MISSION MUZAFFARPUR 1

Dear friends,

Of what avail is knowing the material background of this world when the world melts away at the very touch of the Divine? The Atman is the background of the sinner and the saint. Let us instead know this truth of truths ( satyasya satyam ) well and let all material considerations that taint the soul rest awhile. Is it worthwhile spending one's entire life chasing ephemeral dreams of money and matter when Ramakrishna's call from the Kuthi Bari at Dakshineshwar beckons us still to leave all and rush to his outstretched arms ? Can we not hear the agonized cry of the Master : '' O, where are you my dear ones? I can scarce stay any longer without you. Tarry no more, do rush unto me.'' ? Then why should we be daunted by material propositions, overwhelmed by the sight of earthly wealth and overcome by the wondrous display of pecuniary power ? We should silently work, pure and free, with perspective spiritual and resignation perfected at the lotus feet of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda.

We will make an Appeal Universal in the name of Ramakrishna for the children of Ramakrishna who suffer a life of misery and squalor owing to human neglect, a life of deprivation and distress on account of extreme poverty, a life of ignorance and ill-health due to sheer exclusion from the benefits of a thriving economy. My noble friends who are participating in this grand venture to bring solace and succour to our sisters and brothers in Muzaffarpur and the upper districts of North Bihar have been moved by the plight of their brethren and have thus resolved to restore dignity to the lives of their hapless fellow beings through personal and conjoint action in terms of offering financial assistance to the Eye Hospital, Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffapur, Bihar, India.

Friends, I understand your great concern for the fruition of the Hospital Project and the distress that you feel when help does not come by easily but we must ever remember that our Lord was penniless and will surely be our only support in this grand yajna (sacrifice ) of our self for His Cause. Money will come, help will come and everything worthwhile will come if we but pin our hopes only in the Lord. He owns the universe and everything in it including ourselves. So why should we be worried ? The other day we were alone with the Master. Today, so many are coming forward to help and we are all together with the Master. The morrow shines bright with hopes of countless others who will catch our spirit and support the grand Cause of building the hospital in Muzaffarpur. But the Master is ever with us, our sole support and solace, our refuge, our hope, our aspiration divine, our final friend ( antima bandhav ). Arise and awake then to help fulfil the mighty dream of Swami Vivekananda of bringing relief to the poor of India and who else is poorer brother than our impoverished souls when we remain by-standers and watch the plight of the poor and the dispossessed despite having the means to redress the situation ? But we must never lower our standard. We have set ourselves the lofty ideal of feeling intense sympathy for our poor sisters and brothers and have resolved to activate ourselves to bring immediate and long-term relief to them that they may see the light of day through the darkness of their present distressed living conditions. The future is bright friends for so many are spontaneously coming forward to help our Cause and so many more will join the movement in the near future of this our Mission Muzaffarpur. Take heart, therefore, and thank the Lord who in His infinite mercy guides us towards eventual fulfilment.

Let our wills be united, our resolves strengthened, our aspirations purified and our character made unblemished with supreme love for the Divine and let Mother decide the rest. Jay Ma ! Jay Ramakrishna !

We humbly request devotees and friends and all that care for the teeming millions that suffer to make a contribution towards the Cause which has been the focus of this open letter and about which web-links are being provided below for your detailed perusal and knowledge.
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

P.S. : Please carefully go through the website of Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India whose web-links have been provided above before making your generous contribution towards the Hospital Cause.

N.B. : Make your remittance directly to the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India and to no other individual or collective body by any means.

Thanking you and praying for your peace, prosperity and happiness,
Yours in the Lord,
Sugata Bose.

FRIEND 18 : REFERENCE --- RAMAKRISHNA ... HOPE OF HUMANITY

Dear friend,

My intention was to convey that Sri Ramakrishna was, in the view of no less a personality than Swami Vivekananda, the greatest Avatar in human history. This has unfortunately the side connotation as you perhaps felt that Vivekananda was hereby being graded as being no less a personality than Ramakrishna which however is an oblique understanding of the phrase in the present context and by no means the perfect understanding of the reference. It is a usage which I think is slightly double-edged if one wishes to see it at a slant but for all purposes it ought to seem to the reader universally as carrying the meaning intended that the estimate about Ramakrishna was being made by no less a personality than Vivekananda, the comparison of the Swami being made thereby to the Swami himself and not to his Divine Master. Sorry for your confusion in apprehension of the text but such is the beauty of the English language that leaves nuances to shed a variant light and cover up intentions conscious or unconscious. Thank you dear friend for taking your valuable time off to read my insignificant post about the most significant personality of the Age and for pointing out your disapproval of the said phrase which has greatly endeared you to me as it betokens your sincere love for the divine duo Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, the dual symphony of the single Self.

FRIEND 17

Supremely self-effacing comment my friend and abounding in the beauty of genuine humility which is the hallmark of true devotion. Your observation has touched my heart for I also adore these two luminous personages ( Buddha and Vivekananda ) for the magnitude of their heart and the depth of their feeling for humanity although they dwelt in a transcendental realm far removed from our mundane world of desires and necessities. Keep up your comments thus, my friend, and help embellish these feeble posts of mine that they become reader-worthy through your perceptive observations. My good wishes and heart-felt pulsations of love on this auspicious day of our National Independence when I feel especially a fraternal bond with all my countrymen.

