The Orange Celebration

On 20th November 2022, we received a communication which read- 

 "Ganga Prem Hospice has lost one of its staunchest and most spirited supporters today. Swami Sarvamangalananda of Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, breathed her last at Ganga Prem Hospice on the morning of November 19, 2022. Mataji had not kept well for a long time, still she did not miss an opportunity to tell her friends and contacts about the hospice and seek their support. She would make a trip to Ganga Prem Hospice in Raiwala from Rishikesh, whenever she got a chance. Phone calls to the GPH team were a regular feature of her day. 

 We will miss Swamiji terribly and think of her with fondness and great respect." 

 I didn't really know her but from Kanchana, who was a good friend of hers, I got to know her in bits and pieces. 

 Swami Sarvamangalananda of Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh was an air hostess with Swiss Air, when she met her Guru, Swami Chidananda on flight. This meeting became the turning point in her life and as soon as she could take a voluntary retirement from her job, she did so to travel to India to be with her Guru. As long as Swami Chidananda lived in his body, she stayed close to him as his nutritionist, the Swami having a very weak stomach. She even travelled with him whenever he went to places, in India and abroad. 

 When Swami Chidananda left his body she continued to live in the Divine Life Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh. By now, in fact, after a long and difficult struggle, she had even taken on the Indian citizenship. She dedicated her life to the work of Swami Sivananda in mainly the publication, making herself very useful in the Library. 

 She had in the meantime developed heart problems, which were being taken care of. With age, the problems became more difficult to manage, and on the morning of 19th, November, 2022 at 8.30 a.m or thereabouts, she finally left her body gracefully and with ease and peace. 

 Two nights before that, she had fallen twice in her room. The helper and his wife who assisted her, bringing her meals from the community kitchen, slept with her in her room. At 4 p.m., the next day, due to detoriating health conditions, it was decided that she would be shifted to Ganga Prem Hospice run by a kind sannyasin lady of British origin, called Nanima. Next day, Sarvamangalananda woke at 5 a.m. and was quite joyful and happy. However, at around 8.30 a.m., she felt a flutter in her heart and it beat slowly till it stopped. There was no pain or discomfort. 

 Swami Sarvamangalananda had slowly moved into a space beyond time. 

 Her body was brought back to the ashram, accompanied by two Swaminis and laid in the accompanying room in the hospital attached to the Sivananda Ashram at Rishikesh. A congregation of Swamis and Matajis in orange clothing, sat in vigil around her body, chanting mantras, her ears were so accustomed to hear. Loads of people came to have the last darshan of the Mataji who had now left her body. 

 Everyone was waiting for Swami Sarvamangalananda's son to arrive from Gurgaon, near Delhi and as soon as he came, the Swamis moved together to a waiting boat which would take Sarvamangala's mortal remains deep into the Ganga, where her body would finally be immersed in the water to float and sink in a free fall.. 

 As soon as her son completed the aarti on his mother, the sanyasini was taken away in the boat with her son and other Swamis. After rowing along a distance, Swami Sarvamangalananda finally immersed in the water and the wayfarers returned to the Ashram. 

 We never knew each other, except that we saw each other now and then in the Samadhi Hall. She enquired after me to Kanchana, asking what I, Yulia, as she pronounced my name, was doing and how I was passing my time. The answer was the same - that I liked cutting vegetables in the community kitchen and doing my own work in the room. 

 Alas! I will never hear her voice nor ever get an answer to a question that intrigues my mind - Why do people from the first world come to India, and stay on to become attached to ashrams and gurus? What is it that makes them leave their privileged life there and follow a life of hardships just to be on their Chosen Path? 

 On 4th December, 2022, is her Shodashi, which is the 16th day after her passing on. A lamp must be lit in my house to signify that she is now The Light, Knowledge, merged with THAT which never is born nor ever dies. 

(Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are totall6 the auther's)

For an out-pouring of condolences and appreciation click HERE on facebook

Swami Sarvamangalananda Facebook Page

A lamp was lit in our home on 4th December 2022 

Book Review - Where Love Begins Vibhavari by Dr Joshodhara Purkayastha

Photo credit HERE

The beautiful, soft cover of the book was an instant draw for me, when it arrived at my door step. The mesmerizing face of the cover, and the light pastel colours were soothing to my mind. Naturally, I read the book at almost one sitting. The absorbing content can be clearly seen at three levels.

The first is direct. Vibhavari, a girl from a poor family in Rishikesh, is married off early at sixteen to a man from Dubai. The marriage turns abusive and the young Vibhavari is beaten and sexually abused by husband and brother-in-law. Innocent, shy and beautiful Vibhavati, bears this brunt, including bearing two sons from this marriage. At last, finding a way to escape from this torture, she is back to her own country, the two boys being placed in a boarding school in Panchgani, near Pune, Maharashtra.

After a marriage in which she literally undergoes marital rape, Vibhavari, is however, still looking for love, as she quite understands that there is a distinction between love and sex. She is looking for love, when, on her visit to see her sons, she meets a man, with whom she gets physically and emotionally close. However, when the question of marriage is brought before the man, he quickly retreats, saying the togetherness was more for mutual sexual pleasure and not for making commitment. Vibhavari is shocked and decides to stop meeting him.

