention of the young eagles of Ramakrishna to his catholic principles of life and living and had urged them to attend to following in the Master's footsteps and to live the 'life'. Now, in response to Sarat Chandra Chakrabarty's query, the great Vivekananda had said that Sri Ramakrishna was the mighty sun of spirituality and each of his devotees was viewing him through his particular coloured filter which, though in the lifetime of the direct disciples and associates of Thakur was unlikely to cause a rift in the Order, would nonetheless in the tide of times result in the formation of sects.

Well, there it was. Vivekananda, Sarada Devi and Brahmananda had held the Order together by their supernal love and spiritual altitude but once they were gone the scenario began to change. Swami Abhedananda, on his return to India after propagating the Vedanta for 25 years in the West, founded the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math which later became a separate legal entity. But there was no love lost between brothers. It seemed expedient at the time that Abhedananda should move from Belur Math to his own establishment at Calcutta. He continued in his capacity as Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission lifelong, but understandably, on account of his being President of his own Order, the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, he was passed over for the post of President of the parent body, the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, even when all but he of the monastic disciples of the Master had passed away and the mantle of Presidency passed into the hands of Swamis Suddhananda and Virajananda successively who were not direct disciples of the Master.

And then, as mentioned earlier, in the late 1920s and mid 1930s the ugly episodes of claims and counter-claims to property and executive control of branch centres surfaced in Calcutta and Bangalore which threatened to split the Mission. Ramakrishna watched as the mute witness as his children fought it out in his name in law-courts when an amicable solution could not be reached through dialogue and deliberation. Eventually, the dispute was settled by the Mission's solicitors in the Calcutta case and by the law-court in the Bangalore case. Consequently, Brahmachari Ganendranath of the Udbodhan Office in Calcutta withdrew from the Order and Swami Nirmalananda did likewise in Bangalore. A whole host of devotees and quite a large number of monks also quit the Order in response. Some of them continued their loyal association with Swami Nirmalananda, some others established their own Maths while the rest returned to the Mother Order. Thus, a saga ended ironically on the eve of the Centenary of Ramakrishna when the world converged on to Belur and Calcutta for celebration of the advent of the Prophet of Harmony. Ramakrishna's Mission had tided over the crisis and was still whole although the Mission of Ramakrishna had now expanded its base amid trials and tribulations leading to the founding of new Orders, or shall we philosophically say, distributaries of the eternal Mother Order founded anew in this Age by Ramakrishna-Vivekananda?

Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Ma! Jai Swamiji! Jai Maharaj!

SHARVANANDA, THE LEONINE MONK

Swami Sharvananda, disciple of Swami Brahmananda, a luminary of the Order. He advocated women's uplift and worked against all odds to achieve the same. A towering personality, an erudite scholar and a monk of great attainments, Sharvanandaji resigned from the Vice-Presidency of the Order and left the Order in 1948 to dedicate himself to the cause of women's empowerment as had been envisaged by Swamiji. He established a girl's school and an Ashrama at Jhargram in West Bengal to pursue his ideal of service to humanity in the light of his inner realizations and his interpretation of the message of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. Swami Sharvananda, the thunderous monk, passed away in 1970 and thus his unfinished task of women's regeneration lies with us for fulfilment. May all come forward and carry forward the Mission of Swami Sharvananda which is Ramakrishna-Vivekananda's Mission, the awakening of Shakti in India.

GOD https://www.facebook.com/groups/god.infinite/

This page is dedicated to bringing about inter-faith understanding by the dissemination of knowledge of the diverse forms of worship of the Supreme Being as espoused by the different religions, the object being to integrate humankind in a kinship of spirit, harmonic and peaceful where 'acceptance' and not mere 'toleration' of the underlying truth of every spiritual path is the key to the fostering of mutual goodwill and fraternal feeling.