FRIEND 16

The last line, my friend, does not in any way imply that Sri Ramakrishna is the final Avatar in the unfolding time we call history but is as the Supreme Being mankind's final refuge. You are mistaken about the import of the statement and have taken a tangential literal meaning of it which is quite not in keeping with the form and spirit of the last sentence. However, all these comments that friends like you make keep my posts vibrant and kindle interest in the general reader inducing them to make a study of the same. Thank you once more good friend and a very happy Independence Day to you and yours.

THE BUDDHA REVISITED

The vastness of his heart remains unmatched to this day. He never breathed for himself but lived every pulse of his life for the good of the many. His unblemished character, supreme sanity, rational approach to life's problems and his spiritual solutions thereof set him apart from not only the sages of the day but has carved for him a singular place in human history.

The democratiser of India's spiritual traditions, the Buddha threw open the doors of spiritual knowledge to the masses and thus ushered in a golden age in India's spiritual history before the ravages of time took their toll on his movement and cast it outside of the borders of India. But it continued to flourish throughout Asia and parts of Europe as wave after wave of his missionaries fertilised the soil of distant lands with the seeds of his Maitri (friendship) and Karuna (mercy) and thus advanced the spiritual civilisation of the world.

In India the Buddha was raised to the rank of the Avatar even as his religion was banished from the land of its birth for its denunciation of the inviolability of the Vedas and the horrendous sensual degeneracy that had set in the latter stages of the movement. Buddhism's principle features were absorbed into Hinduism as the newly emerged Vaishnavism, the Buddhist pilgrimages were converted into mighty centres of Vaishnav culture and many of the Buddhist places of worship became temples of Vishnu. Thus, Buddhism was assimilated into the Mother-faith of the Sanatana Dharma in typical Hindu style and Buddhism, as such, eliminated from India and the Indian psyche till only a handful of Buddhists survived in India to tell the tale of their grand conquest (Dharmavijaya) when the followers of the Buddha had converted two-thirds of India to their Master's faith.

Time now it is for a reconciliation of these two grand world religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, both of whom have sprung from the same source, the spiritual genius of the sages of India, so that the world may see a resurgence of spirituality and may be saved from self-annihilation in this perilous age when man seems to have thrown caution to the winds in his pursuit of material attainments with brutal competition between nations drawing the world, already stock-piled with nuclear armament, to the brink of a cataclysmic war. The Buddha's heart and the Hindu sage's spiritual intellect combined can be the formulation for the perfect future religion and that is what is being brewed up in the distillery of the Ancient Mother --- the renaissance of the Sanatan Dharma.

Buddhang sharanang gachhaami!
Om Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!

RAMAKRISHNA .... HOPE OF HUMANITY

The Avatar of the Age, the greatest in history in the view of no less a personality than Vivekananda, Ramakrishna's advent has ushered in the Satya Yuga (Age of Truth and Enlightenment) on earth. Such incessant ecstasy, immersion in samadhi (spiritual trance) and spiritual outpourings thereof is unique in the annals of history. The summation of the spiritual experience of the sages of the past, Ramakrishna remains the proof of the existence of God in this age of scientific scepticism and the hope of the survival of the human species in this dangerous nuclear age when man has armed himself against brother man in a suicidal bid for political domination. The Paramahamsa, peerless in his spiritual attainments, is mankind's final refuge, its last repose, its ultimate resting place.

RAMAKRISHNA ... THE SILENT REVOLUTIONARY 1

Ramakrishna came for the masses. Thus was he born in a poor man's family. Like the illiterate masses, he chose to remain almost illiterate and spoke in the language of the people which all could understand.

To break down the barriers of the divisive caste-system that plagued society, the boy Gadadhar took his first alms after the sacred thread ceremony from a low-caste woman, his mother's mid-wife, Dhani Kamarini despite severe remonstrances from his orthodox Brahman family. In later life, during his days of spiritual austerity, Ramakrishna cleaned up the toilet of the sweeper Rasik with his long matted hair to sweep aside any vestige of caste-notion he may have had. A Brahman cleaning the toilet of an untouchable with his own hair!

Women suffered a sub-status with respect to men throughout the world in those days, especially in socially underdeveloped countries like India. They had been reduced to procreative machines with their youth wasted solely in child-bearing and child-rearing and all their creative faculties stifled or stilled. Ramakrishna sought out a unique way in redressing this situation. He took up a woman Guru, the erudite Bhairavi Brahmani who was the embodiment of the four Vedas, he stayed in the temple garden complex of Dakshineshwar which was owned by a rich landlady of Kolkata, Rani Rashmoni by name, and he stayed on there for 29 years to worship the Mother Goddess Kali. Finally, on the Phalaharini Kali Puja day of 1872, Ramakrishna set the seal on his worship of divinity in the human feminine form when he worshipped his own wife Saradamani as the Divine Mother.

When in later life Ramakrishna pronounced that a devotee had no caste and went about practising his theory in the heart of caste-ridden Kolkata by urging his devotees and disciples to arrange for festivals centring him where all were welcome to sit together and have prasad (sanctified food), he created a silent social revolution. Owing to these liberal spiritual gatherings, gradually the hold of casteism relaxed in Kolkata, the heart of British India.

Ramakrishna freely mixed with members of all religious denominations and exchanged spiritual ideas with them thereby enriching his social culture and expanding his spiritual dimensions as also revivifying these schools of spiritual thinking that were stagnating. The most revolutionary step of Ramakrishna's life was however when he, for days, practised Islam and Christianity by turns and gained illumination along these paths thus pronouncing the famous dictum : As many faiths, so many paths.

What more shall I say but to conclude that never has the world seen such a spiritual phenomenon as Ramakrishna who in catholicity of spirit, sweetness of nature, depth of feeling and sublimity of consciousness scaled spiritual peaks far higher than humankind has ever had access to and worked up a silent revolution in human thinking whose fruition we shall see in the millenium that is unfolding before us.

