FRIEND 3

Dear friend, I feel utterly humbled by the rapidity of your responses to my posts in the form of your illumined comments and wonder how well-informed you must be that you can fill in so much data in so short a time. Your comments are more in the order of enlightened commentary on the posts replete with references and instances which makes me wonder as to which is worth reading more, my original text or your comments thereof. They highlight the role a constructive critic plays in the flourishing of a literary piece as opposed to what a dastardly critic often does to it to satiate his malicious intent. Bhaskar, the essential goodness of your being shines through your comments and inspires me to tune in once more to my inner self that I may do justice to readers when I word my thoughts. Thank you dear friend for your magnanimity and for all your support. May Thakur ever hold your hand and lead you to freedom is the earnest prayer of this servant of his.

FRIEND 2

I exhort you, dear friend, that you use your considerable talents for the propagation of the message of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji. It is an unfailing wonder to me how you write so well, with such felicity of expression and with such rich input of content. One more thing and that is the movement of your language, buoyant, vibrant, symphonic and resonating to the rhythms of the soul. It lifts the reader to a blissful realm which is the greatest gift he may receive from his writer and this singular feature of your prose, so lyrical, so full of ecstatic love for the divine, the words flowing with gay abandon, overflowing with the rapture of the heart, raises your work to artistic altitude where beauty abounds which is the essence of true poetry. My dear friend, your prose is poesy, what more need I say ?

BHASKAR SEN SHARMA, A FRIEND IN DELIGHT 4

Dear friend, your erudition and expression thereof sets you very high in my estimation. I genuinely feel you should seriously consider the divine mission of propagating Thakur-Swamiji's words or, as they say in Christian parlance, THE WORD, THE GOOD NEWS of the advent of the Lord. My deepest regards for the sheer spontaneity of your literary flow as also the richness of content therein. Your mellifluous style renders your writing a melodic measure which makes reading a harmonic, healing experience and settles the soul in a peaceful mode, serene, blissful. This is the great gift, dear friend, you are giving, perhaps unconsciously and thankfully so, to the world and this it is that is binding me and many a reader, for sure, in loving bond of readership to you and friendship thereof. The pulsations of love and peacefulness that permeate your writing are expressive of the nobility of your soul and they make your words vibrate with sattwa which is the pervasive fragrance of your being. Thank you, dear friend, for reading and appreciating my feeble posts and thereby greatly encouraging me to carry the work forward. My mission it is to spread THE WORD. Do help me in this grand endeavour for alone I can scarce achieve the objective. May Thakur guide your steps is the prayer of this servant of His and this friend of yours!

ELUCIDATION 1 : Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream...Vivekananda.

Blows of the world smash this ephemeral dream that life is. We cling to the world seeking joy and repose in it. But this world is a contradiction in terms and will give us no rest. When happiness visits us for a while we are trapped by the wiles of Maya. We believe that this joyous state will continue for ever. But grief is the reverse of the same coin whose obverse joy is. And soon it comes in the wake of the joy we are immersed in to awake us to the unreality of this world. Grief is intense and its concentrated force jolts us hard in our midsummer night's dream and we awake to our real Self which is imperishable. The phenomenal universe is a dream, nay, a nightmare. It is a discontinuous, fractured structure, full of fault-lines that collapses under its weight when Revelation Time comes ( Kalenatmani vindati ).The Self is effulgent and  must in the fullness of time reveal itself. When this time will be is unknown to any except Mahamaya. She alone nurses the soul and nourishes it with myriad experiences of Maya till She deems the soul's time to be up and then She releases Her hold on it. And lo, the dream breaks under the sledgehammer blows of Maya, the clouds disperse, rent apart, blown off by the wind of discrimination that follows in the wake of the thunderbolt of misfortune and Dame Fortune smiles on the aspirant soul releasing it unto its true identity, THE SELF.

GAHANANANDA 4

A few days into his stay at the Shillong Ashrama the consecration of the Sri Ramakrishna Temple there was scheduled to take place. To grace the occasion, Swami Sankaranandaji (President of the Order), Swami Madhavanandaji (General Secretary of the Order) and many other venerable monks had assembled at the Ashrama. One day a devotee chanced to address Swami Sankaranandaji thus:"Maharaj, you are going to install the image of Sri Ramakrishna."Instantly, Swami Sankaranandaji corrected him saying," No, because He will reside here, I had to come." This simple remark made a profound impression on Swami Gahanananda's mind as he pondered over its vast significance. His monastic ideal stood transfigured into a life-long consecration of worshipful service to his Chosen Ideal Sri Ramakrishna who was now, more than ever before, a living ideal permeating the Order, not merely in figurative terms but in terms tangible, the soul and substance, the spirit and essence of the Order. The sage gave utterance to the Word, the young aspirant plumbed the depths of its oceanic significance. And thus is the Word carried from the luminous preceptor to the befitting recipient. The consecration ceremony was duly performed and the Shillong Ashrama became a mart of joy. To Swami Gahanananda it was Sri Ramakrishna's advent indeed at the Ashrama that had ushered in the supernal bliss.

