Digest Number 2296

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Shri Narendra shashtry & reveered Swmi Tyagananda, many many thanks for your help..its very touching indeed

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Sri Narendra Sastryji has very beautifuly written in his posting that Swamiji was always aware of he being an instrument in the hands of 'Sri Ramakrishna'. This awareness of instrumentship was always there since the day Thakur transmitted his spiritualpowers to Naren at cossipore garden Hosue in 1886. Thakur had then also written on the floor of his room in Cossipore that "Naren will teach". For the next 7 years Swamiji travelled everywhere in India with what he himself referred as 'a burden' ("I have travelled with a heavy heart and a burden on my shoulders for twelve years, he wrote to Alasinga). It means he was always conscious that the Master would use him for a special mission in the world (for which he had come to the world). What would be the exact nature unfolding of this spiritual mission was though not always known to him and so he waited for divine commands at the right time. In August 1893 from America he wrote to Alasinga that "I

have a call from the above. ....We have been born to do great things" When someone quipped in 1892 (before his American trip) that why no one ever reconciled the Advaita, Dwaita, Vishishthadwait systems in the way he was doing he simply answered "Because it was left for me to do that. I was born for that." And then of course his statement "I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message for the East) proves that he always was conscious of his great spiritual mission. Mrs. Marie Louis Burke (later Sister Gargi's) extraordinary 6 volume work "Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries" gives glimses of how Swamiji's mission and his own self-consciousness of his spriitual mission evolved while in the West. Till mid 1894 he had the intention of raising some funds for somekind of an Industrial School with spiritual orientation in India to alleviate the poverty of the people. But after experiences with the Lecture Bureau which thoroughly

cheated him he himself dropped and offered free classes the costs of which were met free donations by the disciples. Narendraji in his posting has written that when he came back to India he had some donations with which he did not know what to do and they were used in starting the Ramakrishna Mission. This was not the case, however. After 1894 he in fact refused many sizeable donations (specifics are given in Mrs. Burke's book) for this project. Possibly he was again waiting for clear divine dispensations. All this while however he was inspiring and guiding his brother disciples to organise and was initiating them into the novel and grand view of accomplishing the misison of spiritual regeneration of the entire mankind for which Thakur was born. Examples of these inspirational, guiding (sometimes castigating) letters are plenty in the"Letters of Swami Vivekananda". When returning to india he immedaitely took the

task of awakening the nation through whirlwind tours across the country (Lectures from Colombo to Almora). In this lectures glimses can be found of his future plans for spiritual regenration of India (which subsumed material regeneration of the suffering people also). The Mission was formally started on 1st May 1897 when Swamiji called a meeting of Thakur's monastic as well as householder disciples. On the question of how Swamiji conducted the Mission and what was his driving impulse I would like to mention an extraordinarily insightful, inspiring and revealing observation made by Swami Turiyananda (Hari Maharaj), Swamiji's brother disciple. (Source: Spiritual Talks of first disciples of Sri Ramakrishna) Many years after Swamiji's passing away, Hari Maharaj said to a group of disciples that in spiritual history whenever prophets of the stature of Swami Vivekananda have come, they

have organised new spritual traditions / Order with their disciples. It was for the first time when a Prophet and World Teacher like Swamiji organised the Order and completely gave the charge to his brother-disciples and not to his own disciples (which he had in plenty by the result of his great fame and spiritual ministry in the West). His disciples were more 'suave', 'polished' and 'sociable' than his brother disciples but he organsied the Order with his brother disciples. When he made the Trust Deed of the Order in 1901 he did not put any of his disciple as a Trustee. He further ordained that until even a single disciple of Sri Ramakrishna was alive no one from the second generation of monks (which had many of his discipels) could become the Sangha-Guru. This followed till 1939 when Swami Vijnananadaji Maharj died. What was the reason for all this. Simply because he knew he was merely an instrument in the hands of Guru Maharaj and that his brother were

spriitual dynamos as they were companions in the divine play of the the Yuga-Avatara Sri Ramakrishna and contained Thakur's power as they had received his divine touch. When the premises of the Belur Math were purchased in 1898, Swamiji wrote to Josephine McLeode, "Well the children of Sri Ramakrishna now have a house, my wrok is done"..... As Narendra Sastryki had written in his posting, Swamiji left his body as soon as his appointed mission was fulfilled. Thakur had rightly said, "Dont ever judge Narn. None will ever be able to understand him fully. And when ever anyone used to criticize Naren, Thakur used to say "What have you done. You have done Shiva-ninda. Sprinkle the Ganges water here." verily he was "Murta Maheswar, Ujjwala Bhaskar." May Thakur, Ma, and Swamiji bless us all.

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