Every situation in an individual's life is regulated by the cosmic will and the individual's personal Karma - Chandresh Swami, Budanilkantha Asram

If a Nepali works for the betterment of his country is perhaps not a wonder at all. However, what should puzzle all if the same job is done by an alien national and that too without expecting any reciprocity or for that matter name and fame.

His strong commitments to see a highly developed Nepal; a highly educated Nepal; a Nepali society that is free from want and poverty; a Nepal that adheres to the principles of Karma, peace and religion as stipulated in the Vedas and the Upnishads and the likes, deserve deep appreciation.

Swami Chandresh though was born in India but then his decades and decades long stay in Nepal has already made him more than a Nepali. After having his general education from Calcutta University he left his home in 1958 at a very young stage of life and since then he became a monk and social worker. More than 42 years of his time has been involved in serving the needy throughout India as well as Nepal.

It has rightly been said that saints, sages and scholars should be considered to be the wealth of the entire world. I too agree to this universal concept. When I agree to that view, I have reasons. I have myself observed since three years or so of my association with this great soul that how much concerned he is for the country wherein he lives at the moment. He shares the joys and the sorrows of Nepal and the Nepalese.

Because of his contemplative nature and meditative inclination Guru Chandresh preferred a life in complete solitude and went up in the mountain Shivapuri at the north-end of Kathmandu valley. More than two decades (20 years) of time he passed in contemplation study, writing, painting, advising people and teaching village kids who came frequently from the remote mountain areas to his solitary cabin.

. Although, he kept himself away from human habitation, people from different walks of life kept on visiting him to satisfy their spiritual instinct. Swami is an eloquent speaker and has a very convincing way of explaining the philosophic and moral part of life.

On the whole he is the key patronizer of the Budhanilkantha Higher secondary educational organization. The School stands tall today under the dynamic leadership of the Swami. Only recently the Indian Embassy has notified the school management that a school bus will soon be provided to them.

On top of all these it has become possible for him to establish an art gallery consisting of his own paintings in the top floor of the school. He is a painter; a musician; a singer and what not what not. Versatile personality indeed.

Swami Chandresh is a voracious reader. He can talk on any topic under the sun and that too for hours and hours. But yet he is very modest and prefers to listen to others as well. The personalities meeting him range from former prime ministers to media men; from ministers to villagers; from students to scholars and the process has been going on and on since decades and decades.

TGQ1: Particularly what factors or instinct tempted you to come to Nepal? The kind of social / spiritual interactions you are practicing in Nepal could have been found in India itself? How do you justify your long stay in Nepal? Any special reason?

Swami: Fundamentally I believe that every situation in an individual's life is regulated by the Cosmic will and the individual's personal Karma as well. My interest was basically my personal spiritual aggrandizement and in the quest of that, I was in search of a conducive place with natural environment where I could strive in the desired pursuit. Nepal seemed to me, in those days, to be most suitable to this purpose. The nation actually received me well from the very beginning of my arrival here. As for the public, I liked their simple, inquisitive, hospitable and religiously inclined nature. The natural view around is incomparable which fed well my aesthetic and poetic instincts in addition to my spiritual quest.

Talking about long stay in Nepal, at a state of my mind permeated with divine ecstasy the difference between long stay and short has virtually diminished. The joy of living takes us beyond the sense of space and time. When you are drugged with inspiration, every place you are in or every individual approaches you becomes delightful and pleasing. That's what has happened with me.

TGQ2: Lord Krishna said in the Gita," Work but don’t expect the fruit there of." Is it possible to adhere to this principal in the present day material world? Also tell us about the soul and its transmigration theories mentioned in the Gita. What is the rational justification to this theory?

Swami: Taking it from the present day perception I even think that Lord Krishna has put forth a right injunction for mankind that they should renounce greed and work with inspiration for both material and spiritual benefaction. It is true that an individual requires an impetuous to undertake a work as well as to accomplish it. The monetary psychology alone cannot be the impetuous. There had been men and women who are considered to be the best and they worked with superior spirit for the benefaction of mankind. Krishna doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t earn or accumulate desirable objects or money. What he actually tries to convey is that, one should not enslave these perishable things. One must enjoy but mustn't be attached. Like a lotus leaf is not moistened with water, one should be in the world but be not of the world This is spiritual practicality and deeply psychological. The Gita advises us to transcend time and space, situation and circumstances. Any advice that is chiseled with wisdom can be applied in any time or era. In my opinion most of the present problems - social, family or individual that we face are prone to the fact that we are not trying to understand the natural, psychological and truth-oriented injunctions of the Gita.

(About Soul): Normally when we close our eyes, we see but darkness. As enlightenment takes place, the inner world always gleams with an unabatable resplendence. This is the inner soul. It was covered with the darkness of ignorance, now it is shining with perceivable knowledge. The theory of transmigration has a lot of scientific proofs. In fact the diverse situations of human life can never come to a conclusively logical point without taking help of the theory of past Karma and transmigration under its effect.

Body is made of the elements, which characteristically get composed and decomposed, whereas, the subtle body with its effulgent structure can never face that terrestrial consequence of integration and disintegration. We know it very well that nothing in the world exists without having a contrast behind it. For instance, light wouldn’t exist had there been no comparison of darkness. Similarly, the very ephemeral nature of the world possesses the existence of the Eternity behind it. Every individual in the world longs to live forever. This particular longing wouldn’t have its logical ground had there not been the ever-lasting soul at the back of the brain.

TGQ3: The world today is experiencing great strain due to the absence of peace and the upsurge of terrorism. Is it a sort of clash of civilization as some western scholar mentioned? Do you have any formula, which if brought in practice could bring about a substantial change in the world?