APOSTLES OF RAMAKRISHNA https://www.facebook.com/groups/apostles.ramakrishna/

This page is dedicated to those heroic souls who accompanied the Master in his earthly sojourn to found his mission on earth and to those succeeding generations of their disciples who have tirelessly striven to bring about the golden transformation of the consciousness of man that humanity may stand transfigured in the light of the Divine that shines in all. Members are requested to study the lives of these luminous beings who have sacrificed their all at the clarion call of the Master, "Oh, where are you all? I can scarcely stay anymore without seeing you. Come, my children, tarry no more, the hour passes by." My friends, read these lives, meditate on them, then sacrifice your all at their behest that you may see the Divine in all that is the purpose of your terrestrial existence. Serve and be free, this the living God that surrounds you. Members are requested to post only in English. May Thakur and his beloved disciples bless all is the fervent prayer of this servant of theirs!

THE GOSPEL SOCIETY https://www.facebook.com/groups/gospel.society/

The quintessence of all spiritual literature---read daily THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA and live in the Presence of the Master. He will animate your being, sublimate your thoughts, render you divine if only you care to take a little time out of your daily schedule to devote yourself to this study which is so pleasing to the Master. Swami Brahmananda has said, " If anyone religiously reads The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna for 12 years at a stretch, he will attain to Brahmajnana ( Knowledge of the Self )." Now my friends, there is the open gateway to godhead, come ye all and enter into the realm of the divine, the Ramakrishna Lok.

SANGHA https://www.facebook.com/groups/1483048645250466/

This page is dedicated to the propagation of the history of the Ramakrishna Order, its national and global significance, its heritage and legacy, culture and contribution. Members are requested to post only in the English language. Let us all join hands to help bring about the golden age of spiritual awakening in the world that was the dream of Swami Vivekananda for which he lived and died and for which he still animates receptive souls wherever they be even as he had promised. It is then our mission to help fulfil the mission of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji. May the Holy Trinity bless us all in our endeavour !

SARADESHWARI https://www.facebook.com/groups/saradeshwari.ma/

This page is dedicated to propagating the life and message of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi. She is our Mother, our very own. We ought to strive to be her heroic children dedicated to the cause of the spiritual regeneration of the world which is her terrestrial mission, the spiritual evolution of her children till they merge in oneness in her. Let us all dedicate ourselves to studying her unique life and let us strive to live her precepts in life that we may enter into the state of blessedness in her. May Mother bless us all !

FORGOTTEN APOSTLE OF RAMAKRISHNA, SWAMI NIRMALANANDA (TULSI MAHARAJ)