Shortly after she meets a man from her own building residence, who is bethropped to  a lady, but does carry on an illicit sexual relationship with Vibhavari. This too meets the same fate – there will be no marriage in future. Vibhavari is depressed, lonely and still searching for that love, when, at the Yoga class she finally meets the man, older and wiser, with whom she is married again, and learns and travels a lot. Vibhavari, however, it seems is unlucky in love, as this last, treasure trove of love, is snatched away from her by death. Vibhavari is left alone, but this time, many things change in her life and lead her to an amazing end, coming the full circle, of life and love.

But, there is a deeper second level to this book and I would like to dwell on that. The perfect abuse story, of marital rape, physical abuse and mental torture would have lead to two consequences – one, Vibhavari would have shied away from society and become a recluse, but in fact, the opposite happens. She celebrates her body, her ability to find sexual gratification and to be engaged sexually with men she isa attracted to, showing the reader that there are two options available to the abused human; they can chose to become a recluse or they can embrace the world with more desire. Vibhavari chose the latter, but was still unfulfilled, because, she was really looking for love.

The third level of the book and story is complex and uplifting.  Desire, deviance and divinity make the third level the most exciting, for the reader with a ‘third eye’ that goes beyond the mundane. It is Freudian in nature – desire is inherent in man. Id,Ego, Superego. But where Freud stops, Indian spiritual therapy begins and so, Vibhabavi, the simple girl from Rishikesh, returns home, physhically, metaphorically and spiritually, back to where she came from and the reader now must travel with her, to Rishikesh to see what love finally is and where it finds its ultimate source and resting place.

Where Love Begins Vibhavari, is a powerful story at all levels, for love, is a primal search that is the be all and end all in our lives, until we know better.

Click HERE to buy the book.

Dr. Jashodhara Purkayastha (Yashodhara) is a professor from the education field with twenty-five years' experience in teaching psychology and philosophy, having done her master's in education from Mumbai University, India. She has completed post-graduate work in economics, this being one of the subjects taught. She has done her doctorate in education also and is giving her time to set up teacher training methods. She has written a poetry book consisting of 105 poems in three languages.You can reach her at: jashodharap(at)gmail.com

Not this; not this.

Stillness pervades all. Beneath the ripples, the waves and the turbulence on the surface, deep underneath is stillness that never moved, was never a participant nor ever will be anything but what it is – stillness.

Neti Neti - not this, not this – the only reality in a world of constant movement, the waves and the ripples and the stir, the impermanence of everything which is transitory and shifting, there is though only one truth, deep down beneath all that is moving, it a stillness that never moved. Nothing brings us closest to this truth than the constantly moving Ganga in Rishikesh.

Water is life; water is therapeutic. When we watch without disturbance, water falling or moving, it brings our mind to stillness. Not like it never was there, but because when the ripples of thought and waves of upheavals rest, there is, and ever will be only stillness.  

Be Watchful.

Rishikesh - State of emptiness!

Come with a plan, when you visit Rishikesh and see it going in the direction you never planned it to go.

I arrived rather happy to get away from the Delhi pollution on Diwali day and found I was stranded in the middle of the road. The destination I was going to required me to take the autorickshaw, but there just weren't any at sight.

“You will have to walk the distance. It’s Diwali!”

Just as I was about to walk it alone, a man on a motorbike came along and I hitched up with him to reach my destination. 

Rishikesh is just one of those places you go when you want a ‘quick-fix spiritual high’ especially when you don’t have the time to bathe your spirit in a long adventure inside. Call it the ‘beach bum’s’ easy route to ‘An-Lighten-Mint-Tea’, Rishikesh offers a complete spiritual bath in 24 hours! You may come with a head full of actions you need to take in the next 3 hours, but by the time you wake up in the morning, the next day, you will have forgotten every bit of what you were to do and in its place you find, that you are in deep relaxation, as if there is no tomorrow and nothing to do!

Quell that panic rising inside, let go and flow with the tide.

Rishikesh lies on two sides of the Ganga and both sides give you a gorgeous spread of sound, lights, market-place buzz and ample large doses of the spiritual. Two bridges, Laxman Jhula and Ram Jhula connect the two sides of the bank of the Ganga and the constant flow of people, carts, animals, humans, scooters and motor bikes make it a busy passage, almost akin to the Howrah Bridge in Kolkata! On the other side of the bank, away from the main road lie ashrams for travelers who want to stay there and visitors too.

Come October, the place begins to crowd with what I have coined to call the ‘spiritual junkies’, meaning to describe people who will lap up anything – books, ideas, yoga, nature cure, indeed anything alternative, including dope which is abundant in the locality, with the dhatura plant growing wild around.

Yet, Rishikesh is the land of the ancient sages. It carries in its heart years of meditation and silence. It is one place where every sage has had their stay and many have meditated there. It is a destination which is not only known for the ‘other-worldly’ pursuits, but also for this worldly desire. Adventure Sports; mix with yoga and naturopathy, the ordinary coexist with the extraordinary to make it the most quintessential spot closest to Delhi, India.

For the one who rejoices in body, there is an abundance of ways to pamper it; for someone, who believes that the body is but a boat that carries the soul from one side to another, you have the ferry service at Ram Jhula, which takes you directly to Parmatma Niketan, or the abode of God.

But the best of all however, is to cross the bridge from a state of desire to a state of emptiness.

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