KendraUnfolds

Vivekananda Rock Memorial in 1970. The latest letter I wrote to
you was on 12/5/1976. I am enclosing a copy of it for your ready
reference.

Just about three months ago, on 21st May, we had a chance
meeting at the Calcutta air-port as we happened to travel by the
same flight from Delhi. I felt indeed happy when, noticing me in
the crowd of passengers who had alighted from the plane, you
made kind enquiries about me and the Committee’s work.

Against the whole background of this relationship of cordiality
between us, the painful shock inflicted on me when I sought to
greet you on the morning of 18th August at the railway platform
of Bhopal, leaves me totally baffled. That day both of us, by
coincidence, traveled to Bhopal by the same G.T. Express. In the
fitness of things, I thought of greeting you and moved towards
your compartment when the train reached the Bhopal station. I
soon joined the crowd that had come to receive you. In response
to my ‘Namaste’ to you on your way to the car, I expected your
usual smile and kind words. But, instead, you were pleased to
make some harsh and highly uncharitable remarks against me
and the Vivekananda Rock Memorial Committee in the presence
of the people assembled there. Taken aback by this unexpected
turn of the situation, and the embarrassing spectacle of your
agitated mood, the only thing I could do was to move away
from your presence. Later, after your car and the accompanying
fleet of vehicles had left the station, some of the people from the
crowd, presumably Congress workers, who happened to linger
behind, approached me and tried to assuage my injured feelings
by explaining to me that ill-health and overwork have of late
been often disturbing the equanimity of your mind and that I
was not the only person who faced your displeasure that day at
the station. This explanation only produced in me a feeling of
anxiety for you in my already bewildered mind.

I tried to forget the unhappy episode and engaged myself in
my work at Bhopal where I was scheduled to camp for a couple of
days. But a second and more agonizing shock awaited me when to

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have been made by you in the Congress-workers’ meeting held at
Bhopal on the day of your arrival there. The statement contained,
among other things, an allegation against the Vivekananda Rock
Memorial Committee that while they collected funds amounting
to crores of rupees, only a small portion of the collected amount
was spent on the construction of the memorial and that the rest
was passed on to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In fact, I had almost succeeded in setting aside from my
mind that incident of the previous morning, having come to
the conclusion that unkind words must have escaped your lips
only under the influence of exceptionally high blood pressure,
as had been suggested to me by others, and should, therefore,
be ignored and forgotten. But the above baseless statement of
yours, which has no relation to facts and which has appeared in
almost all the prominent papers in the country, has disturbed me
beyond measure and could hardly be ignored.

Since the day that unfortunate statement of yours appeared
in the press, I have been getting communications from our well-
wishers from all parts of the country with suggestions to issue
a press-statement in reply. As I am not in the habit of resorting
to the press as long as other avenues are open, I have chosen to
write directly to you first. Hence this letter!

You cannot have forgotten that you have been helping our
cause since the time we first met when you were a Minister of State
for Steel, Mines and Metals in the Union Ministry. Even when we
met on 21st May this year, I could see in you the same attitude of
affinity, sympathy and help for our work. Surely, no such thing
has happened during the last couple of months as would warrant
your adopting the present hostile attitude towards us. Assuming
that some doubts regarding our bonafides might have entered
your mind only in the recent months, as a result possibly of some
vicious slanders reaching your ears, I would have expected you
as a responsible Central Minister and also as a well-wisher of
our cause to ask me to meet you with a view to question me
about any charges or allegations that might have been reported

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to you. It is still a mystery to me why you preferred imagination
and having no substance whatsoever. The only conclusion I can
draw from this is that the statement reported to have been made
by you before the Congress-workers’ meeting on 18th of August
was as much under the influence of ill-health and overwork as
the incident that I myself witnessed on the morning of the same
day at the Bhopal station.

By the time this letter reaches you, more than a fortnight would
have elapsed since your Bhopal visit and there is, therefore, every
likelihood that you would have now become your normal self
again. Consequently, I hope that you might have now realized
what great wrong you have done to the Vivekananda Rock
Memorial Committee by making that derogatory statement.

I do hope that by now you are feeling that you owe public
reparation to the Committee. I do not conceive of any other just
and proper way for you to undo the wrong that has been done,
though unintentionally, by you. However, if you can think of
any other manner of redressing this public wrong, you may take
recourse to that alternative. In the name of justice and fair play, I
appeal to you to do the needful in the matter at the earliest.

I hope to be favoured with an early reply.

I am enclosing for your perusal copies of a few reports of your

press statement of 18th August, Bhopal, as published in some

prominent newspapers in English.

With regards,

Yours Sincerely,

(Eknath Ranade)

General Secretary.

Encl: as above.

Shri P.C. Sethi,

Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers,

Shastri Bhavan, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road,

NEW DELHI – 110 001.

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31-10-1976
Mumbai

Dear Shri Sabarjeet,

You might have learnt, by now, that I had to get myself
admitted in the Bombay Hospital, Bombay, on 11th October, for
rest and for undergoing various medical tests on the advice of
my physician friend Dr. B.K. Goyal before whom I had presented
myself for my periodical medical check-ups after reaching
Bombay from Kanyakumari and Madras on 9th October.

As all the necessary medical tests are now over and the results
are found satisfactory, I am likely to be discharged from the
hospital on 1st of November after completing my three-week
complete rest. However, I shall continue to stay in Bombay for
about another week before resuming my tour round the country.

I am in due receipt of your two important letters dated 27-9-
1976 and 15-10-1976. They were redirected from Kanyakumari at
my Bombay camp address. However, both the letters were placed
before me for my perusal only a couple of days back when I was
permitted by doctors to slowly start attending to only important
and urgent correspondence.

In your letter dated 27-9-1976, you reiterated, quite in
unequivocal terms, your earlier resolve to leave the Vivekananda
Kendra. You also gave an ultimatum about the date of your
departure from Port Blair. Your letter said “I am bent upon the
idea to quit the mission by mid-October and expect the arrival of
somebody by that time to hand over the keys of this office.”

In that letter, you gave six reasons, which you termed
as ‘ideological’, for your aforesaid decision. It was, indeed,
unfortunate that you did not consider it necessary to first seek
an opportunity to discuss them with me to see how far your
conclusions were sound and the premises from which you
derived them were correct. Perhaps, you thought that such a
discussion would not serve your purpose as, in any case, your
leaving Port Blair and returning home to look after your family

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affairs was unavoidable and could not brook any further delay.
In short, what you adduced in your letter as the seventh reason,
though last in the series, was, in fact, the foremost, and compelled
you to take that decision as was evident from your sentence “but
family disturbances also are not allowing me to stay here any
longer.”

Your letter dated 15-10-1976 made me still more perplexed.
This letter negated almost everything that was said in the earlier
letter hardly twenty days back. I should have normally felt happy
over your withdrawal of “all allegations against the organization
without any condition”, had it been the result of a thorough
reappraisal of a number of sweeping statements you had made
in that letter. But, instead, I got the impression that you wrote
that letter in a fit of emotion and with a benevolent intention not
to burden me with an additional problem or difficulty that may
arise due to your departure to home at this junction. While I am
really moved by your sense of compassion for me, I would like you to
rest assured that a few additional difficulties here and there do not make
much difference to me. Persons like you and me, dedicating themselves
to a great cause, virtually offer themselves to live in difficulties which
invariably surround them. That indeed becomes a part of their life and
they soon learn to thrive in difficulties. Do we ever take compassion
on fish for the ‘burden’ most sincerely request you not to be swayed by
difficulties that beset me.

In the context of what I have stated above, I honestly feel that
you should stick to your earlier decision conveyed to me through
your previous letters. To be a life-worker of Vivekananda Kendra
is to bind oneself for life. Your latest decision to continue to work
in the capacity of a life-worker trainee is not going to last long,
impulsive as you are by nature. All your faculties, including
that of reasoning, are virtually handmade of your predominant
impulsive nature. The same emotional impulse that made you
write the present letter of 15th, is bound to make you, sooner
or later, turn homewards when conditions at home further
deteriorate. Inevitable as it is, this is the ideal time for you to go
home for the very reason that you are, presently, restored back

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to your mood to stay out. If you leave now, you will carry with
you only good will and love for the ‘Vivekananda Kendra’. But
if and when, in time to come, your ‘seventh’ reason crops up
again, your mind will be again at sixes and sevens, and at that
time when you leave, you may not be in the same sober mood of
today.

I, therefore, strongly advise you to decide to go home and
attend to the family matters before they get worsened. As Shri
R.B.V.S. Manian is now there, you may hand over the charge to
him. He has been advised to make suitable local arrangements so
that the Kendra work at Port Blair continues in some form or the
other till some-one from the fourth batch is posted to that center.

I shall expect your immediate reply conveying to me your
reaction to my advice. You may seek counsel from Shri Manian
also.