Jai Ramakrishna!

RAJA MAHARAJ

Prince among the Apostles of Ramakrishna, cowherd-boy of the Krishna Leela in Vrindavan, Ramakrishna's spiritual son, Raja Maharaj (Swami Brahmananda) reigned over the Ramakrishna Order as its first President like a veritable monarch from 1897-1922. Childlike in his simplicity (he used to play with children wearing masks), supremely exalted in his spirituality (he used to say that between him and the Absolute there was but a very fine glassy layer which he could, if he wished, smash through any moment and merge in the Absolute but Ramakrishna was preventing him from doing so), Maharaj was a powerhouse of spirituality quite akin to his spiritual father. He radiated spirituality like a tangible force, could illumine aspirants with a touch or a wish and sat godlike in the precincts of the Belur Math awakening the spiritual consciousness of man. Many a devotee mistook him to be Ramakrishna from behind and the fortunate one even envisioned Ramakrishna in him, such was his spiritual altitude and identification with the Master.

LATU MAHARAJ 1

The unlettered Apostle of the Master, Latu Maharaj (Swami Adbhutananda), who could take recourse to no Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature or any scripture for that matter to gain enlightenment but went straight to the heart of the spiritual universe through sheer devotion to the Master. So amazing was he as a spiritual phenomenon that Swamiji named him Adbhutananda or 'the wondrous one in the bliss of the Divine'.

THE RAMAKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA WAY 2

Life is precious and must be preserved. We set so much value to things material but discount the value of human life all around other than our close ones. This is gross materialism and is a highly myopic view of life. Resources available on Earth are not meant for hoarding or for individual pleasure-seeking but are there for the upkeep of all. If human greed could be supplanted by human love then humanity would know that there is enough on this planet for everyone's need as Gandhiji was used to saying but not enough for everyone's greed. And so, humanity suffers as billions live below the poverty line and are denied basic human living conditions while a handful enjoy the fruit of their labour to lead lives of ease and luxury, oblivious of their duties to their hapless brethren. This is a most regrettable situation and deserves the greatest censure for human irresponsibility of this magnitude is unpardonable. All our vaunted civilization is no good when we can scarce manage the Earth's resources well enough to be able to bring about the greatest good to the greatest many. What if the wheel were to turn around and plunge us, the privileged ones, into dire straits of misery and squalor, poverty and neglect ? Would we then not feel the pain, the pangs, the suffering of it all ? But why wait, brother, till Nature hits back at us ? Is it not our bounden duty, our holiest cause, our fraternal love's imperative to cater to the well-being of our brethren ? Must they be allowed before our very eyes to go to physical and psychological ruin as they fail to avail of resources available to the socially empowered ? How can we see with our very eyes our fellow humans go blind ? How do we spend millions for the higher education of our children in the West while we are so niggardly in spending anything worth the while for the education of their less fortunate sisters and brothers ? Where are we headed this way after all, to the Promised Golden Age of Truth and Light ( the Satya Yuga ) or are we going down the Niagara Falls into the yawning chasm of a watery death where the torrent will nullify the inequities of life and render the sameness of death to all ? The elite and the aristocracy, the privileged and the prosperous, the establishment and the order resist change for the present state of things facilitates their exploitative mode of living. But the poor and the powerless want change and change they will bring about in their lives when they realize that they have the power to do so. Marxism aims to achieve this end by pointing to the people the value and the power of Labour and depends on the integrating act of the Leader and the Party, and, the Idea that like a physical force is to grip the masses for bringing about this revolutionary change. Vedanta aspires for the same end in a more humane and enduring way but less cataclysmic, more evolutionary than revolutionary but no less effective. India from time immemorial has chosen this divine way of social adjustment and not the bloody path of social revolution although our Mahabharat bears testimony to the great civil war ( the Kurukshetra War ) India was subjected to at the end of the Dwapar Yuga when a new Age of peace and enlightenment could be ushered by the Avatar of the Age, Sri Krishna, only through a bloodbath that wiped off the valorous of the land enmasse. Evolution is ever revolutionary although its workings are slow, subtle and often imperceptive. Revolution, on the other hand, is the rough tool of mass evolution where, classically, widespread destruction takes place sweeping away the existing order of things in a fell swoop of revolutionary violence, discriminate and indiscriminate, shuddering at nothing, stopping nor for widow's tears nor orphan's cry, just coursing through like a river in spate deluging banks with the blood of the ages that have been spilled from the bodies of these the veritable slaves of the exploitative masters of the millenia gone by. It is the Tandava ( Dance Destructive ) of Nataraja ( Shiva, the King of  Cosmic Dance ). Evolution and revolution are then the dual phase of a single drift of terrestrial life towards the Divine through what pain, oh, through what pain !

Such then is the predicament facing us. Shall we allow things to further degenerate into inevitable chaos whence a return to order and peace will not be possible for when the masses rise their combined might not even gods can combat or shall we accept responsibility for the present state of decadence, the feudal-capital exploitation of the masses, and immerse ourselves zealously into this stupendous task of setting the world to order and a higher balance of forces where all may live lives of dignity with their basic human needs taken care of and opportunities afforded to explore the horizons of life and beyond ? This latter option is for us to adopt, O devotees of the one and only GOD that is alive, MAN, and this is the RAMAKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA WAY.

