HISTORY OR HERESY?
The Dakshineshwar Kali Temple Trustee Board is planning a construction programme of the statues of 16 direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and are apparently leaving out Swami Nirmalananda who is the 17th direct disciple of Thakur from their list. This I have inferred from the stated content of the live television programme beamed on the Kali Puja night this year (6-7 November, 2018) on DD Bangla. If this happens, it will a sad end to the immaculate truth which stands in Dakshineshwar till date. Thakur who was truth incarnate will be, thus, blasphemed in a manner that generations hence will not forgive us for our silence on this unfolding falsification of the history of the Ramakrishna Movement. I, thus, urge all devotees to stand together in this regard and bring home the matter to the notice of the said trustees of the Kali Temple Complex that Swami Nirmalananda was a direct disciple of Thakur and cannot under any circumstance be left out of the count of the same in connection with the construction of the statues which will be installed in the Temple Complex.
One may have reservations about the installation of statues of the direct disciples because every addition to and alteration of the original landscape robs it of its historicity. But if the authorities do carry out the programme to fruition, then it stands to reason to apprise them of the facts of the case and bring home to them that Swami Nirmalananda's statue also ought to be installed there along with those of his 16 other brother disciples. That will be in keeping with the fact of history. However, Nirmalanandaji's deliberate omission would tantamount to distortion of historical truth and the future propagation of a blatant lie in concrete terms for which posterity will not forgive the Temple Trustees nor have any respect for us, devotees, for not raising a storm over the issue.
I respect your judgement in this matter and, hence, call upon all to reflect deep on the implications of leaving a direct disciple of Thakur out deliberately and so attempting to rewrite history along fanciful lines as suits the exigencies of the hour for whatever organisational necessity there may be.
History cannot be altered and any attempt to alter its narrative means a perversion of truth which is the seed of decay and degeneration or 'dharmaglaani' (the subsiding of virtue), the very state which the Avatar of the Age had descended into human form to rectify and redress. Shall we fail him? Shall we continue to support this perfidious sidelining of Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj) and the attempted erasing of his name from the stated history of Sri Ramakrishna and his mission on earth? Do we not have any fear of karma? Have we lost all sense of sanity? Have we even lost our love for Thakur-Ma-Swamiji that we so allow all these heresies to be enacted before our very eyes? I await your response.
Written by Sugata Bose
The Dakshineshwar Kali Temple Trustee Board is planning a construction programme of the statues of 16 direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and are apparently leaving out Swami Nirmalananda who is the 17th direct disciple of Thakur from their list. This I have inferred from the stated content of the live television programme beamed on the Kali Puja night this year (6-7 November, 2018) on DD Bangla. If this happens, it will a sad end to the immaculate truth which stands in Dakshineshwar till date. Thakur who was truth incarnate will be, thus, blasphemed in a manner that generations hence will not forgive us for our silence on this unfolding falsification of the history of the Ramakrishna Movement. I, thus, urge all devotees to stand together in this regard and bring home the matter to the notice of the said trustees of the Kali Temple Complex that Swami Nirmalananda was a direct disciple of Thakur and cannot under any circumstance be left out of the count of the same in connection with the construction of the statues which will be installed in the Temple Complex.
One may have reservations about the installation of statues of the direct disciples because every addition to and alteration of the original landscape robs it of its historicity. But if the authorities do carry out the programme to fruition, then it stands to reason to apprise them of the facts of the case and bring home to them that Swami Nirmalananda's statue also ought to be installed there along with those of his 16 other brother disciples. That will be in keeping with the fact of history. However, Nirmalanandaji's deliberate omission would tantamount to distortion of historical truth and the future propagation of a blatant lie in concrete terms for which posterity will not forgive the Temple Trustees nor have any respect for us, devotees, for not raising a storm over the issue.
I respect your judgement in this matter and, hence, call upon all to reflect deep on the implications of leaving a direct disciple of Thakur out deliberately and so attempting to rewrite history along fanciful lines as suits the exigencies of the hour for whatever organisational necessity there may be.
History cannot be altered and any attempt to alter its narrative means a perversion of truth which is the seed of decay and degeneration or 'dharmaglaani' (the subsiding of virtue), the very state which the Avatar of the Age had descended into human form to rectify and redress. Shall we fail him? Shall we continue to support this perfidious sidelining of Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj) and the attempted erasing of his name from the stated history of Sri Ramakrishna and his mission on earth? Do we not have any fear of karma? Have we lost all sense of sanity? Have we even lost our love for Thakur-Ma-Swamiji that we so allow all these heresies to be enacted before our very eyes? I await your response.
Written by Sugata Bose
Thank you, Krishna Ghosh, for helping spread the message now lying suppressed for decades and tending to total oblivion if such structures in stone attempt its very erasing from public memory. Swami Nirmalananda must be resurrected and set forth before all and sundry as Ramakrishna's apostle of the masses for he carries within himself the seeds of inspiration divine that can as yet ignite their souls into what Swami Vivekananda used to refer to as 'self-conscious activity'. Nirmalananda Swami was the apostle extraordinaire of Sri Ramakrishna and between Master and disciple they contained a universe of realisation in experience and action. May Thakur bless all who today take up cudgels to hold out history before the world as it ought to be and not as it has been dished out in the past several decades full of distortions and displacements!
