Sri Ramakrishna has laid before us the highest ideal of God-realization. Through his superhuman austerities he not only realized the ultimate truth of life and existence but laid before us this supreme ideal to follow. His apostles travelled far and wide to scatter the germ of his thoughts. But after the demise of Swami Vivekananda there has been a lull in the activity level of the movement so much so that today Vivekananda is a forgotten name in the West. It may here be argued that the cause of this oblivion in the West is due to historical reasons which to a great extent it is but that cannot be sufficient reason for us, devotees of the Cause of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, to sit still and while away life's hours waiting for the resurgence of Swamiji in the West.
Human civilization is in peril today. Mass ignorance of the higher principles of life, dogmatic assertions of violent political philosophies, fanatical scriptural indoctrination, the imposition of might over right, subservience of humanity to hollow material culture have all degraded the soul of man till he has been reduced either to a beast of burden or, else, to a predatory being feasting upon brother man. What glory can there be for man when he measures his worth in terms of his material assets, when he venerates the billionaires of the world as demigods of the age and is unaware of the loss of his higher inheritance, his innate divinity hidden under the cover of his crass consumerism. On one side are the exploited, God's children despoiled of home and hearth, on the other, the exploiters, the crafty capitalists, mercenaries of men devoid of mercy save for their show of magnanimity when they indulge in so-called charity towards brother man and are lauded by sycophants operating in this pretentious society where man dares assume a superior position in offering a dole to his fellow man. A perverted culture where the human soul is daily sold for the copper coin is rampant today. Distorted values or utter absence of any value whatsoever save that of the almighty dollar and its like have brutalized life on earth such that millions suffer to produce the luxury of the few. The toiling teeming millions, they who produce the wealth of the world, have no hope of a decent existence while their Machiavellian masters loot the fruit of their labour reducing them to objects of pity fit only for a dole which they must accept to humour the vanity of these soulless beings.
This then is the stark reality of life as it obtains today in an increasingly materialistic world. There is no hope for the common man save to get ground under the wheels of this cruel machinery, the factory system, which produces goods out of human blood, draining mercilessly the vitality of the populace to satiate the hunger of the privileged few. They labour and they are looted. Is this economic justice? Is this fair share of the earth's resources that is the common property of all, yet, is today the exclusive possession of a few who know the tricks of the trade and use deceit, cunning and what not to get a stranglehold over the wealth of the world. Today, the irony is that the majority are marginalized and have been reduced to a state of neo-serfdom although the rich and the politically powerful the world over indulge in glorious oratorical flourishes of the freedom of man and his democratic rights. But the belly burns and the blood boils as billions fuel the social machinery of enjoyment for the few and sufferance for the many. And all this is just one side of the picture, the might of money ruling the roost. There are other starker realities as well that have plunged the world in inestimable grief but more of that later. For the while let us ponder if we shall address the issue at hand, this ruinous rule of the copper coin or shall we meekly succumb to its every force till we are an extinct race for spirits we are and as matter cannot long survive.
And here steps in Vivekananda with the gospel of his Master, the complete subservience of money to the might of man. Ramakrishna had famously uttered, 'Taka mati, mati taka.' (Money is mud, mud money.) This was so radical a statement in the 19th century that its significance was not fully comprehended then. Now, in the fullness of time, it seeks deliverance to come into being and wage war against Mammon. Godspeed unto the devotees of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda to preach their gospel of the divinity of the soul through the length and breadth of the wide world that humanity may be saved while yet there is time. Else, extinction looms large in the face of man. He has reached the end of the blind alleyway which he thought was the royal avenue of terrestrial delight and in the process has dragged innocent victims of his gluttony along. It is you, my friends, who must now gird up your loins to spring to action ' fired with the zeal of holiness ' and ' spread the gospel of equality, the gospel of salvation and the gospel of social raising-up ' to man that renascent humanity make strike against the citadels of this mercantile civilization and, so, usher in a glorious chapter in this book called 'Life'.
And what path shall we follow? Why, THE RAMAKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA WAY. That is the royal avenue open to all of us and that is the path we must traverse as we advance Godward. And let this be our mission---that we will not eat the mango alone in secret but will share its slices with all in the full blaze of the sun, resplendent, free. May Sri Ramakrishna bless all!
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