A GALAXY OF STARS IN THE FIRMAMENT OF RAMAKRISHNA, BRAHMAJNANIS GALORE, THE CHOICE AND MASTER SPIRITS OF THE AGE

Yatiswarananda, disciple of Swami Brahmananda, who carried the message of the Master across the seas to depression-torn Europe in the 1930s and thereafter to the United States in the wake of the Second World War.

Vireswarananda, disciple of Holy Mother, who had ' seen ' Swamiji in 1896 at Madras in infancy in his father's arms but could not quite recall. He joked about it saying that although he had not seen Swamiji but surely Swamiji must have seen him.

Sharvananda, disciple of Swami Brahmananda, was a towering figure, erudite and articulate, about whom Swamiji had said, " If I only had a dozen dedicated souls like you, I could turn this world upside down many times over." He later quit the Vice-Presidency of the Ramakrishna Order and in 1948 started his own Ashrama for the education and empowerment of women.

Shankarananda, the lion-hearted Amulya, disciple of Swami Brahmananda, who had during his Presidency founded the Sri Sarada Math, was another effulgent being of the Order. He was such a radiant personality that in his advanced years as President of the Order his visage resembled that of a god.

Swami Brahmananda, spiritual son of Sri Ramakrishna, first President of the the Ramakrishna Order, a veritable god-like figure striding like a colossus the precincts of the Belur Math, showering grace on future Brahmajnanis.

THE WORLD FIRST, MYSELF LAST

If you wish to follow Vivekananda, then throw overboard into the sea your puny ego as he has exhorted you to do and cling fast to the principle : THE WORLD FIRST, MYSELF LAST.

All our actions are dictated by this tyrant ego which makes us selfish in our motivations and endeavours and, so, causes enormous difficulties in our path towards godhead. Promising us the trifling pleasures of life, it robs us of the infinite bliss of the Self. The result is that human society is fractured along lines of self-interest which impairs effective social functioning, causing misery to millions.

Our forefathers when they had drawn up collections of individuals into the aggregate they called Samaj (a variant of 'society') had done so with the purpose of mutual help and conjoined action for self-preservation, collective good and the spiritual evolution of humanity as the fundamental drift of whatever emanated from it and had, thus, based the social structure on the firm foundation of the realisations of the Rishis (seers of transcendental truth). Social ethics derived from spiritual truths as envisioned by the Rishis and was geared towards raising the consciousness of man to behold the Divine within. But time eventually took its toll and the simple division of society into the four varnas (qualified strata): brahman (the philosopher-scholar and priestly class), kshatriya (the warrior class), vaishya (the merchant class) and shudra (the labourer class) with the accompanying four ashramas : brahmacharya (the period of studentship), garhasthya (the period of marital household life), vanaprastha (the period of retirement in the forest for austerity and scriptural study) and sannyasa (the period of complete renunciation of all worldliness) which had so effectively helped in the smooth functioning of society, now began to erode and complex social divisions with their concomitant evils of divisiveness and antagonistic group interests became the order of the day.

Spiritual revolutions in the form of the advent of the Avatar and his Apostles have rectified the imbalance of the Age from time to time but have never quite been able to uproot the selfishness en masse in the heart of man for it is contrary to the divine scheme of things terrestrial where all opposites make the composite whole.

Thus has society grown in size and complexity with growing selfishness in the heart of man, as in an expanding society by the reverse mode of individualism, mortal man has cocooned himself in his microcosm and so marooned himself in his isle of 'I'. Turning his back on society's basic needs of protection of the defenceless and the underprivileged, its basic purpose of the safekeeping of its citizens, he has turned himself into an acquisitive machine with his greed feeding on the hapless millions whose ruddy drops spilled in the effort to fill up the coffers of their millionaire master have left them drained of the very vitality we call life and reduced them to beasts of burden.

Time it is to effect a change and set society right the world over, restoring dignity to the masses who have 'lost their individuality', to quote Vivekananda, and to create a condition for the decent survival of the teeming millions by providing them food, shelter, clothing, education and health-care that they may also seek the joys of life before comprehending the futility of it all and immersing in the bliss of the effulgent Self. Let all survive, let all share in the resources of Mother Earth for are not all equal children of the Mother? Did she once make distinction between prince and pauper, the pundit and the pariah, between the enlightened and the fallen one in her brief sojourn on Earth? Then who are we to create divisions, who are we to hoard the wealth of the world that is the common property of all? We have no right to deprive Mother's children of basic human necessities which by our acquisitive tendencies we invariably are doing. We have scant respect for brother man if we let them suffer the way we never could. Redress we must this violent apathy towards the sufferance of the masses, else there will be a more violent revolution to redress things.

Ramakrishna was born poor and so was Sarada Devi. Vivekananda sank into poverty after his father's death. After the passing away of Ramakrishna, his monastic disciples endured inhuman poverty at Baranagar Math. The legacy continues at the different branch centres of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission where acute shortage of funds holds up the expansion projects and impedes the growth of the Mission. As the flourishing of the Mission's work is intimately connected with the welfare of the country and the world at large, its obstruction owing to financial stringency is detrimental to the nation's well-being and the spiritual health of the world. As such it is a moral binding on all devotees of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission to see to it that the welfare projects of the Mission take off well and are completed in quick time for rapid growth of the Mission. Else, how will the world be saved from its present state of spiritual degradation and how will the India of Vivekananda's dream emerge in the full glow of material adequacy and spiritual plenitude?

