Ananda Marga became an organization: Now Many People Will Come - Anandamurti Jamalpur Years compiled by Devashishjii Despite its advent onto this earth many thousands of years ago, humanity has not yet been capable of building a well-integrated and universal society. This is in no way indicative of the glory of human intellect and erudition. You, who have understood the predicament, realized the urgency, seen the naked dance of evil and heard the hypocritical and raucous laughter of the divisive forces, should throw yourself into this noble task without further delay. When the ends are just and noble, success is inevitable.1 Though no one had any inkling yet of the vast extent of the philosophy that Baba would soon be unveiling, he made the basic tenets of his teachings clear to everyone right from the beginning. Baba required all his disciples who wore the sacred thread to remove it before he would initiate them. He spoke out openly against all kinds of religious dogma, including the idol worship and the caste system so fundamental to orthodox Hinduism. He urged them to openly oppose all sorts of social injustice. The only “ism” he supported was universalism, emphasizing time and again that all human beings belonged to one cosmic brotherhood with equal rights to the gifts of Providence. It was a fundamental part of their practice, he explained, to treat everything, animate or inanimate, as varied expressions of one Divine Consciousness. This implied a spirit of service to the creation, a willingness to work not only for the welfare of human beings but of all living beings and even inanimate objects. These and the other ideals he preached became the basis of the message he asked them to spread: a rational, scientific spirituality that immediately started to attract the progressive minded in Jamalpur and nearby towns and would soon begin drawing the ire of the orthodox Hindu community. Even the socalled miracles they had witnessed had a scientific explanation, and Baba went to great lengths to elucidate the subtle mechanisms behind them, though his explanations were sometimes too complex or too subtle for them to follow. “There is nothing supernatural in this universe,” he told them. “Everything is natural. It is only that some things are comparatively rare so we take them to have some supernatural origin.” Despite the demonstrations and other manifestations of his spiritual power, he constantly reminded them that he wanted them to propagate his ideals and not his personality. “Look to the teachings,” he would say, “not to this body; after some time this body will be gone but the teachings will remain.” In the coming years, Baba would continually remind them that he wanted a cult of ideology, not a cult of personality. In the middle of December, Baba was walking with Chandranath, Pranay, and a few others in the field, when he turned to them and said, “Now many people will start to come. You will need an organization to receive them.” In previous years he had on occasion mentioned to his brothers Himanshu and Manas that he intended to start an organization one day through which he would open service projects, such as schools, orphanages, medical clinics, tribal welfare centers, and so on. This, however, was the first time that any of his disciples learned of his plans. A few days later he mentioned the same thing to another group of disciples. The idea jelled and it was decided, on Baba’s suggestion, to officially found the organization “on the first day of the international calendar.” In the meantime, Baba suggested they hold a meeting in order to draft a constitution and a set of by-laws, required to legally register the organization. It was decided to use the Christmas holiday for this purpose. On Christmas morning, a group of disciples led by Pranay met at the Rampur Colony quarters to draft the constitution. Unaware of the meeting, Nagina also arrived in Jamalpur that morning along with Dr. Vishvanath, a childhood friend and veterinarian whom he had brought to Baba for initiation earlier that year, and Dipnarayan, a young clerk who worked under him in the Central Excise Department. Dipnarayan had been initiated two weeks earlier under rather unusual circumstances. Within minutes of being ushered into Baba’s room, he had lost consciousness and had to be carried out. I remember I entered the room and sat down in front of Baba, who was sitting on a cot. Then his grace entered me and I went into a state of samadhi. When I began to recover my consciousness I was lying in a corner of the next room. I heard Baba tell Sukumar to give me a cup of hot milk. I tried to get up but I couldn’t. I was a champion weightlifter in college but I couldn’t even stand up properly. My body was as cold as ice. The other people there helped me to get up. Then gradually it came back to me that Baba had given me a mantra that I was