“Many years back, in an interior village in Kerala there was a good-for-nothing boy called Sukumaran. Due to the unbounded grace of Mother Sarada Devi, he was able to do many difficult tasks. At Pandupara estate of Kalady, when the land was getting ready for development, he had to supervise the whole work and had to keep an eye on all the people working in different parts of the about forty-acre estate. For that, the system then was to build a machan on a tall tree and this young novice was asked to sit, look around carefully and supervise and direct. To his own surprise, he did it well. He graduated to many more deeds in the future, and now he, the boy without much education or experience, is looking back in surprise at the past eighty plus years”.
Shakrananda ji I had known was a simple but stern monk. But It was an unusually sweet voice and a cheery pleasant face that I met as he narrated all this to me some eighteen months back. In the intervening period, he lost his cool in his impatience at not dying quickly. He lost much of his memory, mobility and health, went on to get most of them back. However, I did not hear that he got back that remarkable sweetness. Anyway, that defined his essence for me.
He must be in that sweet beatitude now, no more bothered with an old body. Maybe he is waiting for the cremation of it tomorrow before moving on.
Loved and respected by devotees across Kerala, he is one of the very few remaining with this distinction.
In an obscure little village somewhere near Kalady, some friends told this self-confessed `good-for-nothing boy’ Sukumaran, that they heard there was an `Ashrama’ in Kalady. Sukumaran cut them short. `Ashramas were there during Ramayana period. You don’t have ashramas today’. Nonetheless, the friends insisted, `No, there is an Ashrama. `Sama-bhava’ is practiced there. All are equal there. Lowest castes live together with the highest ones there’ they said. This time Sukumaran was impressed. The phrase `Sama-bhava’ attracted him. The friends continued `There is a great Pundit monk. He is coming to the nearby temple for a speech. His name is Swami Agamananda.’ Sukumaran went on the specified day to meet Swami Agamananda. He was very disappointed to learn that the programme was postponed. However, he got the address of the Swami and wrote to him that he wanted to experience that `Sama-bhava’ in his Ashrama. He met Swami Agamananda subsequently and soon became a novice Brahmachari.
This was how Swami Shakrananda joined the Ramakrishna Order. He told me all this himself. We have to note how the `sama-bhava’ practiced then continued to attract a simple village boy, in 1940s.
Swami Vivekananda admired the conservative tenacity and learning of the people of Kerala and grieved deeply at the havoc caused by its perverted application within the society. The seed of the constructive `root and branch reform’ approach with `Bhakti has no caste’ as the theme sowed in 1911 by Swami Nirmalananda in the blessed presence of Holy Mother in the region, brought forth many beautiful blossoms. Many have dropped. Yet another flower, among the last, has fallen in its soft bed today.
Hari Om Ramakrishna!
29 July 2011
Swami Sampurnananda
Belur Math
http://belurmath.org/news_archives/?m=201108
http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=14400
http://expressbuzz.com/topic/swami-sakrananda-passes-away/299349.html
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/article2307520.ece
http://www.indiaeveryday.in/kerala/fullnews-swami-sakrananda-cremated-1186-2883288.htm
