The power that appeared as Ramakrishna-Vivekananda has not been understood well, for, as it ever is the lot of followers, the lofty inspiration that manifests itself periodically in history as seminal beings of this order is lost in its translation through successive generations, the original impetus gathering momentum over an expanding sphere of influence but losing intensity as the movement broadens out. It follows the inverse square law of radiation whereby the movement progressively loses luminosity with its expansion. This is perhaps the reason why Sri Krishna has pledged and fulfilled as well his periodic descent to the terrestrial plane to reinvigorate the waning spiritual civilisation of man, else, humanity would have gradually degenerated into mass sensate culture culminating in the extinction of the human race.
Swami Vivekananda had often lamented that his ideas were not being well understood as there was the drag of the inertia of the past on the movement. His understanding of Sri Ramakrishna was so sublimely superior to that of the other disciples of the Master that he had oftentimes to struggle to elicit their wholehearted support for his radical programme of human transformation. His brother disciples would argue that he was going in a direction diametrically opposed to that of the Master who had stressed God-realisation as being of paramount importance in human life and social service as a corollary of secondary merit, even dispensable beyond a point. There was no malice in their disagreement though nor any vicious intent in their dissent. They loved their brother only too well to deem it wise to caution him against possible contamination of Ramakrishna's movement by western influence absorbed by the Swami in his sojourn there.
Today, in hindsight, one may wonder why several of Ramakrishna's children could not comprehend the sweep of Swamiji's universal ideas but such is perhaps in the nature of things that proximity of personality fosters myopic tendencies which with the passage of time is corrected even as hypermetropic deficiencies creep in. The optimal vision is the conjoined fruit of realisation and spiritual genius which Swamiji had in abundance but which perhaps is denied to all and sundry however illumined they may be for Ramakrishna's flock consisted only of souls that were realised, and that too, by his gracious touch or wish. And, when finally they all did submit to his higher vision, it was time for Swamiji to quit the terrestrial play.
Thus has it ever been that the hour flits by in fruitless deliberations while genius disseminates the seeds of creation alone and when twilight sets in, what lamentation can bring the hero back? He lies in peace on his funeral pyre beyond the reach of mortal man. His words waft through the breeze that blows over vales and hills, echoing through the corridors of time, making gods out of men who have never known him but have given him their love, their all for their long-lost hero. Generations pass, the message keeps spreading, adjusting to changing times, to fresher climes, diluting as it disperses, and one future spring morn, a Ramakrishna is born again to add fillip to the movement and keep the word he has given in the Geeta, "Whenever virtue subsides and vice reigns supreme, I manifest Myself using My Maya for the salvation of the virtuous, the annihilation of the vicious and for the establishment of religion in every Age." So has it been prophesied, so has it always come to pass, so shall it ever be that the Master who guides his mission will rescue it from any harm that may threaten it and set its course right for the millennium that is and for the millennia to come.
And this is Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, the twin soul manifestation of a single spiritual reality, an undivided entity composed of complementary parts where each part is the whole and yet the twain so widely differ in their outer approaches to the human condition that lesser mortals, nay, even godlike beings as the disciples of the Master, take so long to recognise their identity of will, their inner harmony and the sublime union of their spirits. For us, we may only thank our stars that we were born in the Age of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda on the very soil trodden by them, breathing the same air as they did breathe and loving them as they did love all of us evermore. Ramakrishna's mission is our mission, his cause our cause and his children our sisters and brothers. It is a single Ramakrishna family with the Master its paterfamilias. Come brothers, let us all join hands with his Order and serve the living God that is all around us, the Master in a myriad guises. Jai Ramakrishna!
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