Please convey my Sasneha Namaskars to all co-workers
including Shri Manian.

With affection,

Brotherly yours,

11-01-1977
Dear Shri Sabarjeet,

I returned here from my three-month long tour only about a
week back.

I saw your letter dated 27-12-1976 addressed to Shri J. Basudev.
I also saw the reply sent to you by Shri R.B.V.S. Manian.

In the context of what you have proposed in your letter and
what Shri Manian has written to you in reply, I am writing the
following lines for your further guidance.

At present, our average monthly expenditure (both personal
and office) at Port Blair is to the tune of Rs. 500/- (excluding

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the casual expenses incurred on items like furniture and
celebrations). Now you are contemplating to have a spacious
flat containing enough space for your residence, office, library,
Ayurvedic dispensary and for conducting other activities like
Yoga classes, involving considerable additional expenses, the
rental expenditure alone coming to Rs. 300/- to 400/-. Perhaps,
the monthly budget may swell to Rs. 850/- or even to Rs. 1,000/-.

The suggestions of the kind you have made are being received
from some of our other centers also. But if each of our workers
is to be provided with Rs. 1,000/- a month, you can well imagine
how much total financial burden the headquarters will have to
bear.

The solution naturally lies in our instructing every worker to
try to find funds for meeting recurring monthly expenses of his
center from the local resources. That will automatically mean
that the budget plan of a center will be, generally speaking, in
direct proportion to that unit’s total capacity to raise funds.

We presume that you must have deeply thought over the
matter and may have already made plans to arrange for regular
monthly contributions from our well-to-do sympathizers at Port
Blair to meet recurring needs of the local center.

But to make local collections also poses a problem. Till now,
we have not empowered our branch centers to print their own
receipt books and collect funds for meeting their local needs. The
collections, if any, are at present made only on receipt books of
the Central Committee.

We followed the above described arrangement to circumvent
account-keeping difficulties at different branch centers where, at
the initial stage of our work, we could not expect to get trained
and dedicated workers to constitute Managing Bodies to manage
the affairs of the branch units.

But, I think the stage has now come, at least in respect of
certain branch centers, to appoint full-fledged Managing Bodies,

257

duly empowered to collect money and print receipt books for that
purpose. And among such centers, Port Blair may be considered
as one.

I, therefore, feel that you should put off, for the time being,
all such plans as would entail enhanced expenditure and should
address yourself first to the task of preparing a ground for the
formation of a Managing Body of Port Blair.

As per the provisions and rules of our Society’s constitution,
the ‘Managing Body’ for a branch center is appointed by the
Central Managing Committee by adopting resolution to that
effect in their Committee meeting.

You are, therefore, requested to send to us the names of
persons of integrity and stature, subscribing to the ideal of
Vivekananda Kendra, whom, in your view, we should approach
for working on the Managing Body. The contemplated Managing
Body will consist of the following constituents for the time being,
(1) President (2) one or two Vice-Presidents (3) Secretary (4) one
Assistant Secretary (5) Treasurer and (6) three members.

However, if you think that the stage is not ripe for the
appointment of a ‘Managing Body’, we may nominate an
interim body of only three members, to work as Convenor, Joint
Convenor and an Organiser, duly empowered to print receipt
books, to collect money and to open and operate bank account.
Shri Manian has informed me that Shri Bhagwan Singh and Shri
B.K. Tripathi, our present Convenor and Joint Convenor, have
ceased to take interest in the Vivekananda Kendra work and are
even anxious to be relieved of their responsibilities. It is against
this background that I have referred above to the appointment of
fresh Convenors.

Whether you are in favour of having a Managing Body or of
having only the convenors, you have to send to us the names
of suitable persons in your view, I want you to name persons
suitable for holding the above-mentioned responsibilities on the
basis of your personal assessment about them. You need not talk
to them to find out whether they would be willing to work on

258

the Committee or ready to work as Convenors. That I shall do
during my visit to Port Blair when I shall have an opportunity to
meet them in person.

It is only after the appointment of the ‘Managing Body’ or the
new ‘Convenors’ that contributions can be received, using the
receipt books of the Port Blair branch. That will be the proper
time to expand your activities with an enhanced monthly budget.
Till then it is advisable for you to wait.

However, if you have, on the basis of Shri Manian’s recent

letter, already fixed a new house and it is now difficult for you

to retrace the steps, you should write to Kanyakumari office for

sending you the Central Committee’s receipt books for collection

purposes. On hearing from you they will do the needful in the

matter.

With best regards,

Yours affectionately,

18-02-1977

Dear Shri Arvind Gore,

I have gone through your letter giving some information
about the scooter. I am not able to take any decision in the matter
as you are furnishing information only piece-meal, and that too,
when only asked for.

I want a detailed letter from you regarding why you require
the scooter when you have already a vehicle with you. What is
your plan about the existing vehicle? Whether you plan to sell
it, and if so, what price would it fetch? You have also to mention
what is the price of a new scooter.

In short, if our Delhi center considers it necessary to purchase
that scooter, you should, in consultation with Shri Anil Batra
and Kumari Shailaja, explain how its purchase will be useful for
our work and how procuring this second hand scooter would be
more advantageous than our going in for a new scooter. When

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you seek a decision on any matter, you should give all such
relevant data as would be necessary to be examined to arrive at
a proper conclusion.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

(TRANSLATED FROM HINDI LETTER)
01-04-1977
Nagpur

Poojya Baba,
Sashtang Namaskar Vinanti Vishesh
We all came back to Nagpur after meeting you in the Ashram

with Sri Balasaheb Deoras and others. I went to Delhi the very
next day for the work of Vivekananda Kendra. I could stay there
only for a day because I got the news of a visit of the king and the
queen of Nepal to Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanyakumari
on 30th and so I had to go there suddenly. But I came to know
after reaching Kanyakumari that the Kanyakumari programme
of the Royal Couple is cancelled. So I am going back to Delhi
to complete the remaining work.. Yesterday night on the way, I
came to Nagpur to stay for a couple of days.

During my last stay at Delhi I met Nirmalatai. I went to
the residence of Srimati Indira Gandhi with her. I gave report
about the meeting of Sri Balasaheb Deoras with you and about

The whole religion of the Hindu is centred in realisation.

The ideal of man is to see God in everything.

-Swami Vivekananda

260

the discussion that you both had. We talked on other few
general topics too. She expressed her happiness. I will return
to Kanyakumari on 14th April after finishing my tour to Delhi,
Srinagar, Mumbai etc. Then I will be at Kanyakumari till April
end. I will write next letter from there.

Sasneha Namaskar to all the Ashramites.

Yours,

(TRANSLATED FROM HINDI LETTER)
03-05-1977
Delhi

Poojya Baba,

Sashtang Namaskar Vinanti Vishesh

I was on tour in the first fortnight of last month. But almost
always I am at Kanyakumari in the second fortnight. The
training of 4th batch of 11 Jeevanvrati Karyakartas concluded on
26th April and all the Karyakartas have started leaving for their
designated Karyakshetra. They soon will join in their respective
places. This year too they have been sent mainly to Arunachal
Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Andaman, etc. One of the
Karyakartas from this year’s batch is posted in Sikkim also.

I came to know through newspaper that Mananiya Prime
Minister Sri Morarjibhai Desai will soon be on tour of Tamilnadu.
So I have come to Delhi with the purpose that he should include
Kanyakumari also in his tour programme. I met him yesterday.
He said that his whole tour programme is getting rescheduled
due to the ensuing Vidhansabha Elections. I came to know from
him that at least at present the whole programme is uncertain.

I am going to Assam in the third week of this month. I will be
on tour there for nearly two weeks. Letters from many candidates
willing to join the 5th batch of Jeevanvrati have come and still are
coming. My tour to the selected places in various states will start

261

in the next month to meet them personally. As usual the training
course for the 5th batch will start on 11th September.

Sasneha Namaskar to all the brothers and sisters of Ashram.

Yours,

5-6-1977
Kolkata

Dear Shri Dharampal,

I am in receipt of your letter dated May 25. I had also received
your earlier letter dated April 4. Both the letters were redirected
to me at my camp address in my current tour.

I have gone through your earlier letter very closely. The
main theme of your letter implies the setting up of a high
power (moral) machinery, almost parallel to the government,
to function as a nation’s watch-dog. My immediate reactions
to the theme are as under: Do we really have people of high
eminence and integrity, and who are at the same time impartial
and objective to the backbone, to constitute even a small thirty-
man supreme council of your conception, worthy of being called
the nation’s conscience? Assuming that we have in our country
today such persons in adequate number, and even more, who
will locate and select them and persuade them to work on the
council? Even granting that so long as Vinobaji and Jaiprakash
Babu are still with us we may be able to tide over this difficulty,
could the rival political parties and especially the government
of today and tomorrow be trusted not to sabotage the smooth
functioning of this moral mechanism? These first reactions in
no way indicate my disapproval of your scheme. But these are
certainly the questions that are storming my mind. The scheme
as such is no doubt good, only if right persons could be found to
implement it. As you are visiting India soon, I need not express
all my sentiments and views on the matter. We are bound to
meet. I am scheduled to be in Bombay on 30th of June. You may

262

ascertain about my whereabouts by contacting either of the

below-mentioned two addresses:

Dr. C.A. Mehta Shri P. Sivasankaran

Maheshwari Mansion, 10-A, Tulsi Bhavan,

34, Nepean Sea Road, Vivekananda Kendra

Bombay –6. Sion West, Bombay–22.

