Blessed Memories: Swami Vidyananda

I learned about Swami Vidyananda Giri in a conversation with Sri Kalachandji, the senior member of the Ranchi Anandamayi Ashram. Just how the subject came up, I do not recall, but he began telling me about the former head of the Yogoda Sat-Sanga Ashram where I had been staying before coming to stay at the Anandamayi Ashram. His first words certainly got my attention: “He is a perfect sadhu. I cannot say that about anyone else, but he is a perfect sadhu.” He told me that Swamiji lived in a small village named Lakhanpur in the Purulia District. So I wrote to Swamiji and asked if I might come and visit him. He wrote back, telling me how to reach Lakhanpur from Purulia. 

Travelling in India in the 1960’s

The very next morning I went just after dawn to the lane where the bus to Purulia would leave. There I had an experience I had not expected. I had learned already by my excursions into the bazaar that there are those who try to overcharge on everything in a quite shameless manner. So as I gave what I thought was the right price to the rickshaw man and he held it out to me and protested, I just motioned for him to go on. He stood there a bit, then turned and left. I was a seasoned traveller! Or so I thought.

I was soon to be humbled. Several minutes later the rickshaw man returned and got on the bus. I braced for another onslaught. But to my astonishment he held out his hand with some coins in it. I had overpaid him and he had gone and found the right amount in coins to return to me. How ashamed I felt. And right there I realized that beneath the surface veneer that travelers to India may encounter, there is a basic truthfulness and honesty in the people.

(A few weeks later I was riding in a rickshaw one evening and my wallet fell out of my pocket without my realizing it. Imagine my feeling when a few young men came running after the rickshaw and gave me my wallet. Some months further on I went to a shop and pointed to something that looked good to eat. “That isn’t good,” the owner said to me, and gave me something he considered better for a lower price. From the first moment I stepped through the door at Dum Dum airport I knew I was home and everyone I saw was my beloved family. So it was heartening to know that my dear ones were also honest.

I had come to Ranchi on a night train, sleeping most of the way, so this would be my first chance to see the countryside. Everything I saw was beautiful to me–every moment of that journey was a joy. India is alive, and just beneath the outer life is the Divine Inner Life that is India, eternal Bharat. Since I love India I have enjoyed every moment riding through the countryside. Everything I see enters my heart. As a consequence the ride to Purulia was literally wonderful–truly full of wonder.

Arriving at Swami Vidyananda’s ashram

In Purulia I got on a rickety bus that was truly headed for the Last Roundup. And soon. But four hours later it dropped me in front of the ashram gate where two boys of the huge school run by Swami Vidyananda were waiting for me. Swamiji administered several schools. In Lakhanpur he had a school for five hundred boys and a school for three hundred girls, and planned within a year to start a college for women.

My newly-met friends took me in through the gate. Far ahead I saw light from a modest building which was the guru mandir-satsang hall. As I came up the steps I was met by a man with the most radiant eyes I have ever seen. When he took hold of my hands I felt as though I was being touched by spirit, not flesh. He greeted me lovingly and quietly. And from then on I, too, knew a perfect sadhu.

How Swami Vidyananda lived

Swami Vidyanandaji lived in a small room off the temple which was furnished with one wood platform bed, a small wood table/desk and two simple wood chairs. He had two changes of clothes and a chaddar (shawl). That was all. (One time in early summer two men representing the Government of India unexpectedly came to visit Vidyananda. They told him that they were making a report on all religious-sponsored schools. Because of the border conflict with the Chinese at that time the government had ended nearly all aid to schools and wanted to make sure they helped only the most worthy.

Seeing the simple manner of life led by Swamiji and observing the excellent education being given to nearly eight hundred students–mostly free of charge–they were profoundly impressed. “How much money does your organization allot for the running of these schools?” they asked. When Swamiji replied: “Ten rupees a month,” they were thunderstruck. (At that time ten rupees equalled one dollar.) “How do you manage to keep operating?” they wondered. “God wills it, so help comes from different sources,” he told them. They left and wrote about Swamiji’s work to the central government which immediately granted him five hundred thousand rupees.)

