THIS LAST POST OF MINE THAT YOU SHARED, MAHARAJ

THIS LAST POST OF MINE THAT YOU SHARED, MAHARAJ 

This was the last post on Facebook that Swami Sampurnananda (Murali Maharaj) had shared on his profile wall. Today, when his memories keep flooding my mind, I cherish this final communion of our thoughts.

A gifted writer himself who maintained his own blog, Sampurnanandaji was an adornment for thinkers like us, ever quipping in with delightful observations, original and laterally disposed, a feature that was not well understood by many which cast him out as a lonesome voice of saintly sanity in a world gone wrong by the delusion of desire.

Covid claimed this friendly soul two years back, a shock that one takes time to come to terms.

A rare monk who openly affirmed Tulsi Maharaj (Swami Nirmalananda) as being a direct monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, a fact that Belur Math to all practical purposes, acts and intents denies, Sampurnanandaji shines in stellar glory in my memory. I can write reams on him but what for when he only is not there to read and appreciate and come up with his critical comments? The piece that he shared this last time is here for your perusal. 

UNDERSTANDING GANDHI ... 1

Gandhi remains the greatest figure in Indian politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, perhaps, the greatest in a human sense in the world scene as well with his monumental contribution toward arming unarmed humanity to fight injustice and oppression. Of the greats who have adorned human history Gandhi remains a point of reference where maintenance of moral code in political conduct is concerned, a supremely human person who never strayed once from his chosen vocation of non-violence in a world that had gone frenzied with war and violence to set things right. The clear vision of Gandhi raised India and raised the world with it, laying amidst its devastated dreams the hope of a human renaissance where peace would overcome war, and dialogue and discussion settle international issues in a more civilised way within the framework of an international legal system binding nations in their political conduct.

Petty men hate Gandhi for pettiness can do no more, like the assassin, no doubt a patriot himself and by his standards, too, did what he did to snuff out life from the Mahatma's form, but men, great men like Einstein and Rolland, Shaw and Chaplin, Tagore and Nehru, Bose and King, Mandela and Lenin saw the mettle that was there in Gandhi despite in thinking or in political method or operational mode differing with Gandhi all the while, perhaps. All of these and the rest of the wide world including the sworn enemies of Gandhi in the loyalists to the British Crown barring the one obnoxious racist and mass murderer, Churchill, bowed down their heads before the supreme simplicity and spirituality of his being and ways as he waged war on behalf of the whole of humanity against inhuman colonial oppression. But little men have little understanding and they hate Gandhi to keep fuelling their fire of a fanatical life where belittling becomes the mode of adoring their preferred hero wronged by Gandhi's actions. So be it till they wake up to the broader realities of life where these petty demarcations vanish and Gandhi assumes colossal stature amidst great men who stand in his shadow at home and in the world.

Written by Sugata Bose