Phone: 368805 Phone: 476246

I shall be in Bombay-Poona side till July 10. Thereafter, I shall

take a short trip to Kanyakumari. I request you to drop me a

letter at my Madras address giving me your Bombay address.

I shall convey to you at your Bombay address my precise tour-

programme for July which will soon get finalized.

I am sorry to learn that your wife is not enjoying perfect
health. Dear Geeta is very much in my mind. I am glad that she
is doing well in her studies.

With regards, Brotherly yours,


10-6-1977
Siliguri

Dear Priyabrata,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 28-5-1977. It was redirected
to me at my camp address in my present tour. I am writing this
reply from Siliguri.

I really wonder why you should have chosen me for addressing
your letter containing grievances against your elders as well as
colleagues in the political field you have been associated with for
quite some time. You should have written that letter fruitfully to
your present political bosses.

You have in your letter conveyed to me your disappointments
and frustrations arising out of the current happenings in your
State. I mention below my humble reactions to the contents of
your letter.

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Among those who desire to participate in nation-building
activities through political work, there are two distinct categories,
namely, (1) those who adopt politics essentially as a career or a
profession and (2) those who accept it as an avenue for service, in
addition to their profession which may be either medical, legal,
teaching or some other one for which they may have qualified
themselves.

As I consider you to be essentially a medical practitioner by
profession, who has accepted political work only as an additional
service activity, you should, in my view, gratefully thank God
for having brought you back, in the nick of time, from the brink
of what would have been in the long run a great loss, which in
your present infatuation for M.L.Aship, you consider it to be a
gainful opportunity. I hope both of you and your wife will offer
sincere prayers to God for having been merciful to you.

With good wishes, Yours affectionately,


07-08-1977
Bhopal

Dear Smt. Mallamma,

I am moved by your letter dated 2-8-1977. Your letter was
redirected to me at my camp address in my present tour.

The offerings that you want to make to our mission are so
sacred and valuable that the coffer that will hold them will remain
ever full to the brim, notwithstanding its outlet of expenditure
ever flowing.

However, I am at a loss to understand why you feel like making
these offerings and resolving to repeat them every month, when
you may need them in future for yourself or for your son.

The VIVEKANANDA KENDRA will most humbly receive
your monthly remittances if you are very keen on making them.
But, I request you to pause for a moment before doing so to

264

assure yourself that, while parting with your valuable savings,
you are not doing injustice to yourself or to your son.

For your information, I may add that all cheques and drafts
may be issued in favour of ‘Vivekananda Kendra’ and sent at the
following address:

The General Secretary,
Vivekananda Kendra, Vivekanandapuram,
KANYAKUMARI – 629 702.

With good wishes,

Yours affectionately,

25-8-1977
Calcutta
Dear Shri Ramchandra Singhal,

This is to inform you that I have recently received a letter
from your uncle expressing great concern and distress over your
decision to join the Vivekananda Kendra as a life-worker. In his
letter he informs me that your decision has given a terrible shock
to your already ailing parents and it may have a disastrous effect
on their health.

I hope, you may have taken a serious note of the reaction of
your decision on the elders at home and you may have already
started rethinking. As the situation stands, I advise you to
reconsider and reassess the propriety of your decision. If, after
taking stock of the whole situation, you feel that you should give
up your decision or at least postpone it till the time your brothers
come of age to shoulder the family responsibilities or till your
parents get somewhat reconciled to your views, then you should

It is a great thing to take up a grand ideal in life and then
give up one’s whole life to it.

-Swami Vivekananda

265

not hesitate to revise your earlier plan. On our part, we assure
you that we would welcome your dropping the idea altogether
or for the time-being.

I am sure, you would consider coolly all the pros and cons
of the situation. Whatever your decision, I hope, it will be taken
after full objective thinking.

With love and blessings,

Yours affectionately,

25-09-1977

Dear Jyotirmayananda,

I am in receipt of your both letters with enclosures. We shall
soon address a letter to Mrs. Amory Eaton. A copy of that letter
will be endorsed to you also. Regarding your request to me to
call you back here, I do not understand what has prompted you
to make that request. As I do not want to encourage you to go
on wandering from place to place like a rolling stone, I do not at
all feel like responding to your request favourably. The reason for
your chronic discontent is that you are neither at peace with the world
nor at peace with yourself. Perhaps, you are not at peace even with
peace itself.

In fact I had been relieved of my anxiety about you when I
learnt that you were accepted by Swami Chidbhavanandaji.
This is indeed your good fortune. Because, there you got what
you really wanted, namely, a company of Sannyasis and an
opportunity to engage yourself in temple worship and in
chanting the name of God. I advise you to stick to your present
assignment which the providence seems to have ordained for
you now. Also banish from your head all those thoughts that are
trying to unsettle your mind again.

266

Regarding your eagerness to meet me, I may inform you that
I may myself come to Tapovanam to meet Swamiji in the not too
distant future when we may meet. I hope that will also help you
to learn ‘patience’, the insignia or the hallmark of a true Sannyasi.

With love and good wishes,

Yours affectionately,

04-12-1977
Delhi
Dear Shri D.S. Satav,

I happened to go through copies of letters addressed to you
by Shri Suresh Rastogi from Kanyakumari and Shri K. Jayakar
from Dibrugarh. From these communications, I learn that you
submitted your accumulated accounts of four months, namely,
July, August, September and October, only on 22nd November,
though I had written to you on 3-11-1977 to send your accounts
without any further delay.

Now, December has begun. As advised by Shri Jayakar, your
November account is supposed to reach Dibrugarh by 9th of
December. I hope you will never be a defaulter, hereafter, in
submitting your monthly accounts, regularly, within the 1st
week of the following month.

Besides observing regularity in sending your monthly
accounts, you should also be very meticulous in obtaining
vouchers, wherever possible, and sending them along with your
monthly account-sheets. I fail to understand why are you shy of
procuring vouchers, in spite of repeated instructions from the
headquarters. Similarly, by what logic you mix things like, soap,
surf, hair oil, tooth paste, tooth brush, blades with meals and
make it one single item and name it ‘mess’. You are to remember
that all individual items of expenditure should be mentioned
separately and should be supported by relevant cash memos or
vouchers. I advise you to fix a particular shop for purchasing

267

soap, tooth brush, tooth paste, etc. I shall eagerly await your
November month’s account at Kanyakumari, routed through
our Dibrugarh office.

When I go back to Kanyakumari on 12th December, I
shall examine your previous accounts and give you further
instructions, if any other irregularities are found in your writing
the same.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

15-12-1977

Dear Santosh,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 24-11-1977 and have noted
the contents.

You have mentioned that there is need and also scope for
opening a dispensary in the rural area around Gangtok. This is
not only true of Gangtok and Sikkim but also about almost all
States. Medical services are scanty all over the land. Only when
we get enough number of life-workers from among medical
men, we shall be able to deploy them for opening dispensaries.

You may be aware that Shri Bharat Bhushan is entrusted
with the work of assisting Dr. Nagarathna in looking after the
Kanyakumari dispensary and catering medical help to rural folk
by visiting surrounding villages in a mobile medical van. It is,
therefore, not advisable to shift him from this assignment when
it is only recently that the work has picked up some momentum.

It is evident from your letter that you are planning to have
a small library at Gangtok. A good organizer as you are, you
are expected to transmit this urge of yours into our well-wishers
in that area and induce them to contribute their mite for that
purpose. If you propose to start a dispensary in your field of

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work with money as well as doctors brought from Kanyakumari
or think of setting up a library by procuring funds from the
headquarters, there would be no charm in such plans. I want you
to think over this matter. If, even after doing so, you feel that the
headquarters should help you with the initial capital of Rs. 500/-
to enable you to set the ball rolling, Shri Suresh Rastogi will send
you the desired amount on hearing from you.

I hope you are making proper efforts to develop useful contacts with
our well-wishers at Siliguri which is a very important and vital place of
vast potentialities in that region. When you get some respite from
your work in Sikkim, you should visit Siliguri to strengthen and
expand our circle of friends there.

I returned to Kanyakumari yesterday. I intend to stay here till
at least the end of this month.

