President of worldwide Ramakrishna Order

Revered Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj
(15th President of the Order)

Although known simply as the President, he is in fact the President General of the whole Ramakrishna Math and Mission, and is respectfully referred to as President Maharaj by the monks and devotees. He functions chiefly as the spiritual head of the Order.

Swami Atmasthanandaji Maharaj was elected President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission at the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Math and the Governing Body of the Mission held on 3 December 2007. He is the 15th President of the Order. Swami Atmasthanandaji had been one of the Vice-Presidents of the Math and Mission since 22 May 1997. Born in 1919 at Sabajpur, near Dhaka, he received mantra diksha (spiritual initiation) from Swami Vijnananandaji Maharaj (a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math on 3 January 1941 at the age of 22 years. In 1945, Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the sixth President of the Order, gave him Brahmacharya vows, and in 1949, Sannyasa vows and the name Atmasthananda. After serving the Order at Belur Math and the Branches at Deoghar Vidyapith and Mayavati Advaita Ashrama, he got the opportunity to serve Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the then President of the Order, for a long time. He spent several years in his holy company in the solitude of Shyamla Tal in the Himalayas. In 1952, he was posted to the Ranchi TB Sanatorium Branch as an Assistant Secretary. He worked hard to expand its services in many ways. He was sent to the Rangoon (Yangon) Sevashrama as its Secretary in 1958. He developed the Sevashrama hospital and it soon became the best hospital in Burma (Myanmar) at that time. When military rulers took over the Rangoon Sevashrama, he returned to India in 1965. He was posted to the Rajkot Branch as its head in 1966. The beautiful temple of Sri Ramakrishna at Rajkot Ashrama was built on his initiative. He was elected a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and Member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973. In 1975, he was appointed an Assistant Secretary of the twin organizations. He was also appointed Secretary of the relief operations of the Math and Mission. Under his stewardship, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation operations in various parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh. He became the General Secretary of the Math and Mission in 1992 and continued in that post for five years until 1997 when he became a Vice-President of the Order. As a Vice-President of the Math and Mission, he travelled extensively to various parts of the country and visited many Branches of the Order and some unaffiliated centres. In 1998, he visited various places in the US, Canada, Japan and Singapore. He also went to Malaysia, Fiji, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at different times. In all these places, he spread the message of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and Vedanta and also gave mantra diksha to many spiritual seekers.

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