Introducing a Scholar Hindu Monk: Swami Sarvapriyananda

We all have fond memories of our childhood, including the time spent at the school. If your childhood was spent in a residential school, away from home, then the school memories occupies a larger part of your persona. I have been fortunate to spend my childhood at the very beautiful and scenic campus of Ramakrishna Mission Deoghar, now in Jharkhand.

The entrance test of this school had consisted of two parts, a written and a "kind of" interview part. In the interview, all the children were collected in a classroom, and were required to do various tasks, assigned by various people. During that period, a monk dressed in white came to our class. He showed us some examples of mathematical calculations, based on multiplications of 11. For example, he showed that 11x11=121, 11x11x11=1331, etc, and asked us to compute us some larger products. That's all I can recall today from that time. 

After joining the school, we had chance to meet many monks, and the above monk also was present, and we came to know him as Vishwaroop Maharaj. Soft spoken and smiling, he was also present many times during the computer labs in those times of BASIC language. But there was not a lot of interaction with him, until we moved to more senior classes. I don't remember if he taught us ICVE(Indian Culture and Value Education) or not, as I remember this being taught by some other monks to my class. But Vishwaroop Maharaj had an opportunity to come to our class for short period during our final years. 

During class 10, we had to study world history, primarily the history of World war 1 and 2, modern world, and modern India. History classes are supposed to be soporific, though world history did seem interesting. Vishwaroop Maharaj was not our history teacher, but he was substituting for the absence for some teacher for few periods. He offered us to narrate the history of a specific war during world war II: The attack on Pearl Harbor.  We happily agreed, but nobody had thought his narration would be so spellbinding and will leave a lasting impression. 

He started his narration with the context of world war II, and how the Japanese involvement started. For the next two or three classes, he told us minutely about the different aspects of the preparation for the attack, how they were able to keep it as a secret, and how the micromanaged the plan. For example, to not let the military radars detect the fighter planes, they practiced flying as low as a few hundred feet over the land! He talked about the minute planning attack, best case and worst case scenario in the plans and so on. As mere students, we all were left mesmerized and craving for more after his periods were over. A bit more we got indeed, as the movie "Pearl Harbor" was released during that time, and he arranged for us to watch that movie. But after his narration, the movie actually looked quite stale :)

After my passing out from the school, he soon got sannyas and the ochre robes, with the new name of Swami Sarvapriyananda, a very apt name. I had few chances to interact with him after that, as he came once to IIT Kharagpur for a lecture on Vedanta, and other time when I went to Belur Math. Fortunately, he also made me say hello to another monk Mahan Maharaj(mathematician). 

Though we had know Vishwaroop Maharaj as a very learned monk during that time, but since, he has been introducing Hinduism and Vedanta at various platforms in a very beautiful manner. His lecture series at IIT Kanpur has been really popular. I am not sure, but I think he has been transferred to a Vedanta society in United States. 

Many of his video lectures are available on Internet, where he talks about various aspects of Hinduism, consciousness, body and mind, Vedanta in his beautiful voice. Beyond any religious dogma, he focuses on the essential questions of life, and provides lot of material for thinking and pondering over. I am giving link to one of the lectures, and others can be seen over youtube. 

Swami Sarvapriyananda at the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago

Swami Sarvapriyananda at IIT Kanpur

I hope that he will introduce the elegant and beautiful ideas of Hinduism to the world, which are strew across the various texts of Upanishads, which will provide a way out for religious harmony in the coming decades.