With good wishes and love,

Yours affectionately,

18-12-1977

Dear Shri Nikhil,

I am glad to learn that you have reached Tinsukia, the new
place of your posting. Yesterday, dear Bibekananda also got your
letter from Tinsukia.

I am planning to come there sometime next month. Shri R.
Manian has already left Kanyakumari for Tinsukia to participate
in the teachers’ get-together scheduled to take place from 20th
to 27th December. You must be now busy in connection with
preparations for the same.

Tinsukia has assumed great importance from the point of
view of our work. This place is going to be our base for the
expansion of our activities in that region. Though the town is
predominantly Bengali speaking, you should earnestly try to

269

learn Assamee. Its knowledge will give you easy access not only
to Assamee speaking population but also to people in the hills.

Regarding your health, I hope you are having no complaint
now. But you should continue to take medicine as prescribed
by doctors. Though it is planned that you should be at Tinsukia,
you will be shifted to a new and even difficult field, if, after
observation for a year, doctors find you perfectly fit for such an
assignment.

Shri Kakasaheb, our In-charge of the Engineering Department
at Vivekanandapuram, is to come to Tinsukia in the second week
of January to supervise the construction work soon to be taken
up in a big way at our contemplated center near Tinsukia. You
must have already seen the place chosen by us for that purpose.
As Shri Kakasaheb will not be able to knock about here and there
on account of his old age, you will have to stay with him at the
work-site and provide him with the muscle-power which he
would badly need. I am sure, you will give a good account of
yourself while discharging this responsibility.

I take this opportunity to confide in you one secret that I have
started harbouring in my heart since you were ushered in my
presence for the first time, a year back. It is this that I am bent
upon chiselling you into a ‘Man.’ If you are also determined to try
your utmost to transform yourself into the desired shape, you will feel
less pain or no pain while receiving the necessary cuts and strokes.
Thus it depends solely upon you whether this ‘Operation man-making’
is going to be painless or painful for you. Regarding the ultimate
outcome, I do not have any doubts whatsoever. I quite see before
my mental eye the future ‘Nikhil’ fashioned into a worthy shape.
In fact, there are no other choices or alternatives open to you,
other than the only two mentioned above.

With love and blessings, Yours affectionately,


270

[TRANSLATED LETTER] 01-03-1978
Chiranjeevi Shailaja,

Received your letter of 10-02-78. I received it during my stay at
Bombay itself. But only after reaching Nagpur yesterday night, I
could get time today to write the letter.

You have written in your letter that you are anxious to go to
Pune to help your mother during the delivery of your sister and
so you have written the letter for permission.

It is very natural for the elder sister to become ‘anxious’ to
help younger sister in her difficulties but – still thinking about
the path which you have chosen and the ‘VRATA’ which you
yourself have undertaken, your subjects of ‘anxiety’ should have
been totally different from this.

With conscious decision, you have adopted a unique way of
life to be a Jeevanvrati of the Kendra and to reach its culmination
you have to go away from the blood relations day by day. This is
the hard truth. If you have well understood this reality then it is
beneficial for you to knowingly exert to gradually do away with
these bindings of family relations.

Even now if your mind assures you that you have undertaken
this Vrata of social service after properly thinking of all the related
matters, then it would not be very difficult for you to remove the
present ‘anxiety’ from your mind. I always wish and expect that
your mind should become one with the work entrusted to you to
the extent that it should not wander at Pune or elsewhere. And
even if it wanders, it should not get caught there.

The real evil is idleness, which is the principal cause of our
poverty.

Immortality and bliss are not to be acquired, we possess
them already; they have been ours all the time.

-Swami Vivekananda

271

When I receive a letter from you that this thought that entered
your mind is thrown away and your mind once again has settled
in the work, my mind will be at peace and cease to be anxious.

I will reach Madras on 8th. From there, after 5 – 6 days I will
go to Kanyakumari.

Sasneha Namaskar to Sri Aravind, Sri Anil and others.

Yours,



04-03-1978
Dear Shri S.V. Krishnaswamy, Nagpur

I am in receipt of your letter dated 22-2-’78 handed over to me
by Shri Tagadur Ramachandra Rao, while, he, along with Shri
C.S. Gupta, met me during my recent visit to Bangalore.

In connection with the subject-matter of your letter, I wish to
inform you that though we do not consider it worthwhile to re-
publish all the old issues of Brahmavadin that had been edited
by the late Shri Alasinga Perumal, we do feel that after shifting
all the material contained in those old issues, a few handy books
on useful themes, both philosophical and religious, can be carved
out of the same and be made available to the present generation.
This, of course, can be done only in a phased manner depending
upon the availability of resources and our order of priorities.

In pursuance of the above, I have requested Shri C.S. Gupta to
hand over to our Madras office a typed copy of the relevant back
issues, already got prepared by him. I am also requesting Shri
R.N. Venkataraman, our officer-in-charge, Madras, to entrust
that typed matter, when received from Shri C.S. Gupta, to our
learned friends associated with our publication department for
getting it processed on the lines mentioned above.

We are grateful to you for the help assured to us by you in
bringing out the proposed publications. We shall certainly

272

approach you for help and guidance if we face difficulties when
we take up the work.

I am sending copies of this communication to Shri Tagadur

Ramachandra Rao and Shri C.S. Gupta for their information.

With regards,

Yours sincerely,

16-03-1978

Dear Hari,

Received your letter dated 7-3-’78. I got it on my arrival here
yesterday.

In fact, during my recent visit to Nagpur in the first week of
March, a thought about you crossed my mind when my car passed
your old house while I was proceeding to Ashok Lakhote’s place.

Your letter recalled to my mind old memories. A figure of
a bright and lovely young Hari sandwiched between the grim
realities of economically hard pressed family-life on the one
hand, and the equally irresistible demands of his inner patriotic
urges on the other, came before my eyes. But that was the image
you presented of yourself long back. Today the conditions have
vastly changed. You are now the father of seven children and
enjoying the afternoon of your life.

From your present letter it appears that you are cherishing
hopes that some of your children may now fulfil what you aspired
but failed to achieve in your life due to unkind circumstances.
But, that depends upon how much fire of idealism your children
have imbibed so far. When I come next to Nagpur I shall have
an opportunity to see for myself in what mould they have been
brought up.

Convey my Sadar Pranams to your parents. Also my love and
blessings to your children and affection to their mother.

Yours affectionately,

273

01-04-1978

Dear Shri M.R. Ramachari,

During my recent sojourns in Kanyakumari, I had long sittings
and discussions with our auditors. They pointed out that many
life-worker-trainees and whole-time workers are still found
wanting in observing (1) prescribed rules of account-writing as
well as (2) financial discipline expected of them.

I, therefore, went through, perhaps for the first time, all the
monthly accounts of each individual worker belonging to our
cadre of life-workers and whole-timers. After scrutinising
these accounts, I also felt that, while in a number of cases, there
was wide scope for improvements in their manner of writing
accounts and in maintaining regularity of their dispatch to the
office concerned, in some others, a desirable change in their
expenditure-pattern seemed necessary. Unfortunately, the
remaining few appeared wanting in almost all respects in the
discharge of this vital obligation of a Kendra worker.

Scrutiny over, my first impulse was to write to each of our
workers, bringing to his or her notice, the specific entries pin-
pointed by the accounts’ department or by the auditors. But,
on second thought, I felt that, for the present, I should address
only this general letter to each of our workers drawing his or
her attention to the norms that are expected of us as dedicated
missionaries pledged to (i) simplicity in life entailing progressive
reduction of wants to the reasonable minimum necessity and (ii)
bringing about other changes in habits and life-style to qualify
ourselves to serve the cause of the Kendra more effectively.
Through this letter I express before you my sincere hope and
expectation that, against the background of our avowed high
objectives, (1) we shall have a close look at our spendings to
effect cuts to bring down our expenditure to a level and a pattern
satisfactory to our own conscience, if it is not so at present, and
(2) shall take meticulous care to follow the prescribed code of
conduct in respect of the writing of accounts and submitting

274

them to the office concerned, if we have not been particularly
attentive to this work so far.

For guidance sake, it may be said that the following three
questions should be posed to oneself and affirmative answers
obtained from one’s conscious before one proceeds to procure
or purchase a thing one sets his mind upon (1) Does that thing
constitute a necessity for me? (2) Do I really believe that I cannot
deny that thing to myself, without detriment to my health or to
Kendra work that I am entrusted to do? (3) Does the thing that
I want and which I am proposing to purchase is of the available
cheap and economic variety, good enough to serve my need?

I am intending to scrutinize all monthly accounts of our life-
workers and whole-timers, received at the headquarters, in the
coming three months and if any irregularities or improprieties
still come to notice while examining them, I shall certainly take
up the matter with the individuals concerned and discuss the
relevant points with them.

Before I close, I consider it necessary to convey to you the
following revised procedure regarding writing of monthly
accounts:

1) Where there is no regular office, the residence of the life-
worker will be deemed as the Kendra-office of that place or
locality, and its rent etc. would form part of the office account.

