The swami received mantra-diksha from Swami Virajanandaji and joined the Order at Madras Math in 1946. Swami Shankaranandaji gave him sannyasa-diksha in 1956. He served at Mangalore centre from 1951 to 1981 as a monastic assistant and then onwards as the head of the centre till his mahasamadhi on 2 March 1998.
Lessons from Swami Sundananda
Count the blessings
Once a professor of philosophy from Mysore came to Mangalore Ramamkrishna Math to see Swami Sundanandaji. The professor was closely associated with Maharaj, and used to come occasionally to be with Maharaj and have some lively philosophical discussions with him. On that particular visit the professor was travelling to Mangalore by a government night bus which was scheduled to arrive at the ashrama late in the morning. Unfortunately for him, the bus broke down on the way. Since it was night and in those days there was no mobile phone services, the bus could not make any alternative arrangement to transport the commuters to their destinations. The passengers had to request vehicles plying towards Mangalore to pick them up seeing their predicament at the dead of the night. The professor somehow reached the ashrama totally exhausted both mentally and physically. He was so much obsessed with the difficulty he had to face on the previous night, that throughout the next day he was talking about it, making scathing remarks and abusing the drivers, the bus company, the government and so on.
After listening to his train of negative emotion, Sundanandaji coolly remarked, “See Professor, you have come to Mangalore several times earlier by the government bus comfortably without facing any difficulty. Forgetting all those comfortable journeys, you are only harping of the difficulties you had to face this time; you are simply hurting yourself thereby. Does it befit you being a professor of philosophy?”
Since I was present when this event took place, the above observation of Maharaj has been strongly etched in my memory. It taught me the great lesson of developing a positive attitude towards life. We normally have the tendency of complaining that life is full of miseries, forgetting to “count the blessings”. By fending off this attitude, one can remain unperturbed even in worst situations.
— Swami Nityasthananda
Grafting with love
On weekends and holidays, Swami Sundanandaji used to involve us in special projects. One of his passions was grafting trees. We had many mango trees which were not very tall. He explained how a branch of a tree could be cut and a similar shaped and sized branch from another mango tree could be grafted on to it. When he observed the way we were working, he stopped us remarking that this was not a mechanical job to be done routinely without application of mind. He emphasized on the sensitivity of the task and the care and caution to be taken. Trees have life and emotions like humans and they suffer pain when cut. We need to handle the job with the precision and care that a surgeon would take while performing a complex surgery on the human body. He directed us to identify the tender branches and cut them softly to the minimum extent required, with speed and accuracy. “Put your heart, mind and soul into this process. Do it lovingly like you would treat a baby. When you put your best efforts, the branches heal faster, graft better and they produce hybrid mangoes. Best efforts fetch always the best results.”
Soon, we witnessed the value of his teachings as these trees gave bountiful tasty mangoes of different varieties. It was a sheer delight to watch bunches of mangoes hanging from several trees, just a little above the ground. Labour of love always brings us sweet results. This golden mantra of Sundanandaji has helped me in various situations as I have realised that if one puts his heart and soul into an effort, the results are bound to be a resounding success. Therefore, every task should be done with passion and with ownership, and not with a detachment which makes the exercise dreary and uneventful.
— Sri Ramesh Shenoy