A Pilgrim Looks at the World, issued in two volumes, is a running narrative, interspersed with observations and comments, by Swami Ranganathananda, of his many lecture tours abroad. Several of these tours of the Swami were sponsored and organised by the Government of India through its Ministries of Education and External Affairs.
The story of the various tours given in the two volumes bas been enriched by a number of illustrations.
The two volumes deal only with the Swami's lecture tours outside India-about fifty countries, including five communist states, namely, Poland, Czechoslovakia, U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia and Cuba, in the last four of which he was the guest of the respective governments.
This book, Volume Two, is divided into five parts.
PART ONE under the title A Traveller Looks at the World' covers the questions put by the monastic brothers on various interesting topics and the Swami's thought-provoking answers to them relating to his lecture tour of U.S.A. and 24 other countries in East and West between 18th July 1968 and 31st December 1969.
PART TWO Covers the Swami's second European lecture tour of 1970.
PART THREE covers the Swami's lecture tour of Australia, U.S.A., and ten other countries in 1971-72.
PART FOUR covers the Swami's lecture tour of Afghanistan in 1973.
PART FIVE covers the Swami's lecture tour of Zambia, Madagascar and Mauritius in 1974.
APPENDIX A covers the report of 1968-69 tour issued by Swami Bhashyananda, Head of the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago U.S.A., who sponsored the tour originally covering only France, U.S.A., and Canada, but which was subsequently extended by the Government of India to cover also, under its own auspices, twenty-two other countries in Latin America, South-East Asia, including New Zealand and Australia, and Far-East Asia.
APPENDIX B covers the report of the Symposium of Religions held in Chicago in 1968.
APPENDIX C gives the text of the Swami's speech on The Modern Challenge and the Future of Hinduism delivered at the Third Spiritual Summit Conference organized by the Temple of Understanding, Washington D. C. and held at the Harvard Divinity School, U.S.A., on October 11, 1971.
APPENDIX D covers some press interviews and reports as well as comments and letters of appreciation, relating to the above tours.
We are happy to place before the public this second volume of Swami Ranganathananda's book A Pilgrim Looks at the World, which presents before the vision of the reader a unique image of India in its inter-action with the contemporary world, especially in the field of ideas, and as viewed by one who has been a real messenger of India wherever he has gone and who is a pilgrim from India at home everywhere.
Born in the village of Trikkur, Kerala State, on December 15, 1908, Swami Ranganathananda joined the Ramakrishna Order, the international spiritual and cultural movement founded by Swami Vivekananda, at its branch in Mysore in 1926. He was formally initiated into Sannyasa in 1933 by Swami Shivananda, one of the eminent disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the second President of the Order.
The young monk spent the first nine years of his monastic life in the Mysore branch of the Order, working, for the first six years, as its cook, dish washer, and housekeeper and, later, as warden of its home for students. After spending the next three years at the Mission's branch in Bangalore, where he worked among the youth, he worked as Secretary and Librarian at the Ramakrishna Mission branch at Rangoon, Burma, from 1939 to 1942, and thereafter as President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Karachi, now in funds Pakistan, from August 1942 to August 1948. During this period, he from public contributions, and sent over 1,250 tons of rice by special steamer to Calcutta for the Mission's relief work during the Bengal famine of 1943, and over Rs. 1,50,000/- to the Mission's relief work among civil strife victims in Bengal and Bihar and cholera victims in Kerala. organised raising large From September 1949 to March 1962, he worked as the Secretary of the New Delhi branch of the Mission and from April 1962 to November 1967, he was the Secretary of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, Director of its School of Humanistic and Cultural Studies, and editor of its monthly journal.
The Swami has been invited, year after year, by the Government of India to address its trainees at the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, and at the National Defence College, New Delhi. He is one of the Trustees of the Rainakrishna Order, Belur Math, a member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission, and a member of the Indian National Com-mission for Cooperation with the UNESCO.
The Swami has travelled extensively aborad practically all over the world-delivering lectures on cultural and spiritual topics. Many of his foreign tours have been sponsored by the Government of Government India. He has been a real messenger of wherever he has gone Shri Lanka, Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, South Viet-Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Fiji and most of the states of Europe including Poland, Czechoslovakia, U.S.S.R., Spain, and U. K. He was on a year's lecture tour of the U.S.A. at the invitation of the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago.
