Hari
OM
Story-day is for cultural exploration, puraanas and
parables and finding out about leading lights in spiritual philosophy.
...sadly, there had been prepared here a video of an interview which was most insightful as to Gurudev and his ways - but it has, just before publishing here, been moved to 'private' on CM channel - it may yet reappear (it may simply be an editing thing). The interviews are conducted by one 'nun' of the mission who is mentioned in the paragraph which I have left below...
Perhaps, to 'pad' the space left by this removal, it may be worth mentioning that the yellow clothes are worn by Brahmacharins; monks and nuns who are still considered to be students and who serve the mission in various ways; majority in ashrams and devotional centres around India and many overseas countries. At a time their seniors consider it appropriate, they may be given sanyaas deeksha and are permitted to wear the orange clothes, indicating they are well-established in their personal saadhana as well as devoted service to mission. Those who are dedicated to saadhana but who may not yet have committed to full mission work (such as Yamini-amma) wear white clothes when engaging in saadhana and teaching work, but are permitted to wear 'street clothes' for other activity. To put this into context if readers are familiar with church 'ranks'; the white is akin to lay-preacher, the yellow to general priesthood or pastor-ship, and the orange is bishop and higher.... rankings within the orange are not generally made other than by deference for length of time served and/or the type of service being rendered.
Brni. Praarthana, who has conducted this series of interviews, was given Sanyaas Deeksha at Mahashivraatri this month and is now Swamini Samarpitananda. In that same group, one other Indian-based lady was promoted; but especially pleasing to YAM is that all of the Australian brahmacharins also received the orange! He who was Gopal-ji of Sydney, and YAM's first teacher in Vedanta, is now Swami Shrikarananda (far right of this picture). Additionally, a batchmate of hers, who had remained in white till this time, is seen here taking yellow, kneeling at front left; our Rahul-bhai is now Br. Makarand. A joyous occasion!