Poverty is a sin, nay, it is the breeding ground of sin. Poverty cripples an individual by denying him basic human necessities for decent survival. Likewise, a charitable organisation that is catering to the needs of the poor is also held back if its funds keep drying up due to insufficient governmental and public support. The work is huge, the task mammoth, it is a project colossal, that of transformation of the whole of human society from its present operational mode of ultra-materialism to the more refined mode of quasi-spiritualism.

The stock-pile of nuclear weaponry, global terrorism, international territorial disputes, religious bigotry, ideological intolerance, widespread illiteracy, poverty, misery, squalor, the rudderless motion of the youth towards desperate ends, and an endangered environment have brought the world to the brink of destruction where immediacy of effective action is an imperative. Two World Wars it seems have not taught man lesson sufficient to avert a third. Man continues to wield unbridled power indiscriminately over fellow man oblivious of karmic consequence. This supposed omnipotence of man has cost him dear in the past and is doing so now. Yet, he does not wake up from his slumber. Will it be the final sleep then? Will all perish in mutual slaughter as en masse Nature takes to redressing the imbalance by reducing life on Earth to nought or will God manifest Himself again to establish Dharma (righteousness) here on Earth?

It is a shame, an utter shame, a total travesty of devotion or human care if we allow things to further precipitate for the abyss of oblivion will then be our precipitous end. Whither divinity, whither tall talk, whither devotion, O devotee? Upon your shoulders lies the burden of the whole universe, so said Vivekananda. Must you fail him in ushering in the Golden Age of Light and Truth? Surely not.

Have faith, my friend, in your blessed future and do not fear. Nothing will go amiss if you transform your feeling for your hapless brethren everywhere by contributing to their material welfare. Your charity of the day will secure your morrow with peace, prosperity and godliness but the spirit must be right, not of condescension in giving but of worshipful service to your Ishta (the Chosen Ideal). I rest my hopes on you and await for the blissful morrow when the poor, the miserable, the blind, the sick, the suffering and the destitute will smile to behold life at hand in the first radiance of the rising sun.

FOR YOU MY BRETHREN 1 :

Live this life for others and hold yourself last. This is the gist of ethics and morality, religion and philosophy. Love all, serve all, chant OM.

Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India needs 44 lakh rupees ( INR ) for purchase of MOBILE MEDICAL VAN urgently. Please help. 
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

PREMA BHAKTI, MADHUR BHAVA ... IN RESPONSE TO A COMMENT BY A FRIEND

My friend, Swami Vivekananda had not discouraged ordinary people from practising Prema Bhakti (intense spiritual love of God) in the Dasya Bhava (the mood of the devoted servant towards his Master), the Sakhya Bhava (the mood of the devoted friend towards his Master who also is his friend), the Vatsalya Bhava (the mood of the mother towards her child) or the Shanta Bhava (the mood of the devoted wife towards her husband whom she considers as her Lord and Master) . He had instead cautioned them against attempting Prema Bhakti in the Madhur Bhava (the sweetened mood of the lover for her beloved) which in his view was safe for practice only by advanced spiritual practitioners who had successfully tided over the carnal instinct. At any rate Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda had both advocated Prema Bhakti as the final fruition of Bhakti necessary for God-realisation along the dualistic path of devotion. Only, like every other spiritual discipline, Madhur Bhava also had its pitfalls and prerequisites to be observed for its proper practice to lead to spiritual fulfilment. Prema Bhakti is the imperative in the path of devotion but may be approached in several well-defined moods as mentioned above : Shanta, Dasya, Sakhya, Vatsalya and Madhur Bhavas.

The practice of Madhur Bhava indiscriminately by various decadent sects in Bengal had drawn the severest displeasure of Swamiji even during his Dakshineshwar days at the feet of his divine Master Sri Ramakrishna. One day the young Narendranath raved against it for three hours at a stretch to the amusement of Sri Ramakrishna who kept on mutely listening to his protege's deliberations. When the young eagle had finally perched after its prolonged flight, the mother gently said : " Well, well, you know there is a door for the scavenger at the rear of every house and you may get into the house by the front door or the rear as you please. But you all should avail of the main entrance and not go by the dirty rear one but why should you object if anyone prefers to enter the house from behind ? After all, even in these sects that practice devotion the other way there have been aspirants who have attained to illumination. Let them do what they will but you go along the royal path." At this the disciple was silenced for the while but not quite satisfied for in later years as the world-famous Swami Vivekananda he thundered in his Calcutta address ' The Vedanta in all its Phases ' in 1897 : " Give up this filthy Vamachara that is killing your country...These Vamachara sects are honeycombing our society in Bengal..." Swamiji introduced the pristine philosophy of the Vedas in Bengal, in India and elsewhere whereby men would grow in the robust spirituality that derives its basis in the Atman ( the Self ) and not in any weakening paralysing debauchery masquerading as spiritual love. This was Swamiji's stance so far as the practice of Prema Bhakti was concerned following the Madhur Bhava, never altogether against it but forever cautioning, nay, dissuading the ordinary aspirant from attempting to scale such sublime heights of spirituality without adequate prerequisites of spiritual purity based on perfected continence, prior realisation of  the Divine following some other spiritual mood and having the expert guidance of a realised soul in the said Madhur Bhava. Swamiji held Madhur Bhava to be the quintessence of divine love, the sublimest expression of the human heart, now rendered divine by the sheer force of love, for the Divine Beloved and the acme of spirituality. He himself was often flooded by it when he would call upon austere Jnana to chain himself to his mortal coil whereby he could fulfil the mission of his divine Guru. The peerless Paramahamsa smiled on as indulgently as ever as his beloved Naren controlled his spiritual emotions for orchestrating his Master's divine mission on Earth. And was not Swamiji's love for Thakur Prema Bhakti ? But he ever harboured the Sakhya Bhava towards his beloved Master. And there, my friend, lies the answer, the key to practice of devotion in this Age. When love matures into its fullest bloom it is ever sweetened in the syrup of the Master's love be He approached in any mood to begin with. It is Prema Bhakti, Madhur Bhava at the divine end.

