Birthday of Sri Ramakrishna over, now what do we do? Why, dedicate ourselves to propagating his message and helping in the funding of his many welfare projects conducted by his Order. True it is that Swami Vivekananda had set up the Ramakrishna Math for spreading the divine message of his spiritual Master and the Ramakrishna Mission primarily for rescuing India's teeming millions from the yoke of crushing poverty inflicted on them by the alien British occupiers and the oppressive social machinery run by the upper castes in India. It was a herculean task taken up by the Swami and apparently impossible of achievement in the then socio-political environment obtaining in India but such was the Swami's personality and power, such his charisma and nobility of being that the entire nation was awakened by the clarion call he gave from Colombo to Almora on his return from the West in 1897. Vivekananda had shaken up the western world by his divine oratory and he now shook his Motherland out of her age-old slumber. Thousands of heroes gave up their lives in his name and freely bled to free India from foreign yoke. All our national leaders from Tilak to Gandhi, Nehru to Netaji and Aurobindo to Bagha Jatin were inspired by the message of manhood preached by Swamiji although some of these leaders did let him down by their subsequent cowardice and abject capitulation to the Machiavellian British that led to the devastation of the Partition of the Motherland. The influence of Swamiji, however, drove the British out of India as Gandhiji and Netaji, both supremely inspired, nay, empowered by Swamiji, evicted the occupiers from the Motherland along apparently diametrically opposite ways, that of so-called non-violence and that of so-called violence, both misnomers for they were eminently revolutionary methods and righteous enough to deserve no such limiting epithets. Swamiji's personality loomed over the freedom movement and eventually set India free.
But what sort of freedom have we achieved? Has it made all our citizens happy with the basic amenities of life available to and affordable by all? Now it is the tyranny of the free market economy and capitalistic greed that is consuming the life of millions. What would Swamiji or Thakur say to us if they were to confront us today? Would they praise us for our petty selfishness and total disregard of moral values in our national living? Would they commend us on our utter passivity in redressing the chaotic national condition? Or, would they be effusive at our pretentious piety oblivious of our greater national duties, our devotion devoid of commitment towards raising the lot of our sinking masses? I wonder.
Who was Ramakrishna and who Vivekananda? They were, they are and they will ever remain our spiritual guardians. And who was Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi? Why, we all call her Mother, do we not? And yet, how convenient of us to just forget millions of her children in utter destitution for, after all, we have to first ourselves survive well, do we not? We, Bengalis, have coined a beautiful adage, 'Chacha, aapon pran bnacha' (Uncle, save your own skin) and that is now national property, so infectious is this hollow selfishness of the modern 'free' man. Swamiji used to detest this saying and upbraided it in no uncertain terms. He thought that such sayings were symptomatic of the national disease that was eating into the vitals of our people, the total lack of a sense of charity and mutual help which is the backbone of any civilized society.
Now, Vivekananda is history for most of us, Shiva for many more but a living ideal to be emulated for only a handful. At the very outset I salute these very few people who truly represent the Swami and, as I always say, I make no distinction between the monastic and the laity here but pay my reverence to any who has given his heart to the realization of the dream that was Vivekananda, the rejuvenation of the ancient Motherland. I await the birth of the great ones Swamiji had prophesied who would raise India to the pinnacle of spiritual and cultural glory and I suffer daily the pangs of the millions who mutely suffer their lot too. Poor am I in temporal means to redress the situation and fervently appeal to all who love our beloved Motherland to come forward with the hand of help that we may conjointly do something worthwhile in addressing the poverty situation that persists which is sapping the very vitality of millions who are in the flower of their youth, nipping the lives out of millions of innocent babes and extinguishing the flickering flame of life from millions of our aged people. Tell me, brothers, with what face shall we face Swamiji if we cannot fulfil his fondest dream, that of protecting the poor of India from the ravages of social inflictions.
And yet there is a way out of this predicament and Swamiji himself has shown the way. He has left behind two golden institutions in the form of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission as trustees of the poor of India and spiritual trustees of the wide world beyond. For long the monks of the Ramakrishna Order have inspired us with life-giving messages, exemplary living and life-altering spiritual initiation selflessly out of their unbounded love for all. Time it is that we for a while reverse the roles and start inspiring the monks for a change by readily giving our all for the fruition of the many welfare projects the Order runs in its bid to reconstruct the nation. Let us freely give as we have so far freely received and let us hold such giving merely as service to Ramakrishna's Mission, as worship of his children, as fulfilment of his grand pronouncement 'Shiva jnaney jiva seva' (Service to living beings knowing them to be God-incarnate). I exhort all to join me in this massive movement where the lay devotees will sacrifice their all like brave children of Thakur-Ma and bring to fruition the grand ideal of the Ramakrishna Mission which Swamiji had established with the fond hope that the lay devotees of Ramakrishna would work in unison with the monks to bring about the golden transformation of India followed by her spiritual conquest of the world. So, sisters and brothers, let us LIVE THE LIFE.
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