The serenity of the place, the Mahasamadhi Peeth of Swami Nirmalananda - Tulasi Maharaj, is palpable even through the photograph. This indeed is proof of Swami Nirmalanandaji's spiritual altitude and the perennial grace of Sri Sri Thakur on him. He was an outstanding monk, literally charged with the Mission of spreading Thakur-Swamiji's message across the world. A DIRECT DISCIPLE of SRI RAMAKRISHNA, SWAMI NIRMALANANDA was veritably a lion among men, a Karma-Yogi of the highest order who wielded Jnana and Bhakti as well. He carried the message of the Master across the oceans to America. On his return home, he worked indefatigably in Southern India establishing a series of Ramakrishna Ashramas in Kerala and the neighbouring States. The Neo-Vedanta preached by him through his talks, discourses and lectures captured the imagination of the common man and the ruling class as well and help came to him to set up his Ashramas and their allied activities. However, the lapse of time has changed things significantly and this Hero of the Spirit lies, unknown to most, unrecognized as one of the 17 direct monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna for it is in vogue for reasons best known to Thakur that devotees should be misled to bear in mind that the Master had only 16 direct disciples among which Tulasi Maharaj (Swami Nirmalananda) is conspicuous by his absence. The feud over executive authority regarding the Southern Indian Ramakrishna Ashramas had triggered a series of unfortunate incidents whose unwholesome sequel is the gradual and progressive erasing from public memory of the true identity of Swami Nirmalanandaji as the 17th direct disciple of the Master. Time it is to resurrect the truth of this valiant soldier of the supreme embodiment of Truth in this Age, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who could never brook falsehood of any kind even in jest or in play. Swami Vivekananda would never compromise with 'every black falsehood' or stoop so low as to obliterate his own beloved Tulsi who he lavished praise on as being a model of a monk in terms of dexterity in work coupled with tranquillity in meditation. Time is the healer of past wounds and I sincerely hope that the process of rapprochement will begin soon in real earnest to settle the dust of battle for good and reinforce the Ramakrishna Movement with the vigour of those halcyon days when the Apostles of Ramakrishna met at the feet of their blessed Master under the banyan shade of Dakshineswar to witness the ecstasy of the Divine and float in the luminous atmosphere of their spiritual preceptor. The Master's children are ever bonded in love and no earthly conspiracy or connivance can succeed in separating these loving souls each of whom, to quote Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, has come out of the sacred body of the Master, fractions of him as they are. Thakur has been mutely watching this divine drama enacted in parts in a most undivine way for such is the way of the Lord who has measureless patience with fallible man. But devotees must not be misled and Tulsi Maharaj's sterling contributions to the Ramakrisha Movement as its Apostle extraordinaire must be recognized for the secure advancement of the Movement itself as also for the establishment of Truth which is the central purpose of the descent of the Divine. My prostrations at the feet of those valiant souls who carried on their crusade for justice in the dark days when their beloved Tulsi Maharaj was a forgotten hero, a monk lying in oblivion as an outcast from the rank of being a brother disciple of the great Swami Vivekananda and a child of Ramakrishna, his anointed one into whom he had breathed in the breath of life, the sacred divine mantra whose fruition was the efflorescence of the Life that was Nirmalananda or Thakur's Tulsi who he was so fond of for these souls came to him in the freshness of their youth, untainted by lust or lucre, fragrant flowers of the Divine. To such a day when the sun will shine on all and none may feel that truth hurt their interests I send these lines to all who have dedicated themselves to Ramakrishna and, in especial, I send these lines to my brethren who love Tulsi Maharaj more than their dear ones, even themselves, and who have been waiting in silent expectation across half a century to see the redress of things pernicious in the wake of the split in the consciousness of the divine mission centering Thakur over things material which are ever so fraught with the entrapment of delusive Maya. May good sense prevail on all! May all that is true and worthy of the light of day emerge from the dark recesses of history and may none feel the poorer for it! May Sri Ramakrishna who was the veritable embodiment of Truth guide us all in this harmonization process when brother will embrace brother and it will please Mother and Father most!

Jai Sri Ramakrishna! Jai Ma! Jai Swamiji! Jai Tulsi Maharaj! Satyameva Jayate!

BHASKAR SEN SHARMA, A FRIEND IN DELIGHT 1

And a brilliant comment Bhaskar Sen Sharma by you, ever brightening my write-ups with the magic of your words, the web of images spun by you carrying me off unto the essence of the very message I feebly try to bring home. It baffles me, true, it baffles me to contemplate the sheer profundity of your knowledge, the sweep of your understanding and the intense feeling of your golden heart which rushes through like dainty brooks through your writings. They keep me enthralled as I revel in your literary flourishes, a mart of pure delight, heaven's own springtime blossom, efflorescence ethereal. If music there were in words ever, this was it, the quintessence of poetic lyricism. Good friend, what inspiration you carry in that God-filled heart of yours is for all to see. You are a beacon for errant souls even as you yourself wend your way Godward. May all that is holy associate with you is the prayer of this unworthy friend of yours! May Thakur preserve you in your mission to waken souls with the sublimity of your literary embellishments! I sincerely feel beholden to you.

SHASHI -- TULASI OF THAKUR

The industry of Swami Ramakrishnananda (Shashi Maharaj) and Swami Nirmalananda - Tulasi Maharaj galvanized South India and paved the way for the resurrection of spirituality in this ancient seat of the Acharyas.

WHITHER PEACE?

