If your wish to be a true reformer, three things are necessary, first is to feel, you must think next if you have found any remedy. Have you discovered means by which to keep that without any dross. What is your motive? It should not be greed of gold, or thirst for fame or power. Can you stand to your ideals and work on, even if the whole world wants to crash you down?
It was while reforms of various kinds were being inaugurated in India that a child was born of poor Brahmin parents on the eighteenth of February 1836 in one of the remote villages of Bengal. The father and mother were very orthodox people. The life of a really orthodox Brahmin is one of continuous renunciation. Very few things can be do, and over and beyond them the orthodox Brahmin must not occupy himself with any secular business. At the same time, he must not receive gifts from everybody. Even in this poverty a Brahmin's wife will never allow a poor man to pass through the village without giving him something to eat. She is served the last.
A Brahmin's boy must go to school, the caste restricts him to a learned profession only. Sannyasins education was different from others. No fees as knowledge is sacred and not to be sold. Students were taken without charge and given food and clothing too. They do this from the donations given by wealthy. This boy did not like people fighting and therefore went to become a temple priest. He too is not allowed to take gifts.
Like every book on religion breaths, he do swam in the idea of realisation - he realized God, felt God, Saw God, talked to God, but it was not easy. First in the temple of Blissful mother he kept wondering why the God was not speaking to him, if God existed. At last it became impossible for him to serve in the temple so he left it and entered into a little wood that was near and lived The idea of sex and the idea of money were the two things, he thought, that prevented him from seeing the mother. The boy began to see visions, Mother herself became the teacher and initiated the boy into the truths he sought. An Sannyasini was surprised to see his devotion remained near the boy for years, taught him the forms of the religions of India, initiated him in the different practices of Yoga and guided and brought into harmony tremendous river of spirituality. Then came to the grove a sannyasin, who began to teach the boy the philosophy of the Vedas; spend several months with him and initiated him into the order of Sannyasins and took his departure.
When he was had left temple worship, his relatives had got him married as a Child, he unaware, but he had left to the grove soon after. The young girl to whom he was wedded to went in search of him, she was a maiden and pure soul, able to understand her husband's aspiration and sympathize with him. Se became one of his most devoted disciples, always revering him as a divine being. After learning about his own religion, he set out to learn from Mohammedan saint and sects following Jesus the Christ. He then set to learn humility, because he had found that the one idea in all religions is, 'not me, but Thou'. He had the most wonderful faculty of carrying everything into practice which he thought was right. He went and worked in the house of Pariah (who works for others), stopped distinction between male and female.
His hard earned jewels of spirituality for which he had given three-quarters of his life were now ready to be given to humanity and then began his mission. He thought that it was Mother who was doing everything and not he. His favourite illustration was, "When the lotus opens, the bees come of their own accord to seek the honey; so let the lotus of your character be full-blown and the results will follow.' - A great lesson to learn.
Be in no hurry to give your thoughts to others. First have something to give, he alone teaches who has something give, for teaching is not talking, teaching is not imparting doctrines, it is communicating. Spirituality can be communicated just as really as one can be given a flower. This teacher, was intellectual, devotional, mystic and active. Condemned no one, but saw good in all. He moved to Calcutta to impart his teachings.
Vivekananda, asked him the question, he has been asking others "Do you believe in God, Sir?' 'Yes' he replied, 'Can you prove it, Sir? 'Yes', 'How', 'Because I see Him just as I see you here, only in a much intenser sense.' That impressed Vivekananda, as here was a man who dared to say he had seen God. That religion was a reality to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world. Master used to say 'Religion can be given and taken more tangibly, more really than anything else in the world." Be therefore spiritual first, have something to give and then stand before the world and give it. Religion is not talk, or doctrine or theories, nor is it sectarianism. Religion cannot live in sects and societies, it is the relation between the soul and God; how can it be made into a society? It would then become a business, Only our realisation will satisfy us.
First we must give up everything for the sake of God. The religions of the world are not contradictory or antagonistic. They are various phases of one eternal religion. Applied to different planes of existence, to the opinions of various minds and various races. Religion manifest themselves not only according to race and geographical position but also according to individual powers. For one it could be work, for other devotion, for yet another mysticism, philosophy and so on.
