Swami Tathagatanandaji as I knew him
From 1977 to 2016
Swami Tathagatananda came to the New York Vedanta Society in January of 1977 to take up the role as assistant leader. He was a friendly sort and soon he and I went for a long walk together all the way from West 71st Street, where the Vedanta Society is located, down to the World Trade Center, where we went to the top. I remember as we walked he said to me, “You see these people? Most of them are in their first birth as human beings. They are more animal than human.”
Soon after he arrived, the long-time-devotee, Courtenay Olden, told me that Swami Pavitrananda said to her, “We have our man.” He was very pleased with him. I think Swami Tathagatananda, who is so humble, felt unworthy. I remember at the funeral for Swami Pavitrananda in November of 1977 there was a gathering of all the swamis who had come to speak. I was present. Swami Tathagatananda made Swami Swananda (not Swami Swahananda) sit in the head seat. He said, “You were the assistant that he really wanted.”
It was quite a transition getting used to Swami Tathagatananda’s style. Swami Pavitrananda was the soul of refinement. Since Swami Pavitrananda was the first holy person that I had gotten to know, I took all his traits as emblematic of spirituality. Swami Tathagatananda, on the other hand, was quite boisterous. He would shout and bang on the lectern with great enthusiasm. I once complained about this to him. He told me to focus on the message and not the way he delivered it. Gradually I began to understand that he was truly a holy person with his own unique style. As an expression of affection he would punch me in the shoulder or grip my hand very hard. I’m strong so this didn’t bother me. I took these as love taps and love squeezes. However Pravrajika Vrajaprana said at the Memorial service on August 20, 2016 that she knew he crushed her hand out of affection but it caused a lot of pain. In fact she needed many weeks of physical therapy to recover. Swami paid for this treatment and was still apologetic years later. She was touched that he was still thinking of her. I learned at the Memorial service that he also loved to slap people on the back. Many were charmed to have received this form of loving attention from him.
He and I would go for frequent walks together and I began to bask in his affection as so many people did. Often I would ask him questions about spiritual practice. Once I asked, “How does japam work?” He answered, “Just as sandalwood gives off its fragrance when it is rubbed against a rock, likewise the Holy Name of God gives off the divine fragrance contained within it when it is rubbed against the rock of the mind by repetition. The mind then also takes on these holy qualities by means of association and becomes purified.” Once I read that Swami Adbhutananda said, “After much austerity a man achieves faith in God.” I then asked Swami Tathagatananda, “What is the best austerity for me to practice?” He replied, “Dwell on God always.” Simple but so difficult.
Monthly I would do some work around the Vedanta Society building and he would praise me to the sky for this. I never felt quite worthy of his great praise. Others have told me that they also had this same experience. He would repeatedly say how highly he thought of Bill Conrad and John Schlenck (who were good friends of mine). This illustrates what a forgiving soul he was. John was at first displeased with him and wrote to Belur Math asking that he be recalled. Despite this he didn’t hold the least grudge against John and by his love soon won him over. Bill, with his scientific training and skeptical nature, would take Swami Tathagatananda to task whenever he said anything that Bill felt went against science. Sometimes, when he (the Swami) would say something esoteric to me, he asked me not to repeat it to Bill. He didn’t want a scolding from him. But still he greatly admired how Bill had devoted his life to serving Vedanta.
I used to spend a night every week at the Vedanta Society and stay in a room on the top floor. At one point he affectionately invited me to sleep in his study so that we could be close. I kept a bedroll and did this for decades. Sometimes he would call me from his room and impart some beautiful advice or get something off his chest that was troubling him.
He was so open. People would come day and night to see him and I don’t remember him refusing to see anyone. At the viewing there were so many people I didn’t recognize. What a great number of people he helped. After the Sunday talk he would go into his study and it would be crowded with devotees who would put questions to him. As his hearing became worse, a devotee would shout the question into his left ear. Sri Ramakrishna taught us in the Gospel to seek holy company and here it was. How fortunate we were to have an association with Swami Tathagatananda.
Over and over again he would say what a wonderful subject Vedanta was. This feeling must have led to his prolific outpouring of books and articles on Vedanta. It was not his nature to be very fussy about details but unfortunately a consequence of this was that his books did not get as good an editing job as they deserved to have. Maybe some day this will happen. I found many of his books helpful and inspiring. He loved to read and his room was filled to the brim with books. The devotee Scott Williams would build bookcases for him. After the walls were covered, he built bookcases in the middle of the room.
