After our guru, Swami Prabhavananda, dropped the body in 1976, my wife and I had would make a pilgrimage once or twice a year to Portland to see Swami Aseshananda, the most senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order and a disciple of Sri Sarada Devi, Holy Mother. For many decades, he was strong and physically active. Giving classes nearly every night, mowing the lawn at the Center and the retreat, cooking his own food, and doing daily worship in the shine well into his 80s. Until late in his life, he didn’t even have an assistant Swami.
The few devotees who visited the Center had to follow strict guidelines, if they were to have a productive stay – acting outside those guidelines could result in a harsh scolding by Swami. But getting yelled at by Swami could also be felt as a blessing. I had filmed him many times in Hollywood and Portland; lectures, classes, and the first time we visited him in Portland, I asked him to let me videotape him telling his remembrances of Holy Mother and the Direct Disciples he met.
He seemed to be amused by the video camera and decided to become the director of the film. He instructed me where to set up the camera in the rose garden and went to his room to get dressed up for filming. When he was ready, he wanted to be filmed watering the garden while he spoke, perhaps as an analogy of his words bringing life-giving refreshment to devotees with a spiritual thirst.
The filming was a great success, although I had to do sound processing, to filter out the background noise of the water splashing as he talked, but it is a recording of a Direct Disciple of Holy Mother, and one who had met and served many of the Direct Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, pour out his memories of those giant souls. You can see it here: https://youtu.be/nubkX6qoD1I
But, this visit was late in his life, in the mid-1990s – the end was approaching. About 7:30 in the evening, ten or eleven devotees gathered in the foyer of the Vedanta Center. We sat in silence for about a half an hour. We could hear Mr. T. slowly leading Swami down the stairs, step by step, saying, “Swami, two more steps”, then after a short while, “Swami, one more step”. As Swami came into the room some bowed their heads, some saluted in the Hindu fashion with folded hands, I felt like standing to honor and acknowledge his presence filing the room. He sat down in the chair facing the devotees. He was now ninety-five years old and obviously mostly blind (physically), I was told that he had also become somewhat hard of hearing. I can say without question, I have never been in such a presence before in my life, and cannot believe that I will likely ever again meet such a soul. He is the most senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and the only remaining living monastic disciple of Sri Sarada Devi, Holy Mother. The Swami is a Holy, living relic of another age. Even senior monks of the Order who made a pilgrimage to visit him acknowledge that they had never seen such a manifestation, in India or anywhere else.
There were a few moments of silence while Mr. B. prepared to read from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Swami adjusted his ocher cloth, pulling it over his head like a scarf. Sometimes he sat with his eyes closed, head leaning forward, sometimes looking towards the ceiling, with his eyes open just a little. What does he see? Mr. B. read for about twenty minutes, occasionally punctuated by a gesture or sound from Swami. It was not obvious that he was listening at all, but if at any moment he was asked a question about the meaning of a passage, he would immediately give a short, very much to the point, comment or explanation. His mind remained sharp to the end.
After the Gospel reading the devotees occasionally asked questions, and Swami gives very short, to the point answers. I had asked, mostly out of desire to hear him speak, “Swami, the central message of the Bhagavad Gita is said to be renunciation. What is the central message of the Gospel of Ramakrishna?” Without hesitation he said, “Sha, sha, sha”, and providing the translation himself, “Endure, endure, endure”. The answer was not at all what I expected, but was, I felt, profound on many different levels. Here was a man who had no desires left; whose only purpose, for the last seventy-five years, was to serve Mother’s will, enduring the pains and indignities of an ancient body, for the benefit of the world. He had been sent to America from India in the 1940’s and had never returned, not even for a short visit. Mother told him his duty was in America, why go anywhere else? The living example of his endurance was monumental.
The next night was only a little different, after the reading we sat in silence for nearly half an hour. No questions, no need for questions, just thick atmosphere. Swami occasionally tapped his hand on the arm of his chair, sometimes looked in the direction of a devotee, sometimes looking toward the ceiling, sometimes closing his eyes and letting his head fall forward. Swami certainly did not seem uncomfortable with the silence; at times I was. After nearly forty minutes of silence, Mr. T. told Swami that it was nine o’clock. Swami said, “Another ten minutes”. A question formed in my mind. I thought I could be clever and ask it in such a way that it could only be answered definitively, and not just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I asked, “Swami, is it better to sit in silence, or to ask questions?” His response was immediate, unexpected, and quite to the point, in a Zen kind of way. He let out a slightly amused, “heh, heh, heh”, and then “Ya!”
Promptly at ten minutes after nine, Mr. T. asked Swami if he wanted to go upstairs, Swami said yes. He sat another minute, then leaned forward and said, “May Sri Ramakrishna bless you all, may Holy Mother bless you all.” and after a long pause, “Good night” Mr. T. lead Swami out of the foyer, up the stairs and into his room. The very same ritual has gone on for some time now, and it would be the same for at least a while more to come:
Swami is guided down the stairs at breakfast to say grace, and immediately afterward he is helped back to his room.
Swami is guided down the stairs at lunch to say grace, goes to the foyer to meet with the women devotees for half an hour, mostly in silence. The women are allowed to take the dust of his feet, he gives them Mother’s blessing, and then is helped back to his room.
Swami is guided down the stairs at dinner to say grace, and immediately afterward he is helped back to his room.
At eight o’clock Swami is guided down the stairs to the foyer to hear a reading of the Gospel, and sit with the devotees. Promptly at nine o’clock Mr. T. tells Swami the time, Swami says, “another ten minutes.” Swami is helped back to his room.
Day in, day out, the ritual is the same. The only variation is on Sundays, when Swami gives an introduction to the lecture by the assistant Swami, and then follow-up remarks after the lecture. I was expecting a very short introduction, perhaps just a few words of instruction or a benediction. His introduction was a 10-minute scripture, containing a fully-formed philosophy. If I could live by those words only, and had no access to any other instruction, it would be enough to achieve the highest.
Together with the sense of grace and privilege, I can’t help but feel sadness that this, quite possibly the Holiest man on earth, is sought out by only a handful of devotees. But perhaps it is the isolation that has allowed this monk to evolve into such a towering figure. I also can’t help but think that there is nothing that I can do in my life which will spiritually benefit me more than simply being in this Swami’s thoughts and presence. The only price of admission was the desire to seek him out.
In 1996, at the age of 97, Swami Aseshananda dropped the body.
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Jon Monday is an American author, producer, and distributor of CDs and DVDs, with a background in music and multimedia. Born in 1947, Monday has worked with notable figures such as Aldous Huxley, Swami Prabhavananda, and Huston Smith, producing and distributing their lectures, talks, and other audiovisual materials. His work has spanned multiple genres, including music, philosophy, and spirituality. |
Jon Monday is an American author, producer, and distributor of CDs and DVDs, with a background in music and multimedia. Born in 1947, Monday has worked with notable figures such as Aldous Huxley, Swami Prabhavananda, and Huston Smith, producing and distributing their lectures, talks, and other audiovisual materials. His work has spanned multiple genres, including music, philosophy, and spirituality.