In Shillong Swami Gahanananda used to conduct relief services along with Swami Soumyanandaji and some lay devotees.

Worship of the Divine Mother was prevalent among the local Khasi people. Once, Swami Gahanananda gave a discourse on Mother worship in a local village and spoke at length on the profundity and sublimity of such worship. This so appealed to the simple village-folk that they said to Maharaj, "You are the first one of all who have visited us who says that our way of worship is right. Those who have come here before you have all said that our worship is all wrong."

Naresh Maharaj had witnessed how much the Khasi people loved his cousin, the great Ketaki Maharaj who had given his life for the uplift of these people. One day, the simple hill-men had come and sung ' Guru kripa hi kevalam ' to the ailing Ketaki Maharaj, then in his final illness, and paid their last respects, so to say. The incident made an indelible impression on Naresh Maharaj's mind and forever endeared him to the people of Meghalaya. They became his kith and kin and he drew closer to them than the more sophisticated people among the so-called educated classes.The simplicity of their being was the flavour of their souls. Swami Gahanananda would reminisce, "I was in Shillong for only four years and a half but the memory of working in the midst of the hill people is still undiminished. The joy one got by serving them could only be compared with the joy one derived by providing drinking water to a thirsty person. The mind would fill to the brim, even unto overflowing."

Many young aspirants joined the Shillong Ashrama at this time. Naresh Maharaj inspired them with the high ideals of monasticism and upheld before them the glorious tradition of the Ramakrishna Order.

A novice, within a few days of joining the Ashrama, was down with severe B-coli infection which resulted in frequent urination with bleeding and excruciating pain. There being no attached bathroom, Swami Gahananandaji used to lead him, holding him by the hand, to the bathroom which was at a distance from his room.The Brahmachari recovered in a few days from his illness.

At the dining hall one evening, Gahananandaji noticed that a certain Brahmachari was absent for dinner. On enquiry he came to know that the said person was suffering from an upset stomach. Maharaj affectionately asked him if he had seen a doctor. But the Brahmachari said that he did not think it necessary to see one as he thought he would be alright in a couple of days. At this Maharaj pointed to the Brahmachari's body and asked, "Whose body is this?" The Brahmachari replied, "It is mine." With firmness born out of conviction Maharaj replied,"Yes, this body was yours, but from the day you joined the Ramakrishna Order, it is the property of Sri Ramakrishna, and you have no right to neglect it or misuse it."

Adapted by Sugata Bose from Swami Gahanananda, a Belur Math publication, 16 November,2007.

GAHANANANDA 3

The Advaita Ashrama had been set up by Swami Vivekananda to propagate the pristine philosophy of non-dualism of the Vedanta. Thus, there were no provisions for ritualistic worship of Sri Ramakrishna there in those days when Brahmachari Naresh joined the Ashrama. It was a publication office with just a meditation room on the top-most floor. However, the sphere of activity here was large and Nareshchandra came in contact with monks of the different centres of the Order . Maharaj later reminisced, " Because of publication work, Advaita Ashrama had contacts with many countries and I became exposed to an international outlook and culture.Even at that time, huge was the work arena." 

On February 25, 1944, Nareshchandra was initiated into the vows of brahmacharya by his Guru Swami Virajanandaji. He was named Brahmachari Amritachaitanya.

Naresh Maharaj was an ideal karma-yogi. He would never cower under the pressure of adverse circumstances and shy away from the performance of what he understood to be his duty. An instance that highlights this feature of his personality occurred during the post-partition communal riots in Kolkata. From the top-floor of the Advaita Ashrama Maharaj discovered the plight of a hapless Muslim family, starving and in mortal peril from the rioters. Through sign-language they communicated to Maharaj that they had nothing to eat. Thereupon, risking the riots, Maharaj nonetheless took food to them daily in a tiffin-carrier till the day they were escorted by the police them to a safer place.

In November 1945,Naresh Maharaj went to Deoghar on a month's leave.From there he visited Hrishikesh, Kankhal and Varanasi. He met senior Swamis of the Order, Atulananandaji, Premeshanandaji, Saradeshanandaji, Jagadanandaji and others. From Varanasi he returned to Kolkata.

