Chapter 6

Chapter VI Part 1

Practical Vedanta
ATLANTA

I first saw the skyline of Atlanta in the fall of 1981; like many others in the country in those years, I had not known much about the place, not even sure which was Atlanta and which Atlantic City, but ignorance does come to an end, and my first acquaintance with this remarkable place led to long-term relationship.
    Swami Bhashyananda had been visiting here for several years, giving lectures, classes and retreats to a small group of people. He had disciples from both Western and immigrant Indian communities. A nucleus of students held together and worked devotedly for the start of a Vedanta Center under his guidance. The Vedanta Society of Atlanta was incorporated by the Georgia statute for a non-profit organization in 1976. The Swami had told his eager Atlanta adherents that if they would raise the money for supporting it, he would send them a resident teacher, a swami, who would work toward the eventual recognition of the Society as a branch of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, independent of Chicago.
    The money was raised. The students informed Swami Bhashyananda that they were ready for their teacher, had a place for him to live and would assure his support. The Swami made good on his promises and in 1981 asked Swami Anamananda, an assistant minister of the Vivekananda Society of Chicago, to take up residence in Atlanta. He was housed in a building adjacent to the home of a founding family, and very soon giving informal parlor talks at appointed hours. Both kind and wise, the Swami soon attracted more persons. His age and his health, however, were against him and within about five months he had to give up the work and return to home base for medical treatment, to the regret of all.
    It was not long thereafter, in the Ganges ashrama, that Swami Bhashyananda said abruptly to me one morning, “You will have to go to Atlanta.” I had no inclination to go to Atlanta. The work at Ganges, as manager and shopper, cook and gardener, was to my liking and abilities: what need of anything else ? But as I saw no very good excuse to avoid this, I went off to muse on the abbot's words and to prepare my mind for sailing on to the next port.
    My first exposure was to the beautiful hills of north Georgia, where in a state park a Retreat was held, to try out the new Swami, giving the students an opportunity to know me and me to know them. This was a fine experience and went quite well for all concerned, apparently, and soon I returned to stay in the city and was sharing for some days the quarters of a devotee in a rented house, in the suburb of Tucker. Classes were held in the house and in a larger unused adjacent building. But within a few weeks a more permanent arrangement developed. The Society rented an apartment in what was then a fairly modern complex on LaVista Avenue. It had scope for a shrineroom, a bedroom-cum-office and a living room for meetings.
    There was an unforgettable induction to this abode. For a few days there would be no furniture as it had to be collected by donation from here and there. It was the week after Christmas, and a freak ice storm hit the city. Atlanta does not prepare for streets filled with snow or ice. Everything shut down. The heating in the apartment had not yet been connected, and for a couple of nights it was necessary to sleep wrapped in blankets on the floor, next to an electric radiant heater. Fortunately the heat came on before the temperature dropped to 2˚ above zero and all the washing machines in the complex froze. But outside, real beauty! To see the luxuriant trees coated with ice gloves, shining in the winter sunlight, then crackling and dropping as they melted, was delightful. But the projected birthday celebration for Swami Vivekananda could not be held: no one could travel. Eventually all the needed paraphernalia were brought or bought, and we had a respectable little Center with Sri Ramakrishna enshrined and worshiped, lectures and classes in full sway. At this writing it is not possible even to revisit the place in pilgrimage, so to say: all those apartments have been demolished, swept away to be replaced by new ones much more upscale.
     During the three years of our tenure there Swami Bhashyananda visited once for a day; otherwise there were no phone calls from him, and not one penny of support from Chicago. This was his method. At the time I thought it harsh. He wanted, I think, with all his heart, that his men should manifest their independence from him and that is what I had to learn.
While still getting settled I was made aware of the need for some handout pamphlets to explain our message and meet the questions of the many kinds of persons who were gathering around. In a burst of concentrated thought and writing, a set of hints on “Practical Vedanta” (here edited and updated) was produced and distributed.

    Some are under the impression that spirituality is a spare-time affair. “If I get time, I'll...” is a phrase which begins many of our best resolutions. “If I'm home early enough this evening, I'll meditate a little before dinner.” “I'm going to get myself out of bed earlier in the mornings, so I can do meditation and japa before getting off to work.” “I'll be at the meeting on Sunday, if I'm not wiped out by what happens on Saturday.”

