1. We have to strengthen the Ramakrishna movement and make it penetrate every pore of human society. For this let us dedicate ourselves by first shaping our own lives and then proceeding to spread the Word.
2. We must read with reverence 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna' every day. Devotees must regularly meet on Sundays and holidays to have group reading sessions of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature.
3. Quite a few Mission centres have of late come up and quite a few more are in the offing. This, despite the fact that the monastic work-force of the Mission has not increased appreciably in recent times, indicates that the executive authorities of the Order are serious about expanding the Movement's work-base.
Devotees like us who have been all the while clamouring for the acceptance of more private ashramas as branch centres of the Mission and the opening up of new centres should be happy at this development and must contribute to the flourishing of these. Quality control is a problem, owing to paucity of monastics, but, with increased administrative efficiency using modern techniques, things will even up in due course.
4. Donations and grants are always required to run a philanthropic spiritual organisation that depends entirely on public support but, more than money, character in the Order that runs it is required. And here it must be understood that the Order of the Master is as much monastic as it is lay. Therefore, the monk and the man both must exhibit sterling character attributes as would justify the oft-touting of the 1500 year prospective longevity of the Mission that we encounter so often in discourse and discussion. For this, devotees must live up to the Master's expectations of them in their family life and service life in society.
5. Passive piety in the bulk of devotees, mired as they are either in material pursuits so as hardly to deserve the name by which they are reverentially addressed, is killing the spirit of the Ramakrishna Movement en masse, for it is the devotees who diffuse the message of the Master in practical terms in society at large. This must change and more active participation of devotees in the movement is hereby solicited.
Written by Sugata Bose
No comments:
Post a Comment