Ramakrishna and Vivekananda represented two facets of a single personality---Ramakrishna, the intensely divine aspect and Vivekananda, the intensely human aspect of the Over-force that had descended into terrestrial play for the spiritual adjustment of human civilisation. It may be contrarily posited that both these personalities were thrown up by human society and that the question of a divine descent is an archaic interpretation of a very natural event. Be it as it may, true it is, though, that the appearance of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda on the terrestrial plane heralded a new age of enlightenment in which the philosophy of the Vedanta, long dormant, became active again.
Man is divine --- this is the fundamental principle expounded by the Vedanta and the greatest protagonists of this philosophy in the modern age, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, represented the divine and the human aspects of man. If Vivekananda is the struggle of the terrestrial man against the odds of life, Ramakrishna seems to be the destiny, the final fruition, the fulfilment of man. In a way, as if Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have encompassed the gamut of human experience and laid before man the vast field of the humanistic disciplines and the spiritual sciences to explore so that Truth in all its multifaceted aspect may shine in this golden age of enlightenment ushered in by them. In pursuance of this line of logic it may be said that Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are encapsulated in every human being with Vivekananda representing his glorious human possibilities and Ramakrishna the climactic evolution of the unfolded man, his supernal state as a free spirit, buoyant, blissful and radiant.
All these assertions may seem presumptions of the pious and unfounded in concrete reasoning and I must plead guilty to the charge but it cannot be gainsaid that those who have delved deep in the spiritual reserves of this luminous duo do not find substance in these postulates of mine. These were poetic personalities in line with the ancient traditions of spiritual India where the seer is the poet. As such, their rhythms are of a different metre, free and unhindered by the structural impositions of reason, ever transcending them although never contradicting them. To fathom these personalities mere rationality will not suffice. An intuitive understanding is necessary, a poetic flight into the ethereal realms which are the domain of the Great Swan and his protege, the Warrior Monk.
And speculations will abound centring them as men attempt to gauge the magnitude of the personalities of these leading lights through the prism of their limited understanding. But, despite all these apparent imperfections of representation of these perfected personalities, may I not reaffirm my postulate that Ramakrishna and Vivekananda represent the two complementary phases of the human personality, never disjoint but overlapping, the latter the forerunner and the former the fruition of the evolving man in the reverse sequential mode of their historical advent? Vivekananda represents all of the glory of man and his infinite possibilities while Ramakrishna epitomises the spiritual end-point of evolution and its vast liberation thereof. If Ramakrishna is the descent of the divine into the human fold, then Vivekananda is the ascent of humanity into the realm of the divine. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are two spiritual personages who are, if I may say, indistinctly distinct, a single integrated being manifest as two earthly personalities, a spiritual continuum. They visited us for a while and infused in us their spirit, impregnated our collective consciousness with their celestial vibrations and permanently enshrined themselves in our hearts.
And deep in the recesses of our hearts do we not still hear the refrain...''O mind, let us hurry home. In this strange world why wander aimlessly about in the garb of an alien?'' And even today the Master sits enraptured listening to the soulful melody pouring forth from the wellspring of the heart of his beloved Naren, tears trickling down his cheeks and an unearthly smile lighting up his face. Who says Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are dead? They are still with us, inside of us and outside, sporting with devotees in the hills and dales of this beautiful Earth, in the hopes and aspirations of erring humanity and in the final repose of our surrendered selves whence there is no return.
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