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by Georg Feuerstein
I no longer recall when I first came across one of Ananda Acharya’s published writings. Very likely, I discovered his book Brahmadarsanam at Stuart & Watkins in London when I was still a resident of England in the 1970s. His work struck me as being so thoroughly familiar that I did not pick it up again to browse in it until perhaps twenty years later. Then, in 2000 or 2001, a Norwegian visitor came to my center in Santa Rosa (now no longer existent) to present me with the gift of some of Ananda Acharya’s books. She felt that they might be very meaningful to me, which is the case. I particularly resonated with his volumes of poetry, especially Snow Geese and in general have felt a great sense of affinity with him. Here is a short biography of this unusual Hindu teacher, who counts among the early disseminators of Hindu wisdom in the West. I have pieced it together from Einar Beer’s foreword to Swami Sri Ananda Acharya’s Life and Nirvana, vol. 1 (Alvdal, Norway: Brahmakul, 1970) and also Einar Beer’s biographical sketch to his anthology Spiritual Talks (Hoshiarpur, India: Vishveshvarananda Vedic Research Institute, 1957), as well as K. V. Sarma’s mini-biography prefixed to Sri Ananda Acharya’s Karlima Rani, or Lectures on Yoga (Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvarananda Vedic Research Institute, 1971). I would also like to cordially thank Bjørn Pettersen, chairman of the Swami Sri Ananda Acharya Foundation, for various kindnesses and for sending me a copy of his own biographical essay “The Sage on Mt. Tron” from which I have incorporated several pieces of information in the present essay.
Swami Sri Ananda Acharya was born Surendranath Baral into a brahmin family of Hooghly, Bengal on the morning of December 29, 1881. His devout parents were Gobardhan Boral and his wife Sauravamayee. Gobardhan Baral was a consulting managing director of the National Bank of India in Calcutta and was well-known for his charity. The family of ten children enjoyed considerable wealth and lived in a large mansion.
In his youth, Surendranath witnessed the cruel whipping of an Indian laborer at the hand of an Englishman, which triggered in him a deep disappointment in life, planting the seat for his later renunciation. He grew up in an atmosphere of political rebellion, with his countrymen aspiring to shake off the yoke of the British, and like Sri Aurobindo and other great spiritual leades, he belonged to the youth resistance. Soon, however, Surendranath turned to spiritual pursuits, and he enjoyed making pilgrimages to sacred places and holy men among whom he was fortunate to find his own guru, Swami Sivanarayana Paramahamsa.
Surendranath received his early education in a Mission School connected to the Bandel Church in his hometown at the Ganges River. He was awarded his B.A. in 1905 and his M.A. degree in philosophy in 1908 from the Government Arts College in Hooghly. Subsequently, he pilgrimaged round India. In 1910, he briefly held the post of professor of logic and philosophy in the Maharajah’s College at Burdwan. He distributed his earnings among his poor fellow students. When leaving Burdwan, some 500 students and fellow teachers bid him a tearful goodbye to spend the rest of his days in the Himalayas. But after a meditation experience in a cave at the Ganges, he felt call to change direction and head all the way to Europe.
At the behest of his guru, he went to Europe leaving his homeland by boat from Calcutta on July 14, 1912. Virtually penniless, he arrived in Marseilles, and then traveled by train to Paris where he stayed for a short while with a friendly diplomatic family. He then crossed the Channel and arrived in London on August 15. He stayed in England for the next three years and often found himself without food and shelter. While living in that large metropolis, he gave public talks, private tuition, and also wrote several books.
These early publications include an introduction to the philosophy of Vedanta in his preferred dialogue form entitled The Samhita (1913) and an English rendering of Kalidasa’s Vikramorvasi (1914).
On the outbreak of World War I, which involved England, Swami Ananda Acharya knew that he had to relocate. A wealthy British friend arranged for him to give a series of lectures on the fundamentals of Indian philosophy at the universities of Christiana and Oslo. He left for Norway in December 1914. In the spring of 1915, he lectured ex tempore at the University of Kristiania in Oslo. Here he met Amy L. Edwards, the daughter of an English professor and herself a great linguist, and the Norwegian engineer Einar Beer. Both were to become close friends and disciples.
The decision to live in Norway permanently came naturally. While continuing to stay in touch with his disciples and well-wishers in England, his focus from then on was wholeheartedly with Norway.
Swami Ananda Acharya’s early Norwegian lectures can be found gathered in the 1917 volume published by MacMillan & Co. under the title Brahmadarsanam or Intuition of the Absolute. His foreword to this book, which is dated July 9, 1916, includes an acknowledgement for the help he had received from a certain Miss Hermione Ramsden. The volume was dedicated, significantly, to his friends and pupils in Norway.
In 1916, he lectured at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala, and his lectures were published in English in 1921 under the title Tattvajñanam, or The Quest of Cosmic Consciousness. This volume was reissued by the Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute in 1985, which also reprinted several of his other works. Tattvajñanam is an overview of the major philosophical systems of Hinduism and demonstrates Swami Ananda Acharya’s impressive command of Vedic knowledge. Judging from the written version of his lectures, he must have been a commanding speaker, who peppered his highly informed, abstract discourses with numerous practical examples and anecdotes.
