The 50th-anniversary celebrations of Vipassana returning to India in 1969 also celebrates the life of Principal Teacher of Vipassana Satya Narayan Goenka (1924 - 2013).
(from the article published in The Statesman, Festival Issue, October 2019)
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In June 1969, a Burmese-born industrialist with ancestors from Rajasthan arrived at Dum Dum Airport, Calcutta. Hours earlier, he told a startled customs official in Rangoon airport that he was carrying out of the country a priceless jewel –the ‘gem’ of Vipassana, the ancient truth-realization practice that was lost to India for 2,500 years.
Now transforming lives worldwide, residential Vipassana courses are taught free of cost to people from all walks of life, cultural, religious backgrounds, in over 100 countries.
The 50th-anniversary celebration this year of Vipassana returning to India also celebrates the unique life of Satya Narayan Goenka (1924 – 2013), Principal Teacher of Vipassana.
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I am not here to convert people from one organized religion to another organized religion—no. I am here to serve towards conversion from misery to happiness, conversion from cruelty to compassion, conversion from bondage to liberation. This is the conversion needed today.
- Sayagyi U Goenka
The pattern, look for the pattern - the pattern of the bigger picture, the threads of life that connect people, places and events woven in the changing tapestry of our impermanent abode on earth.
So too with the extraordinary life of Satya Narayan Goenka, Vipassana teacher to the world and to the previous and current President of India, to nuclear scientists and students, billionaires and business management students, princesses and inmates of prisons.
Sayagyi U Goenka was the true Father of Independent India. He revived in this ancient civilization the Vipassana practise that Gotama the Buddha re-discovered and shared - not as an organized religion, but as the universal path to purifying the mind and experiencing real happiness.
Sayagyi U Goenka was the true Father of Independent India. He revived in this ancient civilization the Vipassana practise that Gotama the Buddha re-discovered and shared - not as an organized religion, but as the universal path to purifying the mind and experiencing real happiness.
I have no doubt that developing India - to be the world's largest economy by the year 2050 - is fruit of Vipassana being practised in the country since 1969. When more people increasingly live a wholesome life, prosperity increases with a purer mind able to more successfully accomplish work.
Sayagyi U Goenka's exceptional work, his sacrifices, enabled Vipassana to be shared free of cost in more than 100 countries, in 336 locations worldwide, with 105 Vipassana centres in India (31 in Maharashtra and Mumbai). He shared Vipassana its pure form - fully non-sectarian and universal, practical and result-oriented, with benefits here and now.
Sayagyi U Goenka's exceptional work, his sacrifices, enabled Vipassana to be shared free of cost in more than 100 countries, in 336 locations worldwide, with 105 Vipassana centres in India (31 in Maharashtra and Mumbai). He shared Vipassana its pure form - fully non-sectarian and universal, practical and result-oriented, with benefits here and now.
He taught using scientific terms like his teacher U Ba Khin, the first Account General of independent Burma. But Sayagyi U Goenka was the first and foremost Vipassana teacher to avoid using the word 'Buddhism', the unfortunate term that has turned a Fully Enlightened Super Scientist's practical path to experience truths of nature into just another sectarian 'religion'.
A pattern linked Satya Narayan Goenka of Burma (Myanmar) to India, to his ancestors from Churu in Rajasthan, the land of kings, to the royal city of Mandalay in Myanmar where he was born. The pattern brought him to Madras (Chennai) where he lived during World War 2.
The pattern of destiny brought him to Calcutta in 1969, arriving in India from Myanmar to the city of joy.
From Bengal, he went to Bombay (Mumbai) where he re-started the wheel of Vipassana again in the country of its origin.
With Mumbai as home, the Rajasthan-origin Sayagyi U Goenka selflessly served humanity until he passed away peacefully, aged 89, on the night of September 29, 2013.
With Mumbai as home, the Rajasthan-origin Sayagyi U Goenka selflessly served humanity until he passed away peacefully, aged 89, on the night of September 29, 2013.
Vipassana dawn, the path
"Awake O people of the world...the dark night is over. The light of Dhamma is glowing... The dawn of happiness," words in Pali, Hindi, Rajasthani inspire Vipassana students as dawn breaks in another day of a Vipassana course, in course venues worldwide - another day of determined battles to drive out demons of negative habit patterns entrenched deep in dungeons of the mind.
The Vipassana teacher is only a guide in the self-dependent battle that has to be courageously fought alone - whether in a meditation cell of a Vipassana centre, a forest, cave, in heavenly solitude of the Himalayas.
In Pali language, Vipassana means 'to see reality as it is'. It enables experiencing the true nature of this changing mind-matter phenomenon called 'I' - this 'I', 'my' to which we give so much importance.
The aim of Vipassana is to purify the mind. The practice of Vipassana is being aware, with equanimity, the impermanence of bodily sensations, their arising and passing every moment, from moment to moment.
The aim of Vipassana is to purify the mind. The practice of Vipassana is being aware, with equanimity, the impermanence of bodily sensations, their arising and passing every moment, from moment to moment.
Physical sensations - any tangible feeling in the body such as pressure, pain, heat, tingling, itching, subtler sensations like a pleasant flow - arise, pass away as manifestation of mind-matter interaction, the bio-chemical flow of change every moment.
The deepest part of one’s mind, where conditioning takes root, is never in contact with the outside world but always in contact with this bio-chemical of sensations within, every moment, from birth to death.
At the apparent reality we react to the outside world, but in actual reality we blindly react to sensations.
As eyes give sight, Vipassana gives insight – insight of life-changing realities within.
Sensations are not new; but new is the Vipassana-developed faculty to be objectively aware of this inner reality, from the grossest sensation of immense pain to the subtlest sensations of infinite bliss.
