Published in Global Vedanta, a journal of the world-wide Vedanta Movement, in Winter of 2000/2001 The Miracle in Brazil By Swami Bhaskarananda When I visited Brazil the first time several years ago, a friend there said to me, Swami, do you know that we have a Ramakrishna Mission in Brazil? I was surprised to hear that news. Ramakrishna Mission is an Indian-based religious and philanthropic organization which has several branches outside India, but not in Brazil. As I was a monk of the Ramakrishna Mission, none other than me was expected to know that fact better. I therefore said, It’s impossible. The Ramakrishna Mission does not have any branch in Brazil. Nevertheless, the friend insisted that what he had told me was quite true and how the Ramakrishna Mission happened to be there in Brazil without the knowledge of the Ramakrishna Mission in India was nothing short of a miracle. The miracle took place in the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the mineral-rich state of Minas Gerais. A planned city founded in 1897, Belo Horizonte is the third largest in Brazil. In that city lived a gentleman named Mr. Arlindo Correa da Silva. He was born on June 2, 1910, in the city of Campina Grande in the state of Paraiba in northern Brazil. He studied in a Baptist college in Recife, the fourth largest city of Brazil and the capital of the contiguous state of Pernambuco. He was trained as an accountant, but chose to become a journalist in order to fight injustice, social abuses and the corruption in his country. At the age of 22 he moved to Belo Horizonte, joined the spiritist church and started a journal named O Poder (The Power). In 1954, by the time he had married and was in his forties, he had a vision of Sri Ramakrishna. He had already read a French book on Sri Ramakrishna—L’ Enseignment de Ramakrishna—and must have seen Sri Ramakrishna’s picture in it. Sri Ramakrishna said to him, I am going to send one of my sons to you. So saying, Sri Ramakrishna disappeared. Shortly thereafter he had another strange vision while bathing alone in a small pool in his home. A person arose from the water in front of him and said, My name is Brahmananda; I am a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. He has sent me to help you. These visions took Arlindo by total surprise. They also made him scared. At that time Arlindo was associated with a well known spiritist teacher named Francisco Xavier, also called Chico Xavier. Arlindo wanted to take his counsel and described his visions to him. Chico Xavier reassured him and said, Don’t be afraid, in the Gospels Jesus has said, ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions.’ Arlindo understood that he must have entered another mansion of God. All his fears were gone. From then onwards Swami Brahmananda began to appear to Arlindo every now and then and give him guidance. Swami Brahmananda instructed Arlindo what religious books to read and also asked him to start serving the poor children of the city. Even a copy of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna appeared to him—an unexpected gift from a friend! In 1955, in his own home a children’s care center was started. Arlindo named his organization Missao Ramakrishna—the Portuguese version of the English name: Ramakrishna Mission. Eventually the organization was officially registered on February 6, 1959. Arlindo became its President and held that position until he passed away on June 20, 1993. As the number of children increased, Arlindo’s own house proved to be too small for Missao Ramakrishna. Meanwhile people started calling him Professor Arlindo or Teacher Arlindo. Professor Arlindo sold whatever he could and bought a fairly large piece of land at a low price in Betim, a small town 50 kilometers away from Belo Horizonte. Later another house was acquired in Belo Horizonte to be used as the headquarters of the Mission. Nowadays, however, the headquarters is at the original home of Professor Arlindo. The building has been modified to suit the requirement of the headquarters.. At first there was great scarcity of water on the Mission’s property in Belim. A firm was appointed by the Mission to dig an artesian well. Several holes were dug, but they could not find any water. Then one day, Swami Brahmananda appeared before Professor Arlindo in a vision and, pointing to a rocky spot on the property, said that water would be available there. Accordingly, digging was done on that spot and an artesian well with an abundant water supply was found there. Later a second artesian well was dug, also following the instructions of Swami Brahmananda. All the water needs of the Mission are now adequately met by these two artesian wells. The Mission now has some fruit trees and a large vegetable garden, all irrigated by the water from these wells. The journal O Poder, once an organ of the Spiritist movement, now mainly preaches the teachings of Sri Ramakrisna, the Holy Mother Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Brahmananda and other disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. The journal has a fairly wide circulation all over Brazil. To make the Mission financially self-sufficient, a small macaroni factory and a factory which manufactures wire-netting were started. The products of these two businesses are in great demand around that rural area. Wire-netting is used in that area for fencing properties, vegetable gardens, etc. A small workshop is there to teach automobile mechanics, and a second workshop contains several hand looms to instruct the children and women how to produce various hand loom products. In the May-June/1993 issue of the bi-monthly journal Vedanta for the East and West, Swami Bhavyananda of Bourne End (England) Vedanta Society wrote a beautiful article entitled Further Wanderings in Argentina and Brazil: Pages from a Journal. In that article he wrote about Missao Ramakrishna in Brazil, describing among its attractive features its prayer hall or temple in Betim for the children. Swami Bhavyananda writes, At 7 pm everyone goes to the temple, where they sing little hymns in praise of Sri Ramakrishna, the Holy Mother—whom the children affectionately call ‘Little Mother,’—Swami Brahmananda, Sri Krishna, Jesus, etc. These hymns, ‘mantras’ as the residents call them, were taught by Swami (Brahmananda). On this point, there is another interesting story: When Swami Ritajananda (who was then the head of the ‘Centre Vedantic Ramakrichna’ of Gretz, France) visited the Mission in March, 1992, he was surprised to hear a hymn that is very well known in the South of India, but being of a regional kind, is little known elsewhere. The children love to sing these hymns, and they often begin to sing spontaneously while they are doing their daily tasks, such as washing the dishes, sweeping the floor and even playing. …. Miracles do happen, even these days! And one of them happened in the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil. According to the latest report received from Missao Ramakrishna, so far about 15, 000 children have been given various kinds of help. In recognition of the excellent philanthropic work of the Mission, it has recently been awarded the prestigious Premio Itao/Unicef Prize. (From page : The Vedanta Society of Western Washington, Seattle)
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 04:01:00 +0000
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