It is indeed a sad turn of events that we, the followers of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, feel content today to serve the nation at a leisurely pace when our beloved leader Swami Vivekananda had constantly urged us to sacrifice our all for the redemption of the Motherland. And this casual attitude towards the enormity of the problems facing the nation which should drive us into feverish activity for national welfare is evident not merely among the lay devotees but among the monastics as well. A billion Ramakrishnas and Sarada Devis are daily living like brutes, yet, this does not awake us into war-time vigilance and effort to redress the situation. Scriptural quotations and philosophical justifications for inaction or feeble action do not befit the hour and tantamount to gross selfishness of those that play hand-in-hand with the powers that be for the status quo so very ruinous to the future of our nation. When a patient is undergoing a serious medical operation, it is heartlessness to delay proceedings by casualness or plain indifference to his fate under whatever pretext and thereby bring about his finality of fate in his physical death. Likewise, when our beloved Motherland is undergoing the severest trial of her developmental operation when masses of her children are daily dying like dogs under the tyranny of the age-old powers that be, caste, capitalism and corruption, it is heartbreaking to witness the apathy of us devotees and monks towards the whole national disaster in the name of Swami Vivekananda who had apparently and rightly stated that all work must proceed slowly and steadily in degrees. But did not the same Swami die so early in the conflagration of the world which he so desperately tried to douse with the water of the Vedanta? Did he also not urge his followers in every flaming letter of his to work constantly for the amelioration of the human condition in India, especially of the masses, and not to indulge in any passive religiosity whatsoever? Did he not say to his beloved brother disciple that there would be time to compliment each other after death and that it was imperative while living on Earth to keep pressing on with the work of national and world regeneration? This is called zeal which the Semitic religions so unfortunately exercise for conversion of the heathen to their fold and which in a diametrically opposite way but with the same intensity Vivekananda had exercised and exhorted his disciples and followers to do as well for the Cause of the awakening of the world and the removal of the great inequities of life in India. And this zeal is missing today among many a monk and devotee, a zeal so pronouncedly evident in that leonine follower of Swamiji, Swami Ranganathananda.
It is a sad day for the Prophet of Dakshineshwar to mutely witness this decadence when he had himself so undergone a cyclonic spiritual upheaval for 12 years for the awakening of the Brahma-kundalini of the world and his protege Swami Vivekananda had raged like a conflagration across the forest of the world, a fire which eventually consumed him in a supreme self-immolation that sanctified the world, deified it and raised it. How is it then that we, their followers, should so feel contented with the slow pace of the propagation of their message and the implementation of their welfare programmes when the fate of the world hangs by a slender thread at this perilous moment in human history and it is an oft-quoted statement that the path shown by the peerless Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar is the way out of this terrible mess? How can we, monk or man, sit pretty on the services of others, namely, the armed forces, the farmers and the labourers, people who labour so hard for us, without even bothering to activating our hearts, minds and bodies in equal measure towards the rapid execution of Swamiji's great plans of national regeneration? Why sectionally quote Swamiji to defend this passivity? Does it befit the followers of Ramkrishna-Vivekananda to happily ruminate over the laurels of the hour however insignificant they may be? Is it not time for an attitudinal change irrespective of the positional advantages or disadvantages that there be so that a fuller understanding and implementation of Vivekananda's grand schemes for national regeneration may be effected without further suicidal delay?
I urge all to ponder over this issue of immeasurable national significance and start everywhere worthwhile welfare schemes for the uplift of our Motherland. And, above all, remember that each one of you is a prophet in the making and 'upon your shoulders rests the burden of the universe'. So, 'awake, awake, great ones, the world is burning with misery, can you yet sleep?'
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