Exited and nervous behind one closed door in India with several other girls from different countries we are waiting to meet him. I had been trained to become an assistant for our nuns and I had just also got posting to go to work in Spain. I have been told that I should tell it to Sarkar, if he happens to ask, but I’m confused if I would really go to Spain or rather back to Finland to pay my loan - that I had taken to come to India. I thought it would be difficult to get it paid from Spain.
At the moment the door opens and we all step in with stunning silence. Sarkar doesn’t waste time, but starts immediately questioning each of us about our nationalities, languages that we speak, our new postings – all aimed to make us inspired to work for the welfare of humanity. One by one girls start warming up except me struggling with my thoughts what should I say about my posting. But that question never comes, he asks me only my name and then turns to his assistant monk and asks him what my posting is. The assistant searches his papers and finally answers; Spain. Then only Sarkar turns back to me and continues asking questions about Finland, which answers he seems to know much better than me.
I feel quite upset after all - first at the time when he asks my posting from his assistant and not me – I´m thinking why he neglects me. And next time while I don’t know - what to answer concerning Finland, and he has to answer himself - I feel even more embarrassed.
Only later I realized that he didn’t just want to embarrass me even more by putting me to answer that impossible question of my posting. He clearly seem to know what I was thinking in my mind about it. I started to calm down and felt also that it was interesting to hear the Finnish history from him anyway.
And that was not all. While on my flight next day back to Germany - where I had taken my flight to India - I just can’t forget his deep fatherly questioning with such all knowing wisdom and the deep care for each of us. So I take him with me to my heart and still now I see him, with the eyes of my soul, while reading his books on Prout, Gondwanaland and philosophies. And I am not the only one, and there are more to come.
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In 1959, Sarkar extended his philosophy to encompass socioeconomic principles, known as Prout – Progressive Utilization Theory. Prominent nationalists such as Vivekananda and Subhash Chandra Bose also made use of his slogan: “Liberation of Self and Service to Humanity”. Prout is the social side of philosophy based on spirituality and social liberation.
During His lifetime, P.R. Sarkar made an huge contribution to a vast range of subjects including spirituality, ethics, literature, music, philology, psychology, science, socio-economy, philosophy and agriculture.
To demonstrate his ideas on developing drought stricken areas he established and built up Ánanda Nagar as a model Prout project in West Bengal, one of the poorest and most backward parts of India.
Sarkar: Policies will differ according to changes in time, space and person, but principles will remain the same because they are all pervading and because their cognitive faculty is omniscient.
In this present age of transition, you are seeing many theories change and being discarded before your very eyes. If any group of people clings to the skeletons of the past, they will also be rejected. Intelligent people will not cling to old, outdated ideas. Rather they will wholeheartedly embrace that theory which adjusts with time, space and person and will continue to exist forever.
PROUT will always cross the barriers of time, space and person in an ever-progressive way.
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Didi Annapurna