supposed to repeat. That was all I could remember from the initiation. The next day Baba revised my meditation. Three days later, while Dipnarayan was in the bathroom, it occurred to him that it would not be proper to recite a sacred mantra in such a dirty place. He stopped his internal recitation and waited until he was out of the bathroom before he began again. That evening Baba came to the ashram and gave a short talk in which he explained that the mantra should be recited silently, everywhere and anywhere, even on the toilet. “Do you understand, Dipnarayan?” Baba said. Afterwards, Dipnarayan had to explain to the curious disciples why Baba had singled him out. Now, ten days later, Dipnarayan, Nagina, and Vishvanath were heading towards Baba’s house in high spirits to spend Christmas day with the master. Before they reached the house, they saw Baba walking in their direction. They rushed up to him and bowed down to touch his feet in the traditional show of respect for one’s elders and one’s guru known as pranam.2 Baba informed them of the meeting and suggested they go to the ashram to help the others with what was certain to be a long day’s work. On their way to the ashram, they stopped at Bindeshvari’s house to eat an early lunch. Nagina, an inveterate smoker, was about to leave his cigarettes at the house, as he normally did, but Vishvanath convinced him to bring them along. It was going to be a long afternoon, he reasoned; Nagina would be hard-pressed to go that long without a smoke. When they arrived at the ashram, Nagina left his cigarettes outside on a window ledge before joining the others, who were sitting in a circle in front of a wooden cot. A batik cotton sheet covered the cot and on it was a framed photo of Baba in varabhaya mudra.3 Pranay asked Nagina to take dictation and he immediately set to work. Late in the afternoon, with the greater portion of the constitution completed, Nagina excused himself to go outside and have a smoke. The other disciples, however, wanted to press on. Someone suggested that Nagina fetch his cigarettes and smoke while they continued working. All eyes turned to Pranay who had been designated as the ashram manager. Pranay thought about it for a moment and then hit upon a compromise. “Shishir, take Baba’s photo into the next room and leave it there until Nagina is done smoking. That way we won’t be disrespecting the guru.” When the photo was removed, Pranay made a makeshift ashtray for Nagina. Though Nagina felt uneasy about it, he lit a cigarette and went back to work. After a couple of puffs the cigarette went out and he was unable to light it again before he ran out of matches. He shrugged his shoulders, left the cigarette in the ashtray, and continued writing. A couple of hours later the group finished their work. Some of them, including Nagina, left to meet Baba at his house. The rest decided to remain in the ashram and relax until Baba arrived. As Nagina and the others were walking down the road towards Baba’s house, they saw him heading towards the ashram at a furious pace. When Baba drew near, they realized that his mood was even more furious than his gait. Turning to accompany him, they struggled to keep pace, disconcerted by the stormy look on the master’s face. Finally someone timidly asked him what the matter was. “My whole body is burning,” Baba shouted. After that no one dared say anything. When they reached the ashram, Baba strode directly to his chair and called for a piece of paper, a pen, and someone to take dictation. “Punishment order number one,” Baba said, once Nagina was ready with a pen. “Nagina will not touch my feet until further notice,4 and he will not participate in gurupuja.”5 A distraught Nagina tried to keep his hand from trembling as he noted down his punishment. “Punishment order number two: Dipnarayan will not touch my feet for a period of four days. Punishment order number three: Pranay Kumar and Shishir will not touch my feet for a period of three days.” Unable to control himself, Nagina started weeping while everyone else trembled in the face of Baba’s ire. “Do you think that if you remove my photo to the other room I won’t be able to see what is going on here? My whole body was burning from the smoke.” That night during field walk, Baba again scolded Pranay for not preserving the sanctity of the ashram. He rebuked Nagina for disobeying his instructions to avoid smoke, which he had given Nagina when he had taught him pranayama. Nagina, who had not realized that avoiding smoke also meant he should stop smoking himself, vowed to quit, and indeed that would be the last cigarette he would ever smoke. When Nagina returned home, he found that he had been demoted from his position of Superintendent, Central Excise, effective December 25, the same date as Baba’s punishment. He was so upset by the incident that he was afraid to even touch Baba’s