2) All expenditure on travelling and conveyance is to form
part of the office-accounts, as we do not conceive of a life-worker
having any personal life in his field. All his activities are bound
to be for the sake of Kendra only.

3) Even all correspondence-expenditure should form part of
the office-account. There is no personal correspondence for a life-
worker. His occasional correspondence with people at home is
also a part of his duty as Kendra worker. Similarly, copies of all
official letters, including those written to co-workers, must form
part of the office register. Only such letters as are of only family

275

interest addressed to home people, may be kept in a separate file,
though the expenses will be debited to the office.

4) If there are genuine guests, they are the guests of the office,
and expenses, if any, on them should be debited to the office
account under the column ‘other expenses’.

5) All expenditure on food, clothing, other bodily needs like
oil, tooth-paste, tooth-brush, blades, soaps, etc. and medicine, if
any, should alone be written under ‘Maintenance’ column.

6) Each entry of expenses made date-wise in the account
sheets should be accompanied by description giving broad
details regarding the particular item over which the expenditure
is made, together with necessary vouchers wherever obtainable.

Other additional instructions, if any, in respect of accounts
will be communicated to you by the department concerned.

As mentioned above, I am writing almost identical letters to
others of our life-workers and whole-timers also.

You should show this letter to the life-worker-trainee who
may be joining you at your center.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

29-04-1978

Dear Shri Santosh,

I happened to read your monthly progress report, dated 1st
April, addressed to Shri Suresh Rastogi. From the report, I learnt
that you conducted Yoga classes for Girls in P.N. Girls’ school in
the month of March ’78.

As a part of our general policy, our standing instructions
to our male life-workers are that they should avoid personally
conducting Yoga classes for girls. If there is a pressing demand
from ladies for conducting classes for them, the life-worker may

276

train, initially, three-four ladies from among our well-wishers’
wives or sisters (by imparting lessons to them by going to
their homes) who would, in turn, be prepared to devote time
and energy to conduct girls’ classes on behalf of the Kendra. I
hope you will, accordingly, train a few ladies to entrust to them,
eventually, the entire women’s work in Gangtok, so that you may
soon extricate yourself from being required to conduct classes for
girls, small, young or elderly. In this connection, the best thing
for you would be to induce some prospective lady-workers to
go to Kanyakumari to participate in the ’21-day women’s Yoga
Shibir’.

I had the pleasure to meet your parents at Calcutta yesterday.
We could chit-chat for about a couple of hours, in the midst of
my crowded programme of meetings the whole-day.

I am reaching Kanyakumari on the 1st of May with a plan to
stay there till about the 10th.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

07-05-1978

Dear Shri Bharat Bhushan,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 26th April and have noted
the contents.

Though I desire you to write all routine letters concerning
office, accounts, work-reports etc. in English, it would be
in the fitness of things if you resort to your mother-tongue
when something other than routine is to be conveyed to the
headquarters. Fortunately, among our national languages, I
know fairly well not only Hindi but Marathi and Bengali also.
Our Life-workers and other co-workers, when they have to
convey to me their bosom thoughts and sentiments they always
write to me in their respective mother-tongues. I feel extremely
bad when such of the life-workers whose mother-tongues are

277

Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada etc. are required to write to
me in English or in unintelligible broken Hindi on account of my
ignorance of these languages.

Regarding the second query you have made, I still maintain
that there can be no personal correspondence for a life-worker.
As a life–worker has no personal life, he has naturally no personal
correspondence. One does need certain amount of privacy or seclusion,
as in meditation, study etc. but that is not to be confused with what is
commonly understood as personal, as distinct from what falls within
the compass of the organization to which one has surrendered oneself.
You will be able to understand these concepts better as you grow in
maturity and, more than that, you learn to identify with the cause of
the organization more and more till you totally shed your little ‘I’ ness.

The Women’s Shibir is progressing very nicely here. The
atmosphere is surcharged with enthusiasm, fervour and
discipline. The number of trainees is seventy-three.

I am leaving for Bombay on the 10th. I am to return here
on 20th for a couple of days to participate in a meeting of the
Managing Committee to be held on 21st.

Convey my affection to dear Sabarjeet and others.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

Note: In the telegraphic address given in our old letter-head,
Kanyakumari was mentioned as ‘Capecomorin’ for the simple
reason that in those days, the Postal Department, in their list of
telegraph stations, had named the place as Capecomorin only.
The various post offices, therefore, used to refuse to accept
telegrams to Kanyakumari on that plan. It was only because of
our repeated exhortations that the Postal Department made the
needed amendment in the name.

278

07-05-1978

Dear Shri Arvind,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 26-4-’78 and have noted the
contents. In fact, your letter reached my hands only yesterday.

Though I quite realize that you may have to go home to settle
the matters regarding your land, I do not think it advisable for
you to leave Delhi at this juncture. Only after the June camp is
over and the accounts etc. pertaining to the camp get ready, that
you can conveniently take a trip home. You should concentrate
now only on the preparations for the camp.

You may have received a copy of my tour-programme sent
by Shri R. Chandramouli. Accordingly, I am visiting Delhi in the
last week of May, and again in the second week of June. My visit
in June is mainly to participate in the Delhi camp.

I hope the date of Ku. Anita’s marriage is finally fixed and
preparations may have been afoot. I expect to get the invitation
card in due course.

Shri Devendra Agarwal was to write something in Panchajanya
on the basis of his talks with me. If the interview has been
published, please send the relevant paper-cutting.

Convey my Sasneha Namaskars to Shri Vasudeo, Shri Anil
and other co-workers.

With regards, Yours affectionately,


Religion in India culminates in freedom.
The gift of India is the gift of religion and philosophy, and
wisdom and spirituality.

-Swami Vivekananda

279

11-05-1978
Mumbai
Dear Shri Rakesh,

I am in receipt of your letter dated April 8, 1978. I received it
during my stay at Kanyakumari, last week.

At the outset, I wish to dispel your doubt about my remembering
you. Believe me when I say that whenever I think of you, the
figure that I saw when you first met me at the Jhandewala room
(where I usually stayed during those days) comes clearly before
my eyes. But, I do not blame you for the doubt entering your
mind. I must admit that my failure to respond to your earlier
communications has been squarely responsible for it.

Your letter informing me that you are proposing to come back
to India next year and that you are seriously planning to take
up the Vivekananda Kendra work after your return here, has
gladdened my heart beyond measure.

It is the divine will that is prompting you and many other
bright young men and women who are coming forward to
dedicate their life to the cause of the Vivekananda Kendra.
Otherwise, how could you think of turning your back to all
prospects of a cozy career and pine for joining the Vivekananda
Kendra brotherhood?

I shall eagerly look forward to your trip home in September
this year. We shall utilize the opportunity to plan for the future.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

In the Absolute, there is neither time, space, nor causation;
It is all one.

-Swami Vivekananda

280

27-05-1978
Dear Ram Kripalani, Delhi

I am writing to you after a long gap. I am penning this letter
from Delhi where I reached yesterday from Bombay.

During my earlier visit to Bombay a fortnight back, I happened
to meet Dr. G. Puruswani in a get-together of our friends
organized in connection with the ‘Rajpal Smriti Sadan’ project.
From him I came to know about the happenings at your end.
Besides other normal tidings, I got the distressing news about
your Central Stores having been gutted by devastating fire. The
incident is dreadful enough to upset anybody. This unhappy
event must have seriously affected the hitherto smooth running
of your business. As a result, you may have been experiencing
added pressure of work. However, I hope, this set-back has not
disturbed your mental poise and equilibrium. What He gave
you has been taken back by Him. Even otherwise, human life
is verily a sport which can be enjoyed well only if the reverses
suffered while playing it do not make one down-hearted and
the gains pocketed do not make him swollen headed.

The Vivekananda Kendra work is growing steadily. Last year,
we started seven residential schools in the remote tribal region of
Arunachal Pradesh in the north-east. We are planning this year
to open such five-six residential schools in addition, including
one exclusively for girls. This school for girls is to be located near
Along adjacent to the Tibetan Border and will be managed fully
by our women life-workers.

Our work among women is slowly taking roots. This month,
we had a 21-day Yoga Shibir for women at Kanyakumari. There
were seventythree participants coming over from ten States. The
Shibir was managed exclusively by our women life-workers.

The total Kendra work is steadily approaching the stage
for take-off. God willing, the human material and the material
resources needed for a smooth take-off will also be forthcoming.

281

When are you likely to visit India again? It needs no mention
that when you come you will visit Kanyakumari also.

