The Wandering Sannyasi

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna, The Wandering Sannyasi Our forefathers had made provision to enable villagers to have access to kinds of knowledge which no one is the village possessed. This is the tradition of the ’wandering Sannyas’i . The Sannyasi travels

continually among the villages for the greater part of the year, remaining in one place only for the four months of the rainy season. The villagers thus get the full benefit of his knowledge. He can teach them both the knowledge of the world and knowledge of self. A Sannyasi is a walking university, a wandering Vidyapith, who goes at his pleasure to each village in turn. He will himself seek out his students, and he will give his teaching freely. The villagers will give him clean, pure `sattvik' food, and he will need nothing else. They will learn whenever they can. There is nothing more tragic than that knowledge should be paid for in money. A man who possesses knowledge hungers and thirsts to pass it on to others and see them enjoy it . The child at the breast finds satisfaction, but the mother too takes pleasure in giving suck, for God has filled her breasts with milk. What would become of the world if mothers began demanding fees for feeding the babies? Nowadays, in a city university, nothing can be had without paying thousands of rupees. But the `knowledge' which is purchased there for money is no knowledge at all ; knowledge bought for cash is ignorance. True knowledge can only be had for love and service ; it cannot be bought for money. So when a wise man traveling from place to place, arrives at a village, the people lovingly invite him to remain a few days,

treat him with reverence and receive from him whatever knowledge he has to give. This is quite a feasible plan. Just as a river flows of itself form village to village, serving the people ; just as the cows graze in the jungle and return of themselves will full udders to give the children milk, so will wise men travel of themselves from place to place. We must re-establish this institution of the wandering teacher. In this way, every village can have its university, and

all the knowledge of the world can find its way into the villages. We must be re-invigorate the tradition of the `vanaprasthashram' so that every village gets a permanent teacher from whom no great expenditure will be incurred. Every grihastha's (householder’s) home must be a school, and his field a laboratory. ‘Vanaprastha’ must be a teacher and every wandering Sannyasi a university. The students are the children and young people who give an hour or two to learning and spend the rest of the day in working. This seems to me to provide a complete outline of education from birth to death . Paramacharya Chandrasekhara Saraswathi used to move from village to village on foot . He was holding the strong conviction that walking is least harmful to the insects and other being on the road, especially as ahimsa of an absolute kind is enjoyed by our Dharma for Sannyasins. Even to the most obscure corned of a village in the State he had gone and stayed and met and conversed with the people from the humblest to the highest in society. His stay in every village had been a source of inspiration, illumination and instruction to the people. He was a walking Encyclopaedia of variegated knowledge, such as History, Archeology, sociology, not to speak of our religious literature and branches of learning. Conversation with him had been a liberal education. By his stay every villager became a better, person mentally, morally and spiritually. Every man, woman and child received his blessings and enjoyed the delight of words falling from his lips. The person stricken by sorrow received consolation and courage from his sympathetic look and words. Those who came complaining with difficulties in life were

encouraged to meet the situations with golden words of advice. The village institutions received help and encouragement. The yield from the lands became better. Timely rains gladdened the hearts of peasants. In fact wherever he went he spread joy, comfort knowledge and spirituality. Sri Krishnaya Namaha !!!! A humble servant NB - : The above is based on an article written by Acharya Vinobabhave on Paramacharya .