    I have told myself all these things at one time or another, and watched my mind cook up, in very roundabout ways, sometimes, circumstances preventing the execution of my promises. We fool no one but ourselves, probably, and thus become deprived. Often we also take it out on ourselves in the form of negativity or feelings of guilt. We may begin to think we'll never be able to take up spiritual life seriously.

Vedanta, as it is taught in the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda movement, is lived religion; this is exactly what the word Vedanta means. There are not supposed to be any lukewarm Vedantists; either you are practicing or you are not! The question is, how to do it. In the suggestions which follow, the message is that we need to make spiritual practice virtually a twenty-four-hour concern. We need not wait until we “reach home;” or until we are too tired to meditate, or for the lunch break, or for the stall in highway traffic. Our spiritual practices go on from the moment we wake, throughout the day and even on into our dream life at night. When we wake to this fact, it is a welcome sign that our honeymoon with the glamor of spiritual experience is over.

    The following remarks are selected from suggestions which have also been tried by others and may prove helpful. For convenience they were drawn up in five categories: Practical Vedanta in the Office (School, Hospital, Factory or wherever), in Social Activism, for the Homemaker, in Education, and in the Arts. The first two are presented in this volume.

IN THE OFFICE (SCHOOL, HOSPITAL, ETC.)

Problems arising from the nature of the work itself

    Is there a vocation or a type of employment which can be clearly labelled unspiritual, which automatically acts against our spiritual impulses and intent?
    This has been debated throughout the ages. The Buddha made right livelihood the fifth step on his Eightfold Path, and Buddhists have interpreted this specifically as the avoidance of selling liquor (and of course illegal drugs), pimping and prostitution, trapping animals or anything else involving exploitation or cruelty. On the other hand we read in Swami Vivekananda's Karma Yoga the story of the butcher in the village market-place who succeeded in making his work a yoga, a model even for the monk. Indian lore offers stories of cobblers, scavengers and others in trades despised by society, who found their work no barrier. Certainly if you are one who has a strong feeling that the work you are engaged in is immoral, degenerating or anti-social, you have every reason to seek a radical change. This is true also if it compels you constantly to keep your mind or emotions involved in “worldly” affairs, related to the “lower centers,” in our nervous system, as Sri Ramakrishna calls them. On the other hand, if you are merely theorizing, wondering if the company you work for may be profiting from the exploitation of miserably paid banana-pickers, or lacking in its protest against ethnic preference—the answer may be less clear. Where will you draw the line? In today's network of world information and mass media, it is very difficult to say whose hands are clean. If the sensitivity to such concerns becomes too keen, one may have to give up work altogether! For, as Sri Krishna told Arjuna, just as fire is accompanied by smoke, so all work is attended by some evil.

Motivation

    Then what about those, like the butcher in the Mahabharata story, who cannot leave their posts or find a living by some other means? The work must be “spiritualized,” first by the way we conceive it and look at it. In the Middle Ages when the great cathedrals were being built, one passerby decided as an experiment to question the workmen on the scaffolds. “What is it you are doing here?” he asked the first one. “Well, I'm earning my daily bread,” the man grumpily replied. A little further on, he asked another the same question. “Can't you see, man? We're building a cathedral.” But a third replied, “Praise God, I'm helping to build this great house in His honor!”
    People have discovered that their assumptions make a great difference in their work attitude. No one on this earth is just making a living. On the other hand few of us are privileged to build cathedrals or work directly and obviously in the realm of spirit. We have to see the positive implications of whatever work we do, its position in the great jigsaw puzzle of public life, its contribution to the web of general welfare, tying together those for whom and with whom we work, including our families and selves. Every little cog that turns on the wheel and every letter punched on the keyboard plays its role in the grand drama we call this universe. One day we have to see the whole cosmic kaleidoscope as the play of the Divine Mother of all. Sri Ramakrishna has explained this outlook of vijnana as our highest goal. He assured us that he was seeing that it was She who had become everything. We can practice thinking in this way; we achieve it only in slow stages.

