Ranganathananda

Swami Ranganathananda (15 December 1908 – 25 April 2005) was a Hindu swami of the Ramakrishna Math order. He served as the 13th president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission.

Swami Ranganathananda (15 December 1908 – 25 April 2005) was a Hindu swami of the Ramakrishna Math order. He served as the 13th president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission.

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!" "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." "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." "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." The great new mantra today is "Work" and 'Hard Work'; along with Hard Work, intelligent work co-operative teamwork. All great undertakings are product of teamwork. We can meet the challenge of freedom only when we have learnt this character-efficiency involved in teamwork, and intelligent hard work. This is the philosophy which we have to learn consciously, not unconsciously, somehow stumbling into it. Work from ego point of view is all tension. But behind ego, there is an infinite spiritual dimension. When that is realised even a little, then extra work won't make one feel that it is heavy. Even ordinary experiences will tell you: Whenever there is love in the heart, the worker doesn't feel heavy. When there is no love in the heart, even a little work makes one feel very heavy. As soon as you have love for a particular cause, you can do anything; do hard work, but have a spirit of detachment based on a larger love. Work is no work at all. It is a question of agency and attachment. When these two are not there, work ceases to be work, it becomes a play, it becomes spontaneous, and it becomes natural. When you become thoroughly detached, then all that tension goes away. You are working, but you don't feel that you are working. What a beautiful idea!" Work is drudgery; Sri Krishna will not allow that attitude. There is joy in work also. Do not abandon work; go on doing work; but, mentally renouncing all actions. It is a wonderful state of mind-working, and yet not working. Those who work, work with a zest and with joy and in work, learn calmness and the serenity of the human mind and heart; what a wonderful joy it is to work in such a way! When science insists on studying things from the point of view of the objects themselves by eliminating the personal equation, it is in effect, emphasising the sakshi-bhava or sakshi point of view (witness attitude); for, the limited and circumscribed vision of the ego gives place to the unlimited and universal vision of the sakshi, by the practice of scientific or intellectual detachment. The endeavours and conclusions of the sense-bound intellect can not be the last word in man’s search for truth. An intellectual approach to truth will end only in agnosticism; and often in cynicism. But the whole being of man seeks to experience truth, to realise it. … This rising above rationalism to direct experience and realisation, this growth of man from the sensate to the super-sensual dimension, is the special message of Indian spiritual tradition. Mysticism, studied seriously, challenges basic tenets of Western Cultures: a) the primacy of reason and intellect; b) the separate, individual nature of man; c) the linear organisation of time. Great mystics, like our own great scientists, envision the world as being larger than those tenets, as transcending our traditional views.

External links

Swami Ranganathananda - a monk with a mission Educational philosophy of Swami Ranganathananda Lectures Vivekachudamani

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