Where is dear Raj Hathiramani who accompanied you to

Kanyakumari last time? Though I have seen that young lad only

once, he is quite fresh in my memory. Please remember me to

him.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

16-6-1978
Mumbai
Dear Nivedita,

It is more than a month that I had to leave you in ailing state
of health at Kanyakumari. I am no doubt relieved to some extent
to learn from the letters of Shri R.N. Venkataraman and others
that you are undergoing medical investigations and treatment
at Madras and are looked after well. Dear Dr. Kamakshi’s letter
was also reassuring as she expected and promised your speedy
recovery.

I hope, by the time I reach Kanyakumari on 22nd June, I
shall have the good news that you have become your normal
self again and are in a position to follow your usual routine. As
you are aware, our future plans much depend upon your early
restoration of health.

Though we all planned that you should go to Arunachal
Pradesh, God willed otherwise and dear Mandakini had to be
sent in your place. I now honestly feel that the change is good
both for you and her. This is, perhaps, the way the God intervenes
to rectify the errors that we may do with honest intentions.

I learn that you had not informed about your illness to your
parents at home. This is not proper. You need not have kept such
things hidden from home. You should now send a letter to home
immediately informing them that you were ailing for a few days

282

last month at Kanyakumari and that you are consequently sent
to Madras and were now recovering as a result of the treatment.

Inform dear Nirmala that I am in receipt of her letter dated
13-6-1978 and that she should continue to post me with all
developments regularly though I may write replies only at
intervals. But, my not writing a reply does not mean that you are
all out of my mind. I may have to drop at least a couple of letters
daily to each of you, if letters are to be addressed every time, the
thoughts about anybody predominate the mind.

Please inform dear Roopa when she returns from Bangalore
that I got her short note that she wrote before leaving for
Bangalore. Also convey my love and affection to dear Sulabha.

With affection and blessings,

Yours affectionately

24-7-1978
Delhi

Dear Shri Ramavalamb Sinha,

Your letter of 6-7-1978 was duly received. I have received letters
of similar contents from a few more of our well-wishers, Dr. B.S.
Sunder of Sonari, Jamshedpur, being one among them. As I have
recently sent a reply to Dr. B.S. Sunder, the enclosed copy of
that communication will apprise you of the view taken by the
headquarters regarding the posting of Shri Sekhar Ganguly.

I am sure, you will appreciate that while choosing the place for
the posting of a life-worker, especially during the period of his
training, we have not only to take into consideration the needs of
that particular place for its healthy growth as a branch-centre of
the Kendra, but also the all-sided development of the life-worker
himself. To you also I make the same request that I have made to
Dr. B.S. Sunder in my enclosed communication to him.

283

At Kanyakumari, on 20th July, eleven life-workers, selected

from among those who have been undergoing training from

1973-74, have been initiated into the ‘Jeevan Vrati Order’ of the

Vivekananda Kendra. For your information, I am enclosing a

copy of the news-item that had been released to the Press in that

connection.

With regards,

Yours sincerely,

25-07-1978

Delhi

Dear Shri Sabarjeet,

Immediately after the Diksha-Vidhi programme of 20th July

I left Kanyakumari and reached here on 23rd via Madras. You

must have already received the report of 20th July programme

from our Kanyakumari office. However, to be doubly sure, I am

enclosing a copy of the press-note that had been released to the

Press in connection with that function.

I am planning to stay here till the 1st of August. My further
tour programme from 2nd August to 24th has been finalized and
am sending the same for your information.

I am intending to visit Port Blair after my ensuing tour ending
on 24th August, though I have not yet finalized the Port Blair
visit. I shall let you know about it within the course of the next
fortnight.

I hope dear Bharat Bushan and yourself live together at the
same place and function from the same office. I also presume
that the copies of your outgoing letters are maintained in the
office and both of you are aware of what each of you write to the
headquarters and what the headquarters write to each of you. I
am writing this because, to my utter surprise, I find contradictory
reports in letters received from both.

I am happy to learn about the steady growth of the school
work and the goodwill created by the Kendra in the hearts of

284

the people. It is also gratifying to note that you have been able to
generate the needed funds from local resources. But beware that
while seeking help from various people, you do not lose your
identity and do not compromise with principles.

Similarly, while carrying on Kendra activities, I hope you are
taking meticulous care to see that our Kendra work does not get
identified or mixed up with any political activity of any hue.
If you take any false step resulting in your getting bracketed
with any political group, your effectiveness as a Kendra worker
would begin to wane and you would create complications to the
detriment of our work. At Port Blair, the Kendra will not only
have to steer clear of all linguistic groups, but also all political
affiliations, emerging itself, at the same time, as an effective
meeting point of all cultural and spiritual forces.

Before I close, I suggest to you to locate from the file Shri Bharat
Bhushan’s letter dated 3rd July, 1978, and read it again if you
have read it already. After going through that communication
you will know that there are in it certain statements contradictory
to yours, written earlier.

As you are in-charge of the Port Blair branch-centre, you are
supposed to set the matters right. I shall expect your letter at my
Delhi address.

Convey my Sasneha Namaskars and affection to Shri Bharat

Bhushan and all other Kendra workers and well-wishers.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

We need to have three things; the heart to feel, the brain
to conceive, the hand to work.

-Swami Vivekananda

285

14.08.1978
Camp: Srinagar,

Respected Shri Morarjibhai,

I am writing this from my Srinagar Camp. I am here for the
last four-five days in connection with the Vivekananda Kendra
work.

During my short stay here, I had an opportunity to meet a
cross-section of the local population. In the preceding four-five
years of my regular visits to this valley, I had never noticed the
kind of panicky atmosphere that is prevailing at present among
the Hindus here. As regards the recent Mattan episode, the
people here do not consider it a stray case of terrorization and
encroachment but are convinced that there is a planned attempt
to grab Hindu religious endowments lands. The connivance at
this on the part of the high-ups in the Government intrigues
them.

Similarly, people from the interior are reporting that, of late,
a number of new faces are seen in their areas and they express
their apprehensions that some danger akin to the one they had
witnessed in 1965 may be in the offing. What baffles them all the
more is this that among these strangers, while some of them can
be identified as from across the border, many appear to be from
Uttar Pradesh.

Obviously, the afore-said happenings and reports are not
tangible and sufficient enough to draw any definite conclusions
or to take an alarmist view. Nevertheless, I considered it necessary
to convey to you what I heard and felt for whatever it is worth.

According to my scheduled programme, I am also to visit,
within this very week, the north-eastern region of our country.
You may be aware that for the last five years I have been devoting
my time and energy to service activities in that region, especially
the Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, this time, I wanted to place
before you my observations and assessments regarding men

286

and matters in that sensitive area. But, the present goings-on in
the Capital deter me from seeking a meeting with you for this
purpose. Perhaps, after a couple of months you may be free from
your present agonizing pre-occupation and may be able to spare
necessary time for such a meeting.

In the meantime, I wish to draw your attention to one
important matter. I hear that the present Lieutenant Governor
of Arunachal Pradesh Shri K.A.A. Raja is likely to be transferred
soon. If it is so, I have an humble suggestion to make. In my
considered view, what shape the Arunachal Pradesh situation
be taken within the next four-five years, will decide the fate of
the entire north-eastern region. Even a single wrong step in that
State is likely to tilt the balance in favour of the separatist forces
in that region. Unless Arunachal Pradesh comes within their
ambit, these forces, perhaps, feel that their dreams would not
be fully realised. Besides other things, the most coveted thing
in Arunachal Pradesh that lures them is its approximately one
thousand kilo-metres long border contiguous to China.

I, therefore, strongly feel that it would be prudent and safe
not to disturb the present Lieutenant Governor from his position,
till the time you visit the State and assess the situation yourself.
Perhaps, when you will visit the region, you may come to the
conclusion that the present Lieutenant Governor who, besides
being dynamic and an able Administrator, has been able to
establish rapport with the local population as well as its young
leaders, should continue to be at the helm of affairs at least for
a couple of years during which period a suitable competent
officer may be groomed to replace him in that explosive area.
I also utitlise this opportunity to stress the need of your early
visit to the State which you had to postpone because of the tragic
accident to your plane at Jorhat last year.

More when we meet in person. With respects,

Yours sincerely,

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15-8-1978
Delhi

Dear Sardar J.S. Gill,

I recall with great pleasure our meeting on August 8 at
your office and our subsequent visit to ‘Ramtirtha’ as also our
discussion there on the contemplated ‘Ramtirtha Project’. The
venue of the project is no doubt fascinating. The history and the
legend that are associated with the venue make it all the more
charming.

The fervour and the passion with which you and your
colleagues are endeavouring for the realisation of your dream to
make ‘Ramtirtha’ a unique cultural center in the North, seems to
have cast its charm over me. That is why though I am attending
to my usual organisational work in this tour, my mind is turning
again and again to the ‘Ramtirtha Project’ in search of a right
answer to the question posed by you.

