A tribute to Swami Sarvagatananda (1912-2009)

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear friends,

Most of my transition to study India at a late age was motivated by Swami Sarvagtananda,

who served as a resident monk in Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Boston and also served

as religious counselor at MIT.  Like all bright students during the colonial times, he began

life as an accountant in Bombay and relinquished it to be a monk.  He worked in a hospital

in Kankhal in the Himalayas as an apprentice and then served the Ramakrishna Mission in Karachi during the turbulent period of partition.  He came to Boston in 1954 and died here

in 2009.  He was 97.

My association with him began in 1978 during a relief event in MIT for the Andhra cyclone

victims that Fall.  He helped my son to get into music (my son became an opera singer) and offered his library to me to create curriculum on India for the immigrant children school I was organizing. By being in MIT, he had association in science and mathematics and incorporated modern cosmological ideas to Vedanta.  I did work with him during the last fifteen years of his

life to edit some of his lectures and publish them.  I particularly wish to draw attention to a

short book on the Gita we got out in 2005.  It is being distributed from RKM, Cheenai.

https://istore.chennaimath.org/product/sri-krishna-yoga/

Though the book is selling well, I don't see a review.  Interested scholars may read and

put a review on the book.  Amazon also sells it.  There are more books listed there.

More on the swami is at https://www.swamisarvagatananda.org/

a website I created in 2016.

I thought to pay tribute to a teacher.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

[Bijoy Misra]

One particular trait of human response I learnt from the Swami was to be able

to state "I don't know."  Not that one can't know, but the current state of

one's knowledge might not permit an answer   Our depth of understanding

something increases as we work our way through the problem.  More we know,

there is always more left to know.  So generalizing from any point to the

uncultivated areas is an abuse of one's own intellect.

I saw the beauty of this argument when I was briefed on it in 1983 and spent

the next several years in churning the two volume text of Eight Upanisads

compiled by Swami Madhavananda.  I strongly recommend these to anyone

who has scientific and mathematical training.  I read the texts in original

Sanskrit ten years later when I took upon the task of helping doctoral students

at Harvard.      

Socrates is known in the world for his style of teaching.  The upanisads go a

step higher.  We date the upanisads some centuries before Socrates, but I

have not researched on to the subject.

BM

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bvparishat+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CALw-kjVnR19-vUj%3DX2h2cs5%3DBdSFMGexWk1QTe84LrZsEZ2TVQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[S Venkatraman]

Namaste Misraji,

Thanks a lot for your mail. Through it, I came to know about this great Swamiji. Since reading your mail, I have done quite a lot of reading about Swami Sarvagatanandaji from materials available on the net.

I have always wanted to do an in-depth study of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and have been wondering which of the several books available on the subject  should be my starting point. I found while browsing about the Swamiji, that he has also written a very elaborate commentary on Yoga Sutras which is published in 2 Volumes running to about 1600 pages. I also read that these volumes are edited by you. I have so far not done any serious study of Yoga Sutras apart from reading some articles and mails on it. Would you recommend the Swamiji’s magnum opus to me as the first book for the study of Yoga Sutras? Or should I graduate to it, after reading something simpler on the subject - if so, what would that simpler text be?

Many thanks in advance for your advise. Regards,

Venkat

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Sri Venkataraman,

Swami was a contemplative scholar.  He started the yoga work by doing classes on Swami Vivekananda's

books and trying to refine and elaborate them.  These weekly lectures spanning about five years in the '70s

were recorded and archived.  We worked on them after 2000.  I worked with Swami after my father expired

that year.  George Mraz, a Belgian engineer who had volunteered to be Swami's Assistant transcribed the

cassette tapes, but good voice transcription software was not available.  I corrected as much I could, they

had to send for publication since Swami was getting old and George was also not keeping well.  Swami passed

way in 2009. George passed away in 2017.  George has left back two massive manuscripts on Bhaktiyoga

and Karmayoga still to be edited.

if you are familiar with yoga concepts through the Gita literature, you can start with Swami Vivekananda's

Raja Yoga lectures.  They are brief and only occasionally veer through the period history..  Vivekananda was

a practitioner and so carried the power of words.  Swami Sarvagatananda is a teacher, he enjoys elaboration.

Since the lectures were attended by the local public, he would repeat to reinforce.  If you wish to accept yoga

as the way of life, you should read him.  Learning detachment is not easy.  It is in the art of practice.

There are many commentaries if you have command in Sanskrit.  I recommend Hariharananda Aranya's

compilation among them.  it is a scholarly work.  It could be in print.

If you can read texts, go to Yogasutram directly.  The text is not difficult, but it would need quality time.

Read two or three aphorisms every day early in the morning, let the words stick.  The science of yoga

has its technical vocabulary.  The words would reveal themselves with your aptitude and the style of living. 

We fail when we fake. A huge empowerment awaits when we go slow with deliberation.  You have to establish

your own inner call.  Yoga wants you to be free.  The world is such that we are conditioned not to be free.

Don't reject anything, be in the world and be free.  You can read some of the orientation essays I wrote

when I taught a course locally.  They are archived in   https://vidyapeeth.dwarkamai.com/index.php/articles.

Look in 2012 or so.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/600E208F-1863-4080-9255-F69F2980700F%40gmail.com.

[S Venkatraman]

Thank you very much Misraji for your detailed reply. I now have the required clarity on the subject. Many thanks and pranams,

Venkat

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CALw-kjU97CGnBFroBxSw-4a_TJ1Skdb%3DPB%2BGuN5Q4yJsK00sDg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear Sri Venkataraman,

If you wish to seriously pursue, start doing an experiment to observe your mind.

Yoga bases itself on the principle that the human has the capacity to "know"

objects as they exist and it is the mind that colors our knowledge.  You may

try to convince yourself on this basic foundation.  Most cultures and religions

reject this.  They argue that the mind is a part of the body.  Yoga enunciation

is different:  mind is separate from the body and can be controlled (cleaned).

Without arguing with others, you can observe yourself to check this foundation. 

It may take years, and you may need to be with a live teacher.

Teachers are not easy to find, actually they find us.  I don't know the process,

but the opportunity to learn would show up if you keep looking.  In my case,

I happened to meet a seemingly lay person who had just relocated to the US

after losing his wife.  He met me in connection with the admission of his

daughter to the local graduate school.  This was 1984.  He was a master yogi,

totally unassuming.  His name was Dr V S Rao and he came from Andhra Pradesh.

He belonged to a group in Amritsar and linked to the mysterious Babaji apparently

living in the deep Himalayas.  We initiated hatha yoga training here and I learned

Paranayama from him. He became a popular teacher and taught several hundred

local students till very late age.  Many of his students have their own schools

now.  He passed away in 2008 at 88.  We made an organization but he did not

want it continued.  Nothing bothered him in the world.  He didn't want any trace

left of his work.  I made a website for my class and acknowledged him and his

teacher Yogi Ramlal.  You can know more of these activities at

https://www.patanjaliyogawithbijoymisra.org/

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/9968ABAA-6163-4873-BE41-E2B341D9649D%40gmail.com.

[S Venkatraman]

Namaste Misraji,

Apologies for the late reply. I very much appreciate the trouble taken by you to provide me all this useful information and more particularly the link to your website on Patanjali Yoga. It is indeed a treasure house of knowledge. Thanks a lot. 

Regards,

Venkatraman

Sent from my iPhone

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bvparishat/CALw-kjWLkfzp%3DEmxOW_HqvkriD0zgC9k-TgqQXaFF33_fZcw_g%40mail.gmail.com.