Spreading the light of spirituality

By Brij Bhushan Mittal

"MY story may not interest many, but it may amuse some," said unassuming Dharam Pal Gupta who left his mortal frame on October 23, 1998, at the age of 88 years, leaving behind his wife Ishwar Davi Gupta, a devotee of Ramakrishna Parmahansa, one son and three daughters, all highly placed. Dharam Pal Gupta started his career as a lecturer in French after getting education in French from France. He retired in 1968 as the principal of Government College and the director of the postgraduate Regional Centre, Rohtak, He settled in Chandigarh on his retirement.

Deeply devoted to the philosophy of Sri Ramakrishna Parmahansa, he was the trustee secretary of Sri Ma Trust, a philanthropic organisation set up at Rohtak and later shifted to Chandigarh by Swami Nityatamanand. This organisation was set up to propagate the invaluable teachings of the Parmahansa and uplift society by awakening the inbuilt consciousness and nobility present in human beings.

Among the many contributions of Dharam Pal Gupta,apart from his numerous achievements in the field of formal education, are the two biographies, one abridged and the second detailed, prepared by him on Sri Mahendra Nath Gupta, popularly known as Master Mahashay or ‘M’, one of the two prime disciples of the Parmahansa, the other being Narendra or Naren who later became the world-renowned Vivekananda. The saintly and scholarly ‘M’ wrote Kathamrita in five volumes in Bengali to preserve for posterity the great revelations that came to mankind through Ramakrishna Paramhansa. The two biographies of ‘M’, Life of M and Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita and Short Life of M, by Dharam Pal Gupta are research treaties on the great apostle-recorder whose own life inspired the masses. Many people became household and astral saints, under the influence of his teachings.

Dharam Pal Gupta also edited, jointly with Padmashree D.K. Sengupta, Ramakrishna Kathamrita Centenary Memorial, a volume widely acclaimed in India and abroad.

On the top, however, are his renditions in English of the five volumes of Kathamrita prepared by ‘M’ in Bengali and 16 volumes of Sri Ma Darshan, a vivid and graphic description of the saintly life lived by ‘M’ strictly as per the tenets of Ramakrishna Parmahansa, written in Bengali by ‘M’s foremost disciple Swami Nityatmananda. Swami Nityatmananda was a realised saint of letters from the sacred soil of Bengal, with whom Dharam Pal Gupta had the opportunity to live for 16 years from 1959 onwards.

The death of Dharam Pal Gupta has left a void in the lives of all those who were inspired by his life and work.