Sri Ananda Acharya’s lectures were as vital and vivid as Swami Vivekananda’s talks. He drew from the deep well of the Vedic heritage and now and then punctuated certain points with references to and quotations from the Western intellectual heritage.
From 1917 on, Swami Ananda Acharya settled on the slopes of Mt. Tron, just above the tree line in a landscape reminiscent of the foothills of the Himalayas in Bengal. He had been able to purchase a cottage, which he named Gaurisankar after a Himalayan peak. Shortly after seeing the “Peace Plateau” on Mt. Tron, he remembered his childhood vision of a University of Peace, which he had worked out in great detail during his wanderings.
In the same year, his lyrical book The Book of the Cave—Gaurisankaraguha was published simultaneously in Swedish and English.
In 1918, he published a collection of poems entitled Himsuparna, after a Sanskrit phrase meaning “Snowy Wings.” A year later, the English version appeared under the title Snow Birds.
In 1920, he published Varataskuggsja (Indian Mirror), written in the form of letters, and dealing with Indian culture and its significance for the West. In the same year, a certain Miss Jewson (alias Samvida) from London joined him and Einar Beer at the retreat cottage and was to be a lasting friend and disciple.
The following year proved extraordinarily productive. His substantial book Karlima Rani was published in a Norwegian and an English edition. It consists of a series of letters on Yoga from an Indian sage to his Icelandic disciple. In the same year, the Norwegian edition of Yoga of Conquest was published, which three years later has an English edition. Also in 1921, his large work Kalkaram appeared in which he provides a lively portrayal of modern India and how the ancient religious and ethical values and teachings were still alive among certain groups of people. Written, like many of his other books, in the form of letters, this work strongly urges Westerners to undergo a change of mind and heart in order to avoid catastrophe. Also in 1921, a series of collected poems in English found their way into print, such as Usarika-Dawn, Rhythms; Saki—The Comrade; Cakrasakha—The companion of God. This is also the year of publication of a collection of poems in Swedish entitled Muktikanyaka.
In 1924, Sri Ananda Acharya published a Norwegian retelling of the ever-popular Valmiki Ramayana, which tells of the incarnate God Rama and his faithful spouse Sita.
In 1926, a limited edition of two collections of poems, written in rhythmic prose and entitled Arctic Swallows and Girirani (Mountain Queen) were published. The former volume was reissued in 1974 by the Vishveshvaranand Institute. It contains no fewer than 384 poems culled not only from the original version of Arctic Swallows but also Girirani, Buddha Poems, Samadhi Poems, Autumn Rains, and She of the Pearl and Ruby Roses.
It is clear from his comments in the foreword to Brahmadarsanam that he had broken away from the traditional Indian style of pupilage. As he put it bluntly: “To require of the student that he should swallow the pills of metaphysical theory and theological dogma, without protest, were no better than to pour concentrated carbolic or sulphuric acid on the skin and then to expect the unfortunate victim to keep quiet!” (p. viii)
Based on his observations of the inner growth of students East and West, he had come to believe that the best way of helping a student is to “confer upon him the privilege of a free hand, and to allow him, as it were in his own right, to bring out to his own introspection, and shape and mould, all the hidden forces of logic and light that lie dormant in his higher nature, needing no interference or compulsion from without, but only a favourable spiritual and ethical stimulus. . .” (p. viii)
The same tolerance he granted his students, he also allowed himself. His mind would not be squeezed into any ready-made ideological box. Hence he felt free to express his deep interest in Buddhism. “My reverence for the Buddha increases every day.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 78)
While respecting the achievements of modern science, he did not fail to point out the failures of what we would now call scientism, notably the credo that “seeing is believing,” as if perception were the only allowable source of evidential knowledge.
During the years of World War II, Swami Ananda Acharya favored a still more reclusive lifestyle, which allowed him to spread peace to the world in his solitary meditations. From 1928 on, he favored a reclusive life, and he stopped all book production, though guest continued to find their way up to his remote hermitage where they were welcomed with a warm meal, an inspiring talk, and a gift upon departure. He thought that love of solitude is the beginning of wisdom. “The man who has not lived alone in the mountains has not yet discovered his soul.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 10)
Deeply respectful toward and awed by Nature, he posed a question that has gained even more importance today: “Why does man’s behaviour towards humanity and Nature constitute his duty?” He answered his own question thus: “It is because man and humanity and Nature are all one; intrinsically they are one, metaphysically they are one.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 18)
He embraced and taught a harmonious life in relation to everything. He condemned the “philosophy of individualistic plurality”—our common self-centered lifestyle—which he saw as leading to conflict and all-consuming war. His prediction proved right, and it still holds true.
His simple lifestyle was a directed demonstration of his philosophy of peace and love for all Nature. Outside his cottage, two horses, and other domestic animals lived our their lives in peace. His neighbors in the valley of Alvdal, among whom he was greatly respected as “Baral” and “Professor Baral,” now and then added to his collection of animals.
