Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

CORRESPONDENCE

Understanding Motherhood

 [An extract of a correspondence that appeared in August 1988 issue of the monthly journal ‘Vicharasetu – The Path of Introspection’]

Dear and blessed M,

Harih Om Tat Sat.  P told me over the telephone about your motherhood, and subsequently came your father’s letter. It pleases me and others present here.

To accept married life and rise to parentage is verily to contribute to the preservation of mankind. This is the true and larger perspective. No one will agree to do so, unless the venture proves first to be self-serving. Hence the usual marital and conjugal interests. God’s working is so fool-proof that in making the individual take up a social project, He also ensures that it is as much self-serving as serving others.

All of us are outcome of such parentage and filiality. Understand the role in such a sublime and lasting context. This is the time normally the mother will get some prolonged rest but exclusive occupation with the child. And this is the phase which you must use with as much heartiness, elegance and sublimity. Keep your thoughts, moods and outlook deep, lofty, serene and creative. Every such exchange with the child ennobles and elevates you. Every touch, soaked in these lofty emotions, every look, sound, of yours will have its impact on your son. He is young and innocent, and in him is the elder growing constantly. The phase is sensitive as well as creative.

A mother is a creator, after the child is born. Till birth, the process was invisible. Now it is not so. Realize this and be and have what you wish. Now is the opportunity and compulsion.

Love and Sivasis.

 Yours, Swamiji

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SECRET OF HARMONIOUS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

 [Extract from the talk given by Poojya Swamiji at Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, on 6^th November 1984]

Objective knowledge, advancement in it, is welcome. But equally so should man seek subjective growth and expansion. Or else, in the hands of objective acquisitions, his life will make his mind and intelligence suffer greatly. Let there be a proper fusion between the subjective expansion and objective growth. Only then our personality will remain strong, stable and harmonious. Develop such qualities as heroism, strength, sacrifice, determination, unflinching application, adventure and steadfastness. These constitute the mind’s riches. Then alone you will be able to go forward in your objective ventures achieving progress every time.

Remember Sri Rama, whom, on the morning of coronation, Kaikeyi met with an altogether different command. And how did Rama react? – “My dear mother, if my life in the forest is what you desire, that is all the more to my liking. Your desire makes forest happier to me than the throne. Let there be no second word or thought in crowning Bharata at Ayodhya.” What do you think of the harmony and cheerfulness of Rama’s mind? And look at Sita, who got the better of Rama in claiming the same fate for her too, as a wifely right, compulsion. And what about Lakshmana, who insisted: “I must walk first, before my brother does.” Each vied with the other in meeting the hazard joyously. Such resplendent magnitude, my dear souls, are an integral part of our mind, our psyche. Alas, people fail to notice this fact! Our sagely compositions are meant to drive home this vital truth to the continuing generations. Heroism is much more than what the normal history reveals and delights in.

Man is first and last a conscious being. Sentience or consciousness constitutes his fundamental nature. Therefore, his harmony must also relate to the development of his consciousness. Any education, technological advancement, disregarding the development of his consciousness, will result in disharmony and weakness. Achieve any  degree of advancement in objective sphere of knowledge and technology. But gain equally a corresponding development of the mind and its psychological abilities, like tolerance, assimilation, growth, stability and freedom. Ask yourselves: “Am I able to retain my composure, courage, joy and heroism?” The answer must be positive every time, and progressively so. Your role must be to ensure this.

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QUOTE FROM POOJYA SWAMIJI

Two factors are dominantly at work in man – the head and the heart. The head or the intellect does the thinking. The heart does the feeling. He who can blend and harmonize the thinking and the feeling is a yogi. He is the one to attain liberation.

- Swamiji

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