Neurology and What Lies Beyond

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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 Sannyasa 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 Bangalore, the first six years of which as cook, dish-washer and house-keeper and later as warden of student's hostel, he worked as Secretary and librarian at the Ramakrishna Mission branch at Rangoon from 1939 to 1942, and thereafter as President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Karachi, from 1942 to 1948.

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, Culcutta, Director of its School of Humanistic and Cultural Studies, and Editor of its monthly journal.

From 1973 to 1993 he was President of Ramakrishna Math, Hyderabad. From 1994 to 1998 he was Vice-President of World-Wide Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission and became its President in 1998. He stayed at Belur Math, till his passing away on April 25, 2005.

He has undertaken extensive lecture tours from 1946 to 1972 covering 50 countries. From 1973 to 1986 he visited annually Austraila, U.S.A.. Holland and Germany.

In 1986 he was awarded the first Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration.

He has a versatile and facile pen, and has to his credit a number of publications, chief amongst which are: The Message of the Upanisads, A Pilgrim Looks at the World, Vols. I and II; Four Volumes of Eternal Values for a Changing Society Vol. 1: Philosophy and Spirituality, Vol. 2: Great Spiritual Teachers, Vol. 3: Education for Human Excellence and Vol. 4: Democracy for Total Human Fulfilment: (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's publications); Human Being in Depth (State University of New York publication) Practical Vedanta and Science of Values (Advaita Ashram publication), 28 video-tapes expounding the entire Gita sloka by sloka. 60 titles of audio tapes expounding the ideas of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Vedanta.

I am very thankful to the organizers for inviting me to inaugurate this annual conference of the Neurological Society of India which is being held this year in our Hyderabad. I am deeply interested in this subject of neurology, not only for its own sake but also because it comes very close to the subject of my life-dedication and favourite study, namely, the science of spirituality. Hence I have chosen today to deal with modern neurology and what lies beyond. This closeness, these spiritual trends, have been hinted at by some outstanding Western neurologists like Sir Charles Sherrington, Grey Walter of Bristol, and Wilder Penfield of Montreal Neurological Institute. If some neurologists in the West are averse to making such commitments, it is because of their obsession with the dogma of materialism and their consequent unscientific reductionist approach, which is the product of, and a reaction to, the opposition of Western religion to emerging modern physical science and the constant conflict between matter and mind, between material and spiritual, and a whole host of such conflicts afflicting the Western tradition, conflicts which do not afflict our Indian tradition. This must help Indian neurology to contribute immensely to the free advancement of this great science in the coming decades.