Swami: As I believe every civilization leads mankind toward the culmination of harmony and peace, knowledge and enlightenment. How can the civilizations be basically contradictory and contending with each other? All the differences and clashes that we find are due to non-understanding of the true spirit of civilization that gives vent to fanaticism, superstitions, dogmatism, blind-faith, intolerance and finally diabolism. All what we call terrorism in a particular area, actually emerges form irrationality, despotism, base party oriented politics, exploitation and selfishness exercised by the ruling government herself. If a government treats her subjects equally without any discrimination and does true benefaction to them, I believe no terrorism will ever make its appearance. Spirituality is the true way to peace and harmony and satisfaction, which should in my opinion, be thoroughly propagated, organized and brought to public practice in place of number of prevalent religious dogmas, fruitless faiths, marionette religious performances and empty satisfaction. The world must spiritually change and that is the only solution. Morality and honesty in public cannot have their true footing without a thorough cultivation of that joyous soul-science. Taking it from the grass-root level the solution has to come through a thorough integral education imparted to the forth-coming generation.

TGQ4: As a social worker, educationist, philosopher and propagator of spiritual values what satisfaction do you derive at the end? What do you wish to do to the Nepali society after all and tell us whether you receive proper support from the society itself?

Swami: The experience is ineffable and hard to bring it down to words. In one way it gives instinctive satisfaction and in the other way it brings the widespread glory of the novel heritage and antiquity. The greater men than us in the past have shown us the way. As we tread along that trail it stimulates inexpressible joy within us. The more we can follow this long established selfless way of work the greater the benediction we receive in our soul.

I have very little capacity to do anything to this particular society which is at this moment plugged with innumerable drawbacks and difficulties as a consequences of many past wrong doings and unfarsightedness. What I actually want to do in my own way is to set some examples of love, sacrifice, service and dedication till the last moment of my life. I also want to prove this fact before the public through my life that a greedless person becomes happier than all the greedy ones. Honesty is the best policy and this is the Eternal Truth. Dishonest people have many problems created by their own imprudent way. At the moment, I believe, nobody can do anything to such a problem – stricken country save Lord Pasupatinath Himself.

TGQ5: Being a Hindu how do you look upon other religions ? In what respect Hinduism differs with the rest and what were common in all of them? How do you take the religions-conflicts that at times pegs neighboring India and other parts of the globe?

Swami: All the religions have diverse backgrounds, so they have the basic differences among them. Vedic religion, otherwise known as Hindu religion is the most ancient among all of them. Through long research and experiments done by hundreds of religious thinkers and being enriched with the experiences it has established several levels as well as branches of the entire lore.

Although as a universalist I try to look upon all these different religions of the world with equal eyes I feel myself to be fortunate having been born in Hindu religion, because this religion is so rich, versatile, liberal, philosophically and metaphysically well equipped. The Hindu religion believes in the transformation of human nature not in outward conversion as we find in Christianity and Islam. The main point is that the Vedic religion is not founded on the principals of one single prophet. Rather it is like the modern science having its full freedom under the research, experience and contributions of so many spiritual scientists.

Although Judaism belonging to the Old Testament of the holy Bible, the religion of Abraham and Moses is an ancient one and does not believe in conversion like Hinduism, it fall short before Hinduism so far as philosophical ideas and scientific methods of spiritual disciplines are concerned.

The concept of one God, one Universal Consciousness, the perception of Salvation, Moksha or Nirvana and the methods of Yoga, psycho-spiritual transformation are the concrete contribution of the Hinduism to the world. Besides there are vast metaphysics, mythologies, parables, metaphors, cosmological concepts including various scientific ideas in Hindu religious texts that fully tally with the modern science are the gifts of the ancient Hindus to the world.

The one main point is that the Hindus by and large never hate any religion of the world because they do understand that all the religions of the world are the gospels of the same single Truth and founded on the basic moral principals. All the conflicts arise due to bad politics in the name of religion and the venom of fanaticism spread by the aggressive fundamentalists. So the true Hindu ideas must go to the world in order to cure it from the fanatical religious maladies. Religion is life and realization more than any narrow faith around which people ignorantly hang all life long. This is the true perception of the Hindu.

If you ask about the common factors in these religions, the foremost is the quest of God, Truth and freedom from the mortal suffering. The next is common moral code and commandments. No religion ever says that an individual should be unkind to others and be unrighteous. As is already mentioned that the conflicts are the outburst of non-understanding of respective religion.

Talking about India, her socio-politico-religious situation is of much different nature than that of the other parts of the world. It seems India has mingled everything together in such a way that she cannot separate them whenever it is so needed. The foremost point of difficulty arises from the unnatural proclamation of the secularity in religion. How can the foxes and dogs, sheep and tigers can be peacefully together in a single den leveled with secularity?

Like a house, which becomes a secular house of common use becomes dilapidated soon by the people without any sense of responsibility. Exactly is the situation of a country containing so many self-conflicting and self-contradictory people of religious faiths. A house must be belonging to one owner and rest must be a temporary guest of temporary stay. All people cannot be the owners of a single house. So in my opinion a country must belong to its aboriginal tribe with their religion and rest should of secondary citizenship value. Although this seems to me to be the only solution to problem stricken India, it has gone too far to come back to its natural state.

The Muslims and Christians as a matter of fact can never come to a religious compromise owing to the fact of mythological conflict between two wives of Abraham,, Hazar and Sahara. Neither the Jews can ever shake hands with the Muslims. So long these belligerent religious communities do not come to an understanding of common human religious values through the ancient Upanishadic teachings or by some other way religious world cannot come to a balanced and peaceful state.

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