Swami Ranganathananda

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Swami Ranganathananda (b. December 15, 1908, Silwan, Trikkur, Kerala, as Shankaran Kutty; d. April 25, 2005, Kolkata)

In 1926 he joined the Mysore branch of Ramakrishna Math. He obtained his final vows of monasticism from Swami Shivananda(also known as Mahapurush Maharaj) in 1933. He spent the first 12 years of monasticism in Mysore and Bangalore branches. He served there as the cook, personal attendant to Swami Siddheswaranandaji. He is said to have rendered remarkable service as the secretary and librarian at the Rangoon branch of Ramakrishna Mission from 1939 to 1942. He then served as the president of the Karachi centre of math from 1942 to 1948 till the partition of India.

From 1949 to 1962, he served as a secretary at the Delhi centre. Then from 1962 to 1967, he served as the Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata, director of School of Humanistic & Cultural studies, editor of mission's monthly. Then he served as the president of the Hyderabad branch for a long period. He was elected to the post of vice-president of Ramakrishna Math and Mission in 1989 and then as the president in 1998.

Man with a great insight into the problems of India and the world, Raganathananda was a great orator and scholar. He undertook extensive lecture tours from 1946 to 1972 covering over 50 countries in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe, including Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia. From 1973 to 1986 he annually visited Australia, USA and Europe, spreading the message of Vedanta. Thus he served as a cultural and spiritual ambassador of India,

He declined the Padma Vibhushan as it was conferred on him in his individual capacity but accepted the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration in 1987 and the Gandhi Peace Prize in February 1999 as both were conferred on the Ramakrishna Mission.

Raganathananda lived the last days of his life in the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur in West Bengal.

He attained Mahasamadhi at Woodlands Medical Centre, Kolkata, at 3.51 p.m. on Monday, 25 April 2005, owing to cardiac arrest. He was 96. His mortal remains were kept for darshan at Belur Math (near Kolkata) on that day, and were consigned to flames at 12.30 p.m. on 26 April 2005.

[edit] Quotations

"Are you growing spiritually? Can you love others? Can you feel oneness with others? Have you peace within yourself? and do you radiate it around you? That is called spiritual growth, which is stimulated by meditation inwardly and by work done in a spirit of service outwardly."

"I am not alone in the world. . .We belong to a world. . .The vast world is around us. We cannot do without it. We cannot become human without a human world around us. How much we owe to the world of other human beings around us!" - Universal message of the Bhagavad-Gita, Vol. 1, p. 178

"Efficiency and energy comes from emotion, not from intellectual knowledge, which can only direct that emotional energy. But the real impulse comes from emotion. It makes you work at your best." - Universal message of the Bhagavad-Gita, Vol. 2, p. 412

"So, work hard; perform all duties; develop yourself; then come and surrender to the highest. Do a whole day's honest work, then sit and meditate; then resign yourself to God. Otherwise, that meditation has no meaning or value. Meditation at the end of a lazy day has no meaning; but the same at the end of an active day, filled with good deeds, has meaning, and is rewarding." - Eternal Values for a Changing Society, Vol. 1, p. 379

"How can we find joy in work? By working for oneself? No; it is not possible to find that continuous joy in work through selfish motivations. Frustration and ennui are the end of all selfish motivations. Frustrations and nervous breakdowns are the end of a self-centred life.

The first advice of modern psychiatry to such people is to get out of this prison of self-centredness and to find a genuine interest in other people. Everyone has to learn the lesson some day that the best way to be happy is to strive to make others happy. So wherever you find frustration, you will always discover that the person concerned had been too self-centred and the only hope for him is through learning to take interest in other people, to find joy in the joy of other people. This is the royal path that makes for health, for strength, for efficiency. This great truth---universal and human---we should apply to the world and to our life in it." - Eternal Values for a Changing Society, Vol. 4, pp. 150, 151