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of Swami Satyananda Saraswati.
It is said that Niranjanananda received scriptural knowledge from his guru in the state of yoga nidra. When he was barely eleven years old, the guru found him competent enough to help spread the message of yoga and establish ashrams abroad. During his twelve year stay overseas, the young swami visited all the continents and attained proficiency in several foreign languages. The handsome swami, now 33, gave ample demonstration of his scriptural profundity, oratorical skills and above all, his organizational acumen during the recent World Yoga Convention at Munger.
Talking to the Times of India News Service about his future plans, Swami Niranjanananda
said that he had earmarked the next decade for travelling in the countryside all over India. "Our purpose is not merely to get to know the village realities. By and large, we are familiar with the conditions existing there. What we intend to do is to create opportunities to ameliorate the condition. A group of volunteers will spend 15 days in each village and will try to generate local initiative for spreading education, health care awareness and job opportunities by imparting skilled
labour.
"This apart, we will try to inculcate the significance of Indian culture in the minds of the people. Today, culture has been reduced to cultural programmes, to castes and sub-castes. What we need is to remind one and all of
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the greatness of our sanskriti.
"We are aware that we may not get a favorable response at all places. But wherever we go, we will get back every second month to lend a helping hand to the local people. Thereby we will help create a constructive movement all over the country."
Swami Niranjanananda said that though he may not be in a position to spend fifteen days in each village due to multifarious responsibilities, he would be away from the headquarters at Munger for a considerable time. He had, therefore, earlier in the day designated Swami Gyanprakash Saraswati as acharya to look after the Ashram affairs during his absence. "It is a question of sharing responsibilities, and we need an able and responsible person. We have found one in Swami Gyanprakash Saraswati. You can say that she will look after the home portfolio in our government."
Responding to a question as to why he raised Ramanand Sagar to the status of "a modern seer of ancient India" and "the pride of India", Swami Niranjanananda said that the latter had helped raise the spiritual consciousness of the people of this country by his Ramayana serial. "Earlier, most of the people used to be ashamed of carrying a scriptural book with them due to the fear of being ridiculed by their peer groups, but they had no hesitation in flaunting a novel, as it was perceived to be a token of modernity. All this changed
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