SWAMI NIRMALANANDA, A LIGHT THAT YET SHINES
''Let Sri Guru Maharaj's will be done. I am to work and obey his command to my last breath. No question, no flinching. Absolute submission.'' These words are of Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj), the seventeenth direct monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who dedicated his life to the propagation of the life and message of his Master in India and America with especial contribution in Southern India where he stayed for nearly three decades and sowed the seeds of the future flourishing of the Mission. He established a string of monasteries in Kerala among which Haripad Ashrama has now been freshly taken over by the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission as one of its administered branch centres. Sadly, though, to all intents and purposes, Swami Nirmalananda is no more given the status due to him as the rightful direct disciple of Thakur and this calls for concerted efforts on the part of devotees and conscientious monks to redress this state of things. Why this apathy of the Mission towards Swami Nirmalananda is hard to tell for there is no clear statement that has ever come out of the organisation in this regard and this strange stance is all the more strange as it has been adopted since the 1960s prior to which the Swami featured in all official photographs of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna from where he has been subsequently expunged for reasons unknown.
Swami Nirmalananda was engaged in a legal battle with the Belur Math authorities over matters involving the Bangalore Ashrama and this led to future misconceptions among devotees that he was not a direct disciple of the Master. Subsequent indifference shown towards this seminal sage by the mother organisation in excluding him for all practical purposes from being recognised as a direct disciple of the Master has been a rather unfortunate historical development of the Order for it has been not only a terrible injustice done to Thakur's own spiritual child but has also through lack of clarity provided on this issue confused both devotees and monks of the Order as to what the exact spiritual lineage of Swami Nirmalananda is. It has also temporarily befuddled historians of the Ramakrishna Movement before they have been able to sift fact from fiction and this is quite unwarranted for an Order that supposedly stands on the rock-like foundation of Truth.
Today, in this age of global communication the truth is revealing and now no more may facts be suppressed or sidelined for the gaze of the internet is ever on and any attempt at suppression will seriously compromise the status of the suppressor itself. To this effect I am serialising the life of Swami Nirmalananda and consistently writing essays on him, and I exhort you all to participate in this grand venture of uncovering the real truth about this stellar personality who had in the first four decades of the twentieth century lit up the lives of countless devotees and pilgrims to the cause.
Written by Sugata Bose
''Let Sri Guru Maharaj's will be done. I am to work and obey his command to my last breath. No question, no flinching. Absolute submission.'' These words are of Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj), the seventeenth direct monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who dedicated his life to the propagation of the life and message of his Master in India and America with especial contribution in Southern India where he stayed for nearly three decades and sowed the seeds of the future flourishing of the Mission. He established a string of monasteries in Kerala among which Haripad Ashrama has now been freshly taken over by the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission as one of its administered branch centres. Sadly, though, to all intents and purposes, Swami Nirmalananda is no more given the status due to him as the rightful direct disciple of Thakur and this calls for concerted efforts on the part of devotees and conscientious monks to redress this state of things. Why this apathy of the Mission towards Swami Nirmalananda is hard to tell for there is no clear statement that has ever come out of the organisation in this regard and this strange stance is all the more strange as it has been adopted since the 1960s prior to which the Swami featured in all official photographs of the direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna from where he has been subsequently expunged for reasons unknown.
Swami Nirmalananda was engaged in a legal battle with the Belur Math authorities over matters involving the Bangalore Ashrama and this led to future misconceptions among devotees that he was not a direct disciple of the Master. Subsequent indifference shown towards this seminal sage by the mother organisation in excluding him for all practical purposes from being recognised as a direct disciple of the Master has been a rather unfortunate historical development of the Order for it has been not only a terrible injustice done to Thakur's own spiritual child but has also through lack of clarity provided on this issue confused both devotees and monks of the Order as to what the exact spiritual lineage of Swami Nirmalananda is. It has also temporarily befuddled historians of the Ramakrishna Movement before they have been able to sift fact from fiction and this is quite unwarranted for an Order that supposedly stands on the rock-like foundation of Truth.
Today, in this age of global communication the truth is revealing and now no more may facts be suppressed or sidelined for the gaze of the internet is ever on and any attempt at suppression will seriously compromise the status of the suppressor itself. To this effect I am serialising the life of Swami Nirmalananda and consistently writing essays on him, and I exhort you all to participate in this grand venture of uncovering the real truth about this stellar personality who had in the first four decades of the twentieth century lit up the lives of countless devotees and pilgrims to the cause.
Written by Sugata Bose
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