Vidyanandaji actually lived between three rooms: his personal room, the guru mandir dedicated to Paramhansa Yogananda and a small Shiva temple. About ten o’clock at night Swamiji would come out of his room and go to the Shiva temple, shut the door and remain there in meditation until after dawn.

Swamiji’s lineage

Swami Vidyananda had been given sannyas by Jagadguru Bharati Krishna Tirtha, Shankaracharya of the Govardhan Math in Puri, one of the four great monasteries founded by Shankara himself. It is the rule that a Shankaracharya gives sannyas only in his math, but the Shankaracharya had such regard and affection for Vidyananda that he came to the Puri ashram of Swami Sriyuketshwar Giri (Paramhansa Yogananda’s guru) and in the samadhi temple conferred sannyas on Swamiji.

He also broke another rule for Swamiji. A Shiva linga cannot be consecrated until it has been permanently affixed on a foundation. But the Shankaracharya consecrated a Shiva linga of sparkling white stone and gave it to Swamiji to permanently install back in the Lakhanpur ashram. From then on he spent every night meditating before that linga.

Vidyananda and Yogananda

Since I have mentioned meditation, I should tell you about his background as a yogi. He became a very gifted and beloved teacher in the Yogoda Satsanga school in Ranchi while Yoganandaji was in America. He met Yogananda when he returned to India in 1935. Early one morning the Master sent for him. When he came to the main building Yoganandaji asked him to sit down. It is the custom to always stand when the guru is standing, but he insisted that Swamiji (whose name at that time was Girin Dey) sit down though he stood. After being silent awhile, Yogananda told him: “Come this evening and I will initiate you.”

That evening when Swamiji came to Yogananda’s room the master told him that there was a mela (fair/bazaar) in nearby town and he wanted to go there. So they did, and Yoganandaji spent the whole time enjoying himself, soaking up the atmosphere of India from which he had been separated for so many years. Finally everything was closing down and people were going home.

So Swamiji asked if he should return to Ranchi. “O!” exclaimed the Master, “I am going to initiate you, aren’t I?” He looked around and saw nearby a ruined hut with much of the roof fallen in. “Let’s go over there,” Yoganandaji said. Such ruined buildings are almost guaranteed to have cobras and other unpleasant creatures living in them. But in they went and in the pitch dark Yogananda initiated him. Then they returned to Ranchi.

There the story ended when Vidyanandaji told it to me, but two men who knew him well told me the rest. There was a corrugated iron shed at the far end of the ashram property. Swamiji went directly there and did not come out for thirty days, neither eating nor drinking but remaining immersed in meditation-samadhi.

“Don’t let Swamiji fool you,” some of his friends once said to me when Vidyanandaji was not around. “He has all the yoga powers. But he lives quietly and simply with us ordinary people and keeps it all inside.” Their words did not surprise me because I had already figured the truth about him.

More on his yoga powers

Every afternoon as evening was approaching I would sit with Swami Vidyananda on the veranda of the guru mandir. Everything would be quiet. With the faintest of sighs Swamiji would breathe out and remain in breathless samadhi. I would meditate (after the first two times when I watched the whole time to see that he did not breathe) until after an hour or so Swamiji would breathe in softly and be as usual.

More than once I was sitting in the guru mandir as Swami Vidyananda was writing letters. I was going through the Gita very slowly and pondering each verse. Sometimes I would think over a particularly difficult one and come to a conclusion regarding its meaning. All this was going on in my head; I did not speak a word. But Swamiji would put down his pen and very quietly say: “No, not exactly.” And then he would explain the verse to me. “Do you understand?” he would ask, and I would answer: “Now I do.” This happened so matter-of-factly, just as though it was commonplace.

I was staying in a small house about forty feet from the mandir. One time I needed to wash out a shirt (kurta) but had run out of soap. So I went toward Swamiji’s room. When I came near the door he stepped out and handed me a big sliver of soap. “That’s all I have,” he said, “but it will be enough for that one thing.” All was known to him.

