Portrait : Rasik, the sweeper at the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple Complex at the feet of the Master, Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, after an enduring wait to lay down at his feet his heart's ardour.
Every person, irrespective of his so-called status in life, is extraordinary and unique, so the biologists say and so say the philosophers too. It is this understanding that ought to be the basis of our reverence for individuals and not their apparent attainments in this brief flicker of a life where the tallest tree and the shortest shrub are equally stunted when viewed from the vantage point of the Absolute. Relativity assigns specific values to units of life and matter; the Absolute dissolves it all in an immensity that transcends evaluations and enumerations.
We must see the divine in the lowest manifestations of life and witness the sublime in the mundane, such should be our power of introspection and depth-observation of the so-called surface phenomena of life. Then all artificial distinctions based on social stratification and economic empowerment vanish as man stands supreme in his inherent glory as the substratum of all existence, the Absolute behind the facade of relativity.
And even in the day-to-day life, we can bring this fundamental understanding about the grandeur of the individual self to modify our civic behaviour. Our relations will stand deified in the light of the divine and we shall treat each other with greater respect and reverence which in turn will make civic life harmonious and more fruitful.
The motto ought to be this, that man is not an article of Nature to be accepted and discarded fancifully but is to be revered, venerated and adored as our cherished possession, served and sacrificed for, not merely employed or enjoyed to satisfy our selfish ends.
Written by Sugata Bose
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