Enlightened Citizenship and Our Democracy

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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 San- nyasa in 1933 by Swami Shivananda, one of the eminent disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and the second President of the Order. After spending the first twelve years in the Order's branches in Mysore and Banga- lore, the first six years of which as cook, dishwasher and house-keeper and later as warden of students' hostel, he worked as Secretary and librarian at the Ramakrishna Mission branch at Rangoon, from 1939 to 1942, and thereafter as President of Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Karachi, from 1942 to 1948.

the From 1949 to 1962, he worked as the Secretary of the New Delhi branch of the Mission, and from 1962 to 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.

He has undertaken extensive lecture tours from 1946 to 1972 covering 50 countries, including 5 communist ones, and has been visiting annually Australia, U.S.A., Holland, West Germany, Berlin East and West during the last several years.

He has a versatile and facile pen, and has to his credit a number of publications, chief amongst which are: The Message of Upanisads: A Pilgrim Looks at the World, Vols. I and II; Four Volumes of Eternal Values for a Changing Society Vol. I: Philosophy and Spirituality, Vol.2: Great Spiritual Teachers, Vol.3: Education for Human Excellence and Vol. 4: Democracy for Total Human Fulfilment and Science and Spirituality (Bhavan's Publications); Our Cultual Heritage and Its Modern Orientation, Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture: 1986; Women in the Modern Age; Social Responsibilities of Public Administrators: The Science of Human Energy Resources; Science and Religion; Vedanta and the Future of Mankind; Divine Grace; His Acceptance Speech when he was awarded the first Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration on 31st October 1986; seven L.P.Records expounding, verse by verse, the second and third chapters of the Gira; six pre-recorded cassettes expounding the greatest book on Bhakti, the Srimad Bhagavatam, and 12 pre-recorded cassettes expounding the Vedanta treatise: Vivekacüdāmani, by Sankarācārya.