A desire for rasogollas

Early one morning a student at the school came by to speak to me about something. He told me he was going right to the road to get a bus to Purulia as there were some things Swamiji wanted, and would not be back till the next day. The next morning while sitting thinking of something good to eat (not an uncommon event for an American in rural India), I thought: “How I wish I had some rasagollas! If I had only thought of it yesterday!”

In late afternoon I saw the student going to Swamiji’s room. Since there was nothing else to do, I headed there, too. Swamiji met me at the door and saying, “Here are your rasagollas,” handed me a big earthenware pot with about two dozen rasagollas in it.

There is a sequel to this story. In a day or so huge black ants invaded my house and went straight for the rasagollas. They cut them up and carried them all away. I got too near one of them and he bit one of my toes which bled. And hurt. it left a scar that remained for at least three years. Every time I saw it I was reminded of my Swamiji who not only knew my present thoughts, but knew what I was going to think.

Inner investigation

One evening Swamiji told me that he had received a letter from a village quite some distance away asking him to take over the administration of their local school which otherwise would have to close. He asked me if I would like to accompany him and I certainly said Yes. But the headmaster of the Lakhanpur school needed to go also. He had gone to see relatives in Calcutta and was to have returned that afternoon.

“We can’t do anything without him,” Vidyananda said and then became utterly still like a statue. His eyes did not blink and he did not breathe. He sat quite some time in that state and I began to be anxious. Then he stirred, heaved a sigh and said: “In Calcutta he met a friend that wanted him to attend his daughter’s wedding, and he agreed. He is there now and will not be back until Friday morning.”

Sure enough, on Friday morning I met the headmaster coming from the bus. Together we went into the guru mandir that doubled as Swamiji’s “office” and there he told us that he had met an old friend who begged him to visit his village for his daughter’s wedding, so that was why he had only now just come. “Yes, I know,” Swamiji told him, and the headmaster was not the least surprised. Nor was I, finally.

Brahmachari Gopalananda to Gopaldas

One morning someone from the village gave me a large papaya. I asked Swamiji about offering it in the Gopala temple that was just on the village side of the wall enclosing the ashram. He thought it was a good idea, so that was done. When I came back to the ashram to distribute the offered papaya to Swamiji and some of his guests, he said: “From now on you are Brahmachari Gopalananda!”

That was pleasing to me, but when the headmaster called me “Gopalananda Maharaj,” I protested, saying: “I am not a raj [king], I am a das [servant].” Vidyanandaji was delighted and said: “Yes. You are not Gopalananda but Gopaldas, the servant of Gopal [Krishna].” And so it was.

Sannyas initiation

It was my heartfelt aspiration to become a monk of the Shankara order, and when several months later I asked Anandamayi Ma about it and told her that Vidyanandaji had promised to give me sannyas if she approved, she agreed immediately and gave me the cloth to have dyed gerua and used in the conferral. I had picked out two or three possible sannyas names and told them to Swamiji, who just said: “I have something else in mind.”

At the end of the ceremony he told me: “Your name is Nirmalananda. It usually means Flawless Bliss, but in your case it means The Bliss of Anandamayi Ma.” (Nirmala was Ma’s birth name.)

Swami Vidyananda’s passing

In my second trip to India I intended to visit Swamiji in Lakhanpur, but an auto accident prevented that. Though I wrote to him, we were never to meet face-to-face again, though one of our monks did meet him in Ranchi when Ma Anandamayi was there at the same time. Two other friends also met him during their pilgrimage to India.

On February 26, 2008, Swamiji left this world to be with the great Master Yogananda. He was one hundred and five years old. His sacred body rests near the Shiva temple where he had spent countless hours in communion with God.

Explore Further

• Listen to more on Swami Vidyananda in the podcast Three Remarkable Indian Saints
• Grow your Spiritual Library with Swamiji’s books from Light of Spirit Press on Amazon.