Bringing devotion into it

“Work is love made visible,” Gibran tells us in The Prophet. And he says that to work with love means that we weave the cloth, we build the house, we sow our seeds as if it were all for “the beloved.” This is how devotion assists the karma yogi, making him or her conscious that all we do is for the Lord. And this is what Brother Lawrence achieved—the state in which he felt as blessed to pick up a straw in the monastery kitchen as to go to pray in the chapel, as we find in his celebrated Practice of the Presence of God. Sri Krishna prescribes the same thing exactly at the end of the Gita: you will reach perfection if you do your duty “as an act of worship to the Lord, who is the source of the universe, prompting all, action, everywhere present.”

    We can make God our co-worker, as it were, putting Him in the place of the boss. I knew a man who in World War II was drafted only to end up digging ditches. An intellectual, he felt demeaned and bored by that labor. He told me how he managed to survive the long days. He built up in his mind the fantasy that he lived in a small country having a king of whom he was very proud; all the work assigned him was assigned by the king himself and was being done for his benefit. Thus he “psyched” himself into putting heart into the work. Years later when I came to Vedantic practice I recalled this and thought what the man might have done for himself, had he put God where he had put a king! The story is a testimony to our innate understanding of the combination of karma yoga and bhakti yoga.

The “lucky” ones...

The question of the nature of our work sometimes gives trouble in the form of dissatisfaction and envy. We commonly suppose that certain forms of occupation—medicine, nursing, the ministry, teaching or social work—are somehow nobler than others. At least those persons who minister directly to others' visible need can see the fruits of their labor and taste the joy of consciously lifting their fellow beings. So we think. But they may also taste the bitterness of thanklessness, of blows given in return for kindness, the gall of apathy and the flatness of futility; disillusionment can easily result. Idealists often envy the monks their privilege of serving directly in the work of the Spirit. There need be no such envy, because service is tendered to man and God in ever-so-subtle ways by many who wear no badges or uniforms, and to whom life has given no nod of recognition whatsoever. Brother Lawrence, St. Francis, Dadu, Nanak, Jacob Boehme and others are only well-known examples of the hordes of God's humble servants. Who can forget the little chipmunk of the Ramayana? When Sri Rama had his troops of workers shoveling soil into the sea to make the bridge to Sri Lanka, here was a little chipmunk dusting himself up, adding the soil with his tail. Rama bent down and blessed him, stroking his back affectionately with two fingers. We see those marks, they say, to this very day.

What about the legal profession?

Here we have a controversial one, indeed. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that lawyers and doctors will have a difficult time growing spiritually, simply because they have to profit by the misfortunes of others. In the case of criminal law, the lawyer may have to defend those he knows to be guilty. Yet Ramakrishna had attorneys and judges among his students, as well as physicians, and he showed all of them the way to denature the selfish aspect of their work and how to make both its method and its goal divine. For many of us the problem is that we wandered into our fields of work in earlier years when, ignorant of what we know now, they seemed to be what we were cut out for. Even if we feel differently now, it may be too late to make a change. Some get around a part of the trouble by working out a method of self-employment. It may be that by scaling down your personal requirements you can get by on “piece-work at home” or a part-time routine which avoids the press and pace of institution and time clock.

Mechanical work

    Others have mechanical work to do, demanding only a small portion of their mental energy. Repetitive operations which virtually become reflexes hardly seem likely to inspire a high level of daily thought or a creative work-attitude. Many do their utmost to avoid such occupations. Yet other natures may welcome it. There have been cases of spiritual aspirants actually preferring such employment because of the amount of freedom it gives to the mind. These persons may be heavily into japa, finding ample opportunity here to repeat the name of God or to carry on a kind of mental prayer. I used to use such occasions to memorize and repeat spiritual poetry (of which I was fond) before I had a mantra, and even afterward. Memorizing scripture and poetry has been found to be a valuable employment of the spare time and energy of the mind.
Ramprasad, saint and composer of Bengal, had been a bookkeeper by trade. God-thought simply filled him, however, and became so precious to him that he began to pour it over into the blank pages of his accounts ledger; when the manager came to examine the books he found the name of the Divine Mother written all over them. Eventually beautiful poems and songs too came from the heart of Ramprasad. Fortunately his employer recognized his genius and arranged for him to give up the bookkeeping, furnished him a life pension and even a place to live where he could devote himself to his compositions and devotions. However unlikely it may seem that this will happen to you, recall Swami Vivekananda's words: “Perhaps a prophet thou, who knows?”