After a great deal of thought I feel that the appropriate design
and the scheme for the ‘Ramtirtha Project’ may emerge only after
a close study of the relevant authentic material, whether historical
or legendary, that could be culled from our past heritage. For
example, it is necessary to collect data from our historical records
and literary works to convince ourselves that the present cities
of Lahore and Kasur are the old royal capitals of the two sons of
Rama, namely, Lava and Kush, respectively.

Similarly, we have also to obtain useful material in respect of
the extent of the Ayodhya Kingdom and the location of Valmiki’s
Ashrama to enable ourselves to safely conclude that the present
spot widely known as Ramtirtha could have been the probable
site of Valmiki’s Ashrama in the past.

I request you to kindly entrust the task of collecting data on
the lines mentioned above to an enthusiastic scholar of insight
and send it to me at my Kanyakumari address. On my part, I
shall also try to get in touch with competent persons in the line
to obtain useful material, if any.

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After hearing from you, I shall, if found necessary, plan my
trip to Amritsar again.

I returned from Srinagar yesterday as earlier scheduled. I am

now on my way to Assam.

With regards,

Yours sincerely,

17-08-1978
Dear Shri Nanda Kumar, Delhi

I was in due receipt of your letter dated 20-7-1978 and had
gone through it closely. Immediately a copy of that letter was
sent to Shri A. Balakrishnan to examine the matter and to do the
needful.

I am soon visiting Tinsukia in connection with the nursery
school that is to commence functioning from tomorrow. I may be
able to visit the place towards the end of August or the beginning
of September. At that time, I shall discuss the matter with Shri
Balakrishnan and Shri Arun Gupta and ask them what they have
been able to do in the matter.

Regarding the suggestions that you have made, some of them
are good while others are not feasible. I do agree with you that
there must be some machinery to keep our teachers in intimate
contact with the Kendra and equip them more and more with
adequate information and training through periodical get-
togethers. In fact, if more life-workers could be inducted in this
field, the proper machinery to bring about the needed changes
could be built up easily. That again depends upon the over-all
growth of our work.

Your mind seems to be unnecessarily exercised over Hatha
Yoga and Raja Yoga. To me, it is enough if our teachers prove to
be excellent in their respective subjects besides being dynamic
social workers capable of generating nationalism and patriotism

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among people along with an urge for all-round development of
their surroundings.

I hope you and others in the family are keeping good health.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

20-08-1978
Delhi

Dear Ramendra Sarkar,

I am in receipt of your letter of 15th August which seems to
have been written in a fit of ill-temper. I hope you have calmed
down by this time. Now, you may have been even regretting for
having written that sort of letter, acting mainly on impulse and
in a huff.

You should remember that many a time there may not be
anything objectionable in a particular programme as such, but
the worker who conceives or organizes it does attract criticism
if he in his over-enthusiasm fails to observe the organisational
norms and appears to act arbitrarily, bypassing his seniors or
co-workers. You should have learnt by now the aforesaid rule
of conduct and other preliminary etiquettes and conventions
of organisational working. Expected to be endowed with keen
sense of perception and extra-ordinary power of observation due
to your being an artist, you should have picked up these things
very quickly. May be, the artist in you makes you sometimes
absent-minded. Whatever it may be, being a new-entrant in field
work, there is no wonder if you commit little mistakes in the
beginning. It is only through ‘error and correction’ that you will
progress until you become a finished product of the Kendra.

From your letter it seems that either you are angry with others
or you are disgusted with your own shortcomings. May be, you
are perturbed on both counts. This fretting and fuming on one’s
part, either over the real or imaginary wrongs done to one by others

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or over one’s own failings is a stage that one has to go through while
one is striving to become a perfect instrument in the hands of the
organization. There are many more further stages that one has to pass
through in the long journey. These are, as it were, the land-marks that
one is bound to come across on one’s charted but difficult route leading
to one’s final destination. The apparently simplest but the difficult-
most task on the part of one who has set on one’s purposeful voyage or
mission is to hold fast to one’s assigned place in the ship, unperturbed
by occasional severe rolling and tossing that one may get while passing
through occasional stormy weather on the way. No serious traveller or
pilgrim ever jumps out.

As I see clearly, you have great potentialities. But you are still
too immature to mould yourself and bring out the best in you.
No person or no organization can shape you either, if you were
to change your course at the turn of every calendar year or with
every fit of anger or enthusiasm.

You may have your own reasons to be displeased with
those in the midst of whom you are working at present. But on
calm thinking you will have to admit that you may hardly get
elsewhere a more sympathetic set-up than the one Vivekananda
Kendra provides you.

I trust, you will drive away from your mind all cowardly
thoughts of running away from the great work that you
have undertaken as a life-mission and that you will become
your healthy and cheerful self again. That will also provide
opportunities to the organization to fashion you into its finished
product--a man with a capital M.

Great results are attained only by great patience, great
courage, and great attempts.

Every evolution here is the evolution of something which
existed previously.

-Swami Vivekananda

291

I am planning to make a little diversion and visit Madras for
a day or two before resuming my abandoned tour to Assam
towards the end of the month. I trust, I shall be fortunate to hear
from you at that time that you have already banished from your
mind all those weakening thoughts once and for all the time, and
you have rededicated yourself to the sacred work.

With regards, Yours affectionately,


22-08-1978
Dear Shri A.K. Ramasamy, Delhi

I am in receipt of your letter dated 16-8-1978 and have gone
through the contents very closely.

I have noted your frank admission that you consider yourself
very weak and diffident in overcoming temptations of the senses
while mixing with all sorts of people in the field.

If what you have stated about your weakness is correct, the
path that you are contemplating to take by way of a remedy is
totally unsuitable for you. To join a Monastic Order is not at all a
solution for your problem.

Several paths and avenues may be adjudged good in a general
sense. But when it comes to choosing from among them a path
for oneself to follow, one should adopt only that which one can
adhere to all one’s life. For him, that particular path is verily the
best one.

As far as I can assess your present inner strength and
equipment, I feel no hesitation in asserting that you are not at all
fit to pursue the course that you appear to have recently fallen
in love with.

Even regarding the Kendra Path that you are presently
pursuing, it is my candid view that you will have to exert your

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utmost to be worthy of the same. You do possess the potentiality
to be equal to it. But, you must follow meticulously all the do’s and
dont’s that have been dinned into your ears at Kanyakumari, especially
the most significant prescription to keep yourself continuously busy
in work from 4 o’clock in the morning to 10 or 11 o’clock in the night,
beginning and ending your day with a little meditation and prayer.

After my work here is over, I am planning to visit Madras
for a couple of days before I resume my abandoned Assam tour
towards the end of this month. In view of your present condition
of mind as reflected in your letter, I shall break my journey at
Hyderabad for a day on my way to Madras or on my way back
from Madras to Calcutta. I shall let you know by wire as soon
as my precise time schedule is finalised. When we meet, I shall
further discuss with you what you need most to overcome your
problems.

I have a feeling that you may not be physically well and,

perhaps, as a consequence, you may be sitting idle for most of the

day letting your imagination run riot. However, it is gratifying to

find that you have imagined a monk-hood for yourself and not

any glamorous status of the material world.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

27-08-1978
Delhi
Dear Prabhat Kumar,

I am extremely happy to receive your long letter. It was more
a sort of a loud thinking or a soliloquy on your part than a
communication addressed to me.

In your letter you have referred to the proverb ‘Every saint
has a past and every sinner has a future’. There is, indeed, a great
significance in this proverb. But on close analysis, you will have
to admit that one cannot conceive of a confirmed or a permanent
‘sinner’ or a ‘saint.’ A sinner now, does not mean that he is destined

293

to remain a sinner even in future and he can, therefore, be relegated to
the category of ‘sinners’ for all the time. Similarly, a saint today may
cease to be a saint and degrade into a sinner tomorrow, if he fails in
his endeavour to continue to remain saintly. In other words, attaining
piety in life and retaining it, is a perennial process from moment to
moment—nay—life after life. This ceaseless march is not in a straight
line either. It is mostly a zig-zag movement, sometimes backward, at
times forward, depending upon one’s sustained requisite effort. This
is like an uphill-climbing. The upward movement is assured as long as
one keeps on exerting in adequate measure; but the moment one is off
one’s guard and has slackened one’s effort, one is bound to gravitate
downwards.

You have sought my views on whether while moving in the
society one should take things at their face value or one has always
to presume that men and matters as they present themselves
before us in nice forms do not generally project their true nature
which could be discovered only by applying our mental faculties,
including imagination, i.e. only by construing and interpreting
them. In answer to this question, I may say that both extremes
have no relevance in actual life. He who has before him a noble
mission in life and desires to deliver the goods, he should always
take a charitable view of things but, while conducting his affairs
he should not rule out the possibility of difference, big or small,
between the thing as it appears and what it may actually turn
out to be. In fact, when one gets varied experiences of essential
goodness of people as well as the play of guiles and wiles or
tricks and treacheries of the world, one develops a sixth sense
as it were, by which one gets a glimpse of even that which is
beneath the surface.

