Post by JD33 on Aug 23, 2010 15:21:55 GMT -6
I am starting this thread on Dr. Mahanambrata Brahmachari, who was an exceptional Vaishnava as we can understand from his writings, but also for those who were able to meet him in person - find him to be of true humility and wisdom.
I was fortunate to have meet him and spent some time with him 20 years before he passed away. If I would have know he was still alive since I first met him, I would have done so again, but such was not my luck.
Dr. Mahanambrata Brahmachari (1904 – 1999)
First for you to know and be able to access are His Website(s):
www.mahanam.org/
At least the breaking news of Mahanambrata's eternal journey stirred all.
He passed away on 18th October 1999 (Mahanabamitithi) at the age of 95. Though old age infirmity had its grip on his body, his mind was as alert and active as that of a young person until his eternal journey on 1999. So noble, so intellectual, so religiously inclined so unassuming so charming, so egoless as he was, can hardly be found. He is still and will be among us. Through his outstanding works, which will be appreciated over time immemorial, at the heart of large number of people to whom he acted as spiritual guide and in the memory of numerous admirers who loved him without being connected to him spiritually or religiously he shall live forever.
From www.nytimes.com/1999/11/01/world/mahanambrata-brahmachari-is-dead-at-95.html :
Mahanambrata Brahmachari Is Dead at 95
By GUSTAV NIEBUHR
Published: November 1, 1999
Mahanambrata Brahmachari, a soft-spoken Hindu scholar who offered early and important intellectual encouragement to the Roman Catholic monk and writer Thomas Merton, died in Calcutta on Oct. 18. He was 95.
Although Dr. Brahmachari lived most of his life in his native Bengal, he enjoyed a remarkable sojourn in the Depression-era United States -- mainly in Chicago between 1933 and 1939. He arrived there penniless, sent by his monastery to attend a conference of the World Fellowship of Faiths.
But Dr. Brahmachari's intellectual gifts, his sense of spiritual assurance (''that heaven would have to take care of him,'' Merton later wrote) and the interest that American scholars and religious figures took in him gave him the scope to make an unusual impact during his six years in this country.
Not only did he address the Chicago conference, but he also became the fellowship's international secretary and traveled to London in 1936 for its assembly there. He also delivered hundreds of lectures, often on college campuses, on Hindu and other religious beliefs, aspects of Indian society, and the work of Gandhi in the movement for Indian independence.
He was already equipped with master's degrees in Sanskrit and Western philosophy from the University of Calcutta, then gained admission to the University of Chicago, earning a doctorate in philosophy in 1937. That year, Charles W. Gilkey, the university's dean, described Dr. Brahmachari in a letter as a ''beloved figure on our quadrangles,'' who had impressed people ''through the winsomeness of his personality, the keenness of his mind, the catholicity of his point of view, and not least through his deeply religious spirit.''
Dr. Brahmachari came from a religious tradition called neo-Vaisnavism, focused on the worship of the god Vishnu and his incarnations. Vaisnavism emphasizes religious devotion.
In a series of recollections of Dr. Brahmachari, gathered by William Buchanan and published by the Vivekananda Monastery in Minnesota, the poet Robert Lax wrote that Dr. Brahmachari possessed a quiet and calm that drew people to him.
He would come unnoticed into a crowded room, Mr. Lax wrote, and soon people would be sitting around him, ''quietly asking him questions or listening to him because it was just the natural thing to do in the presence of someone who had that quality.''
Rather than attempt to convert Americans to his own faith, Dr. Brahmachari told those he met that they ought to look into their own religious traditions.
Merton met Dr. Brahmachari in 1938, when Merton was 23 and studying at Columbia University. He was taken by a friend to meet Dr. Brahmachari, who was arriving at Grand Central Terminal. At first, the two were unable to locate Dr. Brahmachari, nor could they find anyone who had seen him. Yet one would have thought, Merton later wrote in ''The Seven Story Mountain,'' that a man ''in a turban and a white robe and a pair of Keds would have been a memorable sight.'' Eventually, the three men linked up.
Merton became friends with Dr. Brahmachari and would later credit him with helping provide inspiration toward the spiritual path Merton would take as a Trappist monk. In ''The Seven Story Mountain,'' Merton recounts how Dr. Brahmachari, who rarely gave direct advice, told him to read two classics of Christian spirituality, St. Augustine's ''Confessions'' and the late medieval mystical book, ''The Imitation of Christ.''
''Now that I look back on those days,'' Merton wrote in his book, ''it seems to me very probable that one of the reasons why God had brought him all the way from India, was that he might say just that.''
Mahanambrata Brahmachari was born on Dec. 25, 1904, into a religious, middle-class family in a village in what is now Bangladesh. After he returned to British-ruled India in early 1939, he continued to live as a monk, and also wrote and lectured on religious subjects.
The area of Bengal in which he lived became part of East Pakistan after Indian independence from Britain in 1948. He remained there, providing spiritual support to the Hindu minority and working for peace, even during Pakistan's attempt to suppress the drive to independence in what became Bangladesh in 1971.
In a tribute included in the recollections published by Vivekananda Monastery, Merton wrote of Dr. Brahmachari that the latter taught a lesson with his life, ''that one can and must entrust himself to a higher and unseen Wisdom, and that if one can relax his frantic hold on the illusory securities of everyday material existence and abandon himself peacefully to a Supreme Will, he will himself find freedom and peace in that Will.''
