Commitment a prerequisite of teaching profession
Guruji lamented the lack of commitment of many modern teachers, most of whom do not have a vocation for teaching, which he considers a mandatory prerequisite to motivating students to achieve optimum success. He said that the transitory stages to develop a child and maximize potential through individual interventions no longer underpin teaching methodologies as of yore, because today, it is like a one-stop-shop, with a general system to address the needs of every child, without considering that each child has different peculiarities and different needs.  He also regrets the lack of discipline in schools today, because he ascribes to a field of thought that dictates discipline in a school system.  As Guruji describes it, discipline is a derivative of the word ‘disciple’, which a child is until he evolves through a systemic process to become a master of his own destiny.
He reiterated that his knowledge is transmitted knowledge, and said that he cannot himself explain how it was acquired, because there was no systemic educational process leading to his academic development, to the extent where he can hold his own at any forum in the world.
Guruji said that even while they were teaching at the school, they were also farming the rice lands and simultaneously building the superstructure of the grounds and the several buildings that comprise the Guyana Sangha, and that it was all done by manual labour.
He said that the LBI estate helped with the drainage system, but that the monks and volunteers worked with only faith and the most basic implements over many years, even to this day, to create the physical structures and the ambience and ethos that are peculiar only to this haven that has become a place of pilgrimage for Hindus, and even many non-Hindus who were educated at the Hindu College and periodically return to pay homage to their alma mater.

God’s work done through various channels
However, Guruji said that he planted the coconut trees and most of the plants with great difficulty, because the soil was not arable.  He made mention of the continuum of God’s work through various channels and conduits, and cited the recent inputs of several persons, especially Jay and Sylvia Sobraj, Naresh Singh, Shravan Budhu, and countless contributors over the years, as well as those who serve the Ashram on a daily basis, such as the recently-deceased Seeram Persaud (Bhaiji Scouta), who dedicated the latter part of his life to the service of God through his voluntary work at the Sangha, Bhaiji N. Rampersaud, and Hindu College Principal, Ms Rajkumarie Singh, former student of the Hindu College and protégée of Guruji, among myriads of others scattered all over the world.
He said that, of the many who worked and contributed, His Holiness, Swami Bhajanandaji Maharaj stood out after he joined the Ashram and, like Guruji, remained in the Mission.

Life of austerity
Speaking of the life of austerity, where one sacrifices all earthly things in order to serve the Lord, Guruji said he did hours of meditation as a Bramchari.  After teaching in the school, then labouring in the fields, then performing Guru seva (service to Guru), then preparing lessons for the next day for his various classes and marking books, the young Bramchari said he initially went to his altar or to the mandir to commune with his inner self and his Lord.
After a mere couple hours of sleep, Guruji would then arise and help prepare meals for the children living in the dormitory.
When Swami Purnanandaji Maharaj went to London for a lengthy stay, Guruji was left with overarching responsibility for the Ashram, during which time Guyana’s Constitution was suspended, British troops landed in Guyana, and the PPP Government was forcibly ejected from office.  Guruji said that although the Mission is a “purely philanthropic and charitable Organization, with non-sectarian, non-communal, non-political character and outlook,” and that there were many ecumenical engagements and services held on the premises, with children from every walk of life attending classes at the institution, the Indian-based Organisation was viewed as a hostile one, and treated accordingly, with raids and searches periodically carried out in the buildings.

Sangha targeted by authorities
During the period of unrest in the country in the 1960s, at the height of racial conflict, the Sangha was specially targeted by the authorities because, true to its charitable Mission, it had rescued and provided shelter to many of the victims of the massacres and riots that were devastating the then British Guiana.  The school’s science lab was the special focus of attention as a result of unwarranted and unsupported suspicion that bombs and other incendiary devices were being made in that facility, and many times the chemicals used for experimental and demonstration purposes were seized, because the military considered the chemical elements dangerous material.
Guruji said it was a time of threats, attacks and fears and that after a hard day, they had to stay awake at night on alert for attacks from the roaming gangs, especially because there were children in their charge. But the Sangha always responded to the violation of their sacred premises and the persecution by the authorities with silence, without protest of any kind.  The monks cooperated fully with the military personnel during the raids and searches of their persons and the Sangha’s premises.

