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The Order Changeth
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Swami Kamalananda
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* What do you call a man who gives a new 'direction' to an
organisation?
* What do you call a man who takes the organisation galloping into the latest era of technology?
The people of the Sri Ramakrishna
Mission Ashrama, Chennai, call him a
swamiji.
It is difficult to imagine how somebody from a monastic order has been able to work wonders with the ashrama and the Ramakrishna Mission and change its whole focus.
 The first and major thing that the secretary - a down-to-earth designation for a man in ochre robes - of the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, situated on
Maharajapuram Santhanam Salai, T Nagar, Chennai, did was to shift the entrance from the busy Duraiswamy Subway side to the calm and pleasant area opposite Krishna Gana
Sabha.
What this did to the ashram and devotees is indescribable. Without worrying about parking space, more devotees now crowd the Sri Ramakrishna shrine inside the ashram.
Secretary Swami Kamalananda - he handed over charge to Swami Padmasthananda only on August 30 - says that with the new long drive into the ashram, the beautifully-maintained garden all help a devotee to reach a certain mindset by the time he/she enters the shrine for worship.
 This is very true. The whole atmosphere is so changed with peace that one cannot but inhale deeply the smell of lush green plants and smile happily.
This is the change of direction - the literal change - that I mentioned at the beginning.
There was also another change. Though there had been attempts at making the mission enter the IT era, it took Swami Kamalananda's vision to make it reach critical mass. Let me give you an example of his net-savvy.
Swami Padmasthananda had been in the Chennai ashram for 15 years and knew its workings. He was closely associated with Swami Kamalananda in running the place. So, when it was time to hand over charge to him, Swami Kamalananda handed over his laptop,
cell phone and a pen drive (that can carry the 100 year accounts of the ashram in the thumb-sized instrument)!
 Swami Kamalananda had been the driving force in the computerisation of the functioning of all the mission schools and the ashram so that administration became faster and more open. He has made the computer section of the ashrama into a hi-fi centre with the latest in computers, peripherals and two specialists to develop in-house software. The ashrama produces its own CDs and has the latest in video technology. All school/ashram function pictures are stored in CDs in the CD library.
All this through the inspiration of one man who says the moving spirit is that of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. "We are here only because of him and live and die for him," says the swamiji whom we are almost tempted to call a 'Tech Guru'.
 Though he fights shy of this term, he says the Ramakrishna Mission has always been in step with societal changes. "Had
Swami Vivekananda been alive today, he would have not asked us to take the magic lantern and a globe to the villages for teaching, but a laptop and a
LCD projector. That was Swami Vivekananda's philosophy. The system should be so established that it follows progress naturally," says the swamiji, who talks in parables.
There is no doubt he is a thinker because he clearly explains the philosophy of the mission. "When a man sweeps a room, you say he is doing work. But when a man cleans a temple, you say he is doing kainkarya - that is karma yoga. That is what the mission does - karma yoga."
 There are three categories of work:
Work and Worship
Work as Worship and
Work is Worship.
The sadhus of the mission practise them and serve God by serving humanity. "Running a school, a hospital is not our aim. They are just by-products of our search for
God-realisation." Could there be a more succinct way of explaining the teachings of Swami
Vivekananda.
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Swami Padmasthananda
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Swami Kamalananda is also a doer. He proved it in several ways from changing the very direction of the ashrama to leading it to the IT era. But the most telling thing was the way he built the huge 'Sharada Sabha Bhavan' for the matriculation school which was conducting its annual day in pouring rain out in the open. "God-willing, the next school day will be celebrated in a hall," said Swami Kamalananda on the spur of the moment.
"Ramakrishna Paramahamsar always provides us with what we want and what he thinks we need. We needed Rs.35 lakh for the project. When the project got over in four months, I saw the accounts and found that we had got exactly Rs 35 lakh, not a paisa more or less and we inaugurated the bhavan just days before the annual day."
 Then you understand what he meant by saying that "A person who is successful outside may be successful inside but a person not successful outside will not succeed here". The work inside the ashram is so demanding - like swimming against the current.
Swami Kamalananda joined the mission when he was 28 years old. After about 9-11 years, one gets elevated from Brahmacharya diksha to Sanyasa diksha. Hailing from Karnataka, he had good experience in all fields connected with the mission.
 When he was with the
Advaita Ashrama Publications division, he learnt about the galloping technology; when he managed the
Students Home in Chennai, as a Brahmachari, he understood the students' life, and when he managed a hospital he became a half-doctor and so he was well-equipped to run the T Nagar ashrama when he got appointed as secretary in 1993. That was one long journey from 1969-1993.
A man full of jokes and parables, listen to his parting shot:
"When king Dasarathan looked at the mirror and saw one grey hair on his head, he knew it was time to hand over charge to Rama. But with modern technologies things have changed - thoughts of retirement come once you get hooked
on to an oxygen machine," he says, and laughs at his health condition that made him seek retirement.
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