Blissful or painful, whatever the cause of a sensation arising - from a physical ailment, food intake, sitting for long, atmospheric conditions, past conditioning of the mind (sankaras) - every sensation becomes a Vipassana tool to develop awareness and equanimity to changing phenomena.
Everything changes, is subject to impermanence. Nothing lasts forever.
Equanimity to changing sensations, instead of blind reactions, changes the habit pattern of the mind of generating negativity. Life changes for the better.
The Sayagyi
The Principal Teacher of Vipassana being called 'Sayagyi' (in Burmese meaning "respected householder teacher") fits the rational, non-dogmatic practise of Vipassana. No "gurudom", the curse of personality worship, exploitative cults.
The true teacher practices what he teaches, so did Sayagyi U Goenka.
He shunned personal recognition of any kind. He said he was only the medium, and that if not him someone else would have done the work of revival of Vipassana in India and the world. The time had ripened.
The true teacher practices what he teaches, so did Sayagyi U Goenka.
He shunned personal recognition of any kind. He said he was only the medium, and that if not him someone else would have done the work of revival of Vipassana in India and the world. The time had ripened.
A self-made millionaire by age 25 in Burma, Sayagyi U Goenka was a master of people management. He ensured a network of highly decentralized and yet closely connected Vipassana centres worldwide, the islands of Dhamma to teach Vipassana in purity for centuries, free of cost. Expenses are met only through voluntary services and donations of those who already completed a Vipassana course.
He insisted that there should no advertising of Vipassana courses, to avoid commercialization. Only word of mouth. Those experiencing the benefits cannot resist telling others about Vipassana.
Trained teachers and assistant teachers conduct residential 10-day to 60-day Vipassana courses as volunteers, without receiving any fees. They take time off from their various professions, occupations, business and industries. They follow a strict code of conduct, are required to avoid all unwholesome actions.
He allocated work and responsibilities without intrusive interference. His way of respectful dealings with others enables harmony at work.
"If you look for virtue, look for it in others", he advised, "If you look for faults, look within".
He discouraged backbiting and said a problem should be first directly discussed with the concerned person. Only if that person refuses to recognize the mistake should a complaint be made to a senior - but after informing the person a complaint is being made.
Sayagyi U Goenka had addressed the United Nation General Assembly, was a keynote speaker at the millennium Economic Summit in Davos (Switzerland) in 2000, gave talks at Harvard Business Club in New York and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and yet functioned with minimal facilities and manpower while guiding a rapidly expanding global Vipassana organization.
He allocated work and responsibilities without intrusive interference. His way of respectful dealings with others enables harmony at work.
"If you look for virtue, look for it in others", he advised, "If you look for faults, look within".
He discouraged backbiting and said a problem should be first directly discussed with the concerned person. Only if that person refuses to recognize the mistake should a complaint be made to a senior - but after informing the person a complaint is being made.
Sayagyi U Goenka had addressed the United Nation General Assembly, was a keynote speaker at the millennium Economic Summit in Davos (Switzerland) in 2000, gave talks at Harvard Business Club in New York and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and yet functioned with minimal facilities and manpower while guiding a rapidly expanding global Vipassana organization.
He personified compassion and humility. He discouraged blind beliefs and welcomed suggestions and questions to clarify doubts. If someone with whom he was talking interrupted him, he immediately stopped mid-sentence and listened.
He took great care not to hurt any being, anyone. Even a strongly worded letter to a stubborn student was kept waiting for a day or two before he signed it, to make sure the strong language was really needed.
He could have earned himself worldwide fame had he publicly exhibited his special powers of the mind. Apart from Mataji (his wife and Principal Teacher of Vipassana Ilaichidevi Goenka), very few people who closely interacted with Sayagyi U Goenka may have been aware he had such powers.
He could have earned himself worldwide fame had he publicly exhibited his special powers of the mind. Apart from Mataji (his wife and Principal Teacher of Vipassana Ilaichidevi Goenka), very few people who closely interacted with Sayagyi U Goenka may have been aware he had such powers.
These powers of the mind get naturally opened up in a person highly advanced in meditation, tangible faculties little known to conventional science. Most inspiringly, Sayagyi U Goenka followed the teaching of the Buddha where no importance is given to such faculties, these mere way stations on the path to total purification of the mind.
Epilogue
Sayagyi U Goenka was a unique phenomenon in history. He was the first Vipassana teacher after the Buddha to share the Vipassana path of liberation with so many in the world, with such accuracy and detail.
His service to humanity will be more significantly recognized when coming generations of children grow to adulthood after having practised early in life Anapana (www.children.dhamma.org), the preliminary to Vipassana. The Maharashtra government's Mitra Upakram project enables millions of school children to daily practice Anapana; with their strong base to avoid unwholesome actions early in life, they will grow as evolved adults making a beneficial impact in the world.
His service to humanity will be more significantly recognized when coming generations of children grow to adulthood after having practised early in life Anapana (www.children.dhamma.org), the preliminary to Vipassana. The Maharashtra government's Mitra Upakram project enables millions of school children to daily practice Anapana; with their strong base to avoid unwholesome actions early in life, they will grow as evolved adults making a beneficial impact in the world.
The self-dependent practice of Vipassana repairs and enhances the way of life, interactions with people.
We discover our real work in life.
Vipassana is the single most powerful force of transformation. For the world to change, the individual must change. Vipassana empowers the individual to change for better – and experience real happiness.
Ehi passiko – come and see. Give Vipassana a fair open-minded trial.
(For more information on residential Vipassana courses taught free of cost worldwide: www.dhamma.org)
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