How to be an ideal Householder

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Expecting only a small gathering , Swami Gokulananda had arranged for an informal talk by me in the basement of the temple; but about 600 people is not a small gathering. So the venue had to be shifted to this Vivekananda Lecture Hall. Still, I shall give only an informal talk today on the announced subject Householders and Their Spiritual Life and not a public lecture. In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, there are several chapters entitiled Advice to Householders etc. Sri Ramakrishna’s advice to householders is a great subject. When we say householder, it means that it concerns 99.9 % of the Population. That means the people at large. How shall they live their life is a very great question. There is one sentence in Swami Vivekanand’s lecture where he says, I don’t call anyone a Hindu who is not spiritual. What a beautiful idea it is! They must be religious is very easy; put on a sandal mark or ashes on your forehead, you become a Hindu; put on a cross, you become a Christian; and put on a moon crescent on the cap, you become a Muslim. Thus it is easy to become religious. But what is wanted is that we should be spiritual, and not merely being religious. And this concept of spirituality comes to us from the Upanisads, because the Upanisads describe that the human nature is essentially spiritual. Behind the body-mind-complex is the Atman, of the nature of cit and sat- consciousness and reality. Infinity is our true nature. This is the discovery; we call it a scientific truth about the human being. By examining the human being in depth, our sages of the Upanisads discovered this great truth. In the Kathopanisad, we read this beautiful sentence. During the course of his teaching, Yama said to Naciketa (3.12): Esa sarvesu bhutesu gudho atman na prakasate; Drsyate tvagryaya buddhya suksmaya suksma darsibhih. This Atman is present in all beings, but hidden and so not manifest; but it can be realized by a sharply one-pointed subtle mind, by those who are trained in dealing with subtle and still mire subtle realities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Swami Ranganathananda

Born in village of Trikkur, Kerala State, on December 15, 1908, Swami Ranganthananda joined the Ramakrishna Order, the international spiritual and cultural movement founded by Swami Vivekananda, at its branch in Mysore in 1926. He was formally initiated into Sannyasa in 1933 by Swami Shivananda, one of the eminent disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the second President of the Order. After spending the first twelve years in the Order's branches in Mysore and Bangalore, the first six years of which as cook, dishwasher and house-keeper and later as warden of student's hostel, he worked as Secretary and librarian at the Ramakrishna Mission branch at Rangoon- from 1939 to 1942, and thereafter as President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Karachi, from 1942 to 1948. From 1949 to 1962, he worked as the Secretary of the New Delhi branch of the Mission, and from 1962 to 1967, he was the Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Cultural Studies, and Editor of its monthly journal. From 1973 to 1993 he was President of Ramakrishna Math, Hyderabad and from 1994-1998 he was Vice President of Worldwide Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. Now he is its President, and stays at Belur Math. He has undertaken extensive lecture tours form 1946 to 1972 covering 50 countries. Form 1973 to 1986 he visited annually Australia, USA, Holland and Germany. In 1986 he was awarded the first Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration.