An Instrument of Thy Peace

The talks in this book are powerful messages to whichever group might receive them, but they are especially powerful for a Western audience. Swami Chidananda must have given the talks with the Western perspective and cultural conditioning in mind. He has been able to distil the wisdom of the East into ideas and examples that relate directly to the life experience of the Westerners who heard the talks or who might be reading them here in this book. One would feel that everything has been explained and nothing has been left out. What is more, Swamiji’s great love and compassion are clearly evident in his talks, and the current of spiritual force that flows out of the talks will bring the reader to a greater understanding of the highest truths. Swamiji is an ideal person to teach the dharma in the West; he is a South Indian Brahmin who had his education in English-speaking Christian schools and who has been familiar with Western culture and religion from a very early age.

Beginning in 1959 with a tour of Europe, Canada, the United States and South America that lasted two years, Swamiji would continue to travel to the West regularly. One very significant tour occurred over a three year period from 1968 to 1971. By that time Swamiji had an assistant who would be his constant travelling secretary—S. Nagarajan (now Swami Vimalananda). In this extended tour, Swamiji and S. Nagarajan were invited to numerous countries in Africa, many of the countries of Europe, including Belgium, France, Holland, the U.K., Germany and Italy, and then to the United States and Canada, later to South America, and finally across the Pacific to Fiji, Australia, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. The extensive touring continued unabated from 1971 until 1996. Swamiji visited South Africa almost every year, the U.S. approximately fifteen times and Europe almost twenty times.

In each of the places they visited, Swamiji would meet with people, hold satsangs, and give spiritual talks. S. Nagarajan would tape record each of the talks and faithfully transcribe them, and over the years he accumulated a treasure trove of transcribed talks that would eventually come to fill a very large suitcase. It is from those many wonderful spiritual discourses that the talks that make up this book have been chosen.

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