I had a chance to work couple of weeks with Indian yoga monk, Acarya Bhavottarananda, in Finland. He has been teaching there yoga, meditation and yogic lifestyle since year 2012. He is speaking weekly on local radio, on lectures, in so called living libraries and participating in Bhajan evenings (singing spiritual songs) with other yoga groups. In the Easter time I attended a seminar, where he lead two days spiritual program with inspiring talks.
His
smile never fails although he is working in a very different country
than his warm and relaxed home country. India is in many ways quite
opposite with its social and psychological outlook and political
system than Finland. There are many examples how the Indian culture
makes one to love it, but on the other hand one may feel more at ease
in Finland. For example Finnish people are serious and take a meeting
time exactly as it is, while in India one may end up waiting for 1-2
hours.
As
a child Ac Bhavottarananda spent a happy childhood in a remote Indian
village Madhya Pradesh, in AMLA province, where his father used to
drive trains. The whole family, including five elder sisters and
brothers, were strict Hindus and vegetarians. He became well known in
surrounding villages as a member of successful volley ball team, but
still he was missing some more meaning in his life. He decided to
follow renunciate’s spiritual lifestyle and surprisingly his
parents were quite supportive. He met at the age of 20 Shrii Shrii
Anandamurti, who became his Guru and who inspired him to dedicate his
life for service of humanity.
In
1988 while he then was in Training Center for monks in Varanasi, a
very dangerous virus attacked the training center and all the 47
trainees became deathly sick with swollen muscles. The doctors gave
them handfuls of medicines, but nothing was helping. One of the
trainees died before their Guru sent them instructions what to do and
he sent also some medicines.
He
also explained that the virus came from other planet and that it
could have had devastating effect on humanity if it was not stopped.
The training center was some kind of testing ground for the virus to
penetrate into earth. The whole place had to be abandoned and when
their Guru´s medicines were applied on the trainees, they started to
recover. Ac Bhavottarananda, still a trainee, was lucky to overcome
the sickness on its beginning stage. He was then taking care of all
others and administering the medicines.
When
he became a monk, his Guru gave him duty to run three schools with
250 children. Then someone else replaced him and he got another duty
of taking care of a collective farm. When he had made the farm
project productive, he was re-posted to run a children’s home with
a school. He had 25 children to feed and many more to educate.
Ac
Bhavottarananda told me a very touching story how - when he went with
three other monks to renew his passport, and to stay in his home
village – a total about 3000 people came to see him within a
week, after him spending 12 years in different areas of India without
visiting his home place. Not only the relatives and his village
people came to see him, but also people from 20 neighboring villages
came to listen the talks, lectures and other programs that were
arranged for him and other monks. People’s love and care was
something he never could have expected. During that time the monks
also gave mass initiations and many people joined the mission
permanently.
After
doing great job in India he was sent abroad, first to Korea, Japan
and China and from there in 2012 to Finland in order to offer for
western people a chance to become disciples of real yogic tradition.
One of the principles of Ananda Marga is to practically learn how to
deal with different cultures. Yoga monks work without salary and are
posted on any corner of the world. Also other individual members are
encouraged to get married with a spouse from different culture. One
would think that such marriages would not last, but in reality they
are often very successful, as the spouses are chosen according
spiritual and psychic unifying qualities.
Ac
Bhavottarananda loves to move every day, if he has no other program
he sits with his disciples on the railway station in order to give
glimpse of soothing meditation practices to passersby. Often people
stop and take leaflets or start asking questions. Another way for him
to do service is to cook and teach sentient cooking for others.
Bhajans documentary; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z29yIRFOFA
My
two weeks visit in Finland was really nice and I left with
inspired mind to continue my effort to do service and bring yogic
inspiration in other countries to those who feel need for that in
this rapidly spiritually evolving world.
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