Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama, on Virbhadra Road in Rishikesh, India is a leading light of instruction in scientific and systematic spirituality. It has taken shape as the service offered to the Guru Mahamandaleshwara Swami Veda Bharati, disciple of Swami Rama of the Himalayas.
Nowadays, various methods of yoga and meditation have become very popular and widely available in many traditions and schools. There is always a doubt as to which of these teachings is the correct and complete one. In fact, all of these methods are accurate, but small parts of the vast Himalayan tradition of yogis. They are interconnected and need to be practiced in a scientific sequence.
Swami Rama of the Himalayas initiated Swami Veda Bharati into the totality of this picture and Swami Veda is now carrying out his Guru's mandate to pass on this comprehensive tradition. His Dhyana Gurukulam at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama is training future teachers who will be able to present this knowledge in the context of all cultures and religions.
On February 13, 2004 a Buddha statue was consecrated as part of the eight acre complex (that is SRSG), in the presence of practitioners of meditation from all continents. It was consecrated by His Holiness Sakya Trizin, a highly venerated leader in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition under His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Tibetan Buddhism has four major schools, of which, the Sayka School is the earliest and most prominent. H. H. Sakya Trizin is the head of that school. He was also head of a monastery of ten thousand monks at the age of thirteen, before escaping Chinese occupation as a refugee in India. He was received by the students of Swami Rama Dhyana Gurukulam at Sadhaka Grama with recitations of Mahayana mantras.
H.H. Sakya Trizin consecrated the Buddha statue with the traditional Buddhist prayers and recitations. After the consecration, he spoke on the teachings of the Buddha, that this teaching imparts a statement of universal truths. It is a religion that teaches how one may be self-dependent and not seek salvation through the intervention of external forces. One learns to awaken one's own light.
Swami Veda Bharati gave a brief history of the spread of the ancient Indian teachings in countries like China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Tibet, etc. He paid homage to the ancient acharyas of India, Bodhi Dharma (founder of the ancient Shaolin monastery), Dipanker Shri-jnana and, above all, Padma-sambhava, who introduced this message of spirituality into Tibet. Swami Veda Bharati paid homage to H.H. Sakya Trizin as one who is maintaining the continuity of this tradition even through the most adverse circumstances. He expressed an appreciation that, even through the calamity that has befallen the Tibetan culture, this event has reintroduced the Tradition back into India.
Swami Veda Bharati presented an antique thang-ka and criticised those who view thang-kas as merely works of art rather than what they truly are--objects of religion and meditative contemplation. The thang-ka presented has a history. It was, at some point, given by the Sakya Tradition to the Head Lama of Mongolia. During the Russian rule of Mongolia, the Head Lama remained a refugee in Taiwan and the thang-ka remained in his possession. Swami Veda Bharati has initiated into the Swami order, one of his Chinese disciples, Ma Tapasya Bharati, who runs an ashram of the Himalayan tradition in Taiwan. One of her Taiwanese disciples was presented the thang-ka by the Head Lama of Mongolia. It was the wish of this family that the thang-ka be returned to the Sakya tradition.
In accepting the gift, H. H. Sakya Trizin explained that it depicted the Indian founder of the Sakya Tradition and his four Indian successors as well as the later Tibetan successors to the lineage.
He then released the first issue of the Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama newsletter to the public.
Copyright 2003 West-Art, Prometheus 91/2004