THE IDEOLOGY AND LITERATURE OF ANANDA MARGA

While describing the event of Ist April 1955, I have already mentioned that one Margii brother had brought the proof of the book called Ananda Marga which was being printed at the time. That day Baba had refused to look at it, but the importance and the significance of the book is great.

Ananda Marga is a philosophy and Shrii Shrii Anandamurtiji it its propounder. This is the most powerful philosophical treatise of modern times.

So far we were doing pracar on the basis of telling people what we had heard from Baba. But the necessity of a book of philosophy was becoming more and more evident.

From 1953-54 onwards Baba had given a series of discourses to his Bengali speaking disciples. These were jotted down by them and were again shown to Baba for his approval and Baba was correcting them wherever necessary. As I have described earlier, before the winter of 1954, The book ‘Ananda Marga’ had taken shape in Bengali by compilation and correction of His talks. Now it became necessary to translate it into Hindi. This task was entrusted to my medium respected Chandranathji. He took up this task seriously. Acarya Chandranathji is the first Hindi speaking disciple of Baba. Thus he is the senior most disciple in this respect. He completed the translation before the spring of 1955, and gave it to a press in Monghyr for printing. Those days Baba was taking classes for tattvikas and acaryas. He was thus very much pressed for want of time. Even so, somehow or other He went through its proof. Thus by 1956 ‘Ananda Marga Elementary Philosophy’ in Hindi came into our hands. Those who believe in this philosophy began to call themselves Ananda Margiis. This book facilitated the knowledge of philosophy amongst His disciples. The talks on philosophy that used to take place after weekly dharma cakra were also very useful for sadhakas. The sadhakas had already given up the superstitious and divisive practices of wearing sacred threads and tufts of hair on the head, and the ideas of caste superiority or inferiority. The disciples now felt the need for a book setting out the daily routine of spiritual aspirants, in order to build a disciplined and organised society. Therefore, Baba wrote down “Carya Carya” This book is also originally in Bengali. The task of its translation also was entrusted to Shrii Chandranathji. In his characteristic efficient way, be translated this book also speedily. Now this second book was also given to the press for publication. Its first edition was available in 1956. About this book Baba said, “For the physical, intellectual and spiritual development of man, there is the need for an efficient social organization. Ananda Marga has undertaken to build a new society after fully understanding the pains and pleasures and the mental propensities of modern people. It accepts whatever is the truth naturally and reforms wherever necessary. In the name of take gentlemanliness, we have not protected the defects and mental diseases of our society, which keep the social body injured from within. This book is in three parts and has been written keeping in view every aspect of humanity’s Individual and social life”. After ‘Ananda Marga’ and ‘Carya Carya’ were written, Baba said, “Yourphilosophy is logical. This will be easily adopted by the youth of this country as well as the western world”. In this context Baba said, “The westerners are full of mutative principle. The mutative principle makes people active and hardworking. People with such propensity do not want to escape from work. On the other hand they believe in action and their lives are dominated by actions. Every hardworking person will naturally adopt the spiritual path.” As the pracar of Ananda Marga advanced Baba was kind enough to give us further necessary literature at the appropriate time. In order to materialise this philosophy Baba trained the acaryas. Salutations to Baba the Inspirer of the Devotees THE PRACTICE OF MENTAL PRANAM Whenever I came into contact with Baba after my initiation, the desire to do sastaunga pranam and to massage His feet would overwhelm me. Any day when I did not get the opportunity I always become sad and depressed and had no inclination to do anything else that day. These two feelings were my great weakness, I had great desire to touch his feet and do sastaunga pranam. An incident in the Ananda Purnima DMC in Ranchi in 1958 reduced the intensity of this desire, although I continued to yearn for it. The incident was like this. Baba was staying in a very big house in Ranchi. That house had a big compound and in the morning, some Margiis collected here to have Baba’s darshan, myself amongst them. Somebody informed us that Baba was sitting in the drawing room after breakfast and so we all started towards the drawing room. Those days the restrictions on going to Baba were much less, and everyone felt very happy when they found Baba alone in the room and began to do sastaunga pranam in turn in a disciplined manner. We were less than ten Margiis in the room, and when four or five brothers had done their pranam it came to my turn. As I was about to prostrate, Baba’s personal secretary came into the room and said that we were committing a great mistake. I felt disturbed and could not do my sastaunga pranam with full concentration. I rose and began to ponder what could be the mistake in doing pranam to ones guru? If this is a mistake why is it a part of sadhana? As I come out of the room, I asked the attending secretary to come out also. I was angry and sad. Sad as I could not do my sastaunga pranam properly, and angry that someone had obstructed me, for the first time, from doing pranam. When the attending secretary came out. I asked him in an agitated tone as whether he had done his pranam to Baba that morning. He replied in the affirmative. I further