In 1947 he went on leave to the Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati. He would later reminisce," My stay in Mayavati was one of immense joy. Raja Maharaj used to say,' To be a monastic worker in Mayavati means a prize-posting.' Truly, Mayavati has no parallel---holy atmosphere, snow-clad peaks of Himalayas, and then Swami Vivekananda stayed there. Mayavati is a place of tapasya(austerity).At 2 or 2:30 a.m. I would wake up, with no need of further sleep, fully refreshed. Japa (chanting) and meditation was easy there. One night, I was seated on the first floor verandah covering myself with a woollen blanket when I saw a strange sight --- huge trees standing quiet and motionless. The scriptures say, ' Vriksha iva stabdhah ' (the trees are motionless as if in deep meditation). On another occasion he said, " Those who are engaged in sadhana and devotional practices will derive immense benefit by staying in Mayavati."

Brahmachari Amritachaitanya returned to Kolkata in February 1948. On 12 March, the birthday of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Virajanandaji blessed him with the vows of sannyasa. He received the name 'Gahanananda'. Another 4 years and 3 months he remained a monastic worker at the Advaita Ashrama, Kollkata. In June 1952 he was transferred to the Bagerhat Ashrama in erstwhile East Pakistan. There he served for 6 months before he was transferred again, this time to the Shillong Ashrama, Meghalaya in the North-East Provinces in the last week of February, 1953. Swami Soumyanandaji was the President of the Shillong Ashrama then.

Adapted by Sugata Bose from Swami Gahanananda, a Belur Math publication, 16 November,2007.

GAHANANANDA 2

Inspired by Swami Vamadevananda of the Ramakrishna Order, Nareshranjan, after having sought the prior permission of his sister-in-law but keeping the matter away from his brother, joined the Ramakrishna Math at Bhuvaneswar on a fateful night. Boarding the Madras Mail at Howrah, he alighted at Bhuvaneswar at around 2:30 a.m. He later reminisced, " Alighting at Bhuvaneswar, I found that there were shrubs and trees all around, the dim light from a kerosene lamp in the station only making the encircling darkness more keenly felt." On reaching the Math by bullock-cart, Nareshranjan was warmly received by Swami Nirvananandaji, the President of the Math.

That very day his head was tonsured with only a tuft of hair left and his style of wearing dhoti altered to the monastic style. Nareshranjan thereafter prostrated before Swami Nirvananandaji and entreated," Maharaj, kindly bless me that I may lead this life in the proper manner." Swami Nirvanananda replied," Everything rests with you. If you can do everything perfectly, then only will that be possible." It was from the venerable Swami that the young aspirant learnt about monastic discipline with its emphasis on chanting, meditation and the study of the scriptures. From Swamis Nirvananandaji and Sankaranandaji he learnt how to perform all work in a divine spirit, paying attention to the minutest details. From then on he began to sit for meditation in the early hours, a habit which remained with him all through his life.

Swami Nirvanananda was deeply impressed by Nareshranjan's service. Brahmachari Naresh came in contact with Swami Achalananda (Kedar Baba) who was on a visit to the Bhuvaneswar Math for a few days. One day Kedar Baba told him," Swami Vivekananda would say that when you serve someone, think that Sri Ramakrishna is accepting your service through him." He also told Naresh Maharaj about regular chanting and meditation, and about maintaining a diary. Naresh Maharaj also developed a bond of close friendship with Shambhu Babu (later, Swami Akhunthananda) which remained unbroken till the end.

At Bhuvaneswar Nareshchandra studied the scriptures under the tutelage of Pandit Dinesh Shastri and Vidhubhushan Bhattacharya. He later reminisced, " I always enjoyed studying the Upanishads. There was an arrangement at Bhuvaneswar for our studying Sanskrit and the scriptures. The teacher used to hold examinations too." Swami Virajananda during his visit to the Bhuvaneswar Math at around this time blessed Nareshchandra among others with initiation.

In August 1942 when the country was in turmoil as the nation struggled towards independence, when the world had become ' wild with the delirium of hatred ', Nareshchandra was transferred by the Trustees of the Math to Advaita Ashrama at Wellington Lane in Kolkata. In between he visited the holy city of Jagannath Puri and nourished his spiritual self.

Kolkata was then rife with revolutionary activity as the country struggled to throw off the British yoke. The Quit India Movement had begun, the national leaders were being imprisoned and communal harmony was ever under threat. The world was at war. There was overall an atmosphere of political tension in Kolkata, so different from the relatively quieter atmosphere in Bhuvaneswar. Even the activity of the Advaita Ashrama was so very different from that of the Bhuvaneswar Math.

Adapted by Sugata Bose from Swami Gahanananda, a Belur Math publication, 16 November, 2007.