One curious aspect of Swami Sri Ananda Acharya’s work was his great fondness for Buddha and Buddhism. His works are replete with Buddhist ideas and motifs. In 1928, he even boldly declared himself to be the Buddha Amoghasiddhi Maitreya. Since Maitreya is presently a transcendental Bodhisattva in the Tushita Heaven, we must understand this declaration to be one of mystical identity with that great being.
Swami Ananda Acharya condemned nationalism and all forms of separatism, which give rise to strife. He saw it as everyone’s sacred duty to overcome this separatism within him- or herself through ego-transcendence. This striving for unity, for him, was Yoga. He equated Western civilization not with sophistication or progress but essentially with “foolishness.” This foolishness is the kind of thinking that removes us farther and farther from the simplicity of childhood where we spontaneously know about unity and harmony but which we, as adults, dismiss as “stupid.” He argued that after talking with literally hundreds of children, he found that they knew what life was really all about.
Sri Ananda Acharya distinguished between two kinds of civilization—one based on materialism, the other founded in spiritual insights and values. The latter type of civilization understands that “[w]e must live in such a way that the future men may be benefited.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 68) He continued: “By doing only good, by thinking only beautiful thoughts, we shall bring happiness to our soul, to the inner man; we shall be doing what God wants us to do.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 68)
A spiritually based civilization is concerned with its effects upon all life in the present and in the future. He asked his listeners a question that is acutely relevant today: “Have you ever reflected on the far-distant ultimate effect of the present industrial system? Its effects will be two-fold. It will make one part of society cunning, unscrupulous and heartless and the other part grim, discontented and revengeful, and it will make machinery more and more and man less and less. The combined effect upon the human mind will be to produce in distant ages a race so degenerate as to be not far removed from the animals.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 69). He was hoping that the introduction of Hinduism to the West would make the latter “less mechanical and more idealistic” (Spiritual Talks, p. 78)
Our so-called Western civilization and its overconsumption and heedlessness have created a disparity among the human race that offers a comfortable and even luxurious lifestyle for the few at the cost of all others.
For a lover of God (brahman), everything is music, “a sublime symphony that fills his whole being with joy.” (Spiritual Talks, p. 8).
With his great love of Nature in her unadulterated simplicity, it is little wonder that Sri Ananda Acharya should have felt called to write poetry. He felt keen appreciation for fellow poets like Wordsworth, Shelley, and Coleridge. Sri Ananda Acharya’s love of Nature is best expressed in his recommendation:
“Give your affection for at least five minutes every day to trees and animals, to birds and fishes. You will soon discover in them a portion of your own life, sharing the wine of Brahman’s love. Think of them as manifestations of divine wisdom and treat them as members of humanity with full right to live and enjoy. The ruthless rate at which our cannibalistic civilized savages are felling forest trees and exterminating birds and animals and fish is beyond all bounds, and the children of men who will be born twenty or thirty hears hence will have to learn the life-history of birds and trees and animals from photographs and pictures. Remember, birds and animals are the friends of trees and trees are the friends of man, and when birds and animals and trees are gone out of our planet man will be friendless and the future human race will then receive the same gift of extinction which its reckless ancestors have offered to birds and trees and animals. Without forests, without birds, without animals, what will be left for poets to celebrate in their verse?” (Spiritual Talks, p. 95).
Swami Ananda Acharya’s love of Nature was matched only by his love of universal peace—that is peace for all beings. Already in his early childhood, he conceived the idea of bringing peace to the entire world, and during his period of wandering, he elaborated in his head on this central ideal. Einar Beer (Acharya Sariputra), inspired by Sri Ananda Acharya, wrote in his foreword to Life and Nirvana, vol. 1: “We are all One—each star, each atom, animal and man, each river and mountain, each grin of dust, each drop of water . . . It is a vast Universal Wheel of the purest Good, of righteousness and the purest love and charity, which the Maitreyya Buddha [Sri Ananda Acharya] has set rolling by His life and works.”
On Armistice Day—May 8, 1945—Swami Ananda Acharya entered into a deep state of ecstasy (samādhi). He remained in that state for over a month without eating, drinking, or visible breathing. At one point, he peacefully passed away and his previously fresh-looking skin turned sallow. He was declared dead on June 13, and he was buried at sunrise on July 1, 1945. Students and friends read the peace hymn from his Kalkaram in Norwegian and English.
According to his wish, his earthly remains were buried on the plateau of Mt. Tron where the architect Einar Beer built “Shantibu” in 1946. The cottage served subsequently as the central office of the Mt. Tron University of Peace, established in 1993. A 4-meter-high column was erected on the plateau in commemoration of this teacher, who lived and taught in Norway for 27 years.
Swami Sri Ananda Acharya’s last poem, written on April 27, 1945, was an encomium on the sublimity of silence.
The work of this master has been all but forgotten and his name lives on only among the local villagers, who had undoubtedly loved and revered him. His noble idea of a University of Peace is but a seed to be realized in the future. “It will be all right,” he used to tell the plants in his garden. “The universe is so small and the Soul so vast!”
© 2008 by Georg Feuerstein.
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