Truth can be one and many at the same time. So all are right. Microcosm is but the miniature repetition of the macrocosm. Welcome to India! All sects of religion so we have so many. Religion is realization. Only true teacher is who can convert himself, as it were, into a thousand persons at a moment's notice. Who can come down to the level of student and transfer his soul to students, see through students eyes, and hear through his ears and understand through his mind.
Religion is like different river going and meeting the same ocean. Renunciation is the background of all religion. Whatever any man wants and appreciates, that he will get and it is the same with nation. He died spreading the gospel - speaking for 20 hours a day, without rest. One day he said he would lay down the body that day, and entered Samadhi.
This is the message of Shri Ramakrishna to the modern world. 'Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects or churches or temples, they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality; and the more that this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he for good. Earn that first, acquire that and criticize no one, for all doctrines and creeds have some good in them. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names or sects but that it means spiritual realisation. Only those can understand who have felt. Only those that have attained to spirituality can communicate it to others, can be great teachers of mankind. They alone are the powers of light. '
'Be spiritual and realize truth for yourself.' To proclaim and make clear the fundamental unity underlying all religions was the mission of Ramakrishna. He left every religion undisturbed because he had realized that in reality they are all part and parcel of one eternal religion.
Ramakrishan Math is a monastic order for men brought into existence by Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886) the great 19th century saint of Bengal who is regarded as the Prophet of the Modern Age. Ramakrishna Mission is a registered society in which monks of the Ramakrishna Math and lay devotees cooperate in conducting various types of social service mainly in India. It was founded by Sri Ramakrishna's Chief disciple and religious leader, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). These twin organization have set in motion a non-sectarian, universal spiritual movement which has been silently working for more than a 100 years to catalyse the spiritual regeneration of humanity. The chief catalyst in this ongoing transformation is India's ancient religious philosophy known as Vedanta. Although several other systems of philosophy arose in India at different times, they were confined to small groups. Vedanta alone has remained the dominant philosophy of India's religious tradition from Vedic times to the present day. In modern times this ancient system of thought has been purified, unified and energized by Sri Ramakrishna and expounded in the modern idiom by Swami Vivekananda.
Under the leadership of Swami Vivekananda whose original name was Narendra Nath Dutta, monastic brother hood known as Ramakrishna Math (order) was set in force at a dilapidated building in Baranagar, in North Kolkata in 1886. It was later moved to a better building in Alambazer, later with the funds provided by the western followers of Swami Vivekananada, a big plot of land was acquired on the western bank of the Ganga at a place called Belur, and the monastery was finally shifted there on 2nd Jan 1899. Branches of Ramakrishna Math soon came to be founded in different parts of the country. Although rooted in the 3000 year old monastic tradition of India, and forming a part of the Ten orders (dashanami) established by Shankaracharya in the 8th Century A.D., the Ramakrishan Order represents a new pattern of monastic life which combines some of the best elements of the monastic traditions of the East and the West. Main emphasis is service, with modern outlook, governed by definite rules and regulations originally framed by Swami Vivekananda.
It's ideology has three characteristic - It is modern in the sense that the ancient principles of Vedanta have been expressed in the modern idiom; it is universal, that is it is meant for the whole humanity, it is practical in the sense that its principles can be applied in day-to-day life to solve the problems of life. The basic principles of ideology are:
- God realization is the ultimate goal of life
- Potential divinity of soul - Brahman - Atman Source of all happiness. Body, mind all one.
- Synthesis of the Yogas - Jnan Yoga (Knowledge), Karma (Work), Bhakti (Devotion) and Raja (Meditation)
- Morality based on strength - Weakness is the main cause of immorality, evil and suffering.
- Harmony of religion
- Avatarhood of Sri Ramakrishna
- A New Philosophy of Work:
- All work is sacred
- Work as workship (Gita 18.46 and 9.24)
- Service to man is service to God
- Focus on service to the poor and the downtrodden
- Work is a spiritual discipline
- Selflessness, Sacrifice, Love
- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
- Excellence, Efficiency, Teamwork
- Truthfulness, Honesty, Transparency
- Social commitment without politics
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