A Pilgrim Looks at the World, issued in two volumes, is a running narrative, interspersed with observations and comments, by Swami Ranganathananda, of his many lecture tours abroad. Several of these tours of the Swami were sponsored and organized by the Government of India through its Ministries of Education and External Affairs.
Volume One, issued earlier, comprises the story of the Swami's tour of Japan, Singapore, and Fiji in 1958, in Part One; his tour of seven South-East Asian countries in 1960, in Part Two; his tour of seventeen European countries in 1961, in Part Three; an Appendix containing his The Story of Burma Evacuation: 1942, in Appendix A; reports of his several lecture tours of Ceylon, South-East Asia, Hongkong, and Nepal between 1963 and 1966, in Appendix B; and some press interviews and reports and a letter of appreciation, relating to some of these tours, in Appendix C.
Of these, the Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi, had published, in 1962, the material comprised in Parts One and Parts Two in a volume under the title: Japan and South-East Asia Lecture Tour: A Running Narrative, and the material comprised in Part Three in another volume under the title: European Lecture Tour: A Running Narrative, each in a 3,000-copy edition, for private circulation and for the purposes of the Government of India.
This book, Volume Two of A Pilgrim Looks at the World, is divided into five parts.
PART ONE, under the title: A Traveller Looks at the World, covers the questions put by the monastic brothers of the Swami, at an interview, on various interesting topics, and the Swami's thought-provoking answers to them, relating to his lecture tour of U.S.A., and 24 other countries in the East and the West between 18 July, 1968 and 31 December, 1969.
PART FIVE covers the Swami's lecture tour of the Re-public of Zambia, Madagascar, and Mauritius in 1974.
APPENDIX A covers the report of the 1968-69 tour issued
by Swami Bhashyananda, Head of the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago, U.S.A., who sponsored the tour originally covering only France, U.S.A., and Canada, but which was subsequently extended by the Government of India to cover also, under its own auspices, twenty-two other countries in Latin America, South-East Asia, including New Zealand and Australia, and Far-East Asia.
APPENDIX C gives the text of the Swami's speech on
The Modern Challenge and the Future of Hinduism delivered at the Third Spiritual Summit Conference organized by the Temple of Understanding, Washington, D.C., and held at the Harvard Divinity School, U.S.A., on October 11, 1971.
APPENDIX D covers some select press interviews and reports as well as comments and letters of appreciation, relating to the above tours.
The story of the various tours given in the two volumes has been enriched by a number of available illustrations.
The two volumes deal only with the Swami's lecture tours outside India about fifty countries, including five communist states, namely, Poland, Czechoslovakia, U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, and Cuba, in the last four of which he was the guest of the respective governments.
But the Swami has not been less active within his own country. He had started his work of teaching and lecturing between 1932 and 1938, first in an humble way in Mysore, by taking weekly classes on ethical and spiritual life, along with his other brother monks of the Ramakrishna Order, for the students of the Banumiah High School and for the inmates of the state prison in the city of Mysore and, later, for the students of the National High School and for the inmates of the state prison in the city of Bangalore. He continued this work, more intensively and extensively, during the thirty-six years since 1938 when, as Head of the Ramakrishna Mission centres in Rangoon, Karachi, New Delhi, and Calcutta, his weekly discourses on the Upanisads and the Gita began to attract cosmopolitan audiences of hundreds of listeners. In Rangoon, he conducted spiritual classes for the political prisoners in the Insein Jail between 1939 and 1941. His weekly discourses at the Ramakrishna Mission, Karachi, then in un-divided India but now in Pakistan, used to be attended by over 1,000 people Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Christians, and others.
During these thirty-six years, the Swami has also under-taken extensive lecture tours several times throughout Burma, Shri Lanka, and the vast sub-continent of India, covering the various states of undivided India, including the present Pakis-tan states of Sind and the Punjab and the region covered by the state of Bangladesh, as also most of the tribal regions of north-east India. These tours have brought him into touch with thousands of students in the universities, colleges, technical institutes, and high schools in various parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and Shri Lanka. He has also delivered Convocation Addresses at the Calcutta, Kanpur, Gauhati, and Bangalore Universities, and at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay. He has been invited to address the Government of India Central Services Trainees, first at Metcalfe House, New Delhi, later at the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, year after year, since 1953-54, and the National Defence College, New Delhi, since 1965.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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