    Speaking of using spare time in japa, meditation, mental prayer, music or poetry, we should say that the lunch hour and commute rides by train or bus are obvious opportunities for this. Persons who work downtown in offices used to be able to find the nearest open church or other secluded place to spend the first half of their lunch hour in spiritual practice before giving the body its food. Today fewer and fewer churches are remaining open, and far fewer people are given an hour for lunch, alas. Japa and other internal exercises are not recommended during driving or operating machinery. Many ask how they can remember God while engaged in mind-consuming duties such as typing, writing out reports etc. One of our senior swamis, years ago gave us this answer: “Perhaps you cannot, but you can offer that piece of work to Him before you begin, and again when you have finished it. And if you can remember to, in the middle you do it also. If you can form even this little habit, it will certainly be a help to your spiritual life.”

Can we ever find the ideal work situation?

    It very seldom happens in this world of checks and balances. The ideal job opportunity or work environment rarely comes; we have to face this and be prepared to compromise. The mystics have told us that we must adapt ourselves to our environment, not expect it to adapt itself to us. There are situations, no doubt, which prove totally intolerable, where abandonment proves to be the only solution. But today many are trying to take the easy way out and change jobs the minute the shoe pinches. It is very sad, how many of us resent our work. Often it is only in desperation for lack of work that we come to realize what a therapy and opportunity for evolution it can be. I once saw a young immigrant girl who clearly had secured her first job in America, selling doughnuts across the counter. With what boredom she listened to each customer's request and with what disdain mechanically handed over the right doughnut and made the correct change The individual customer was of no interest to her. Contrast this with the alert salespersons you have known: they welcome, thank, chat or banter with you—looking for the personal contact which places spirit in touch with spirit and rewards the extra effort.
    If our work life happens unfortunately to be one distasteful to us, it need not become a monster, haunting our dreams. We can slowly attack the unpleasant angles of it, working patiently on as much as we can bite off at a time, by trying to put into practice some of the above suggestions. It is a great help here to recall Brother Lawrence, who found God a constant Presence in the midst of uncongenial work.

Relations with employers, employees and co-workers...
Can we maintain our own ethical standards?

    It often happens in the business world that we are asked or forced to tell falsehoods, exaggerating the merits of a product; to conceal its defects etc. It is fortunate if we are not forced to practice more deceit. Followers of Vedanta, and particularly of Sri Ramakrishna, have to be scrupulous about the practice of truth, and often wonder how to endure such deviations. He was the very embodiment of truth, in life, word and thought, and he used to say, “Adherence to truth is the austerity of the Kali Yuga, the ‘Iron Age.’” Now, we may be prepared for some austerity, but to lose our jobs by refusing to fib or otherwise violate our moral convictions? There is also the possibility of penalties and demotion being laid upon us. However, I knew one young man for whom virtue truly did pay off. He lived in London and was a recent émigré from India, a staunch devotee of Sri Ramakrishna and the Holy Mother. Finding his employment in a city business, he went to the manager as soon as he was hired and informed him that his religious and ethical convictions were such that if the company should ever give him an order requiring him to lie or cheat, he would be unable to comply. He would have to refuse the order. The management, jolted by this firm stand, nevertheless agreed to our friend's conditions. Respect for him only grew stronger through the years. He was later appointed manager of his division of the company. Our personal character makes its own way through life.

Peer pressure

    Sometimes the push toward something which offends our moral sense comes from fellow-workers. One can be under pressure to “join the gang” in surreptitious pilfering of company properties, products or provisions—food, paper, postage etc—or sharing pornography. Then there is the hazard of the annual office-party, where, like it or not, you had better show up and do what others do. All this has become a serious problem for earnest aspirants who understand the importance of mental purity. Purity is an aura. You create it around yourself by the quality of your own thought and practice. Many have found this to be true and by maintaining for some time a constant watch on their own mind and speech, they have, without prudish preachments, eventually let co-workers understand and respect them.
    Will not this isolation lead to loneliness? It may. You may not be able to find on the office floor or hospital ward or in your factory division, anyone else who is trying to put such ideals into practice. The only recourse, then, will be the hours away from work. Holy company has to be sought out and found. This is one of the principal functions of the Vedanta and similar societies, where meetings and classes for like-minded people are held. Seek them out. Both leaders and associates constitute “holy company” and with them you may form a mutually helpful relationship.

