BACK TO RAMAKRISHNA ... 4

BACK TO RAMAKRISHNA ... 4

Whenever there is a decline in spiritual culture and a rise in materialism, there comes a crisis in human civilisation. At such a time of inner decay and external accretion, when ignorance like a mushrooming monsoon cloud covers consciousness, at such a time arises a luminous being from the sea of humanity, riding the crest of a wave of divine inspiration. Such a one is called the Avatar and he embodies the aspirations of the Age, as yet in bud and waiting on the wings of the evolutionary forces for blossom. In our Age such a one did arise from the divine depths and he etched his name in history. Yes, it is the sage of Dakshineshwar that we are hinting at. Ramakrishna is his name.

Ramakrishna has given us a comprehensive philosophy of life and lived it to perfection to inspire us unto like living. But the passage of time is eroding his message as situational demands and organisational exigencies are adapting his pristine principles to compromised use. This is leading to organisational expansion, architectural embellishment and greater material empowerment through the maintenance of proximity to government and industrial houses to the exclusion of the undiluted adherence to the Master's original message. Hence, the fall in spiritual standards which needs immediate arresting. And herein lies the significance of a re-visitation of Ramakrishna.

Where have the followers of Ramakrishna, lay or monastic, gone wrong as the river of his spirituality has meandered along its course to flood fresh banks and cast the silt of his sublime spirit tinged with renunciation and service? It is in a loss of essential truth embodied in and exemplified by the Master.

The roots were simple and they remain ever so simple. The erosion of the times had to be met in exalted terms and from the altitude of his divine being the Master scattered the seeds of a fresher renewal of life and spirit that in future farming would yield the harvest of a higher affirmation of human civilisation, then perplexed at the crossroads of evolution. The Master spoke in simple terms but they were words of fire that caught the fabric of the young unstained souls who were to be his apostles, and set them alight even unto ultimate illumination. And with the light thus lit, the disciples spread out from their nest of spiritual nascence to the remotest corners of the earth, carrying in their bosoms the seeds of sublimity and planting such in eroded soils of the continents. Each time confusion clouded their judgement, they reached out to the original flow emanating from the habitat of Dakshineshwar in perennial streams, and rectified course. The Master was their reference point, their reference frame and their progressive light as they voyaged though uncharted terrains to set up the foundations of the edifice that was to emerge in the ensuing times, the house of heavenly restoration. But this was no heaven in Abrahamic theological terms but was emblematic of what is best in the Indian spiritual tradition, the manifestation of the divine within man in his every movement of life.

The beacon shines still but radical changes have affected the world, influencing relations, infrastructures and superstructures of society, undercurrents of flow and the possibilities of deflection from main course under the tempest of the times which threatens to sink the ship of civilisation yet again. The Master's prophetic words of a re-visitation of earth looms large in the horizons of the hopeful and passes a thrill of expectant delight through the nerves as they wait on amidst the decay of the times with that purified vision of his homecoming.

Yes, the Master is coming to redress the tilted balance of forces but it will take a far greater participation of elements all round to set the lever right. A far bigger affirmation of the divine spirit is needed, a far larger encompassing of the malefic forces required to combat the turbulence of the times and set the house to order. The balance has been lost and must be restored. It is now back to Ramakrishna again, for did he not say that he will have to return to earth whenever the Mother's earthly empire is in trouble?

End of Part 4
To be continued and serialised...

Written by Sugata Bose