I was fortunate to have meet him and spent some time with him 20 years before he passed away. If I would have know he was still alive since I first met him, I would have done so again, but such was not my luck.
Dr. Mahanambrata Brahmachari (1904 – 1999)
First for you to know and be able to access are His Website(s):
www.mahanam.org/
At least the breaking news of Mahanambrata's eternal journey stirred all.
He passed away on 18th October 1999 (Mahanabamitithi) at the age of 95. Though old age infirmity had its grip on his body, his mind was as alert and active as that of a young person until his eternal journey on 1999. So noble, so intellectual, so religiously inclined so unassuming so charming, so egoless as he was, can hardly be found. He is still and will be among us. Through his outstanding works, which will be appreciated over time immemorial, at the heart of large number of people to whom he acted as spiritual guide and in the memory of numerous admirers who loved him without being connected to him spiritually or religiously he shall live forever.
From www.nytimes.com/1999/11/01/world/mahanambrata-brahmachari-is-dead-at-95.html :
Mahanambrata Brahmachari Is Dead at 95
By GUSTAV NIEBUHR
Published: November 1, 1999
Mahanambrata Brahmachari, a soft-spoken Hindu scholar who offered early and important intellectual encouragement to the Roman Catholic monk and writer Thomas Merton, died in Calcutta on Oct. 18. He was 95.
Although Dr. Brahmachari lived most of his life in his native Bengal, he enjoyed a remarkable sojourn in the Depression-era United States -- mainly in Chicago between 1933 and 1939. He arrived there penniless, sent by his monastery to attend a conference of the World Fellowship of Faiths.
But Dr. Brahmachari's intellectual gifts, his sense of spiritual assurance (''that heaven would have to take care of him,'' Merton later wrote) and the interest that American scholars and religious figures took in him gave him the scope to make an unusual impact during his six years in this country.
Not only did he address the Chicago conference, but he also became the fellowship's international secretary and traveled to London in 1936 for its assembly there. He also delivered hundreds of lectures, often on college campuses, on Hindu and other religious beliefs, aspects of Indian society, and the work of Gandhi in the movement for Indian independence.
He was already equipped with master's degrees in Sanskrit and Western philosophy from the University of Calcutta, then gained admission to the University of Chicago, earning a doctorate in philosophy in 1937. That year, Charles W. Gilkey, the university's dean, described Dr. Brahmachari in a letter as a ''beloved figure on our quadrangles,'' who had impressed people ''through the winsomeness of his personality, the keenness of his mind, the catholicity of his point of view, and not least through his deeply religious spirit.''
Dr. Brahmachari came from a religious tradition called neo-Vaisnavism, focused on the worship of the god Vishnu and his incarnations. Vaisnavism emphasizes religious devotion.
In a series of recollections of Dr. Brahmachari, gathered by William Buchanan and published by the Vivekananda Monastery in Minnesota, the poet Robert Lax wrote that Dr. Brahmachari possessed a quiet and calm that drew people to him.
He would come unnoticed into a crowded room, Mr. Lax wrote, and soon people would be sitting around him, ''quietly asking him questions or listening to him because it was just the natural thing to do in the presence of someone who had that quality.''
Rather than attempt to convert Americans to his own faith, Dr. Brahmachari told those he met that they ought to look into their own religious traditions.
Merton met Dr. Brahmachari in 1938, when Merton was 23 and studying at Columbia University. He was taken by a friend to meet Dr. Brahmachari, who was arriving at Grand Central Terminal. At first, the two were unable to locate Dr. Brahmachari, nor could they find anyone who had seen him. Yet one would have thought, Merton later wrote in ''The Seven Story Mountain,'' that a man ''in a turban and a white robe and a pair of Keds would have been a memorable sight.'' Eventually, the three men linked up.
Merton became friends with Dr. Brahmachari and would later credit him with helping provide inspiration toward the spiritual path Merton would take as a Trappist monk. In ''The Seven Story Mountain,'' Merton recounts how Dr. Brahmachari, who rarely gave direct advice, told him to read two classics of Christian spirituality, St. Augustine's ''Confessions'' and the late medieval mystical book, ''The Imitation of Christ.''
''Now that I look back on those days,'' Merton wrote in his book, ''it seems to me very probable that one of the reasons why God had brought him all the way from India, was that he might say just that.''
Mahanambrata Brahmachari was born on Dec. 25, 1904, into a religious, middle-class family in a village in what is now Bangladesh. After he returned to British-ruled India in early 1939, he continued to live as a monk, and also wrote and lectured on religious subjects.
The area of Bengal in which he lived became part of East Pakistan after Indian independence from Britain in 1948. He remained there, providing spiritual support to the Hindu minority and working for peace, even during Pakistan's attempt to suppress the drive to independence in what became Bangladesh in 1971.
In a tribute included in the recollections published by Vivekananda Monastery, Merton wrote of Dr. Brahmachari that the latter taught a lesson with his life, ''that one can and must entrust himself to a higher and unseen Wisdom, and that if one can relax his frantic hold on the illusory securities of everyday material existence and abandon himself peacefully to a Supreme Will, he will himself find freedom and peace in that Will.''
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