It is difficult to establish peace on Earth so long as fanatical ideologies persist, be they religious or political. The variegated nature of phenomenal existence makes for these ideological polarizations. Situated as men are in different cultural terrain, they tend to view things through the prism of such location. The evolutionary process not being standardized or uniform throughout the terrestrial plane, wide divergences of culture manifest over time which with material contamination play havoc with human civilization. Ancient superstitions get rooted in the psyche of nations and peoples and scriptural certification of irrational beliefs and practices make for intransigence in existing mores and modes making progress towards global integration difficult and keep the doors of strife and war wide open. In such a mental climate Summit Meets and Peace Talks, although political imperatives, prove utterly ineffective in bringing about harmony and peace or even a modicum of settlement towards these prized objectives. The peoples of the world, rooted as they are in local archaic arbitrary assertions of faith, dogma and ideology, necessarily remain a divided lot as per the dynamics of the divergent perspectives and can scarce combine to produce a workable harmony that my enhance the peace process. Despite tall claims about the efficacy of the dialogic process and even the utter necessity of it as the core principle of diplomacy, surface medications for the world's ills have failed to cure this divergent disparate disease of worldliness and have merely prolonged the agony of man along the line of a perilous prognosis where uniformity is attempted by force and the natural beauteous diversity rooted out to bring about such catastrophic homogeneity. The consequence has been the systematic destruction of the finest elements of manhood down the ages, devastation of culture and decimation of entire civilizations. Bathed in blood humanity is being ever reborn to yet attempt a renaissance, a revival of the ancient spirit of unity in diversity that has been sung in the hymns of the Sama Veda, a resurrection of the primeval peace of Paradise before pluralistic ignorance split peace up. But wither peace? The arrogance of superior wisdom clothed in the clergy's cloak continues to spit venom on the mass consciousness, religious fanaticism armed in the delusion of prepossession of the absolute and inviolable truth persists in its perennial threat to peaceful co-existence, racial complexes keep up their barbarous modes of inter-racial persecution often tending to wipe off whole populations and absolutist political ideologies threaten to force the world into a mechanized uniform self-oblivious mass. So long as these forces freely operate stifling human freedom, there is no hope of sustained peace for mankind. And yet there is no way these forces will die so soon as to usher in the age of light and freedom for they hold vast masses of populations in their grip through age-old indoctrination that merging with provincial culture is so difficult to shirk off. While art and architecture and even science at times flourishing from the inspiration of these totalitarian religious philosophies has been sublime, its foster-soul, the doctrinaire creed, has been highly baneful for the healthy growth of thought and civilization otherwise. Throughout history these fanatical philosophies or rather the absence of real philosophy therein has resulted in mankind perpetually being plunged in a 'deluge of blood', to quote Vivekananda. Seldom has peace been in a pluralistic human society and that is the irony of it all. Whenever there has been any political stability anywhere other than in hoary India of sublime spiritual catholic culture, it has been at the expense of all contrary opinion and the allowance of the exclusive existence of a single ideology or belief-system. The universe which is so variegated and functions by the stupendous harmony of forces and fields necessitates even at the organic level the harmonious application of its cosmic principles. Thus, the Rishis of the Rig Veda have in trumpet voice on the banks of the Ganga and the Saraswati and in the high hills of the Himalayas declared: Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti...Yo eko varno vahudha shakti yogat...Ekoham vahushyam (Truth is One but sages speak of it variantly...That is of a single colour or element but Cosmic Energy manifests it as the manifold...I am One, I wish to be many). In India thus, from prehistoric times, there has been the culture of religious pluralism based on the foundation of the Oneness of all existence. There has been perfect freedom of spiritual expression here in this land of the Vedas with sects multiplying ever giving vigour to the evolution of spiritual thinking. The Sanatana Dharma or the Perennial Philosophy or the Eternal Religion has been India's contribution to world thought and is the sublimest affirmation of the divinity of all sentience, nay, of all existence. Having the Oneness of Existence as its underlying philosophy, it holds that all the varied thought systems that have operated or are operating in the world are but the various expressions of the same eternal truth of transcendental unity of existence and their variance of expression is due to the differences of perspectives owing to differences of phenomenal location and evolutionary level. In essence all religions and philosophical systems are attempting to unravel the 'riddle of existence' and discover for man his lost heritage of pristine purity and transcendental unitary consciousness. The core principle is the same everywhere if one is to read into the spirit of the law and not get entrapped by the letter alone. It is ever the Book of Life revealing its pages through the smears and smudges of corporeal life. It is the One Essence attempting to express the inexpressible, faltering, fumbling, failing to fill the void but ever leaving behind in whatsoever form the imprint of the Divine, the message of the imperishable Self, the signature of Truth as the final residuum. But few can decipher this hieroglyph, fewer still may hear this song of the soul, this symphony of the supernal element, this rhapsody of the Divine. Thus we war on to force the truth on others while we ourselves ramble in the dark devoid of Truth.