enquired, “When you have done your pranam, what right had you to prevent others from doing the same?” He was silent and then admitted his own mistake. He said that seeing the crowd he had objected almost mechanically. I became quiet but the miracle happened that from that day I developed the desire of doing sastaunga pranam mentally and I began to feel satisfied with this. Now whenever I get a chance to do my sastaunga pranam to Baba either by touching His feet or otherwise, I always take it as a special grace of Baba, normally I am satisfied by doing sastaunga pranam mentally only. Even this isHis grace that he allows us to do pranam to His physical body or mentally. Now some years later, seeing the crowds and the number of disciples it is almost impossible to think of having the opportunity of touching Him and doing sastaunga pranam physically. Even so there are persons who are singularly fortunate when Baba gives this opportunity and grace. But looking at the present situation and on that basis forecasting the future, it appears that sadhakas will consider themselves singularly fortunate if even once in their life they get the opportunity to do sastaunga pranam to Him physically or to massage His sacred feet. Baba had pointed out as long back as 1953 after my initiation, that I should do mental pranam when He is walking on the road or if there is someone with Him. I had had the cheek to ask, “Will the mental pranam reach You and will You accept it?” Baba had replied, “Yes. When mental pranam is offered I look at that sadhaka to indicate my acceptance. Others do not normally understand the meaning of these looks. Sometimes I slow down when I am walking when I accept such mental pranams, whilst on field walk”. At that time my mind was not ready to accept this teaching but looking to the circumstances of the present day there appears to be no other alternative except to do mental pranam only. My second weakness was to massage the lotus feet of Baba whenever I got this opportunity. On such occasions, my heart would leap and dance in pleasure and that whole day my happiness was unbounded. Once I insisted upon massaging His feet on a day when perhaps Baba was not inclined to accept my service. My experience on that occasion was very different than usual. I hesitate to describe my experience on this occasion. It appeared as if a dry and hard piece of wood was in my hands. I had never felt like this before. Why was it like this at this time? I thought about it deeply, but was not getting an answer. Previously the experience of massaging His feet had always been very unique and sweet, as if a ball of butter or a soft piece of cotton or silk was in my hands. The touch of Baba’s’ body was always beautifully blissful, fragrant and lovely. It was always pleasurable thinking that Baba’s body is so strong and sturdy. But today’s experience was so dry and dispiriting. I thought about it more to see whether there was any evil though in my mind at that time. Then it suddenly dawned upon me that I had done this today against Baba’s wishes and hence the experience was so different. I got such experience once more after that time, and then this weakness of mine also subsided. Now if I get the good fortune to massage His feet, I consider myself extremely privileged, but in case I do not get an opportunity to serve Him, I content myself by mentally massaging His lotus feet. It is a great kindness of Baba that he makes us shed so many of our weaknesses without impairing our devotion. Salutations to Baba the Abode of Great Happiness In the earlier days when one of the railway quarters had been converted into a jagrti, during working days, it was only now and then that Baba could go there. Evenwhen he went it was for a very brief while in the evening when be would give darshan to the sadhakas there or give some instructions to the manager and them proceed on his field walk. But on holidays he would invariably came there in the morning and stay there for a couple of hours and give darshan and pravachana to the devotees. Every sadhaka was therefore eagerly waiting for a holiday. Most of the sadhakas staying with in a radius of 50 to 60 miles would certainly make a point to reach there by morning itself on every holiday. We had the good fortune to do our sastaunga pranam that has become a distant dream these days. Baba would bless everyone that day, enquire about everyone’s well being and the sadhakas would feel extremely elated and happy. Whenever Baba personally enquired about some sadhakas well being or about the well being of his family, his heart would leap in joy and he would surrender himself at the lotus feet of Baba. Every disciple thought that he is dearest to Baba. This had extremely miraculous effect on all of us. We began to remain disciplined on our own and there was such irresistible love between Margiis for one another. He considered our discipline as the result of Baba’s love towards us. Discipline was increasing in every field of life. Now that kind of discipline is very much lacking. The affection for each other amongst the Margiis was such that whenever someone fell into some misfortune, other would jointly request Baba to remove his misfortune. Everyone gave him the maximum opportunity to be near Baba. We were sharing all our pains and pleasures. Those days there was hardly any personal or Marga work about which we would not take Baba’s prior permission. Those days all the Margiis led a happy co-operative life and did regular sadhana and performed our daily routine in divine bliss. Now these days are memory only. The description of Ram Rajya given in Ramcharitmanas was very much applicable to us in those days: ‘In the kingdom of Rama no-one suffered any affliction Be it physical, psychic or spiritual” Where are these days lost now? When will Baba repeat that environment?