Om Madhu! Om Madhu! Om Madhu!  

WHO CARES FOR THE MISSION SHARES FOR THE MISSION 1

There is an absolute dearth of good medical facility in many parts of India and even where medical facility is tolerably good, the level of efficiency is far from the highest. In a country which prides itself in its spiritual heritage and antiquity of civilization this is a regrettable state of things, especially, when there is no dearth of spiritual inspiration in the country. In fact, there has been since Vedic times a surfeit of spiritual inspiration from sages and saints who have trodden the Punyabhumi ( Holy Land ) of India. Even in recent times Ramakrishna-Vivekananda have deluged the land with spiritual vibrations and the Ramakrishna Order is doing yoeman's service to the Cause of rebuilding the nation along the lines laid down by the Rishis of yore as envisaged and formulated by Swami Vivekananda in this Age. But a nation that had been enslaved for over seven centuries by foreign occupation from 1192 ( The Second  Battle of Tarain ) to 1947 ( Freedom of India from British imperialism ) does not awake quite so easily from its age-old slumber even it be suffering the pangs of material misery. Consequently, the social commitment of the people in general towards philanthropic causes is poor. The result is that everybody expects the government alone to deliver the goods on the simple premise that, after all, they pay their taxes. But this is a shallow self-defeating argument that negates the possibilities of quick progress of the nation. The government is composed of citizens of the land and, if the common man is negligent about his commitment to the nation, then it stands to reason to say that such a nation can hardly give itself a good government. Society in India has to be thus remodelled along lines of equitable resource distribution which is as much the job of the Government to dispose as of the citizens of the country to bring about by participation in social causes, especially, developmental projects that are beneficial to the poor and underprivileged of the land. It is here that the question of helping the Ramakrishna Mission comes as it is the premier organization of the nation that has been shouldering the task of nation-building for over a century through its multifarious philanthropic activity. But the social projects undertaken by the Ramakrishna Mission invariably are unduly delayed in their completion owing to perennial shortage of funds despite the fact that the Mission enjoys a singularly high goodwill. This, therefore, boils down to the simple fact that people are largely unconscious of national needs and that the spirit of philanthropy for which India has been famous in the world through history has now considerably diminished. Consequently, the poor of India, despoiled of home and hearth, live miserable lives shorn of basic human necessities. They suffer and they endlessly suffer. But who cares for them ? So long as one is satisfied with narrow self-interest one is not perturbed by social and economic degradation all around. But Ramakrishna's children who have renounced home and hearth cannot idly watch the plight of the people. They have pledged to their leader Vivekananda that they will work night and day to ameliorate the lot of the poor and, should they fail to do so, to share their suffering with a smile ahead and a blessing behind.

Awake devotees, awake ! Now no hour of sleep. It is time to assume your allotted responsibility in this Mission which Vivekananda had started with great hopes pinned on the laity that they would plunge themselves into the task of building this wonderful nation whose condensed form he had felt he was. Shall you fail the Swami ? Ah, that will be ' the unkindest cut of all ' ! Arise my friends and dedicate your lives wherever you may be to fulfil the Mission of Ramakrishna who even today watches you through the frequent flips of his eye-lids in indulgent affection and ' patient expectation ' that his Mission on Earth stands fulfilled. Must you fail ? Arise and help the Ramakrishna Mission build its schools and its hospitals, its institutes and its universities. Give your all to completion of the projects as quick as it can be for the nation bleeds and cannot afford to do so. The Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission are the life-lines of the nation, nay, the whole world and it is your holy duty, oh my countrymen, to provide all sorts of assistance and service to them that they may usher in a golden age of truth and light not only in India but across the wide world. May Sri Ramakrishna bless you all in this noblest of endeavour !

APPEAL 4 : EYE HOSPITAL, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA ( A BRANCH CENTRE OF BELUR MATH ) http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/ http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

The people of North Bihar are extremely poor and the literacy level and medical awareness here is abysmally low. Consequently, the incidence of blindness here is very high. The illiterate masses here are easily duped by unscrupulous persons who swindle them under the pretext of offering good medical treatment. Moreover, the awareness level being low, the masses are lax about availing of necessary eye-care and their negligence and laxity cost them dear so often impairing their vision permanently. The extreme poverty of the region also makes it difficult for people here to access good medical treatment on account of ignorance and lack of material means. The Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama Eye Hospital, Muzaffarpur thus caters to these poor patients by conduction continuous eye camps at these remote places of North Bihar free of cost as service to Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi whose human incarnations these hapless people are. The remaining patients are charged a nominal amount ranging between INR 500 and INR 1500 per eye operation. Thus, not much revenue is generated this way and the Eye Hospital has to heavily depend on the philanthropy of people and institutions / organizations. For the hospital to run smoothly whereby it can truly serve the poor who are the living embodiments of God, it has to have a steady flow of Government and institutional grants as also public donations. Unfortunately, donations are scarce which makes the maintenance of the hospital and its expansion difficult.