This then is the rationale of all that is irrationally being perpetrated in the name of religion, ideology and its ilk. These clouds of ignorance have been hovering over us for thousands of years and their day is not done yet. These superstitions will have to run out their course, says Vivekananda, for the next three or four thousand years before sanity comes to mankind. Till then all measures to bring about lasting peace may backfire as mankind may not yet be ready to apprehend truth in its entirety and fractional understanding will mar the message of the messiahs of mankind. But then that is our lot and we have to wade through the murky waters of our own design, this terrestrial life of light and shade till in the fullness of time we arrive at the citadel of Truth and enter its portals to attain to our divine inheritance. Then shall we be enlightened, then all will be blissful and endowed with peace that passeth understanding.

MESSIAH OF THE MASSES

The Messiah of the masses, Swami Nirmalananda - Tulasi Maharaj, the Apostle of Ramakrishna who did yoeman service to the Cause of spreading the Master's message among the people of Southern India.

THE MONK WITH A MISSION

The monk with a mission, Revered Swami Nirmalananda - Tulasi Maharaj, who enlivened Southern India at the turn of the 20th century with the undying message of his spiritual master, Sri Ramakrishna, and established a series of monasteries across Kerala, a forgotten figure now but one who shines ever brightly in the memory of old-timers who had known him or had been associated with his labour of love for the Avatar of the Age.

THE SESQUICENTENNIAL SWAMI VIVEKANANDA STUDY CIRCLE https://www.facebook.com/groups/vivekananda.150/

We need able hands with us to propagate the message of Swami Vivekananda across the length and breadth of the world. We veritably wish to storm the world, start a movement, so to say. Do join hands with us and bring to fruition this divine project whose final fulfilment is an imperative for the survival and flourishing of the human species even unto the unfoldment of its divinity.

AN APPEAL TO MY COUNTRYMEN ON THE NEW YEAR DAY

Can any of you take a pledge here on this auspicious New Year Day that you will dedicate your life for the uplift of the masses, a cause for which Swamiji lived and died ? Then I call you valorous indeed if you can make a sacrifice of your lives for the salvation of the teeming millions daily dying miserable deaths. Man indeed I call you if you can forego the ephemeral pleasures of life and serve this moving mass of humanity sinking slowly but surely in the vortex of ignorance and poverty. Believe it my friends, your renunciation, your sacrifice will not go in vain, it never does. It is the only hope, the last lingering light for countless souls who have forgotten that they too are men, who have never known that they too are the inheritors of the highest knowledge, immortality, bliss, who have resigned their lot to the cruel hand of fate knowing not where to find succour. These are your sisters and brothers who suffer that you may lead lives of relative ease and enjoyment. Does it not behove you brother to deeply reflect on this and take a stand whether you will wallow in the dust of desire for the rest of your life or whether you will take up the Cause and live a glorious life founded on truth and purity that you may be a fitting instrument in the hands of the Divine for the redemption of these forgotten souls ?

Shubha Nababarsha to all my brethren wherever they be ! May Swamiji bless you all !

