Digest Number 2087

[Guest guest]

>Message: 8

> Sat, 14 May 2005 11:38:36 -0700 (PDT)

> Chetan Merani <cvmerani

>Re: Digest Number 2086

>

>Dear friends,

>Pujya Swami Rangantahnanda was not only a great orator, >Chetan Merani

>

Matter of fact: Please check into it: I believe the Ramakrishna

Institute of Culture in Kolkata was started by Swami

Nityaswarupananda. Swami Ranganathananda came later.\

 

Yogeshananda

[Guest guest]

Ramakrishna , Swami Yogeshananda

<yogeshananda@v...> wrote:

> >Message: 8

> > Sat, 14 May 2005 11:38:36 -0700 (PDT)

> > Chetan Merani <cvmerani@r...>

> >Re: Digest Number 2086

> >

> >Dear friends,

> >Pujya Swami Rangantahnanda was not only a great orator, >Chetan Merani

> >

> Matter of fact: Please check into it: I believe the Ramakrishna

> Institute of Culture in Kolkata was started by Swami

> Nityaswarupananda. Swami Ranganathananda came later.\

>

> Yogeshananda

 

Namaste,

 

That is correct.

 

AN INSPIRING LIFE

Book Review

 

Centred in Truth: The Story of Swami Nitya-swarup-ananda, by Shelley

Brown, M.D., published by Kalpa Tree Press, New York, 2001, in two

volumes. Reviewed by Steven F. Walker

 

******************************************

 

In her richly detailed biography and selection of writings and

reminiscences, Dr. Shelley Brown has given us an unparalleled portrait

of a swami of the Ramakrishna Order notable for the originality of his

thought and for the vigor with which he acted for the realization of

his ideas. For this reader, three things stand out in the life of this

remarkable swami. Other readers will surely find other high points in

his inspiring life and writings.

 

First, we read of his devotion to the spirit and letter of

Vivekananda's teachings. Swami Nityaswarupananda treasured the dream

of creating a School of World Civilization, a dream he believed

coincided with Vivekananda's plan for an " International University "

which Swamiji wished to establish in 1894, according to Marie Louise

Burke's Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Dicoveries. As the swami

was to say, " I live and move and have my being in one of the dreams of

Swamiji. " He wanted people to be educated for world civilization and

global consciousness, and to be free of parochially defined cultural

allegiances. In his later years he focused on studying the spirit and

on observing the very letter of Vivekananda's Rules and Regulations of

the Ramakrishna Math; he insisted on its importance for his Order. As

one of Swami Nityaswarupananda's monastic colleagues remembers,

" Swamiji's Rules remained his constant companion till the very end, as

sacred to him as the Bhagavad Gita, to be read daily, the clarifier of

all doubts. " His last publication, Divine Rights of the Sangha,

embodies his passionate commentary on this text.

 

The second thing that stands out in my mind is the very practical,

activist nature of the swami. One devotee remembers him saying " I do

not believe in words, I believe in things being done. " Those of us who

have enjoyed the hospitality of the wonderful Ramakrishna Mission

Institute of Culture in Calcutta especially need to be reminded how

much it was the swami's creationits cosmopolitan spirit, its openness

to the dialogue of cultures, not to mention the meticulously planned

and executed buildings at Gol Park. Exactly how all this came into

being, with all its ups and downs, is one of the most fascinating

features of Dr. Brown's biography.

 

Finally, the third outstanding characteristic of Swami

Nityaswarupananda's life seems to me to be his particular devotion to

Sri Ramakrishna as represented in photographs. In two lectures given

at the Vedanta Society of New York in 1988, recorded in Volume 2, the

swami tells how as a boy of thirteen he discovered the photo of Sri

Ramakrishna in sitting posture in an issue of Udbodhan, adding that

" my life has been inextricably linked with his feet from the very

first day of my seeing that photograph. " He often spoke in later years

of the meaning and the effect of this and the two other photographs in

which, he said at the Sacramento center in 1963, " if we have the

capacity -- the power of mind -- we can see nothing but God himself. "

 

The second volume contains, along with a variety of texts penned by

the swami, a series of personal reminiscences by those who had been

blessed by his company. The last of these, and perhaps the most moving

for me, is that of his personal servant, Rashbehari.

 

In Centred in Truth Shelley Brown has produced a meticulously

researched and beautifully written biography and an inspiring

anthology, with interesting photographs and a well done index for each

volume.

 

Regards,

 

Sunder

[Guest guest]

Ramakrishna , Swami Yogeshananda

<yogeshananda@v...> wrote:

 

> I believe the Ramakrishna

> Institute of Culture in Kolkata was started by Swami

> Nityaswarupananda. Swami Ranganathananda came later.\

>

> Yogeshananda

 

Namaste,

 

Here are some more links:

 

http://www.kalpatree.com/kalpa_news.html (book reviews about the

biography).

 

http://www.kalpatree.com/cit.html

 

http://www.members.global2000.net./~sarada/WC/WCC1.html (Sw. N.'s

manifesto for the Institute of Culture)

 

 

Regards,