feet mentally without permission, so he wrote a letter to Baba and asked whether or not it was permitted. Baba wrote back that it was allowed and also explained to him in a second letter that he should not allow the sanctity of the ashram to be violated under any circumstances. A week later, Dipnarayan brought Nagina a third letter from Baba lifting his punishment along with advice on how to get his demotion overturned. Nagina followed Baba’s instructions and was eventually restored to his previous post. The next meeting was held on Saturday, the first of January, in Baba’s presence. Baba began by telling the disciples that he was thinking of calling the new organization “Ananda Marga.” “Ananda,” he said, “is the Sanskrit word for infinite happiness or bliss, the goal of every living being. Marga is the path that leads to that goal. Thus Ananda Marga is ‘the path of bliss.’ ” He asked everyone what they thought of the name; when they voiced their approval, he suggested the name “Ananda Marga Pracaraka Samgha,” the society for the propagation of Ananda Marga, as the official name of the new organization. Their school of philosophy, he explained, would also be called “Ananda Marga.” The process of sadhana would be called sahaj yoga, “easy” yoga, though as Nagina remarked to Baba a few days later, there was nothing easy about it. Baba was chosen president at everyone’s insistence and over his own objections. He then selected the various officers: Pranay was appointed the general secretary and Shishir the treasurer. Baba gave the disciples some simple guidelines for the organization. He told them they should get together in their respective communities every week a hold a collective meditation, preferably on Sunday. This collective meditation would be called “Dharmachakra,” the circle of spirituality. He taught them some Sanskrit chants to begin and end the meditation. He suggested that district committees be formed in the different cities to organize activities. He also made it official that the name and address of the guru should not be disclosed. Pranay drew up a document to that effect that Baba signed as president. At one point Baba pointed to himself and said, “Now many people will start to come and it will not be possible for me with one physical body to initiate them all. Some of you will have to act as my representatives and undergo training as acharyas.”6 A few days later Baba would start training Pranay to be the first acharya, followed in February by a group of five more. Finally, Baba declared that on the following Sunday they would hold a large spiritual conference with a collective meal afterwards, and thereafter at periodic intervals. In the future, such collective spiritual gatherings would be called “Dharmamahachakra,” the great circle of spirituality. Later that evening Baba sat and gave a formal discourse. Several disciples took notes in longhand, trying to preserve the contents of his speech as best they could. The subject of the discourse was “The Gradual Evolution of Society.” For the first time, Baba used the name “Ananda Marga” to refer to the new philosophy and spiritual movement. “. . . During the introversal phase of the Cosmic mind,” he began, “when the quinquelemental creation came in touch with the divine powers of Purushottama,7 the Supreme All-knowing Entity, it developed the vibrations of life, and the more this vital energy received Brahma’s brilliance, the more enlightened it grew, and this glow led it forward on the path of self-realization.” From there, he traced the evolution of consciousness as it manifested in the evolution of society, from its inception until the present age, ending with a concise description of the disastrous state of contemporary human affairs. He then pointed out the need for change in words shorn of any ambiguity. “This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. This structure of inequality and injustice must be destroyed and powdered down for the collective interest of human beings. Then and then alone may man be able to lead society on the path of virtue.” Finally Baba exhorted his disciples, and ndeed the entire human race, to accept responsibility for creating a blissful society: O man, frame the social structure having regard to the needs of man. Do not try to do anything for petty personal or group interests, for whatever you do with limited outlook, destitute of cosmic feelings, cannot last. The cruel touch of time will annihilate it into an oblivion which nobody can comprehend. It is not necessary to study books for the purpose of knowing how to work, how to act, how to retain and how to renounce. The need is to look upon every living being of the universe with sincere feelings of love and sympathy, and then and then alone, you will realize that whatever you make, retain, or break is generated and controlled by the Universal Cosmic