VIVEKANANDA STUDY CIRCLE
INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY - MADRAS
Annual report for the academic year 2000-03
(Prepared and presented by Surya. S)
Revered Swami Gautamananda ji, Swami Baneshananda ji, Respected Sri Sreekumar Menon, Prof V.G. Idichandy, distinguished invitees, faculty among the audience and my dear friends.
Let me begin my annual report by quoting Revered Swami Ranganathananda ji “We are all baffled by what we see in our country today. It makes us desperate and even hopeless. Why? Because we do not know our India well. We do not know the nature of the deeper forces shaping it from within, and forces acting on it from without. We do not accordingly know how to handle this forces and how to deliberately set about to shape the destiny of our nation. But when we learn to see India through the eyes of Vivekananda, we shall get a grip on these forces and develop the vision and courage and the hope to work for the reshaping of our nation destiny…… It is urgent that our people try to understand that mind and heart of their Vivekananda”. One such attempt to understand Swami Vivekananda and at augmenting the much required nationalistic and humanistic impulse among the students of IIT Madras is Vivekananda Study Circle.
INAUGURATION FUNCTION:
Every year, we begin our activities with the inaugural function, but last year was special for us. VSC completed five years since its inception in September 1997. We celebrated this occasion with a two-night series of talks on “Towards a better India”. In the first talk renowned Indologist Dr. S. Kalayanraman focussed on “Spirituality and Culture” and presented us with rich insight into how we can harness our spiritual values in our quest for a better future. Speaking on “Science and Technology”, on the second night, our Director, Prof. M. S. Ananth, presented a positive view of Indian science and cautioned us against cynicism. Swami Baneshananda ji, editor, Vedanta Kesari and our present guide and instructor, concluded the discussion emphasizing the fact that science and spirituality are not in conflict but rather complement each other, and that an integrated approach to life is the need of the hour.
SUNDAY CLASSES:
Swami Vivekananda often used to say that the religion of the forests should be brought into the midst of society and has to be made practical and practicable. This is the idea we have in mind while selecting the topics for our Sunday classes.
Considering the effectiveness of meditation in enabling us realize our inner potential, every year, we begin our Sunday class series with two sessions exclusively dedicated to learning it. The first session titled “Theory and steps of meditation” dealt with the preliminaries, and was followed by a practical ‘Guided Meditation’ session.
The theme for the odd semester was ‘Achieving excellence through spiritual values’. While the first talk on ‘Time management’ gave us many hints at disciplining our life, the one on ‘Authentic living’ showed us how modern life need not be an impediment to practicing the ideals described in our scriptures. How to tackle this busy life and succeed without losing our inner poise was the question that was answered by the talks on ‘Leadership qualities’ and ‘Yoga in daily life’. A philosophical outlook goes a long way in helping us navigate the vicissitudes of life; the talk on ‘Hinduism: An Overview’, gave us a birds eye view of the apparently different but essentially intertwined philosophies of Hinduism. India of the past had succeeded in achieving great material progress. The concluding talk for the odd semester on ‘Greatness of India’ highlighted the fact that this past glory was a consequence of her dynamic spiritual outlook. It is this outlook that has sustained her till today and our present national efforts at achieving excellence can succeed better if we can harness this unique legacy.
During even semester we generally take up deeper concepts. ‘The ten cardinal principles of Gita’ was the theme for our Sunday classes in the even semester. It helped us understand how different ideas Shri Krishna discusses in Bhagavad-Gita helps in forming a complete personality.
SPECIAL FUNCTIONS:
Society is multi layered in its consciousness. The very same ideas are understood, appreciated and assimilated by various people in varying degrees and ways. Through the special functions, we seek to encourage different ways of looking at the same issue and foster an open-minded outlook.
‘The approach to science in ancient Sanskrit Scientific texts’ by Dr. M. D. Srinivas of Centre for Policy Studies, Mylapore, Chennai, pointed out to us that the traditional Indian approach to science had been non-dogmatic. While Western science seeks to arrive at a final and correct theory, the Indian approach was to arrive at the goal in view by any feasible theory. Thus while theories might be revised based on the state of available knowledge, it was ensured that the goal was always reached.
In his talk on ‘Ancient sages: A Scientific Interpretation’, Dr. E. V. Srishankar, a former nuclear scientist, brought us a curious new perspective on the puranas. He suggested that the puranas may not contain any historical information and that they could be random collections of events from different cycles of creation, or ‘kalpas’.
We will continue to cherish fond memories of the talk on “Our Harappan Heritage” by Sri Michel Danino. With the help of attractive slides, he showed how the Harappan culture is not dead, but still continuing as a part and parcel of our present culture. It saw very enthusiastic participation from the students, which was reflected in the prolonged question and answer session.
NATIONAL YOUTH DAY CELEBRATIONS:
We organized a number of activities on the occasion of Swami Vivekananda’s birthday, which has been declared by the government of India as National Youth Day, finding in him the ideal for the youth of our country. Speaking on the occasion, Brahmachari Ramdas Chaitanyaji of Chinmaya Mission, presented ‘Swami Vivekananda’s vision of Youth empowerment’ to us. A two-day exhibition titled “Arise-Awake” depicting the life and teachings of Swami Vivekananda and a book sale arranged with the help of Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore were the special attractions of this event this year. A trip to Vivekananda cultural heritage exhibition, near marina was also arranged with help from the institute.
SERVICE ACTIVITIES:
A new tuition centre has been started in Taramani, in addition to one managed by the Study Circle in Velachery. The number of economically backward students getting benefited by this has also increased. We also helped a student in Taramani continue her schooling by paying for her tuition fee.
OTHER ACTIVITIES:
A ten day spoken Sanskrit camp was held with the help of Prof. R. Ramachandran, Head, Samskrita Bharati, Chennai. Because of overwhelming response from the students we had to arrange special sequel classes for quite a few weeks afterwards.
Our library, located in the basement of Brahmaputra hostel, now contains about 400 books, 100 audiocassettes and 6 CD’s. The Library is kept open every day evening between 7:45 and 8:30 pm for students to read or borrow books.
Our website (www.oocities.org/vsc_iitm) is now comprehensive and contains all details about us.
We also organized ‘Rama Nama Sankirtan’, a lofty and soothing hymn, once in the odd semester.
VISION FOR THE FUTURE:
Unlike many other disciplines, it is difficult to understand the service aspect of engineering. But in recent times, thanks to persons like our Honourable President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, people are realizing the potential of engineering in nation building. Being in IIT Madras, where people are exposed to the highest technology, VSC aims to play an important role in motivating students in becoming not just engineers but engineers dedicated to society and country.
“Yogah karmashu kaushalam” i.e., Excellence in Work is Yoga, says Shri Krishna in Gita. Whether we do small things or big things, is of secondary importance, rather VSC tries to attain perfection in whatever it does.
With this I dedicate this report to you all.
Thank you