As an employee

    Needless to say, the spiritual aspirant will give measure for measure in the quality and quantity of his or her work. At the same time, we are not to be cheated ourselves. We should not be conscious or willing accomplices in the defrauding of employees by the management.
Thank your lucky stars if you are not subjected to one of these forms of peer pressure. It is not always easy to avoid such traps without giving offense or appearing peculiar. But then, Vedanta never said this was going to be all sunshine and roses; to be a practical Vedantist means to be something of a hero. In an earlier day when Quakerism was arising in England, these people showed their courage by being very scrupulous, frank and open in all their business dealings. Far from losing trade, they became, before long, what they had never sought to be—wealthy. Everyone wanted to deal with such honest people.

Seeing the divine in all

    When our employers or co-workers or employees seem to be veritable demons it is difficult indeed to superimpose divinity on what we see, as Vedanta asks us to do; to tell ourselves convincingly as we look around, “there goes Brahman.” But Swami Vivekananda assures us that by sincere and persistent attempt this can be accomplished: that one day we will see Him in everyone and everything. Ask yourself: “Why can't I see the Divinity in this person? What is blinding me, what is standing in my way? Is He/She not everywhere?” The Isa Upanishad begins with this very instruction: “Everything in this universe is to be covered with the Lord. Through that renunciation, enjoy; you need not covet anything of anyone.” The Quaker poet Kenneth Boulding has beautifully portrayed for us this realization, in his “Nayler Sonnets”:

My Lord, Thou art in every breath I take
And every bite and sup taste firm of Thee.
With buoyant mercy Thou enfoldest me
And holdest up my foot each step I take.
Thy sight is all around me when I wake,
Thy sound I hear, and by Thy light I see
The world is fresh with Thy divinity
And all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake!

Sri Ramakrishna describes this goal, this state, in many ways, giving it the name vijnana.

Facing criticism

Facing criticism, whether deserved or not, we need to bear in mind that even if we are not guilty of the sins in question, we probably are guilty of nursing a case of paranoia. Most of us do. Our own self-image—the picture we cherish of ourselves and would like others to see—is sometimes outlandish. We cannot bear a word of correction or rebuke, because the ego tells us that what we have done is right; our judgment was wise; our memory hasn't failed. As Ramakrishna satirized, “My watch always keeps the right time.” When you read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna through, you are left with the portrait of one whose self-image held no paranoia; who could not think of himself as teacher, guru or master, hardly even as an individual; who said that as long as he lived, he learned. “I am the servant of the servants of the Lord.”
But we—how quick we are to judge our critics! It must be that they are prejudiced against us for our race or our gender; they are out to injure us, to put us down and climb over us. Making these assumptions is the easiest thing in the world. We take everything personally. And it is not necessary. Try letting the Brahman in the accuser address the Brahman in the accused; then “we” stand aside. In the work place when blame is heaped upon us, great discrimination is needed. If you actually are at fault, and you know it, it stings, like the dentist's drill; accept it. If you know you are not at fault, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, but hold back on retaliation—to see if you can fathom how this load of refuse happened to be dumped in the wrong yard.

Rather than despair of living like a saint in a world such as ours, try attacking the problem in small pieces. As a child I used to see a few persons whose work seemed perfect, whose presence was a benediction, who never appear to be thrown for a loss. They were not swamis or anything special, just ordinary persons, and I used to wonder, are they self-made? Is it a case of the sheer grace of the Lord? Were they born that way? What I was feeling is what we have spoken of, above: envy of the spiritual sort. We have the privilege of diving deeper into ourselves, to manifest the perfection latent within us. Light your own lamp! Lamp bulbs are of all sizes and shapes; you can only be what you are. But the beauty is in the light, is it not? So Jesus says, “Let your Light shine before men.”

Chapter VI Part 1 Practical VedantaATLANTA

Chapter VI Part 1

Practical Vedanta
ATLANTA