THE FLAVOUR OF TRANSLATION

So many different styles of writing, so many approaches to the same passage, it's quite exhilarating. None of them though are literally accurate although they are thematically so. What is important to observe here is whether you are being as close to the original text as possible or not. Is the drift in your rendition within permissible limits in your own estimation, for always you are the original and the final critic of your composition, or is it way too far from what it ought to be in terms of fidelity to the original text ? Masterly style each one of you have exhibited but I fear you ought to exercise greater restraint in your literary flourishes in a translation exercise than perhaps you deemed it fit to do. Stylistic embellishments notwithstanding, adherence to the text is an imperative in any translation exercise with as close as possible a rendition an inviolable principle to be followed. Congratulations to all of you though for the freedom with which you are wielding words which make your translation work appear like original writing of yours. And this is the secret of good writing, free, carefree, buoyant self-expression with literary liberty within parametric bounds of aesthetics. My salutations to all of you for your continuing commendable efforts.

TOLSTOY ON VIVEKANANDA

Leo Tolstoy had said, " Vivekananda's English is perfect. " Read Vivekananda. It is lyrical, sublime English full of the profundities of philosophical thought, yet expressed in such simplicity of style that a child may understand. Read, my friends, read the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda if you are seriously contemplating quick improvement in English as also becoming integrated personalities.

READING, ONE'S BEST FRIEND

Reading, continuous reading is the best way of improving your writing skill in English. The more you read, the greater is your brain's exposure to words and ideas, expressions and images. This in turn helps to build a data-base of ' word ' in your memory which finds expression in your writing in good time. Therefore, start reading good literature, newspapers, magazines, periodicals, short stories, novels, plays, essays, biographical studies and poetry, whatever you have access to. You may even read on the internet and check on the meanings of words you are not sure of in the online free dictionary. I wish you all the success in your reading and learning endeavour.

I remain humbly your friend,

Sugata Bose

LOVE YOUR MOTHER-TONGUE PLEASE

If one language is mastered, the mastery of other languages becomes easy. Therefore, if you wish to master the English language, remember to devote time to your mother-tongue as well. Remember, the great Rabindranath Tagore wrote in Bengali but won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his English rendition of Gitanjali originally composed by him in Bengali.

THE SECRET OF GOOD WRITING

The secret of writing good English is to write simple English. There is a common misconception that a high-flown style of writing is synonymous with good writing. But the object of writing being communication, it is better that a softer style be adopted which reaches the understanding of the reader. Linguistic embellishments notwithstanding, the goal must be to set up an easy link with the mind of the reader that he may comprehend the subject-matter with ease. This does not mean that there must be a total dilution of the standard of writing. Rather the simplicity of expression must be effected in a manner that the style remains lucid and free-flowing. Swami Vivekananda used to highly recommend the conversational style of writing which takes the reader into confidence and so creates a one-to-one communication channel which never fails to inspire interest in the piece being read. He held his Guru's colloquial tongue as the best form of literary expression. May all of you read the choicest of literature and write sublime English is my heart-felt desire ! Jai Ramakrishna !

JUST A PASSING WORD

A simple free-flowing style of writing straight from the heart and rooted in personal experience communicates best and addresses the heart of the reader. A conversational style often is most suited to the cause of setting up an easy link with the reader. Thus, the modern mode is to write in as colloquial a style as is possible maintaining literary levels and establishes a rapport with the reader best. But to attain to this easy free-flowing style requires much reading and assimilation of stylistic patterns in the mind. It also requires one to be blessed with the gift for good writing, in simpler terms, sheer talent. But all may endeavour to write better than what they do by practice of good reading and regular writing for clarity comes gradually with disciplined labour and sustained effort at excellence. The ideas evolving to their efflorescence, the words fit in to become perfect vehicles of expression and then writing stands self-luminous, resplendent in its own glory and the reader is carried away by the tide of words and ideas, thoughts and imagery to the wondrous heights of literary exposition.

REPLY TO CERTAIN QUERIES BY A SCEPTICAL FRIEND

Dive deep into the Self and you will get the proof. It is a subjective experience and not an empirical experimental verification. But it is proof nonetheless. Read THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA and the COMPLETE WORKS OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA, friend, for confirmation.