MOBILE MEDICAL VAN :

To access the poor patients and bring adequate medical relief to them a Mobile Medical Van is urgently required within the month of September which will cost an approximate 44 lakh INR ( 44,00,000 INR ) / 4.4 million INR ( 4,400,000 INR ) / 704,000 US dollars. This Medical Van will travel to the remote regions of North Bihar offering much-needed treatment to the poor people and will be used to bring over difficult operational cases to the hospital at Muzaffarpur. The project is being undertaken entirely with the objective of bringing relief to the poor free of cost in the spirit of the Ramakrishna Order of ' Service to humanity beholding it as the visible manifestation of godhead '. The urgency of purchase of the Medical Van is great considering the plight of the people here in North Bihar.

APPEAL :

Understanding this to be the situation we fervently urge devotees, friends and large-hearted individuals and institutions / organizations to come forward and make a contribution to the hospital's PURCHASE OF MOBILE MEDICAL VAN PROJECT and bring to fruition our objective of eradicating blindness from North Bihar which is so prevalent now.

With namaskar and prayers to Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda for your well-being,

Yours faithfully,

Sugata Bose.

AN APPEAL : REF. EYE HOSPITAL, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA

One of the primary objectives of this group CONTEMPLATIVE ORDER OF THE MISSION is the fulfilment of the various welfare projects of the Ramakrishna Mission and the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission. Members are exhorted to pray and chant to Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda that they may bless these projects and bring them to fruition. The project right now under contemplation is the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur Eye Infirmary, Bihar, India. We require all sorts of help, monetary, equipment, medical van and your earnest prayers. Let us all join hands with the Mission and help build this eye hospital for the under-privileged and the poor of North Bihar, India.

My dear friends,

Read carefully the content of this websitehttp://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html and then devote yourself heart and soul towards the fulfilment of this Hospital Project. Your participation in this project and contribution towards its fulfilment is absolutely necessary. Swami Vivekananda's dream of rebuilding India depends on you my friends. The Swami looks on at us from his ethereal abode expectantly. Must we fail him ? Surely not. Come, let us manfully struggle for the Cause and bring it to fruition. Contribute liberally towards the Cause. Spread the message.

P.S. : RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA is a branch centre of RAMAKRISHNA MATH AND RAMAKRISHNA MISSION, BELUR MATH.

Ever yours in Thakur-Ma-Swamiji,
Sugata Bose

http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html
MOBILE MEDICAL VAN PROJECT :

Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, INDIA caters to eye-care in 6 Districts of North Bihar where the people are extremely poor and lacking in medical facilities. The Mission needs a well-equipped mobile medical van whereby it can send medical teams to these impoverished areas and conduct medical services, especially eye-care. Devotees and sympathizers are being urged to contribute towards the purchase of this van which should cost approximately 18 lac rupees or 1.8 million rupees ( Indian currency ). The need for this medical van is most urgent as in its absence the rural eye-care programme is being impeded. Therefore, do contribute what you can for the Cause knowing the poor recipients of your service to be Sri Ramakrishna and Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi incarnate. May you be imbued with the spirit that animated Swamiji and bring to fruition this MOBILE MEDICAL VAN PROJECT.

Donations may be sent after perusing through this website link.
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

P.S. : It was Sri Ramakrishna himself who had started the welfare activity of the Mission when he made Mathur Babu do philanthropy to the poor of Bengal near Bardhaman enroute to pilgrimage in North India. It was Thakur who enjoined Swamiji to serve man as God in his epoch-making world mission. Swami Akhandanandaji translated Swamiji's ideal of worshipful service when he began the Mission's first relief activity at Mohula, Murshidabad, Bengal, India. We, the devotees of Sri Ramakrishna, take inspiration from Akhandanandaji as we launch ourselves heart and soul in this programme for the living gods and goddesses of North Bihar. We will surely be able to raise the required 18 lakh rupees for the Medical Van quite soon. Therefore, come forward and help us achieve this primary dream.

FRIEND 15

Oh, no, no, no, my dear noble friend, how can that ever be ? I am as ever enthralled by the music of your words that I do take a little time to respond to the dainty flow of your brook-like lyricism, the rapid descent of your mountainous musings, the sheer sublimity of your ethereal utterances. You are a joy, my friend, and a wonder nonpareil.

HAIL CHICAGO!

Ramakrishna came for the spiritual rejuvenation of the whole world. Without material well-being to begin with, spiritual well-being remains a distant dream. Thus, the children of Ramakrishna, the succession of his disciples, hold it as a trust the service of the poor and the needy in their hour of trial and tribulation through relief activity and in general times through heath-care and academic programmes. It was Vivekananda's dream to raise fallen India from the dust of degradation consequent upon centuries of foreign subjugation to the pristine heights of the ancient Indian civilisation and far higher where she would emerge as in days of yore the spiritual Guru (preceptor) of the world. But all these would be possible only if India could be made to stand on her own feet once again. When other Indian reformers were blinded by Occidental culture and Christian influences and had a rather negative idea about Hinduism which they blamed for all the prevailing ills in India, Vivekananda stood tall to point out the strong points in Indian culture, especially the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism), before the wide world and averred that the religion of the Vedas was not at fault but its faulty application in national life or, at times, its non-application whatsoever that had set in the decay in the fabric of the nation. Thus, he set about to translating ancient Indian wisdom into modern terms accessible to the rational scientific mind. In short, Vivekananda recreated Hinduism.

