RAMAKRISHNA, THE LAST RAY OF HOPE

RAMAKRISHNA, THE LAST RAY OF HOPE

I see the luminous form of Thakur, the radiant Ramakrishna resplendent like the sun -- about which the Shvetashvatar Upanishad in glory sings --, sitting on his cot in Dakshineshwar with effulgence overspreading the world and engulfing it, ushering in a new age, a new order of humanity, veritably a new civilisation. The Age of Truth and Enlightenment (Satya Yuga) has commenced from the day Ramakrishna was born, so pronounced Swami Vivekananda.

Ramakrishna remains the hope of humanity struggling for survival in a world perilously close to annihilation. It was Arnold Toynbee who had articulated such a foreboding that disturbed him and such a solution as he had in his wisdom found when he had said, "Sri Ramakrishna made his appearance and delivered his message at the time and the place at which he and his message were needed. This message could hardly have been delivered by anyone who had not been brought up in the Hindu religious tradition. Sri Ramakrishna was born in Bengal in 1836. He was born into a world that in his lifetime was, for the first time, being united on a literally worldwide scale. Today we are still living in this transitional chapter of the world's history, but it is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending, if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. In the present age, the world has been united on the material plane by Western technology. But this Western skill has not only 'annihilated distance'; it has armed the peoples of the world with weapons of devastating power at a time when they have been brought to point blank range of each other without yet having learnt to know and love each other. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is an Indian way. Sri Ramakrishna's message was unique in being expressed in action. Religion is not just a matter for study, it is something that has to be experienced and to be lived, and this is the field in which Sri Ramakrishna manifested his uniqueness... His religious activity and experience were, in fact, comprehensive to a degree that had perhaps never before been attained by any other religious genius, in India or elsewhere."

Today we are still alive to the reality of this danger looming large where extinction seems to be the reasonable end of a humanity hell-bent upon self-destruction, and we are alive as well to the possibility of extinguishing this fire of hatred and intolerance, greed and ideological tussle for supremacy, ignorance and arrogance of the human species bordering on assigning itself the role of an omnipotent authority that can make arbitrary alterations to the environment in which it thrives. The path bifurcates between the preferable and the pleasurable -- the latter path, however, being patently full of pain --, the electable and the delectable -- the latter path, however, no more causes delight but is fraught with disturbance and despair -- and the virtuous and the vicious with the latter alternative vitiating the very atmosphere of everything that we hold sacred and dear, and it behoves man to make a choice between career courses for his fate to flourish or to flounder. Infantile civilisations die in bud -- for growing knowledge of matter is not balanced by growing wisdom in the realm of the spirit -- and those that mature to fullness take heed of age-old wisdom to retain umbilical links with the divine that ensures survival unto future fruition. We are today at such a crossroad where we have to take a decision on our future career as a civilisation and upon that depends our chances of survival or a cataclysmic death.

Ramakrishna seems to be the only human point of harmony where the diverse races of the world may yet find a solution for coexistence and why? even cooperative living for a new order of humanity to emerge which shall not be vitiated by vile nationalistic motives but shall seek international understanding in the light of a higher ideal of life, a la Vedantic way of living, catholic and universal. His epic formulation, 'As many opinions, so many paths', gives humanity the perfect recipe for future peace for it allows the divergent tendencies of evolving humanity to seek fullest expression along divergent radial routes from a primal focus before retracing along the selfsame paths during the phase of spiritual homecoming to the core consciousness whence they had sprung.

It is, thus, with fondest hopes of a human renaissance to be ushered in the name of Ramakrishna that I pen these lines tonight highlighting the significance of the soulful utterances of the sage of Dakshineshwar, his epic life and spiritual austerities that cut through to the subliminal consciousness of mortal man to transform it at a very fundamental level, a process of readjustment of the forces of karma which is yet working itself out and is seemingly some distance away even now from surfacing in all its beneficial aspects. It is a depth-phenomenon beyond the reach of the extroverted vision and will take its time to transform mass consciousness which is the agenda of the Avatar as he realigns the human forces to reestablish dharma. But even now may the holy impulses of the Master quicken consciousness in all to the divine within to end this fratricidal fight that has maddened the world and seems to inexorably lead it unto annihilation! May my feeble efforts at bringing to all the water of these flowing fountains of wisdom, these saving springs of inspiration and insight illumine the paths of the people of our planet as they traverse their ways unto the core consciousness where oneness reigns and where all feud ends and peace prevails!

Written by Sugata Bose