THE SINE WAVE OF SPIRITUALITY ... 1

 

THE SINE WAVE OF SPIRITUALITY ... 1

The stalwarts of the Ramakrishna Mission are largely gone. But what remains is powder enough to produce future stalwarts through the coming decades despite the clearly evident decline in cultural standards throughout the world which has evidently affected the Ramakrishna Mission as well. 

Society throws up monks and in a descent of cultural standards it is but natural that the quality of individuals in every sphere of human endeavour must decline. Monastics also arise from the said society and necessarily bear the signature of its current state. However, the ideals of the Ramakrishna Mission are exalted and if they are scrupulously adhered to instead of making convenient compromises with the copper coin, the Mission could lead society towards a higher order of existence instead of itself declining to a standard that may not be termed strictly spiritual. 

Apologetics notwithstanding, it is the duty of a spiritual order to be the beacon to the faltering societal ship in a rough sea of raging billows. How far the Mission is willing to compromise with the commercial age is to be seen before one may pass a definitive judgement on its future prospects. As of now there is a lull in its spiritual presence despite a plethora of insipid programmes periodically videocast online. Great renunciates who would invoke shraddhā in prospective devotees are almost not there. Lectures delivered by monks are generally insipid and uninspiring as one can clearly feel that these are unlived words, unrealised principles merely being churned out of the rational mind and not from the depths of the illumined Spirit. However, all this seems a passing phase and I am hopeful that with the passage of time and with the tasting of the bitter fruits of business, spiritual sanity will return to the Order the way it ought to be to claim for itself the name of the peerless Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar, now hopefully still housed in the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, the Belur Math. A new generation of monks, young, idealistic and energetic must raise the banner of the Mission once more and render it seminally creative again. And they are coming! Long live the Mission!

Written by Sugata Bose