Sankara, The Mighty Missionary-II

A true son of Bharat must not only absorb the essential logic of the scriptures but must live them fully, experience the unfoldment so gained, and come to expound, express and preach his scripture to the growing generation of his children. Members of each generation must, not only receive thus the torch of knowledge, lit up in the past and handed down to them, but they must, with their own lives, nurse and nourish its glow and hand it down to the immediate future.

As long as the zeal and anxiety to know, live, and preserve the tested ways of life, the proved values of social contacts, and the declared virtues of true living, are kept up, as long as the nation's cultural life is maintained vibrant with the creative genius of the present generation, so long we shall have the past with us in our present, as an unseen partner in our achievements and failures; and the present in its planning and vision, shall thereby become a true shareholder in all the future glories and successes of the nation.

If not for Sankara's missionary zeal, Hinduism would have been totally buried by now under the debris of the decadent ideologies. It is Sri Sankara who ploughed and weeded out the unhealthy over-growths and redeemed the immortal philosophy of the sages to its pristine beauty.

Sankara Technology

Let Sankara Jayanti be an occasion for the nation to feel the necessity to make a close and serious study of the Bharata culture. It is the duty of everyone to impart what little he knows to all those who are around him, not merely by words but by the inescapable eloquence of the purity of his own actions, the glory of his own self-sacrifice, the beauty of his own love, and the glow of his own charity in life.

There is no way to revive a country in its human values other than this - and this we may call the "Sankara technology". Let this be the sacred occasion, the auspicious hour, in the cultural history of our country, that when we, the self-exiled children, decide to come back home to the Bharata view of life. To achieve this will be the greatest tribute that we can truly pay to Sri Acharya Sankara, the first mighty missionary in Hinduism.

The only cure

No trouble, seemed to him too great; removing the misunderstandings and bringing the true knowledge in the bosom of all was his mission in life. Sankara was the one who had taught - not only our country, but the whole world - the oneness of life, everywhere, at all times, in all conditions. To such a self-dedicated teacher nothing can be more satisfying than to see the harmony of oneness lived in society. Let him be our guide, our ideal. It rests upon our shoulders, the responsibility of carrying this knowledge to the world outside- a world that stands today dejected in its own hapless conditions persecuted by its own self-created restlessness, torn with the man-made strife, despaired of a million nameless sorrows.

To the calamitous era of our nuclear age, Sankara philosophy, preaching the sanctity of life and insisting upon the universal oneness can alone be the only available cure.

About the author

Swami Chinmayananda

Swami Chinmayananda the great master's lectures were an outpour of wisdom. He introduced the Geetha Gnana Yagna. He wrote a lot of books on spirituality, commentaries to Vedantic texts, children books etc. He then started spreading His teachings globally.....