Many miracles at Ashram
Guruji said that they witnessed many miracles, whereby the Sangha and its inhabitants were divinely protected during those times of terror in the country.  He cited an example where, after prayers one evening he was about to venture into the dark compound but was forcibly restrained by a dog, which came out of nowhere.  The dog was so insistent that the other monks advised him not to leave the building, when there was a loud explosion in the yard.
The army tried to blame the explosion on the monks, and questioned the children of the dormitory, showing them bullets etcetera, but Guruji said the children had no exposure to incendiary devices because there was  never any violence perpetrated by the inhabitants of the Ashram.
Once, when the Ashram was under threat from attack by a group known as the ‘chain-gang’, Guruji encountered their scouting party of two in the dark compound.  Upon shouting  out, “Who’s there?” he recalled,  they immediately panicked and ran helter-skelter away.  One Mr. Budhu, who lived on the perimeters of the Ashram, said he overheard the two relating to the waiting gang that they had seen a huge, monstrous figure with a thunderous voice in the grounds.  That figure had only been Guruji in the dark, but that was a religious place, and Guyanese, violence-driven or otherwise, are superstitious people, so the Ashram was once more fortuitously saved from attack by what Guruji is convinced was divine intervention.  Guruji said no transgressor ever managed to penetrate the sanctity of the Ashram because of this Divine protection.  Ultimately, even the army realized that the Ashram was devoid of any threat, and left them alone.

Hindu College, Swami Purnananda Primary School nationalized
Stating that it is a policy of the Bharat Sangha that the various branches of the Sangha in each part of the world work along with the Government of the country, and that, when the PNC Government nationalized the private schools in the country that had been aided by the Government, Guruji said that, although the Ashram’s schools had never been aided by the Government,
they were forced to relinquish the Hindu College and the Swami Purnananda Primary School to the authorities, because they were warned that refusal would incur forcible seizure of the buildings.
Initially, the schools of the Sangha were closed by the administration and the students assigned elsewhere, but that was not in keeping with the mission of the Bharat Sangha, which was three-pronged, with the provision of an education and impartation of learning being primary focal points, so Swami Purnanandaji Maharaj issued instructions for Guruji to hand over the buildings to the authorities so that the educational component of the Mission could continue
But he continued to teach and help the students without accepting a salary from the Government, and although no rental was paid for the use of the Sangha’s school buildings, the name was changed to the Cove and John Secondary School, because the authorities said that the original name connoted racial distinction, although children of mainly Afro-Guyanese communities of the Sangha’s neighbourhood attended the Hindu College because of the disciplined environment and the level of teaching that were trademarks of that institution.

High level of education at Ashram schools
Guruji said that parents of the students did not care about the name of the school, nor the fact that it was run by Hindu monks, only about the quality of education that their children were receiving.  He said  the personal care that they took over each child was also appreciated by parents, because they visited homes if children were absent or had a problem, or even to discuss the progress of the children.
Guruji said that, although as monks they remain detached from worldly things, yet the subsequent desecration of an institution they had worked on laboriously, with unremitting toil, was somewhat unsettling, but they had to accept the deterioration of standards in the school consequent upon its acquisition and administration by a governmental construct.  However, Guruji said that within the dictated constraints they provided support to the students, without accepting anything from the administration, because they were sanyasis, sworn to serve without reward, although the monks resisted the administration’s diktat that all teachers had to give voluntary labour to the Hope Estate farm and other public institutions.

Re-establishment of core guiding principles
The Government of the day allowed an unwritten concession to the monks that allowed them to retain authority and thus some degree of the original standards in the primary and secondary components of the school.  However, it never again achieved the pristine record it was originally famous for, although the current principal, Ms Rajkumarie Singh, is working hard to re-establish those core guiding principles that the monks had set.
Subsequently, the secondary school was restored to the Sangha by the current administration and re-named the Swami Purnananda Secondary School, popularly known as the Hindu College.
Guruji is currently based at the New York branch of the Sangha, while newly ordained monk, His Holiness Swami Shivsankarji Maharaj, formerly Bramchari Vidur, is current administrator of the Guyana Sangha, although Guruji remains spiritual head of both institutions.

Well-deserved national award
However, Swami Shivsankarji Maharaj was brought up at the feet of his Guruji and brings a fresh dynamism to continue the wonderful work begun by the young monk from India, Swami Purnanandaji Maharaj, and ably continued by Guruji, with support from many other sanyasis, as well as secular persons who are devoted to keeping alive the precepts of the supreme Acharya, who said to his disciples: “Go ye to each corner of the world and gather my children.”
The conferral of the Golden Arrow of Achievement on Guruji, His Holiness Swami Vidyanandaji Maharaj is well-deserved, even though he places scant importance on such accolades, valuing instead the lives he has molded and guided unto spiritual journeys and unto pathways of attaining the prerequisites that shape good human beings made in the form of God.