He would shout at and scold those he loved the most. It took me a long time to understand this. Then I began to feel bad that he rarely shouted at me. His favorite scold was, “You are fool number one!” He would shout at Jeanne Genet and then beg her to bless him, putting her hands on his head. At the Memorial service Swami Atmajnanananda made the comment that his scoldings had no sting – they were so covered with love.
He would not let Westerners touch his feet. Instead he would ask for our blessing, grabbing our hands and putting them on his forehead. When I asked for his blessing he would not put his hands directly on my head but take a book about Ramakrishna and put that on my forehead. I understood this to mean that he was invoking Sri Ramakrishna’s blessing since his blessing, without that of Sri Ramakrishna, he felt was meaningless.
He saw all women as mother. Dr. Cordelia Sharma, his personal physician and disciple, said when he was in the hospital the young female nurses would be perplexed at being called “mother.” Were they being called old, they wondered? She explained to them that he saw God as mother and saw that motherhood in them. They were then charmed to hear this. At the Memorial service Swami Atmajnanananda related a humorous incident relating to this. On a walk they went on together, as they came upon people he would poke them in the chest and tell them, “God resides in you.” I recall that in New York, when he went for his walk in Central Park, he would befriend all the hot dog sellers and give them a similar message.
He would repeat certain themes that he wanted people to understand. For example, early in his ministry he would say over and over that we were like light bulbs lit up by electric power from the generating station. God was the generating station. As time went by this became more succinct. He would say, “Life is God.” In later years he became occupied by the theme of redemption. Over and over he would tell a story that I believe comes from The Way of the Pilgrim or its sequel. A haughty Russian nobleman was displeased with a servant and struck him so hard that he died. However, he soon began having visions of this servant who would accuse him, saying over and over again, “You killed me.” This became torment. He couldn’t sleep at night. Finally in desperation he gave away everything to his servants and became a wanderer repeating the Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me. Then the tormenting visions stopped. Swami Tathagatananda wanted us to also pray to God begging His mercy. It seemed to me that he emphasized prayer more than meditation.
His particular message to me was to strive to develop love for God. One day as he walked through his study he noticed that I had a book titled, Teach Yourself Bengali. He said to me, “Don’t waste your time learning Bengali. Strive to develop bhakti.” With his constant encouragement, he gave me the confidence that I was fulfilling this ideal, bit by bit.
Nine years ago, at the time of my retirement, I developed a desire to move into the Vivekananda Retreat, Ridgely. My wife was hurt by this and asked for a separation. Swami Tathagatananda would over and over again tell me what a great favor she had done me.
For the last ten years or so of his life (he died at 93) he would tell all and sundry that he was ready to go and ask us to pray for his speedy death. He would say, “I don’t want to live for even one billionth of a second longer.” Then 18 months before his death his kidneys shut down. He said he had no desire to go on dialysis but many devotees begged him to do this and he, in the end, couldn’t say “No.” He told me when he came home from the hospital having started dialysis, “Spiritually speaking, suffering is a great blessing.” I took this to mean that he was suffering but willing to make this sacrifice for the sake of the devotees and felt blessed by this opportunity.
Once he confided to me that his doubts about coming to the West as a minister were largely dispelled when he first arrived at JFK. In the terminal hall he had a vision of Swami Vivekananda looking pleased at him. He would always be so humble. He would always say, “I am the dust of everyone’s feet.” And yet he had seemed to have developed some powers. Once in the last year of his life, I had just arrived at the Vedanta Society and was upset by something I learned upon arriving. I kept this feeling to myself. I had not even gone to greet him yet. However, a woman devotee and caretaker, Namita, came to me and said, “He understands your feeling and has corrected the situation.” I was amazed. Similarly, I heard that one couple had come to him for advice about a disturbing situation. Before they could say anything he began to talk about this very problem and advised them. This reminds me of something he once said to me in response to my complaint that I had made so little progress. He said, “If Shakti comes and the character is not yet set, great havoc will be wreaked.” Shakti had come to him and he used it only to bless us.
He passed away of a cardiac arrest on June 25, 2016. The day before he had expressed his hope to Bill Conrad that he go quickly, as Swami Pavitrananda and John Schlenck had done. He finally got his wish.
What a great child of Sri Ramakrishna we had in our midst for so many years.
This article in slightly different form originally appeared in Remembering Swami Tathagatananda.