When at the Chicago Parliament of Religions Vivekananda in his mellifluous voice enthralled the 7000 strong audience with the music of the flowing Ganga down the breast of the Himalayas, Hinduism was being reborn. The sages of the Vedas gave utterance to their realisations through this modern Rishi, his Master Ramakrishna who animated his being sang the hymns of the Sama Veda through the heart and mind and soul and voice of the hero who in a moment of ethereal inspiration in the vesper hour of 11 September, 1893, crystallised it for good as the meeting point of the past and the future, the West and the East, science and religion, and all diverse currents of work and worship, sacred or secular. The western world had never seen such a hero as it fell into the mood of spontaneous adoration of the Prophet of the hour, so becoming a personality, yet so lofty a soul that seemed to be fathomless on all sides. Chicago stood breathless in its moment of glory, the world stood enraptured to listen to the music that was Vivekananda.

APPEAL 3 : EYE HOSPITAL, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA (A BRANCH CENTRE OF THE BELUR MATH)

A bigger medical van is being commissioned for the Eye Hospital than had been earlier decided upon. Consequently, the cost of the MEDICAL VAN has risen to around 24 lakh rupees ( INR ) / Rs 24,00,000. Besides this, the MEDICAL VAN has to be fully equipped. The equipment cost will come to around 20 lakh rupees ( INR ) / Rs 20,00,000. Thus, the total cost of the fully equipped MOBILE MEDICAL VAN is being estimated at 44 lakh rupees ( INR ) / Rs 44,00,000 / 4.4 million INR / 4,400,000 ( INR ) / 704,000 US Dollar.

As the time period within which we have to arrange for the said fund is about 2 months, we urge all devotees, friends and large-hearted individuals to come forward and save the stalemate situation at the hospital where eye operations have more or less come to a standstill. The MEDICAL VAN is the missing link which, if filled, will restore the hospital to proper functional capacity, else, heavy financial losses on a monthly basis will further complicate the situation and endanger the very fabric of the hospital.

A charitable hospital that caters to the well-being of the poorest of the poor of the country enjoins upon its citizens to look to its well-being. Constant donations are the lifeline of such a hospital. We thus appeal to the generous public and institutions / organizations to come forward and help us tide over the present crisis.

N.B. : Corporate houses are being requested to consider making the EYE HOSPITAL, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA their donation project under the CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY.

Little drops of water make an ocean. All are thus being urged to making a small contribution towards this hospital project which is your own hospital for all of you are the children of the One Merciful Lord, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Dev.

Carefully peruse through the content of the website whose link is being given below before sending your donation. PLEASE ATTACH A COVERING LETTER along with your cheque / check / demand draft, mentioning the following :

NAME OF DONOR :

ADDRESS OF DONOR TO WHICH MONEY RECEIPT WILL BE SENT:

MOBILE NO. OF DONOR IF POSSIBLE :

DONATION AMOUNT :

DONATION PURPOSE : PURCHASE OF MOBILE MEDICAL VAN

P.S. : Provided below is the link of the website of RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA. Here you will get all the details of the Hospital Project.
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

APPEAL 2 : EYE HOSPITAL, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA

Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India is catering to the eye treatment of thousands of marginalized people of North Bihar who are suffering the pangs of extreme poverty and its concomitant evils, the most glaring of which is an absolute lack of proper health-care facilities as befits a dignified human being. These divinities are going blind by the day as eye treatment they can neither access nor afford for the remote places they inhabit does not have much of eye-care facility. Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur has taken up the challenge to meet this malady head on and is trying to bring these children of God to its Eye Hospital at Muzaffarpur to give them the necessary eye-care. For this the Mission needs to purchase a MOBILE MEDICAL VAN with complete eye-care facility so that it is possible to access these remote zones, hold eye-camp there for spot treatment and bring back difficult cases to the hospital for operation. Due to acute shortage of funds it is beyond the capacity of the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur to purchase the MEDICAL VAN at the estimated cost of 18 lakh rupees (INR) / Rs 18,00,000. The Operation Theatre facility at the hospital is of no use if poor patients cannot be brought over from their remote villages to it. It therefore is so very urgent to purchase this MOBILE MEDICAL VAN to save the situtaion. We urge all devotees, friends and sympathetic people to come up, join hands with us and help raise the 18 lakh rupees required for the purchase of the MEDICAL VAN. It is our holy duty to do so.

Read carefully this web page before contributing. All details of how to donate and where to donate are given here :
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html

Any contribution is a godsend for us and will be thankfully acknowledged by RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA. The names of the donors will be published in the Mission's Annual Report.

We look forward to your help and trust your charitable spirit for this worthiest of causes for the poorest of the poor of India.

P.S. : Attach a letter along with your cheque / check or demand draft mentioning the following :
DONATION PURPOSE : PURCHASE OF MOBILE MEDICAL VAN

APPEAL 1 : EYE HOSPITAL, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA

RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA is running an Eye Infirmary ( Hospital ) which is in acute shortage of funds. They urgently need a MOBILE MEDICAL VAN for treatment of outpatients in the remote areas of North Bihar which is a poverty-stricken zone of the country and has a high rate of blindness. The existing medical van has a seating capacity of only 8 people and thus with 3 doctors and 5 monks or assistants does not have space enough for bringing the poor patients from their home areas to the Eye Hospital for operation or other treatment. The work of operation has been hit very badly over recent months in the absence of a bigger medical van. At the minimum it is going to cost the Mission 18 lakh rupees ( INR ) to purchase this medical van to address the present problem and restore the work of eye-operation so crucial to the poor people of the region.

Devotees, friends and sympathetic citizens are being entreated to make a contribution towards this Cause. All donations will be gratefully acknowledged and money receipt provided against the same. Donations may be sent after perusing through the website whose link is given below :
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html
Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, INDIA

Any contribution, however small made for this project, will be accepted gratefully and the name of the contributor published in the Annual Report of the Sevashrama.