Whether one has belief or no belief the inexorable law of
Karma is seen working relentlessly all around us. This law which
says: ‘As you sow, so will you reap’ has a splendid message for
mankind. That robust message lays down that whatever you may
have become in the present, as a result of your past deeds, you
are undoubtedly the maker and the master of your own future.

294

This doctrine of Karma can never be an obstacle in the way of
service or an excuse for apathy towards others in need of help. Even
if accepting that those who are born blind or those who are
miserable on some other account, are the authors of their own
misfortunes, we can consider ourselves instruments in the hands
of God through whom He may be wanting to ameliorate their
condition, the hour of their redemption having now struck. Is it
not our experience that God does not punish or reward directly
Himself but it is through some agency, human or otherwise,
that He works. Many a time, calamities appear to be man-made.
Similarly, those who spring up on the scene as saviours are also
from the human stock.

I do appreciate your fine sentiments. One may even aspire
to wipe out every tear from the eyes of the suffering humanity.
This aspiration is, at the most, a pious wish, though the expression is
ordinarily used as rhetoric. This wonderful world—a perfect world—
created by God is a mixed bag. Here a smile and a tear go together. In
fact the one has relevance because of the other. Let us, therefore, only
aspire to understand the Divine Plan and be His willing instruments
to work it out. Let me stop here for the time being.

I shall write to Shri Angiras to send you a copy of the Gita
Rahasya. But you should write to him indicating which version
you need, Hindi or English.

I am glad that you are doing your ‘Japa’ regularly.

I am likely to visit Calcutta in the first week of September.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

The true secret of evolution is the manifestation of the per-
fection which is already in every being.

-Swami Vivekananda

295

28-08-1978

Dear Shri K. Sadagopan,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 21-8-1978 and have noted
that due to sudden deterioration in your mother’s health you had
to abandon your plan to reach Kanyakumari before the end of
the month to participate in the training class preliminary to your
becoming the whole-time worker of the Vivekananda Kendra.

I do realize your predicament in the present situation. A
thought to do something good often faces such set-backs. In fact,
these difficulties put you to test. If the ‘High Thinking’ survives these
temporary hurdles, then alone that idea becomes worthy of being called
a ‘resolve’. I hope, yours is a resolve and not merely a pious wish.
I, therefore, trust that in not too distant future, you will be able to
implement it.

With good wishes,

Yours affectionately,

28-08-1978

Dear Shri T. Sadasivam,

Sometime ago, my friend Shri R. Gopalan of Madras handed
over to me a write-up. Seeing your name below, I eagerly read
the contents.

It was a revelation to me that you were constrained to
announce closure of all your publications as a result of labour
trouble in your organisation and that you had to dispose of even
the ‘Kalki Gardens’ to find adequate amount to wind up your
entire publication activity.

Though my headquarters are at Kanyakumari, my visits to
Kanyakumari are few and far between. For most of the time in
the year, I am on tour and unable, therefore, to keep track of
events—even the most important ones—in Tamil Nadu.

296

That there was some labour trouble in your establishment
was the only news I had heard sometime back. But I could never
conceive then that you would be required to take such drastic
steps to get yourself relieved of the malady. Though I do not
know the details of the whole episode, I can well imagine the
utter disgust or even righteous indignation that you may have
felt over the ungrateful behaviour of your staff and workers
whom you have nursed and brought up with parental love and
care, and which seems to have led you to decide upon the step
that you have eventually taken.

But the kind of decision you took could not have been
taken by persons moulded in ordinary clay. It reflects the total
detachment preached in the Geeta but seldom lived. I bow with
folded hands before both of you for the spirit of resignation
and detachment that you embody.

You may be aware that by a recent judgement of the Supreme
Court, any activity that involves a kind of an employer-employee
relationship—be it charitable or commercial, a hospital or a
textile mill, the Ramakrishna Mission or a colliery—shall come
within the ambit of ‘Industry’ and, as a result, its working will be
governed by Industrial Disputes Act.

In fact, I have been camping here in the capital for the last
about a fortnight, striving to ensure that charitable, philanthropic,
cultural and social-welfare organisations are excluded from
the sweep of ‘Industry’ and, consequently from the reach of
the octopus of Industrial Disputes Act, by impressing upon
the government the need to incorporate suitable provisions to
that effect, in a comprehensive ‘Industrial Relations Bill’ that is
expected to be introduced in the Parliament in this very session.

The Ramakrishna Mission, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,
Theosophical Society, Andhra Mahila Sabha and various other
organisations have also joined their forces with us in this task.
We hope we shall succeed in our efforts.

297

When I visit Madras next, I shall call on you at your new
abode.

Please convey my Sasneha Namaskars to all in the family.

With regards, Yours sincerely,


28-08-1978
Delhi

Dear Anil,

I received your letter dated 25-8-1978 and went through the
contents that vividly described your present mental state in the
wake of two distressing events that took place in close succession.
Dear Ramnath’s tragic end is indeed, of such monstrosity, as no
flesh and blood can easily stand. But only by standing steadfast,
withstanding such severe jolt when called upon to do so, that
one acquires fortitude. Reversely, if you flee your ground in
order to save yourself from the stresses and strains of precarious
situations, you may, perhaps, earn a temporary ease and relief,
but you will, thereby, do immense damage to yourself in so far as
you will shut the way for the tanning and tempering that every
worker in the line has to go through. The great mission that you
have chosen for yourself demands that you become as potent as a
high-tension wire, capable of carrying and transmitting powerful
current without getting itself burnt into ash or vaporized by its
contact.

Yesterday, Shri J.N. Rathi talked to me over the phone—giving
me information about the stage of negotiations in respect of the
Malad land. Taking into consideration all matters, I am deciding
to reach Bombay on 1st of September by evening flight IC-405,
which reaches there at 19-45 hours. I shall stay with Shri J.N.
Rathi. I have informed him on phone accordingly. However, on
1st evening, if convenient, I may stay with Shri Vasudev Valecha
or Shri Ramesh Mehta and next day morning I may go to Shri

298

J.N. Rathi’s house. It is for you to decide in consultation with all
concerned.

I shall be staying in Bombay till the 4th of September. I have
reserved my passage for my further air-journey to Trivandrum
on 5th morning.

I have purposely included Saturday and Sunday for
my Bombay stay to enable all people to meet me. You may
accordingly inform all people. Except that I may be required to
meet Shri Uttamrao Patil and the Chief Minister, besides Shri
Ram Batra and others in connection with the Malad land, I shall
be at your disposal. You have to chalk out programme to make
full utilization of my time. You may consult Shri Chitranjan
Pandit, Shri Vasudev Valecha, Shri Jhamatmal and others.

I met Dr. C.A. Mehta here. He is to stay here till the 2nd or 3rd
of September.

With regards, Yours affectionately,


30-08-1978
Delhi

Dear Shri Bharat Bhushan,

I am in receipt of your letter dated 24th August and have noted
the contents. It was redirected from Calcutta to my Delhi camp.

My work at Delhi is over. But the tragic death of Shri Ramnath
Joshi (our Bombay Regional Representative) on 21st August
in fire-accident at Kanyakumari (where he had gone for Yoga
Therapy treatment) has further upset my contemplated tour
programme.

I am now reaching Bombay on 1st of September. Staying there
for 4 days, I shall go to Kanyakumari on the 5th. As my visit
to Rameswaram (where the late Shri Ramnath’s parents live) is
also necessary, I may not be able to resume my abandoned tour

299

of the north-eastern region, including Port Blair, before 15th of
September. In any case, I shall be able to reschedule my tour only
on reaching Kanyakumari on 5th of September.

No doubt, I am to visit Port Blair during my ensuing tour,
when I shall have an opportunity to discuss with you all matters,
including that of your transfer as suggested by you. But, what I
want to stress is this that, in the meantime, you must give implicit
obedience to Shri Sabarjeet. All that you do must be in consonance
with the guidance you receive from Shri Sabarjeet. Whether it is a
Yoga class or a Therapy treatment class, every programme must have
concurrence of Shri Sabarjeet. If you do not follow this rule of conduct,
you will expose yourself to the charge of insubordination which does
not fit in the entire system of our work. We cannot conceive of two
Kendra workers functioning parallelly at Port Blair.

In your letter you have referred to Shri Sabarjeet’s own
propensities to do things against instructions and guidance
received from the headquarters. Even if what you say may be
true, his defaults do not give you any right and license to disobey
him. You should leave it to the headquarters to take him to task
for his acts of omission and commission, if any.

I hope you will summon all your capacity for obedience and

discipline and will demonstrate it in the coming days, at least till

I visit Port Blair to see things for myself.

With regards,

Yours affectionately,

Experience is the one teacher, the one eye-opener.
Faith is not belief, it is the grasp on the Ultimate, an illumi-
nation.

-Swami Vivekananda

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