I appreciate your rationalistic posture and it is the healthiest approach to spiritual matters too where the cobwebs of the superstitious mind so blur vision and take appearance for reality. But one must traverse through reason to beyond its domain to the realm of transcendental truth. But it is an individual's choice to adopt one mode or the other enroute to the summit of realizations, the perception of the Absolute Self, or, to alternatively stay put at a place for a while questioning the validity of these spiritual affirmations.

The question then shifts from purely theoretical considerations to the practical part of organized religion as it prevails today. While I am attempting to neither affirm nor negate your stance regarding practising religion for these are horizon issues and keep shifting in their relative assigned values, I, nonetheless, exhort you to look beyond mere fractional scientific postures regarding spiritual culture to deeper scientific affirmations of quantum mechanics and relativistic physics where the borders of science and religion are no more so sharply defined as in Newtonian times, where matter and spirit are coalescing to produce the modern man's integrated vision of Truth.

I fully corroborate your views regarding the poverty situation and share like feelings too but, friend, let us do something to alleviate the misery of the masses instead of merely denigrating things for that will be energy misspent when our suffering sisters and brothers are in such dire need of our help. So, let us be positive and let us act on our resolve to lessen the misery of our kith and kin by not yielding to pseudo-religiosity. Rather we should devote our life's blood to attaining to real perception of the oneness of all existence and thereon plunge headlong into the mission of bringing relief to whosoever needs it, the sharing of our hearts of joy with the poor and the dispossessed, the sharing of our wealth and care and love that knoweth not any boundary.

THE CALL OF THE VESPER HOUR

It is with a profound sense of dismay that I record today's feelings. When I see the suffering of people, especially, old helpless people in such large numbers in society, I definitely feel that society is going the way reverse to which Ramakrishna-Vivekananda had attempted to orient it. The aged the world over are a terribly neglected lot and await their painful exit from the world unloved and forlorn. The very children they had given life to have forgotten them to all intents and purposes and spend their leisure hours in the pleasure garden of youth oblivious of their duties to their old parents and kith and kin. Cruel is life and cruelty compounded is this abject neglect of the aged who in the twilight years of their lives learn the bitter lesson of the ephemeral nature of terrestrial life and the massive trickery of Maya in whose mazes they find themselves hopelessly trapped. And when the appointed hour comes their ordeal comes to an end to the accompaniment of hypocritical obituaries and memorial services which in no way go to help address the desperate situation that prevails still for the ones that yet struggle to die.

Old age, disease, depression and desolation, these are the perennial playmates of the pilgrims of progressive years with death as their final repose, their solace, their salvation from heir earthly sufferings. These are the lighthouses of our humankind that have shed their lustre on the dark waters of our terrestrial life and seen our ships home who now live bereft of light in the evening of their lives. Is there a God who will hold their hands? It will be posited, I know, that it is God alone that suffers as these hapless souls in this drama of human existence where ignorance makes us perceive all these delusions of human pain and suffering, that it is God alone who is manifest as this variegated world of pleasure and pain, youth and decay, fruition and finality. But it is small consolation when I see these phenomena as real, myself trapped in this microcosm of things, helplessly dragged on by the progressive series of hallucinations when dream appears as the wakeful painful reality and consciousness is lost in the whirl of sensory perceptions. All around is this misery of disease, despair and desolation, souls cut off in the vesper hour of their lives from all that humanity cherishes as worthwhile, love, company, care and help. Who will look after these helpless souls if not you and me, my friend? Who will make their lives bearable, nay, merrier even in their misery if not you, my friend, and me? Our parents suffer everywhere, our aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers. Will any God come to rescue them? Perhaps, yes, in death. Till then, my friend, let us be the gods to these elders in bringing hope and help to their twilight years. Let us serve them with all our might, with all our mind, our resolves united, our hearts throbbing with the feeling that ought to pulsate therein for only then may we say that we still live, else, we are relics of a past humanity, dead and beyond redemption.

