Ramakrishna Ashram, Colombo
Colombo, Sri Lanka · 1944–1945
6.92710°N, 79.86120°E
Key Facts
- ◆ Sangharakshita arrived along 'a road lined with flame-of-the-forest trees' and knocked on the door with some apprehension.
- ◆ Two swamis of learning and spirituality received him; one, Swami Siddhatmananda, he re-encountered in Calcutta nearly ten years later.
- ◆ He spent seven months in Ceylon during this army posting.
- ◆ Read the Bhagavad Gita with Shankara's commentary here; the encounter laid foundations for all his later spiritual work.
- ◆ The Maha Bodhi Society of Ceylon later invited Sangharakshita to write a biography of Dharmapala from their Colombo headquarters — an invitation he did not accept.
“My connection with the Ramakrishna Mission went back a long way… to the day when, as a nineteen-year-old soldier newly arrived in Colombo, I made my way along a road lined with flame-of-the-forest trees and knocked, not without apprehension, on the door of the local Ramakrishna ashram. The two swamis I met there were men of learning and spirituality and from them I imbibed, in the course of the seven months I spent in Ceylon, something of the spirit of Indian culture and something of their own enthusiasm for the spiritual life.”
— In the Sign of the Golden Wheel
Source: In the Sign of the Golden Wheel
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