There is a need for a balanced life. If one focuses on the outer world rather than the inner dimension which pertains to the soul, it remains unexplored, which is the cause of all troubles. There is need for a harmonious and balanced development of our material as well as spiritual dimensions.

This was the life success matra, said a monk of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS), who devoted his life for the service of humanity and the Divine. Meet Swami Suddhanandaji, who, from being an electrical engineer engaged in research, becomes a monk overcoming rigid ways of thinking and prejudices by welcoming knowledge coming from different quarters in order to establish the ‘truth.’

Swami Suddhanandaji, an IIT Madras electrical engineer, who had worked with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)—country’s premier nuclear research facility—left everything—fame and fabulous life—to pursue the Divine.

Revealing the journey from a successful electrical engineer to the monk of Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS), Swami said, “When I was a college student, a fellow student of our college was in the habit of taking drugs. His life was disturbed and goalless. However, one fine day we came to know that the boy has kicked off the habit of taking drugs. Curiously we asked him how this sea change came about. He told us that it was after reading the book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi,’ one of the most acclaimed spiritual classics of the twentieth century, written by Paramahansa Yogananda.

After knowing about this, Swami Suddhanandaji who at that time was a successful techie, got inspired to read the book. However, after reading the book his interest shifted from the materialistic world. Finally, in 1980, he left the materialistic world to become a monk exploring spirituality.

Speaking about the purpose of spiritual exploration, Swamiji quotes Sri Sri Paramahansa Yoganandaji on the scientific approach to God through meditation. Defining success from various angles of spiritual and material achievements, Swamiji dwells on Paramahansa Yoganandaji’s curriculum for all-round development, based on the highest principles of Yoga.

The four aspects of complete and balanced development are:

1.            Science of the Body for Practical Efficiency: It requires keeping the body in good condition: technique of recharging the body-battery from the Cosmic Current by will and having a balanced life which includes, having good meals at the right time, regular sleep, exercise, and others.

2.            Mental Engineering: Art of building bridges over the river of difficulties between failure and success, developing will power, having right and positive thinking, art of keeping the mental life free from fear, melancholia, greed, lack of initiative, anger, worry, idleness, and boredom; and the knowledge of the superiority of the mind over the body, and also, the art of keeping the mind strong and immune.

3.            Social Arts: How the emotion works, how to control your emotions as you deal with different persons during different situations, methods of fostering social service, art of inventive ability to serve mankind and lighten labor or improve on existing conditions, art of working to better laws through right education and intelligent understanding and cooperation and the art of graciousness, noble bearing, and genuine interest in the problems of others.

4.            Applied spiritual science: Going for in search of spirituality. This can be attained by practicing meditation and yoga at regularly.

According to Swamiji, at the time when humanity is in crisis due to conflicts and contradictions of life, Yoga and meditation have the power to break mental barriers and help people to attend to joy and freedom from scary isolation.

More than a century old ashram of Yogoda Satsanga Math, in the middle of the Capital city on Paramahansa Yogananda Path, is one such place that has been offering solace and solution to humanity to come out of this crisis. Sprawling around 20 acres of land, peeping inside the campus through the majestic iron gate of the Math, looks like a heaven attracting and surcharging the passerby with its positive energy.

The Math was set-up in 1917 by Paramahansa Yogananda, who began his spiritual journey by setting-up an ashram here which over the years became a universally acclaimed cradle of spirituality and the teachings of Kriya Yoga.