Taken from Life in Indian Moasteries written by Swami Bhaskarananda. Swami Gambhirananda had a beautiful way of teaching the junior monks. Once he noticed that I would leave my room unlocked. Since we lived in the upstairs of our office building next to a public thoroughfare, it was all the more necessary that the rooms should be kept locked. The only possessions that I had in my room were a few religious books, three sets of monastic clothes, and a small, rickety table fan. The age of the fan was far greater than mine! Surprisingly, it still worked! Swami Gambhirananda asked me, “Why don’t you lock your room regularly?” I replied, “I don’t have anything valuable in my room. That’s why I don’t lock my room.” He said, “It’s better to lock it up; otherwise, you become responsible for luring poor people to come and steal.” Thus advised, I started locking the door of my room. But one day, by mistake, I left my room unlocked and went elsewhere. When I returned, I found the door of my room locked. I asked one of the office boys, “Who has locked my room?” He replied, “Swami Gambhirananda has done it.” I felt extremely embarrassed. I asked the office boy, “Where is the key?” He replied, “It’s with Swami Gambhirananda.” I entered Swami Gambhirananda’s room. He was sitting in an old reclining camp chair with his eyes closed. He often would be found that way when he wanted to sit quietly and think. As soon as he heard my footsteps, he said with his eyes still closed, “The key is on the desk.” He didn’t scold me, or anything, but he taught me a lesson that I never forgot. In the ashrama in Seattle, where I have lived for the past thirty years, I always lock the door of my room when I go out. Some people think that it’s funny. But I do it out of reverence for Swami Gambhirananda, who taught me a valuable lesson nearly thirty-four years ago. Swami Gambhirananda had extraordinary concentration of mind. I would like to tell you a story about this. In Belur Math, tea is served to the monks twice a day—once in the morning during breakfast, and again around 3 o’ clock in the afternoon. Those of us who worked in the headquarters office used to be served the afternoon tea in our office by a servant. The tea, however, would be prepared in the main kitchen of the monastery. The servant would go to the kitchen and bring back a large kettleful of tea for us. He would first serve tea to Swami Gambhirananda and then to the rest of us. One afternoon, the cook who prepared tea in the kitchen mistook the salt for sugar and put it in the tea. As soon as we took the first sip, we could taste the salt and immediately poured that terribly salty tea out of our cups. Meanwhile the young swami in charge of the kitchen came running to our office, apologized profusely for the mistake, and said that fresh tea was being prepared and would be served shortly. I then went upstairs to Swami Gambhirananda’s room to give him that information. I found him sitting in his old, reclining camp chair with his eyes closed. As mentioned earlier, when he used to think deeply about something, he would sometimes shut his eyes like that. When I entered his room, he opened his eyes and looked at me inquiringly. I said, “Maharaj (revered sir), the salty tea that you got is going to be replaced with fresh tea. Please give me your cup, I’ll empty it down the sink and rinse the cup.” In amazement, he asked, “What salty tea? I drank the whole cup of tea that was given to me. I didn’t know it had salt in it!” Now it was my turn to be amazed. I understood that as he was drinking his tea, he must have been thinking of something with such great concentration that he hadn’t tasted the salt in the tea. Swami Gambhirananda was very straightforward. Some wrongly interpreted this straightforwardness as a lack of feeling for others. Those of us who had the opportunity to be close to him knew him to be a person with great feeling for others. But he would not verbally express his feelings. He acted on his feelings. When I first came to work at the headquarters office he said, “You see, you have now come to work in a place that deals with the monks of our Order. You have to learn to treat them with brotherly love. You should remember this when you send official letters to them. Paid employees work in government offices. They can afford to be heartless. But we are different. In our Order, we deal with our brother monks who are all volunteers.” Once a junior monk of one of our South Indian centers had gone to a different city to collect donations for his center. Unfortunately, he contracted infectious hepatitis from drinking contaminated water and had to be hospitalized. The hospital bill ran pretty high. The swami in charge of the center to which the monk belonged said that as the center’s finances were pretty bad, the monk should try to collect donations to pay his bill. Though released from the hospital, the monk was still weak and couldn’t think of traveling again to collect donations. He wrote a letter to Swami Gambhirananda describing his predicament. Swami Gambhirananda was very moved after reading his letter. He said to me, “See how heartless people are! This poor boy is being forced to collect money to pay his hospital bill!” Then he asked the cashier of the headquarters to send money to pay the bill. Belur Math had many retired monks living there. Some of them were suffering from different old-age conditions. But due to paucity of funds, they couldn’t be given proper medical care. Many had to silently suffer from illnesses that could have been cured, given the proper treatment. Due to paucity of funds, this problem was neglected for many years. It was Swami Gambhirananda who first decided to do something about it. He created a fund to treat the sick and elderly monks of the Order. At his inspiration, many donors came forward and donated substantial sums to the fund. He also created a convalescence home for monks called Arogya Bhavan that could accommodate a fair number of ailing monks. Had he not had special feeling for suffering monks, he wouldn’t have tried to make such arrangements.
Posted on: Thu, 08 May 2014 04:28:12 +0000
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