Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached

HYDERABAD

(January 17,1979 to July 30,1984)

After completion of my training, I spent a few additional days at Kanyakumari, till I was posted to Hyderabad on January 14, 1979. I had a good bath at the confluence of 3 seas at Kanyakumari and by the evening bus I reached Madras next day morning. From Madras I took a train to reach Hyderabad.

In Hyderabad we had no permanent office at that time. I was put up with a High Court advocate Mr. T Veerabhadrayya at Himayatnagar who was our Chairman of the Committee. I had to take my food at different hotels and that was quite an inconvenient experience. Andhra people generally like hot chilies and it was not suitable for my stomach but I had no other alternative and that experience made me pay heavily when I crossed my 60 years of age.

The great advantage I enjoyed being at Hyderabad was to meet Swami Ranganathananda of Ramakrishna Math to whom I became close. There were also a few more Swamijis with whom I had good relation like Swami Jitatmananda, who recently passed away, and Swami Paramarthananda. Jitatmananda ji suggested me that I join Swami Lokeshwarananda of Sri Ramakrishna Institute of Culture in Kolkata or join the Haridwar Ramakrishna Math. He also gave me a letter to Ramakrishna Math to help me join. I did visit Haridwar Ashram but did not join.

My work at Hyderabad was to take yogasana and Meditation classes at a number of places, enrol members for our monthly magazine, collect donation and deliver lectures on Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna's teaching. I also conducted spiritual retreats and elocution competition and a good number of students and resource persons I came in contact with like Dr. Madhusudhan Reddy, Dr. M V Nadkarni, Prof. Tikku may God bless their souls and many others whom I do not remember now.

During my stay in Hyderabad working for Vivekananda Kendra, I took a few days out to Rishikesh with the approval of Koka Stayanarayana Rao, Secretary. As for this outing, I had not taken the approval of the Headquarters at Kanyakumari, I had to swallow bitter advises from our General Secretary, Balakrishnan and Organizing Secretary, Vasudevan. At Rishikesh, I stayed at Sivananda Ashram (Divine life society). Here I looked for a realized soul and came to know that one Sita Ram Das Omkarnath available near Sivananda Ashram. I along with two guests who came from Allahabad accompanied me. In those days Sita Ram Das was not talking to anyone. I had few questions and he replied them in writing. The first question was, why there was so much misery in the world, the second one how to remove this misery and the third one what I should do. In answer to the first one he wrote that the very nature of the world where happiness as well as misery are part of its formation. It is up to the individual what path he chooses either to be happy or miserable. In reply to the second, he said, "let the Creator take care of that as you have not created the world.". The answer to the third one he said, "Take mantra and chant God's name, your misery will vanish." He also put his wooden slipper on my head as a part of his blessings and I felt as if it electrified my body for a few seconds.

We had a Hyderabad committee to oversee the activities of the centre. Mr. Koka Satyanarayana Rao was the most active member who raised a lot of funds for the centre. I also stayed in his house at Shanti Nagar and enjoyed good food which his wife, Saraswati, used to cook. May God bless their souls. There was one Dr. Gopal Rao who had a printing press at Himayatnagar, near Urdu Hall, extending his helping hand on many occasions. He was a great admirer of Swami ji. May God bless his soul.

During 1979, 1980 and 1981 I was quite involved in taking Yoga and Meditation classes. I used to take weekly Yogasana classes at BHEL, HAL, ECIL Townships. As the classes would be in the early morning at 6 a.m. I would stay the previous night with some participant and have dinner. After the Yogasana classes I would be invited by someone for breakfast. There would be a get together in my host's house and we would discuss about Yoga, Meditation and of course life of Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda etc. These classes became very popular. I also used to organize discourses by prominent speakers like Dr. M. Sivaramakrishna, Dr. Madhusudan Reddy, Dr. Nadkarni in those areas.

In one of the lecture programmes, Swami Satyananda Saraswati of Bihar School of Yoga was also present with me on the dais at ECIL. After about 3 years of regular weekly classes I started losing interest as I myself could not follow what advice I was giving to others. Later on, I left Vivekananda Kendra after 4 years of work but stayed on in Hyderabad for almost 2 more years. For 6 months I was only reading books and for food depended on the charity of my friends in Hyderabad.

During those 6 months our ex-life workers, Kameshwar Rao who is still a good friend of mine, Basavaraj and Jagan became my close friends. May God bless the souls of Basavaraj and Jagan. They too helped me to tide over those months when I was not earning anything. Basavraj invited me to Mehaboon nagar to cook for him where he was managing some village project run by Birlas. I stayed with him possibly for two months or so. Here I started reading Sri Aurobindo's writings and felt impressed by his sincerity in guiding 'Sadhaks' to spiritual transformation.

During 1983-84, Mr. Gopal Rao helped me find a tuition to keep my body and soul together. In the evenings I would regularly go to ISKCON temple at Abid Road and sing and dance with other devotees during kirtans. Once in a while I would visit The Gauriya Math in old Hyderabad city. At ISKCON, I met one Puri Maharaj who came to this temple and spoke on Krishna's life and teaching. I was impressed and decided to join him at his temple located in Rajamundry. Following my meeting with Puri Maharaj, I had a dream that I was being initiated by him and got my realization by his grace. This dream prompted me to join his Sri Krishna Ashram at Rajamundry, possibly in August 1984.