Vedantham : ( 07/11/2012. )

His deep and abiding interest in the welfare of lepers had earned for him the confidence and admiration of the Government authorities when he was elected to the Leper Welfare Association, constituted by the state - at first as Vice-Chairman and later as Chairman of The Muni-ki-reti Notified Area Committee. Quite early in life, although born in a wealthy family, he shunned the pleasures of the world to devote himself to seclusion and contemplation. In the matter of study it was the spiritual books which had the most appeal to him, more than college books. Even while he was at college, text-books had to take second place to spiritual books. The works of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Gurudev took precedence over all others. He shared his knowledge with others, so much so that he virtually became the Guru of the household and the neighbourhood, to whom he would talk of honesty, love, purity, service and devotion to God. He would exhort them to perform Japa of Rama...

The family was noted for its high code of conduct and this was infused into his life. Charity and service were the glorious ingrained virtues of the members of the family. These virtues found an embodiment in Sridhar Rao. He discovered ways and means of manifesting them. None who sought his help was sent away without it. He gave freely to the needy. Service to lepers became his ideal. He would build them huts on the vast lawns of his home and look after them as though they were deities. Later, after he joined the Ashram (hermitage), this early trait found in him complete and free expression where even the best among men would seldom venture into this great realm of divine love, based upon the supreme wisdom that all are one in God. Patients from the neighbourhood, suffering from the worst kind of diseases came to him. To Sridhar Rao the patient was none other than Lord Narayana Himself. He served him with tender love and compassion. The very movement of his hands portrayed hi...

Sridhar Rao, as Swami Chidananda was known before taking Sannyasa (embracing a life of renunciation), was born to Srinivasa Rao and Sarojini, on the 24th September, 1916, the second of five children and the eldest son. Sri Srinivasa Rao was a prosperous Zamindar (a rich landlord) owning several villages, extensive lands and palatial buildings in South India. Sarojini was an ideal Indian mother, noted for her saintliness. At the age of eight, Sridhar Rao's life was influenced by one Sri Anantayya, a friend of his grandfather, who used to relate to him stories from the epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. Doing Tapas (austerities), becoming a Rishi (sage), and having a vision of the Lord became ideals which he cherished. His uncle, Krishna Rao, shielded him against the evil influences of the materialistic world around him, and sowed in him the seeds of the Nivritti life (life of renunciation) which he joyously nurtured until, as latter events proved, it blossomed into sa...

In the present-day itself we had before us the inspiring and powerful example of Gurudev’s own attitude towards creatures. His constant admonition to us was not to harm even the least among the Lord’s creatures however ferocious they might be. At Ananda Kutir, this kindness to all animals is being insisted upon to be actively practised by all inmates. We are forbidden to kill a scorpion or a snake. We are only to try to see that they are removed from the room without giving any pain to them. In the positive way Gurudev showed how we must love all animals, by feeding the monkeys, fish and birds--all these were regularly observed by him, and he insisted that all of us should develop this sublime trait. In our personal way we should try to see that this kindness to animals and working for their welfare is spread in every nook and corner of the land and especially all Grihasthas should try to inculcate this virtue in the hearts of children right from the earliest age. Children ...

Before concluding, we shall draw inspiration from some of the sublime, soul-elevating demonstrations of this great quality of love for animals which bygone great ones have given to us. After all, when everything is said and done, we can get the greatest guidance for our conduct in life from the practical examples of saints and sages. It is the most unfailing guide, and the most inspiring and vital spark which enthuses us to live the life of virtue, of divinity. We have before us the sublime example of the Prince-Incarnate of Compassion, Gautama Buddha. You know how Buddha gave us the ideal life of conduct towards animals, when he demonstrated his perfect sense of oneness with them by offering himself at the sacrificial post for the sake of the poor goat to be sacrificed in the Yajna of Bimbisara. Then, you have heard about the noble gesture of King Sibi; in order to save the life of a dove, he offered his own body to the vulture which had come in pursuit of the dove. We have...

There is a high duty involved in this. We know that the fundamental tenet of Jainism is Ahimsa. But Jainism is only an off-shoot of Hinduism, of the Sanatana Dharma. It is Sanatana Dharma which says: Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah. Sri Vyasa has given us this supreme dictum: Paropakarartham Idam Sariram. We are trying to fulfil in a small measure these two admonitions of our ancient faith-by refraining from cruelty to animals and by using our bodies in bringing about the welfare of these creatures. We know that the Hindu genius has sought to make the life of man upon earth a process of progressive evolution towards a high and sublime ideal, the ideal of all-round perfection. To this end, they have kept the order of Sannyasa as the glorious consummation of man’s social life here. Sannyasa is the manifestation of all the highest, sublimest, noblest, qualities in man, in their most perfect form possible to man upon earth. A Sannyasin takes the vow of "Abhaya to all creatures"....

The S.P.C.A. would be more successful in its attempts if it got more active public sympathy and co-operation, which are unfortunately conspicuous by their absence. As a matter of fact, the work of the S.P.C.A. ought to be the work of the people--to prevent all cruelty to animals is the sacred duty of every human being worth the name. The entire human society should be a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals! The Jains as a community are a force towards such minimising of cruelty to animals and also towards the positive part of it--the carrying on of actual welfare work in connection with these animals. They encourage and aid the opening of Pinjarapoles where old cows, bullocks and horses, and animals that have become sick, lame or otherwise incapacitated are sent. The public should also take earnest and vigorous steps to establish private-owned veterinary hospitals as another measure of developing positive welfare work. Of course, there are governmental institutions...

