SAMPURNANANDA SWAMI IS NO MORE

SAMPURNANANDA SWAMI IS NO MORE

Swami Sampurnanandaji Maharaj of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission is no more. He gave up his mortal coil at 12.05 p.m. today at Thiruananthapuram Medical College Hospital after suffering a massive cardiac arrest at 11.40 a.m. On the 11th April he was admitted to the said hospital with COVID and was on non-invasive ventilation. For nine days thereafter no improvement was seen in his condition and he was thence kept in the ICU on mechanical ventilation. However, his condition further declined and he passed away at five minutes past noon today.

I personally knew him since 2009 when I first met him in Nilambar Babu's Garden House RKM centre where he was then stationed. It was late afternoon and the western sky was aglow with the radiance of the setting sun. Maharaj was on his way back from a bath in the Ganga and was going to his room. When he was out again we had a brief introductory conversation. Thereafter, introduction led to deepened interaction and he even visited us home in Kolkata twice, once alone and once with Swami Advaitanandaji, a Vedantist monk of another ashrama.

Swami Sampurnananda Puri was a monastic of quite a different kind. He was childlike in simplicity, very non-violent, egoless and highly talented. He was a gifted writer -- both prose and poetry -- and used to maintain a blog where he chronicled pen pictures of monks of the RKM who had of late passed away. These were moving accounts, uplifting for any spiritual aspirant. He was a keen student of life and was abreast with the latest developments in the world and was active on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp.

A disciple of Swami Vireshwaranandaji Maharaj, the 10th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, he was the perennially wandering monk like his predecessor Swami Vivekananda, touring from Kanya Kumari to Ladhak in his bid to settle his restlessly seeking spirit.

A couple of years ago while walking along the Hosangabad Main Road with his elder sister's five year old grandson, he was assaulted by a mob who mistook him to be a kidnapper for one does not often find a monk with a five year old child with him. Hence, the misconception and the assault. Luckily, a local resident of repute recognised him and came to his rescue and the day was done with Maharaj suffering only minor injuries.

Another close encounter with death was when Maharaj, accompanied by a family of Ramakrishna devotees, met with a car accident on 24 May, 2019 on Jhansi Highway. The car was moving at 120 km/h when all on a sudden four wild buffaloes came into the inattentive driver's view as crossing the Highway from one side of the jungle to the other, the Highway cutting through the middle of the jungle. The car hit two of the buffaloes, killing one right away and severely injuring the other which probably succumbed to its injury later on. The buffalo that died there and then, under the impact with the high-speed vehicle, jumped onto the car from the frontal side of the bonnet and landed on the roof of the car, denting it so severely inwards that the injured passengers within could hardly find room for sitting thereafter. The frontal glass of the car was shattered completey by the impact with the buffalo and the outer body of the car was drenched in buffalo-blood. Miraculously, Maharaj, who was sitting right on the front seat, escaped without even a scratch while the driver and two other passengers on the rear seat received minor injuries from the impact.

Maharaj used to not so infrequently call me up and responded to my calls always, however busy. He was totally an unassuming sadhu who was not bound to the hankering for name and fame as, Swamiji has said, 90% of monastics are. Sampurnananda Swami was free of all such dubious distinctions and lived close to the Holy Trinity, a monastic among monastics, loved and adored by those who knew him well, who have nothing but tears today to shed in this Valley of Death where his umbrella had protected them with sympathetic ear, good advice, sincere camaraderie and the saint's blessings.

A monk, indeed, he was with a difference. An ardent admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, he once entered into a continuous three-day debate on Facebook over the relative merits of Gandhiji and Netaji till he ended conversation on the third day with his blessings on me. He used to try and moderate social opinion on issues by taking up his uniquely original positions on them. He was fond of my writing and often shared my posts and even publicly expressed his admiration of my writing once when I had written a short essay on Swami Mukhyanandaji after his demise. He shared the said piece on his blog as an addenda to his own obituary on Swami Mukhyananda. Swami Sampurnananda was indeed a rare gem who the world did not understand nor could he ever fit into its narrow bounds with his soaring heart and spirit.

An affable being, Sampurnanandaji lives on in my memory as one who you did not need to respect but you respected nonetheless, a person you could open up to freely with no veneration bar holding you back. He had no airs about him and had only one face. You knew him well even if you knew him on the surface, for he carried his self on his sleeve naturally and without any show of it. But there was a deeper person in him, an extraordinarily talented being which eluded the common sight and which only perceptive people could get to discover or fathom somewhat. There was a creative person within who grappled with ideas, ideology, philosophy, thought, organisation, men, historical flow and above all with his own enigmatic self. This second side of his few could fathom and his prodigious talents were wasted in consequence. And it is a pity that it should have been so. However in hindsight as we ruminate his life and times, in the larger scenario of the crematorium to which the world has been turned into with viral vengeance, all this seems inconsequential. Sampurnananda Swami soars in limpid spaces at the lotus feet of the all-pervasive Holy Trinity who were his life's refuge and now his death's eternal companions. In eternity with the eternal Lord in limitless, blissful freedom abide, Maharaj, as I send you my last pranam.

Written by Sugata Bose