LIVE THE LIFE 16

The LIFE must be lived. That is all there is to spirituality, all else is gibberish. It is life that quickens life, life that leads to the citadels of the heavens, life that leads to immortality. There is so much noise everywhere, where is religion, the life of the Spirit? Babble and the bubble of frothy materialism, where is the man of the Spirit who can vouch that he is above the mundane considerations that afflict the soul of man? So much religion and so much politics that goes with it. Where is the one that is living the life without resorting to hanging by the sleeve of the rich and the powerful under the pretext of garnering active support for the welfare of the poor and the downtrodden? Where is the one that depends wholly on Providence and not on politicians and the prosperous for carrying on his mission of service? I hold nothing against seeking support from all quarters for the welfare of all but I do have serious reservations about those who hang out with the rich and the powerful to further their worldly interests in the name of living the spiritual life and so fooling millions who have implicit faith in them. I also do hold those monastics who give preferential treatment to the rich and the powerful culpable of the offence of deliberate practice of  social discrimination so very much opposed to their religious vocation, so very contrary to scriptural injunctions. Yet, this is the scene we all encounter in every order worth the count in varying degrees and this is also precisely the reason why religious orders gradually decay. The ideal was to renounce but whither vanished the ideal? Why is it that great prophets are so laid low by their followers in their bid to spread their message? Why is it that their very words are tampered with, their teachings altered, their message interpolated? If this is devotion, then far better to remain outside institutional barriers as individual thinkers and practising piety without intervention of superiors sullying the soul or false followers of freemen feigning to foil the follies and foibles of fettered fellow men. It is far better to think out the solutions of life independently as individuals than selling one's freedom to so-called superior men who mask themselves under the guise of the coloured robe.

It is the pursuit of every spiritual aspirant to seek truth in immanence and in transcendence. Equality in day-to-day dealings with fellow men irrespective of their social standing ought to be a spiritual person's way but, sadly, there is such blatant display of pandering to the vanities of the rich and the powerful in order to elicit their support for the social cause that it seems that these so-called messiahs of men have forgotten that by undermining the basic dignity of the poor and the average devotee through superior talk, a sneering attitude and self-justified so-to-say righteous anger, no great social good can be achieved. There has to be a fundamental shift once more to the path of the peerless Paramahamsa who had cast away coins into the river in his sincere bid to renounce all material cravings for good, who would wince in pain even at the contact of metal and who fundamentally venerated all humanity despite residing on the Himalayan heights of transcendent vision. He who had venerated his wife and earthly mother as embodiments of the Divine Mother, in whose purified vision every woman was an aspect of the Universal Mother, he who could never insult a fellow man on the basis of superior spirituality, whose very demeanour was draped in humility, every fibre of whose being resonated to the truth within and to nothing but the truth, it saddens one to contemplate that some of his followers have strayed from the path traversed by him, not in principle so much as in practice, unfortunate but inevitable though it is, for such is the way of all spiritual movements bound by organization which brings in its wake its own conjoined evils along with the immeasurable good it bestows upon the world. Time it is to take stock of the situation, else, the goodwill of the movement may be tarnished . Public perception has to be kept in mind for a movement that caters to public welfare and this in no way does compromise the high ideals of the movement. A certain laxity that may have crept into the movement must be weeded out and monastics and householders both must be fired up once more by the grand prophetic zeal of Swami Vivekananda. Truth must be unflinchingly adhered to whatever the temporal consequences may be for we are the followers of Ramakrishna who was Truth-incarnate, devotees must be given god-like respect in a like manner as they offer the monastics, equality of treatment must be meted out to all irrespective of social position, economic status or political portfolio and irrespective of the fact whether a person is a householder or a monk.

This world is the play-house of the Divine, the people inhabiting it gods and goddesses under temporary delusion and the universe the great theatre for the enactment of this drama of phenomenal existence. All this is transitory and fundamentally unreal. Yet, knowing the real nature of things, one must arrive at a comprehensive philosophy of life where man is venerated as God and devoted service to him acknowledged and acclaimed as the highest religion. This is the real worship of God that Swamiji introduced through his now famous Practical Vedanta. He had famously given utterance to his prophetic vision about the inherent divinity of man thus: "We are the worshippers of that God whom the ignorant address as man." Throughout his divine life Swamiji exemplified the truth of this statement and his brother disciple, Swami Akhandananda, made this grand principle dynamic when he single-handedly conducted relief operation in famine-stricken Mohula in Murshidabad district. This was a pioneering endeavour in the annals of the Ramakrishna Movement and the grand beginning of its century-old tradition of service to the afflicted, the distressed and the disaster-struck. Soon, Swamis Shubhananda, Achalananda, Kalyanananda,Nishchayananda and several other spirited young men set up the Varanasi Ramakrishna Mission Home of Service and the Kankhal Ramakrishna Mission Sevashsrama.Towards the end of the 19th century Sister Nivedita and Swami Sadananda did heroic service for Calcuta's plague victims risking their own lives. All these selfless acts of service were inspired by Swami Vivekananda's message of the oneness of humanity, nay, all existence, and the spiritual imperative of service to man as worship of God. The youth of the times were inflamed by his power and personality to sacrifice their all for the political, social and spiritual freedom of the Motherland. Great leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Netaji, Aurobindo Ghose, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bagha Jatin and Hem Chandra Ghosh, to quote but a few, were all inspired by Vivekananda and the combined might of these stalwarts successfully threw off the British yoke to free India. The freedom-fighters lived exemplary lives of purity, sacrifice and service to shake up the citadels of the British empire. The force of their character outdid the brutality of weapons employed by the British to suppress them and in the fullness of time successfully evicted the occupying British from the soil of the Motherland. And at the fountain-head of it all was the life and message of the warrior-monk Vivekananda whose thoughts permeated the atmosphere of the Motherland groaning under the British yoke and so raised an army of workers to shape the destiny of India.

That spirit is active even today. Vivekananda is a living force that is casting men out of clay, young, dynamic, resolute workers of the Spirit who are committed to the cause of bringing in a renaissance in human culture and saving world civilization from extinction. We have also to respond to the clarion call of the Swami that is echoing through the hills and vales of this vast country exhorting us to sacrifice our all for the salvation of the teeming millions of our brethren lying in hunger, ignorance, destitution and dire deprivation of the basic amenities of life. The future of the world is pregnant with the possibilities of a golden spiritual civilization as Vivekananda had envisaged and worked for. Come brothers, let us live golden lives to make this possibility a reality. May the world rise on the ashes of the past! May humanity strike a new path, the royal avenue of the Self (Atman)! May India be the spiritual preceptor of the world as in days of yore! May we, the foot soldiers of the Swami Vivekananda, declare war on the inequities of life, the hunger, misery, squalor and ignorance that abound in the world making it a veritable hell for those that suffer endlessly! May we through our devoted service make their lives bearable and the future of their children brighter with the light of knowledge shining on them as the grace of the heavens!

This then is the task, the gigantic work before us, the spiritual revival of the whole of humanity in the harmonic light of the Vedanta where all is concord and there is no discord. It is a stupendous task given the complexities, social, cultural, religious and political, that abound in the world today. Yet, we must follow the lead given by Vivekananda and march ahead to usher in the civilization that lies in wait in the womb of the future. So, LIVE THE LIFE.