ReplyDeleteThe cleansing process has potentially already been set in motion by us, Susanta. The ball has been set rolling. Now none can stop it from gaining momentum unto eventual fruition of the stated objective.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough, Debaprasad Babu in so far as the official nature of the action of installation of such statues is concerned. But what about the tale spun by a host of books published by RKM that exclude Swami Nirmalananda from the list of direct disciples of Thakur and the constant affirmation by monks including the very highest ones in the Order that Thakur had only 16 direct monastic disciples as opposed to 17 that would thereby include Swami Nirmalananda? The photo albums have excluded Tulsi Maharaj from their lot and even in the President Maharaj's room at Belur there don only the photographs of 16 direct disciples which by implication spreads the idea that Thakur had but 16 such disciples who had renounced to become monks of his Order. All this propaganda surely instils into the minds of the Trustees of the Dakshineshwar Temple Trust that they ought to get the statues of 16 monastic disciples of Thakur constructed and not those of 17. The tacit support provided by the Math authorities in this regard surely encourages the Dakshineshwar Trustees to go ahead with such a programme, although, as you rightly say, nobody from the Math can compel them not to construct Tulsi Maharaj's statue along with the others, and as such, one cannot in all legal fairness fault the Math authorities for it. But legality is one and dharma quite another.
ReplyDeleteRight. I get it now. Well, this has been the stance taken by Belur Math for the last few decades for reasons which are not explicit to us. The Kali Temple Trustees are, perhaps, being guided in their actions by the prevailing narrative of Swami Nirmalananda not being a direct disciple of Thakur as is mentioned in Swami Gambhirananda's 'History of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission' which is the historical text now being apparently followed by the Belur Math. However, original texts of 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna' by M and 'The Life of Sri Ramakrishna' by Swami Nikhilananda published by RKM clearly state that Swami Nirmalananda was the direct disciple of Thakur. @ Biswanath Roy
ReplyDeleteThank you, Sameer Banik. Please go ahead with the work of sharing copiously the post and stirring up activity on such shares with a storm of comments that will awaken the sleeping mass of devotees as yet uncertain or ignorant of the status of Swami Nirmalananda as one of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Tapas Babu, for participating in this awareness campaign in your own way. Share the post widely and keep commenting. All assistance from my side will be provided with pleasure.
ReplyDeleteLet the message spread please by active participation in the propagation project.
ReplyDeleteThe seventeen monastic disciples of Ramakrishna were lions of the Vedanta who bestrode the world like colossus and impregnated its being with the message of the Vedas whose embodiment their divine Master was, whose limbs these seminal sages were and whose lives and works will as yet alter the course of human history and set it on the path of eventual liberation from the meshes of Maya.
ReplyDeleteAs the message flows and truth shines, my heart fills with joy. Keep sharing the Tulsi truth with friends and associates, and yourself go through his life and works.
ReplyDeleteFrom a lone crusader, Manoj Sivan, we are now a handful, and the movement is growing as fresh ones join in to help propagate the truth about Tulsi Maharaj who has been sadly left by organisation to wander in the wilderness. This has not only been a travesty of truth but has been an injustice meted out to a seminal sage of divine proportions whose life and works is of significant moment to the mission of the Master and needs to be brought back into the mainstream for humanity to gain nourishment from. Here was a sage of such singular virtues that Swami Vivekananda was eloquent in his praise of him as the ideal monk, one who was the exemplar of monasticism for others to emulate.
ReplyDeleteThe Ramakrishna Movement has been much debilitated thus far through organisational effort in ignoring him as a direst disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. Now the movement needs to alter course in the light of the shifting world scenario where every force for good must be aligned with the remaining such and the united front so created must battle against the forces of evil that threaten to destroy the citadels of civilisation and culture pertaining to the highest and the sublimest humanity can conceive of. The Sanatan Dharma cannot be deprived of a single Avatar or sage from making his due contribution to the divine cause and, hence, it is of utmost moment that the memory of Swami Nirmalananda be resurrected from the depths of our ignorance and amnesia and made prominent in the forefront of our everyday consciousness so that we are raised as a race and a species unto the realm which is our true habitat.
May truth prevail! May human hand no more create conditions that confuse comprehension of historical truth! May unity be the love-link fresh-forged among disparate, discordant, desperate drives that remain the disillusionment of devotees seeking the truth in a world full of falsity and deception deplorable! May we rise in the light of Thakur from such a degenerate state and stand upright in the sunshine of truth!
Satyameva Jayatey! Jai Ramakrishna!
Where is the mention of the 17th monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna? Why has he been left out of the count here? Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj) was the 17th direct disciple of Thakur and finds no place here. Strange, to say the least! THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA by M and LIFE OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA by Swami Nikhilananda which has a foreword written by Mahatma Gandhi both include Swami Nirmalananda as a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. Then why this omission? View from 13.15 min onward for just under a minute till 14.10 min and you will get to see this glaring and unfortunate omission.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LVciwbj4o&t=809s