MAY THE MASTER COME ALIVE IN OUR WORLD THAT IS FALLING APART---LET THIS BE THE MISSION ZEALOUSLY PURSUED

MAY THE MASTER COME ALIVE IN OUR WORLD THAT IS FALLING APART---LET THIS BE THE MISSION ZEALOUSLY PURSUED

It is time now to propagate widely with intense missionary zeal the life and message of Sri Ramakrishna. When Swami Vivekananda had visited America in the last decade of the nineteenth century it was not expedient for him to preach his spiritual master's life as the times were not right. The West had a poor idea of India then and would not be able to grasp the depth and divinity of the Ramakrishna-personality. They would immediately compare him to Christ unfavourably and miss the significance of the modern master's life and message. It was thus deemed best by Swamiji to shelve his Master's personality for the while and awaken a sense of respect, even reverence, for the philosophy of eternal India which in course of time would prepare the West for receiving the great spiritual masters of India in the right reverential spirit. Accordingly, he had but spoken of his Master before his students and western disciples in private classes and had publicly delivered but one lecture in two sessions on Sri Ramakrishna titled 'My Master'. 

Decades passed and in the 1960s Srila Abhaycharanāravinda Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda preached the personality of Krishna and Chaitanya before a radically altered common western audience with magical success. Thus began the ISKCON movement which spread like wildfire across the world. But the Ramakrishna Mission did not budge from the earlier stand taken by their founder and continued generally to teach the Vedānta to its western audiences, hardly altering course ever to massively preach the Master's life. 

Today Krishna and his Bhagavadgitā are more well-known in the West than Ramakrishna and 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna'. The Ramakrishna Mission simply have not taken to spreading the life or the message of the Master with the missionary zeal that Swami Vivekananda had expressed in an interview with a western newspaper was his essential intent.¹ A century and a quarter has rolled on since that day and it is time indeed for course-correction. May the Mission spread the life and message of the Master with the missionary zeal that Swamiji had expected them to do but at which they have terribly failed him!

Written by Sugata Bose

Note:

1. https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_5/interviews/reawakening_of_hinduism.htm

REAWAKENING OF HINDUISM ON A NATIONAL BASIS

(Prabuddha Bharata, September, 1898)

In an interview which a representative of Prabuddha Bharata had recently with the Swami Vivekananda, that great Teacher was asked: "What do you consider the distinguishing feature of your movement, Swamiji?"

"Aggression," said the Swami promptly, "aggression in a religious sense only. Other sects and parties have carried spirituality all over India, but since the days of Buddha we have been the first to break bounds and try to flood the world with missionary zeal."