Bliss. With this devotion, and actions guided by knowledge, you will be able to explore the very soul of souls, the Supreme object within you whom you had concealed unknowingly within the precious treasures of your heart.8 In a single discourse Baba summed up the spirit of Ananda Marga, laying the foundation for the ideology he would now begin openly disseminating, and letting his disciples know that his teachings and his life would not be confined to the spiritual elevation of a select group of individuals. Unlike other spiritual movements, his disciples would have to accept the demanding work of social change as their direct responsibility, something very different than they were used to seeing in Indian gurus. He made it clear to them that he would be content with nothing less than the transformation of an entire planet for the welfare of every living being that inhabited it. This was his mission. By accepting him as their guru, it would also become theirs. 1 Baba’s message to the Margis, January 1975. Anandamurti, Ananda Vanii Samgraha, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Ananda Marga Publications, 1990), 24. 2 Pranam: Literally, “reverent salutations”; the traditional form of greeting in India. There are three types of pranam. One may touch the folded palms to the chest and say namaskar or namaste [I bow in salutation]; this is the most common form. One may bend down and touch the feet of the person; this is reserved for one’s elders and highly respected persons. Or else one may prostrate on the ground in front of the person; this is known as sastaunga pranam. Sastaunga pranam is only done before one’s spiritual master or guru. Notes: pg 64–78 385 3 Varabhaya: The word vara means “blessing” and the word abhaya means “fearlessness.” In this mudra or gesture, performed while sitting cross-legged, the right hand is raised upward with the palm facing outward, a mudra which signifies the bestowing of blessings, and the left hand is placed on the left portion of the lap, palm up, a mudra which signifies fearlessness. Ancient statues of Buddha have been found in this mudra, and it is assumed that he used to adopt this pose in the presence of his disciples in order to confer on them his blessings. Baba also used to adopt this mudra, through which he emanated his blessings, at the close of certain gatherings with the disciples, most especially at the end of Dharmamahachakra, a collective function described in the next chapter. Many disciples used to experience various states of ecstasy when Baba gave this mudra; due to this, many shouts and cries were heard at that moment. 4 Touching the feet: In the spiritual traditions of India, it is considered a great blessing and a privilege to be able to touch the guru’s feet. Sometimes Baba would allow one or another of his disciples to massage his feet. This was a privilege much coveted among the disciples. 5 Gurupuja: Literally, “adoration of the guru”; a ritual wherein one offers one’s desires and attachments to God or to the spiritual master in the form of mental flowers of whatever color and form one finds most attractive at the moment while simultaneously reciting certain verses taken from the Guru Gita. It is a practice Baba taught his disciples to help them develop detachment and surrender, two essential qualities for spiritual advancement. The verses used for gurupuja are: Akhanìa manìalákáram Vyáptam yena carácaram Tatpadam darshitam yena Tasmae shrii gurave namah/Ajinana timirándhasya Jinánáinjaná shalákayá Cakshurun miliitam yena Tasmae shrii gurave namah/Gurur brahmá gurur vishnu Gurur devo maheshvarah Gurueva parama brahma Tasmae shrii gurave namah/Tavádravyam jagatguroh Túbhyameva samárpayet. [I bow to the Divine Guru, who reveals to one the Divine Being that encircles and permeates the moving and non-moving/I bow to the Divine Guru who by the application of the ointment of knowledge opens the eyes of one blinded by the darkness of ignorance/ The Guru is none other than Brahma, the Creator. The Guru is none other than Vishnu, the Preserver. The Guru is none other than Shiva, the Destroyer. The Guru is verily Brahma, Itself. To that Divine Guru I bow/All is your wealth, Guru of the Universe, unto you only I surrender.] 6 Acharya: The word acharya literally means “one who teaches by example.” It is commonly used in India as a title for spiritual teachers. 7 Quinquelemental: The word appears to have been coined by Baba. It is derived from the Latin words quinque, meaning “five,” and elementum. It refers to the yogic concept of the expressed universe being composed of five elements or factors: ethereal, aerial, luminous, liquid, and solid. 8 Anandamurti, Subhasita Samgraha, Part 1, 3rd ed. (Calcutta: Ananda Marga Publications,
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 05:57:07 +0000
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