Dualism at a lower level is terrible weakness. All sense of separation, disintegration of the superstructure of things, break-up of an integrated mass into miniscule units is the handiwork of primeval ignorance quite antithetical to spiritual strength which stands on the bedrock of oneness, the essential basis of existence. All ideas of fragmented individuality, partitioned personality spring from the erroneous reading of the Absolute through the prism of Maya, of the spaceless, timeless, unconditioned Brahman through the filter of space, time and causality, and render magically, as though, the transcendent Being into this panoramic phenomena. And this is the cause of all the mischief which collectively may be dubbed human weakness in this terrestrial drama of existence, this spectacle of life which is and which is not.
Egocentrism is the bane of the world and has its genesis in this fractured view of life which is the product of the misapprehension of Reality. Units of self-centred beings do not make for a totality of social coherence and hence the myriad miseries to which man finds himself heir to. No wonder Swami Vivekananda had warned his followers about this mischief-monger, the ego, and had exhorted them to make a bundle of it and throw it overboard into the sea before they set themselves to the mighty mission of nation-building. The problems of earthly living begin with the false idea of separateness from, so to say, others and will end only when this artificial distinction goes off from the mind of man. Love, service, worship, peace, all have this consciousness of oneness as their basis. Who do you love or serve when you do so to your neighbour? Why, you yourself disguised as your neighbour. And this neighbourhood runs to the ends of the earth encompassing all, excluding none. Such is the perception of oneness that is necessary for doing the work of the Lord, such all-embracing love that can overcome all opposition and by force of character establish that which is good and wholesome, beneficial and blessed, elevating and ethereal.
Character is the basis of all great work and its utter deficiency in public life today is the cause of much of the misery of the masses. And then, of course, the eye-wash of the capitalist progress model which essentially is a life-sucker of the many for the few for you do not profit exorbitantly from your own ones and did I not just say that you and your neighbour are one? Eye-brows will be raised in pockets with vested interests but is it not inhuman to prosper at the expense of others who are your very own, nay, yourselves, and so impoverish them and thwart their very aspirations for a decent human living? And to talk of charity! Raising gallons from the Ganga and spraying faint showers on the river itself by way of magnanimous charity! Whither the good sense of people, whither morality and fairness, whither values O Lord in this age of rampant corruption, in these times of shameless greed? The world will rise on the shoulders of women and men of character and never forsooth on the coffers of the corrupt. Let a handful of young women and men yet come forward and meditate on the life and aspirations of Swamiji and so build character to translate his vision into bold deeds of national achievement. Let schools, hospitals, laboratories and universities spring up in his name who bled his very soul for the redemption of the teeming millions of India and the survival of the entire human race. He is not dead, he is with us, inspiring and invigorating us and inventing real men of lightning strength out of soft unformed matter, in his words, transforming us from our 'jelly-fish existence'.
These are tall proposals and may sound fairly far-fetched, the reactions of a radical mind to the terrible inequities of the times, but friends, just look around to discover that these projects are already afoot, courtesy the RAMAKRISHNA MATH and RAMAKRISHNA MISSION, but are getting derailed or indefinitely delayed by our niggardly status vis-a-vis social charity. Our devotions are selfish in that they cater to our well-being first and then the world but the Lord cannot be fooled. He who is the wisest of souls cannot be hoodwinked by demonstrative devotions or pretentious piety. He must see total self-effacement and complete dispossession of personal property in the light that everything belongs to Him and Him alone. Then friends, why delay? Be up and doing for the multifarious welfare projects of the Ramakrishna Mission and labour out of love for the reconstruction of the Motherland along the lines laid down by the Rishis (seers of truth) of yore who had envisioned the golden future of our beloved country ages ago. Will you not set your home aright? Then why tarry? 'Arise , awake and stop not till the goal is reached.'
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