New drugs are tried upon them. They are dissected later on to find out the effect of these drugs upon the internal viscera. Medical Colleges also make use of quite a large number of these animals for their day-to-day anatomy classes. We, in Bharatavarsha, are not so much aware of this aspect of the ill-treatment of animals, because this branch of science has not yet taken deep roots in India; but in the West medical science is taking vast strides day by day. It has shocked the susceptibilities of the Westerner himself. And a hue and cry has been raised against this practice of vivisection of animals in the name of science, and the Anti-Vivisection League has got its branches in many of the Western countries and it is carrying out a vigorous programme of propaganda to root out this practice. In England we have even Anti-Hunting Bills introduced in the Parliament, so that this inveterate practice of hunting may be recognised as something which does not become a human being and...

But, unfortunately we find that though countless souls have arisen to the status of the human being in point of outward physical form, yet their evolution has been confined more or less only to this outward semblance; and the corresponding inward evolution in their nature and their subtle selves, is yet to be. Therefore, most of the elements of the lower sub-human planes from which they have just evolved still persist in all their crudeness and intensity and manifest themselves through the outward human form and name. Therefore we find quite a large section of human beings to be quite heartless, ruthless and cruel, and as beastly as some of the worst type of sub-human creatures. It is in order that this anomaly may be removed and that, as far as possible, the evolved section of humanity may try to hasten the inward culture and refinement, that institutions to inculcate mercy, compassion and brotherhood have been brought into being by the Lord’s Will. Institutions in the Wes...

Part-1. THE question of animal welfare is one that has engaged the attention of all reflective and kind-hearted men for a long time all over the world. Especially, people with a humanitarian temperament and religious bent of mind have taken an intense interest in this question and done a great deal towards minimising the unfortunate but undeniable cruelty exercised by man towards these less-fortunate creatures. Exercise of such sublime virtues as kindness, mercy and compassion is one of the prime concerns of the life religious, of the practices prescribed for all higher attainments in the religious and spiritual life all over the world. This question implies two factors. Firstly, it implies the exercise of a virtue: kindness or compassion. Secondly, it also implies the exercise of it towards a special group or a particular section of creatures upon earth. Taking the first part of this question: it is a self-evident and axiomatic moral principle, and therefore, it doe...

Way to Blessedness : This important factor is forgotten by the modern man, howevermuch educated he may be. He has refused to walk freely with the workings of the Spiritual Nature and has attempted his best to centre himself in the state of individualised existence. The misery of the present-day world may be attributed to this constrictive tendency in the human being, which is ever trying to block the way of the expansion of the spiritual consciousness. The case of the half-baked material science and psychology may be specially mentioned here as being one of the forces obstructive to the happy process of Truth-realisation. The ills caused by wrong methods of education, the social and political strifes, the individual evils and the world-degeneration are all effected by the one terrible fact that humanity has turned against the law of the Spiritual Reality. So long as this self-destructive tendency of the human mind is not controlled, and man is not shown the correct way of ...

Degrees in Empirical Reality : The capability for such an expansion differs by degrees in different beings, according to the extent of the Reality manifested through them. Beings are higher or lower according to the degree of Intelligence that lights up their nature. Entities in the universe are differentiated through their modes of mentation, which are controlled by the intensity of the Truth presented by them. Nature appears to be Spirit distorted in multitudinous ways and expressed in different degrees of revelation. Individuals marked off within themselves, limited by space and time, bear a variegating relation among one another, in proportion to the depth of the Consciousness realised by them. The deeper the Consciousness realised by an individual, the nearer it is to the Eternal. The separative force is the power of individualisation and of the rootedness of the ego-sense. The greater the force with which this separative sense is suppressed to nothingness or expa...

Truth and Its Quest : The Upanishads do not declare that Truth is a state of dynamic change and action, all which marks limitation and imperfection, but one of perennial calm, limitless joy and permanent satisfaction. Change is othering, altering, movement, which is activity, an effort exercised to achieve an unachieved end, which is the characteristic of an unsatisfied imperfect being. This cannot be the Nature of Truth, for Truth is ever-enduring and has no necessity to change itself. Change is the quality of untruth and the Upanishads assert that Reality is Self-satisfied, Self-existent, Non-dual, Tranquil and utterly Perfect. An appeal to the inwardness of consciousness expanded into limitlessness is the burden of the song of the Upanishads. In this respect the Upanishads are extremely mystic, if mysticism does not carry with it an idea of irrationalism or a madness of spirit. The transcendental mysticism of the Upanishads is not the effect of an emotional outburst, but...

The Transcendent Being : The teachings of the Upanishads are expressed in the language of the Self —not of the intellect—and, hence, they do not easily go deeply into every soul, unless it possesses a responsive and burning yearning for Absolute-Experience. The soul, due to its deviation from the Truth and wandering among the shadows, finds it difficult to hear the voice of the Silence. The Upanishads suggest that even the highest achievement in the relative plane—even the creatorship or destroyership of the universe—is, from the ultimate point of view, among the fleeting shadows of phenomenal existence. The delicate tendencies which manifest themselves in the process of the blossoming of individuality into the Infinite try to cover the presence of the Truth in the inmost recesses of our being. Such psychic layers, however brilliant they may be, are, after all, layers of non-being and should not be mistaken for the Real. Even the subtlest layer is but a veil over the Truth, ...

The Method of Conscious Expansion : This Integration of Being can be achieved even in this very life. It is not necessary to take some more rounds of births and deaths for the purpose, provided the integration is effected before the shaking off of the physical sheath, through persistent meditation on Reality and negation of separative consciousness. The quickness of the process of Attainment depends upon the intensity of the power of such meditation, both in its negative and assertive aspects. A dehypnotisation of the consciousness of physicality and individuality is the essential purpose of all methods of spiritual meditation. Swami Krishnananda To be continued  ..