The path is open before us, the royal avenue of service to man as God. The reverse alleyway is open as well, 'The way of all flesh'. The choice is ours. 'To be or not to be is the question'. Meanwhile, the suffering continues. Hail Buddha, mighty Soul! Manifest Thyself again in this world of sorrow to mitigate the evil. Hail Vivekananda, Thou Voice without form! We anxiously await Thy return to waken souls from their age-old slumber with Thy clarion call, ''Awake, awake!'' Unto that blissful day of your return Swamiji I rest my pen tonight. Till then let me struggle on to bring a smile to the faces of these elderly statesmen of the human race, they who have seen through the hollowness of this terrestrial existence and patiently await the call of the Master, their return to the loving arms of the Mother who never forsakes.

Jai Ma! Jai Thakur! Jai Swamiji!

VIVEKANANDA DAY

11 September remains in the annals of history as the day Swami Vivekananda stormed the World Parliament of Religions with his historic speech that set in the New Age in human civilisation. It was a moment of fusion of all that was inherently good in human culture, a climactic point crystallised in time for posterity when civilisations occidental and oriental met, when reason fused with faith in a splendour of realisation unheard of in the Western Hemisphere, when the harmony of the Sama Veda rang through the organ voice of the Swami to send the 7000 strong audience into rapture. Chicago, 1893, September 11, the day of reckoning when the Spirit of India gave itself utterance through the young unheralded monk at the vesper hour to usher in the New Age, an age of hope and light, of fraternal feeling, harmony and transcendental realisation.

Vivekananda came to America with no credentials, no Hindu organisation backing him up as their official representative nor any prior registration with the organisers of the Chicago Parliament of Religions. He barely had 300 dollars to spend and was in dire straits soon when chance acquaintances with Katherine Sanborn and Prof. John Henry Wright of Boston saw him through to the Parliament. Prof. Wright, the Harvard professor of Greek introduced him to Dr. Barrows, the Convener of the Chicago Parliament of Religions, in glowing terms through a letter which ran as follows : ''Here is a man whose is more learned than all our learned professors put together.'' To the Swami Vivekananda he said, ''To ask you, Swami, for credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine!''

Thus, with an introductory letter to Dr. Barrows, Swami Vivekananda set forth from Boston to Chicago. But unused to carrying things as a mendicant monk, he promptly lost the address of the boarders of the Chicago delegates where he would have found residence. He spent the night in a coach-box and tried his luck through the streets of Chicago the following morn. As he sat fatigued and hungry at a place after a long inconsequential search for his boarder's residence, it was again destiny that came to his rescue. Mrs. Hale, a wealthy lady beckoned him in to the apartment which faced the Swami, refreshed him and then the Hales dropped him off at the delegates' residence.

September 11. The auditorium of the World's Congress Auxilliary Building was packed to capacity. 7000 of the intelligentsia and the best culture of Europe and America were assembled in the central hall where proceedings were to begin. All the major religions and many minor sects as well were represented by their respective delegates. Vivekananda was the lone man without any official status or credential or even a formal registration with the Parliament. But the anointed of God was there to represent Him who had sent sent him across the seas to this distant land to announce the arrival of Man on the centre-stage of the spiritual world. But the young man was nervous. He had never spoken before such an august assembly and continued to defer his address till evening set in. And then as Dr. Barrows announced his name as the next speaker, the young man rose with a fluttering heart and took up his position at the rostrum. A prayer to the Goddess Saraswati and a few opening words, 'Sisters and brothers of America', and the audience was in raptures. 7000 people kept clapping for a full two minutes before the hero could commence his speech. America had fallen at the feet of the young sage of India. 5000 years of Indian spiritual experience then burst forth from the lips of this leonine monk in a cascade of sublime oratory, divine poetry issuing from the heart of this youngest of the rishis of India, and ushered in the Age of Truth and Enlightenment, the Satya Yuga.

TWITTER-THOUGHT FOR THE DAY 5

Every moment affirm that you are divine. This alone can remove your misery.You are the infinite Atman, know this for certain. Onward unto truth.

Meditate for world-peace. Just watch the traffic of your thoughts while meditating. Allow the free-flow of the mind and you will feel poise and peace.

Love all for they are all yourself in so many forms.