Today is Lakshmi Puja. But whose Puja? May we not pray for the amelioration of the poverty of the masses? Or, must we stick to the general line of prayer for the well-being of our own ones alone? If we care to be true in our worship of the Goddess of munificence and aspire to receive generously of Her bounty, then let us do so on behalf of our less fortunate countrymen that we may in due course of time share our gains with them to make their earthly experience more bearable. The Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Swami Vivekananda on 1 May, 1897 to act as the Poor Person's Trust in especial, for did he not say: "Daridra devo bhava, murkha devo bhava, paapi devo bhava, taapi devo bhava"? The Mission has been doing yeoman's service for the poor and the downtrodden for over a century beginning with the Master himself exhorting Mathur Babu to serve the famished villagers near Deoghar if he wished to see him to continue his trip through the proposed pilgrimages in 1868. Thereafter, in the early days of the Mission when a settled state of things was yet to be, Swami Akhandananda was moved to pity in Mohula, Murshidabad at the sight of the starving population stricken by a devastating famine. The service which he then rendered has come to be regarded as the genesis of the service programmes of the latter-day Ramakrishna Mission. Since then so many luminous saints and sages of the Ramakrishna Order have shed their lives' blood to bring to fruition Swamiji's dream of a renascent India where every individual would hold his head high in the knowledge that he is divine and had nothing to fear from phenomenal earthly dreams. But the hypnotism is still on as our nation awakes from its millenium-old slumber. The poor are yet so very poor with hardly the amenities available for a decent earthly existence. Far from it, they are despicably provided for by the twosome force of perfidious politician and crafty capitalist who have denuded the masses to abject destitution. It is not a healthy state of things at all, politically speaking, for the masses, if they suffer indefinitely, will rise in rebellion one day, or worse still, will bleed the country through a terrible revolution the like of which this ancient land has never seen. Who would wish to see the enactment of a French Revolution on holy soil as that of India? Here where Rishis lived, here where the highest principles of life and living were discovered, where the grandest philosophy in trumpet voice spelled out the divinity of humankind, nay, of all sentience, what karmic curse will bring such a soil to its bloodiest hour? Lest such an inauspicious spell be cast on this holiest of lands, let us listen to what Swamiji has to say to us regarding our treatment of our unfortunate brethren. Swamiji has repeatedly exhorted us to dig the grave of aristocracy and create spaces for the activation of Practical Vedanta, pure and simple, in the public sphere. He has sent out the clarion call in 1897 in his lectures blazing from Colombo to Almora when he summoned the youth of India to live lives of service and renunciation in their bid to rebuild India. The tangible organisational presence of the Swami's dreams are even today manifest in the form of the Ramakrishna Mission and it is our duty to bolster the Mission's programmes of nation-building by coming to its aid through pecuniary contributions and other forms of allied service. On this auspicious occasion of Lakshmi Puja, therefore, let us wholeheartedly contribute to the Ramakrishna Mission's diverse welfare projects spread across the country so that we may align ourselves with the grand plan of Swamiji for nation-building and also, on a more modest note, so that we bring a smile across a face that has known tears alone for who knows how long. May we thus attain to the grace of Mother Lakshmi in right earnest! Jai Ma!
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