DEVOTEE IN DISTRESS ON THE EVE OF KALPATARU DIVAS
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AN APPEAL FOR HELP
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My new year is turning from happy to sad as I witness the lack of human sympathy of relatives, friends and devotees for a devotee of the Ramakrishna Mission who lies in her ICU bed, prostrate from cerebral attack, penniless, friendless and without support save the instruments of medication that is going on for over a week now. Her only son of years 22, a great devotee himself, disciple of Swami Atmasthananda, and one who has read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna eleven times till date, penniless moves, seeking financial help at this critical hour with none to share his sorrow with, none to receive help from. The mother, a disciple of Swami Prameyananda, has been such a donor for the Ramakrishna Mission, offering lakhs to help move their welfare projects without thinking twice. A descendant of royals, she has been swindled into penury by her legal adviser, cheated by friends and left to her fate at the mercy of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji. The boy has already lost his father when he was 16 and, at 22, battles alone with the forces pitted against him with unfailing devotion to Thakur yet.
I have done what I could by giving as much as I could but the mounting hospital expenditure is becoming impossible to pay off. The outstanding dues are mounting everyday as the relatives watch from a distance their forsaken cousin, themselves refusing further help from what they have initially offered. A venerable Swami of the Ramakrishna Order has graciously offered quite a considerable sum at this critical hour and is trying to activate a waiver of as much of the dues as possible from the hospital authorities. But devotees must come forward and help.
Written by Sugata Bose
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AN APPEAL FOR HELP
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My new year is turning from happy to sad as I witness the lack of human sympathy of relatives, friends and devotees for a devotee of the Ramakrishna Mission who lies in her ICU bed, prostrate from cerebral attack, penniless, friendless and without support save the instruments of medication that is going on for over a week now. Her only son of years 22, a great devotee himself, disciple of Swami Atmasthananda, and one who has read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna eleven times till date, penniless moves, seeking financial help at this critical hour with none to share his sorrow with, none to receive help from. The mother, a disciple of Swami Prameyananda, has been such a donor for the Ramakrishna Mission, offering lakhs to help move their welfare projects without thinking twice. A descendant of royals, she has been swindled into penury by her legal adviser, cheated by friends and left to her fate at the mercy of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji. The boy has already lost his father when he was 16 and, at 22, battles alone with the forces pitted against him with unfailing devotion to Thakur yet.
I have done what I could by giving as much as I could but the mounting hospital expenditure is becoming impossible to pay off. The outstanding dues are mounting everyday as the relatives watch from a distance their forsaken cousin, themselves refusing further help from what they have initially offered. A venerable Swami of the Ramakrishna Order has graciously offered quite a considerable sum at this critical hour and is trying to activate a waiver of as much of the dues as possible from the hospital authorities. But devotees must come forward and help.
Written by Sugata Bose
Sugata Bose Few, alas, few even today care to give the bread of life to the very divinities they worship when these appear before them in the guise of the poor and the penniless, the distressed and the dying, the lost and the lonesome. Pitiless is the soul of man that seeks but cannot give.
Sugata Bose I thank you all for your concern. We are trying to raise the required sum, ever increasing by the hour, but are, as yet, restraining ourselves from going in for receiving public contribution, for the problems in raising the sum in a such a manner are many from the sociological standpoint.
Therefore, this essay has been presented before the public by way of preparation of the minds of devotees, on this holy day of seeking, in the art of an equal holy giving, and all of your responses to that appeal, sincere are heartfelt, are treasures to store in the recesses of our minds whence fresh charity towards all will arise in the future. If things, indeed, compel us to accept your help, the necessary bank details may be afforded for fulfilment of the cause we so represent and the fruition of your generous gesture in the holy act of a real giving.
My thankfulness to all of you yet again and commendations on your robust stance in offered charity which is the essence of the householder's dharma and a vanishing trait in them in modern times, a fact lamented by none other than the great Swami Vivekananda who himself, along with his brother disciples and the Holy Mother in her pitiful penury, had suffered the worst ravages of such social neglect in their hour of desperate struggle for their daily bread despite living in their exalted spiritual altitude on empty belly, a phenomenon that even proved the Master's pronounced principle that 'religion is not for empty bellies' to be inapplicable in their case of isolated exception.
Sugata Bose I thank you all for your concern. We are trying to raise the required sum, ever increasing by the hour, but are, as yet, restraining ourselves from going in for receiving public contribution, for the problems in raising the sum in a such a manner are many from the sociological standpoint.
Therefore, this essay has been presented before the public by way of preparation of the minds of devotees, on this holy day of seeking, in the art of an equal holy giving, and all of your responses to that appeal, sincere are heartfelt, are treasures to store in the recesses of our minds whence fresh charity towards all will arise in the future. If things, indeed, compel us to accept your help, the necessary bank details may be afforded for fulfilment of the cause we so represent and the fruition of your generous gesture in the holy act of a real giving.
My thankfulness to all of you yet again and commendations on your robust stance in offered charity which is the essence of the householder's dharma and a vanishing trait in them in modern times, a fact lamented by none other than the great Swami Vivekananda who himself, along with his brother disciples and the Holy Mother in her pitiful penury, had suffered the worst ravages of such social neglect in their hour of desperate struggle for their daily bread despite living in their exalted spiritual altitude on empty belly, a phenomenon that even proved the Master's pronounced principle that 'religion is not for empty bellies' to be inapplicable in their case of isolated exception.
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