Mahan Maharaj A mathematician exploring rubber-sheet geometry at the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur, and a cryptologist at the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, have won the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes, often dubbed the nation’s highest science awards, for 2011. Both win the annual award from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research for their contributions to the mathematical sciences. The CSIR on Monday also announced the names of nine other scientists who will get the prizes for biological sciences, chemical sciences, earth sciences, engineering sciences, medical sciences and physical sciences. Mahan Maharaj, who studied at IIT Kanpur and the University of California, Berkeley, before joining the Vivekananda University in 1998, has made fundamental contributions to the study of curved geometry in three-dimensions, his associates said. Palash Sarkar, at the ISI’s applied statistics unit, has been involved in the design of mathematical rules that allow information to be exchanged securely between distant geographic sites over an insecure network. One of his research initiatives has led to a set of rules to enhance the security and speed of data accessible through laptops. “Maharaj has been exploring properties of geometrical spaces that do not change when they are stretched or pulled or twisted,” said Harish Seshadri, a mathematician at IISc, Bangalore, who has collaborated with the monk in a forthcoming research paper on multi-dimensional geometrical spaces. Mahan Maharaj, who teaches MSc students and takes course work for PhD students, joined the RK Mission institution in 1998 after a PhD from the UCB. “This is a joyful day for us,” said the university’s vice-chancellor, Swami Atmapriyananda. Sarkar’s research on encryption techniques — mathematical rules for coding and decoding information — has led to a new algorithm (a set of rules) that can improve the speeds of existing algorithms, some of which are used in commercial laptops to encrypt data while maintaining speed of accessing data. “In a short span of time, Sarkar has also guided four PhD students,” said Rana Barua, a professor at the ISI’s statistics and mathematics unit, who also works on cryptology. Swami Atamapriyananda said the award to Mahan Maharaj should also be seen as a tribute to the vision of Swami Vivekananda who had more than a century ago thought of an institution that could maintain ancient Indian wisdom and pursue research in the natural and humanistic sciences. The 45-year-old is fluent in English, Hindi and Bengali. Born Mahan Mitra, he studied in St Xavier’s Collegiate School till Class XII and cracked IITJEE to enter the prestigious IIT Kanpur to study electrical engineering. Soon, he realized that he was not enjoying this field of study and changed to mathematics. After completing his MSc, he went to University of California, Berkeley. After coming back from US, he renounced the world and became a monk.
Spiritual practices should not be done in public or for show. If you do them before others, that will be harmful to you. People will pass comments and make fun of you and offer you unsolicited advice and conflicting suggestions, as a result of which various doubts will arise in your mind and your spiritual progress will be obstructed. The ideal sadhaka behaves thus – he goes to bed at night with the mosquito curtain drawn down. Everybody thinks that he is sleeping, but as a matter of fact, he spends the whole night in Japa and medication, lying quietly on his bed. While you are young, you must try hard to get a taste of divine bliss. When once you have got this taste of divine bliss. When once you have got this taste, you can never forsake your Sadhana. Even at the risk of your life, you will continue your spiritual practices. Those who are troubled with too much sleep in the night will do well to sleep during the day, with a view to devote the night to meditation. The best time for meditation is dawn, dusk and midnight. Too often people waste these valuable periods in useless ways. Sri Ramakrishna never spent the night in sleep, nor would he allow the young devotees who stayed with him to sleep at night. When others had gone to bed, he would wake up his disciples saying,’ Why are you sleeping? Have you come here to sleep?’ He would give them definite instructions and send them to the Panchavati, or the Mother’s temple, or the Siva temples for meditation. They would spend the whole night in Sadhana as directed, and take rest during the day. It was in this way that Sri Ramakrishna used to take them through various spiritual exercises. Often he used to say,’ Three classes of people keep awake in the night – Yogis, Bhogis and Rogis. You are all yogis. You should by no means sleep away the night’. Source: Eternal Companion – Life and Teachings of Swami Brahmananda
MY MASTER This is the message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world; Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects, or churches, or temples they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality; and the more this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he for good. Earn that first , acquire that, and cricise no one, for all doctorines and creeds have some good in them. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names, or sects, but that it means spiritual rea,lisation. Only those can understand who have felt. Only those who have attained to spirituality can communicate it to others, can be great teachers of mankind. They alone are powers of light. The more such men are produced in a country the more that country will be raised and that country where such men are absolutely do not exist that country is doomed, nothing can save it.There fore my Master’s message to mankind is Be spiritual and realise truth for yourself. Swami Vivekananda
Gita Dhyana Slokas It is common practice for one to recite the Dhyana Slokas of Gita before reading the chapters or reciting a chapter. The significance of the Dhyana Slokas is that one offers one’s respects to the Gods and other divine powers who made possible the work. The Dhyana Slokas extol the virtues of the divine. (The translation of the Dhyana Slokas is by Swami Tapasyananda of Ramakrishna Mutt.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxgwhFfJWyU You can listen to the chanting of Gita Dhyana sloka on the above wesite of you tube
