MAHAPURUSH MAHARAJ (SWAMI SHIVANANDA)

MAHAPURUSH MAHARAJ (SWAMI SHIVANANDA)

Here in the photo frame, Mahapurush Maharaj (Swami Shivananda) in his twilight years when he was about to pass into the ineffable bliss of Ramakrishna. But in his early years he was such a spiritual stalwart, having lived a life of absolute continence during his marital years -- and thereafter, of course, as a celibate monastic -- that it prompted the young Narendranath (Swami Vivekananda) to call him 'Mahapurush' in sudden surprise on coming to know of this great fact in a casual conversation where Narendranath had apparently mentioned that none but Sri Ramakrishna could have kept continence in such absolute terms in marriage.

There it was, the unfolding of the great man with a maternal heart and a father's benediction that was showered on countless devotees, now preaching the holy word in Ceylon (erstwhile Sri Lanka), now building up the Order at its foundations as the helpmate of Swami Brahmananda and now reaffirming the blessing of Brahmajnana by Raja Maharaj on his beloved disciple Sujji (Surjo Mahajaj/Swami Nirvanananda). Mahapurush, indeed, in love, sublimity of consciousness and contemplative depth, for who but he did have the vision of the Divine Mother Kali on the precincts of Belur Math when the Mother had manifested to listen to Kali keertan going on there? Who again was childlike in authority as President of the Order, resigned totally to the Master even as a devoted servant is to his, so much so that when his dog, spotted on the grounds of the Belur Math, was pointed out to him, the sage replied, "Yes, that is my dog, and I am His dog who dwells in the temple out there."

Paralysed on one side during his twilight years and unable to raise his right hand, he blessed Swami Yatishwarananda when he came to him before his grand departure for the West in 1933, by raising his left hand in abundant benediction. And so, blessing all and sundry with the gift of liberation, the Mahapurush of Belur Math passed away into the silence of Ramakrishna whence he had sprung and with it the mantle passed on to yet another spiritual giant, the Ganges of Swamiji, Gangadhar Maharaj (Swami Akhandananda).

Written by Sugata Bose

P.S. Kamala Nehru, wife of Jawaharlal Nehru and mother of Indira Nehru/Gandhi, was initiated by Swami Shivananda and emerged a devoted disciple, too. Shortly after initiation she informed her husband of her decision to abstain from conjugal physical life any more which greatly irked and even angered Jawaharlal. But she stuck to her guns and passed away a few years later, a sublimated woman of elevated dreams. When Kamala Nehru sometimes visited the Belur Math to see her Guru, Jawaharlal waited on her beneath Mahapurush Maharaj's room on the ground floor of the old building. Thus was forged the great relation of the Ramakrishna Order with the Nehrus, a relation running to this day through the bond in benediction Bharat Maharaj (Swami Abhayananada) shared with Indira Gandhi which was passed on to Rajiv Gandhi thereafter.