DOWN MEMORY LANE ... 2

DOWN MEMORY LANE ... 2

SWAMI SATYARUPANANDAJI -- A RELATION LOST AND FOUND 

Swami Satyarupanandaji was an illumined soul. He passed away a few days back. I had the good fortune to have had an interaction with him one afternoon in Belur Math as I was exiting it after receiving prasad. It was around 12.30 p.m., I guess. That was many years back, probably sometime in the late nineties of the last century. Even then he was pulsating with spirituality. He was seated in the Belur Math Book Store that faces the Main Temple. The store had shut by then and Maharaj was alone seated there in silent contemplation. I asked him if I could get in and touch his feet. He said that it was improper to touch a sadhu's feet anywhere and everywhere as everything had its proper place and time and that pranam ought to be made with due reverence and mental preparation which could not be possible off-hand all of a sudden. He spoke with authority and, what one may call, firm love like a spiritual father chiding a spiritual child affectionately. I was awestruck by his authoritative presence and manner of address and asked him to bless me as it was if he would not allow me to touch his feet. 

Satyarupanandaji was seated by the open window of the Book Store and I was standing outside near it. It was a novel setting with none in the vicinity. The Ramakrishna Temple was shut as Thakur was resting after his midday meal. There was silence all around and peace pervaded the monastery as the monk spoke something next that startled me. The afternoon sun blazed and the monk, possibly in his early sixties, said to me, "What are we monks of the Ramakrishna Order doing here but blessing? Every moment we are sending out currents of benediction for the whole world -- প্রতি নিশ্বাসে আমরা প্রার্থনা করছি, 'সমস্ত জীবের কল্যাণ হোক !' (With every breath we are sending out prayers, 'May all of sentience have well-being!')" He said the words with such fervour that I was transmitted the feeling for a brief few seconds that indeed it was that waves of goodwill were then coursing from the Belur Math Book Store throughout the world. It was a palpable experience and I haven't forgotten it. The words ring in my ears still and the feeling lingers on.

That was the end of my brief but momentous meeting with Maharaj, a soul suffused with love for the whole of humanity, a cosmic being located in a finite form and seated facing the Lord in His earthly habitat, as if in silent, casual communion with Him which had been, as it were, intruded upon by me, the misadventurer. But Maharaj was all grace. I felt a strange all-world presence of this great soul for the one and only time in my life when my soul too had, as if, momentarily broken bounds and extended itself limitlessly to include the entire mass of moving mankind, for I had been sympathetically drawn into his own spiritual ambit and endowed the palpable perception thus.

The day was past and many years, nearly two decades passed before I stumbled upon a YouTube video in which a septuagenarian monk of the Ramakrishna Order thundered words of patriotism in Hindi. I was astounded by the potency of the speech. He was so forthright, so bold in his articulation. He spared none -- the British conspiracy, the Islamic invasions, the politicians of India without exception, he upbraided them all in no uncertain terms even as he spelled out the finest features of the civilisation that is India and the principal traits that ought to characterise the true Indian, devoid of which he would be deemed traitor to the motherland. The youth he was charging up as he had done me decades earlier and it worked even now. The date of the speech was 22 May, 2006 and Maharaj, as I now calculate, was 72 years old. But the fire persisted and he spoke with authority. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B4x1RS-UVsU&feature=share (I saw it in 2013.)

Memory fades over time and I could not connect the links that day. That the two incidents involved the same person did not strike me then and the singular monk had doubled up in my mind as two distinct fiery personalities, both belonging to the Ramakrishna Order. Till death struck the mortal coil of this remarkable monastic two or three weeks ago.

A Facebook post by Swami Nikhileshwaranandaji announced the passing away of one Swami Satyarupanandaji whose name I was not familiar with. But the photograph held my attention. And, lo, the links all fell into place as memories came cascading back to unite disjoint events into a harmonic whole! I knew now. Suddenly Swami Satyarupananda had assumed familiarity from hitherto unknown identity in my mind. I searched YouTube and discovered a plethora of videos which confirmed my suspicions thus. Ever since that day I have been watching the departed soul's speeches and his informal, private interactions with devotees with fervid interest.

Satyarupanandaji lit up my life one fine summer afternoon decades ago in Belur Math. Decades later he has lit up my life again in his passage to Ramakrishna Lok. The links were missing. He has graced me, connected the dots and revealed himself just after hiding himself from my sight forever. I knew him not in life. I know him now in death. No, no, not death. What death can touch the immortal Spirit? Satyarupanandaji stands luminous at long last and forever in shining armour, the splendour that Sri Ramakrishna has graced him with. Hari Om Ramakrishna!

Written by Sugata Bose