Service as the highest Worship - Part 1

Western scholars and their Indian counterparts place a lot of importance on any charitable work conducted by western Christian missionaries in India. For instance Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa receives a lot of visibility, publicity, praises and donations and rightly so, because they have done great work, though not always selfless because of religious compulsions. However similar or better work done in a true selfless spirit by Indians and home grown saints and sages are often overlooked or disregarded. Neither media, nor Western scholars, nor people in the West are interested in the work. It is hardly surprising given that their viewpoints and prejudices would be coloured by religious and national affiliations and they would be hardly interested in a similar or even better work done by an Indian. What is surprising is that the Indian media and intellectuals tend to completely disregard the service and sacrifice of their own countrymen. There may be some other angles to this, as the “free thinking and liberal” intellectuals and media would be more than uncomfortable to acknowledge the work of Hindu savants and saints. They would rather appreciate the work of missionaries who have already been in limelight and are praised by Western media, even if they are also affiliated to a particular religion, just because it is safe to do so and nobody would brand them “rightist” or “fundamentalist”. They would not lose their intellectual tag by praising a work which is widely praised by the West and moreover they have no moral dilemma in praising the work of people belonging to the “not so vilified” communities.

Several such noble souls who did a pioneering work and have left a lasting legacy are worth mentioning. One was Kali Kambli Baba of Rishikesh who did an outstanding work for the sake of pilgrims and itinerant monks in Rishikesh and Haridwar region, by establishing shelters, providing them with food, and constructing roads and bridges to reduce the hardship of traveling along treacherous and ardous mountain paths. However he is more widely known than other great souls whose stories we are going to narrate here, four of them being direct monastic disciples of Swami Vivekananda. Their work is like the gentle, silent river which flows, providing life giving water to millions quenching their thirst, but never demanding anything in return, depending solely on God; a true unselfish service or Karma Yoga.

The first among the brother disciples who responded to the clarion call of Swamiji and devoted himself entirely to the service of poor as God was Swami Akhandananda, or Gangadhar Maharaj, whom Swamiji affectionately called Ganges. Even when Swamiji was in America, Akhandananda, a great traveler who travelled penniless and barefoot to Tibet and other remote regions of Himalyas several times, started working for the upliftment of poor and deprived section of population in Rajasthan. He influenced Ajit Singh of Khetri to bring about many reforms in his state, esp. in the field of education and did similar work in several other states of Rajasthan. It was hardly surprising that he would be torn with pity and compassion on seeing the condition of poor peasants in the Murshidabad district of Bengal which was suffering from a terrible famine. He decided to stay there and do something for the famine afflicted and started the relief operations in a village called Mahula without any financial help or large scale donations. He was loath to receive any publicity for his work. When an advice came that he should put up an advertisement in a leading newspaper urging people for contribution for the good work, it seemed to him that Sri Ramakrishna himself had appeared before him in a vision and told him, “What do you want? Publicity or Me? If you want publicity you won’t have Me.” Needless to say that Akhandananda did not put up any advertisement and never publicized his work. Despite that, his silent work, which provided sucour to thousands in that district and the adjacent district of Dinajpur where his brother disciple Trigunatitananda carried out a similar work, earned the praise of high district officials of the British Government. Swami Akhandananda started an orphanage for the poor children who had lost their parents in that famine and due to other ailments, without any distinction of religion, caste and creed. He gave these orphan children a good life, himself treated them and provided them a decent education. The Ashrama that he established in Sargachi is still thriving and the orphanage has developed into Ramakrishna Students’ Home, Sargachi. Again he was at the forefront of the relief and rehabilation operations during the terrible earthquake in Bihar, although he was old and was suffering from various ailments. His most favourite Sanskrit couplet, of which he was a living example, was, “I do not covet earthly kingdom, or heaven, or even salvation. The only thing I desire is the removal of the miseries of the afflicted”