The Rama­kri­shna Movement

(The excerpts below are from the speech deliv­ered by Swami Gahananan­daji, the then Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, Rama­kri­shna Math and Rama­kri­shna Mis­sion, on 27 Decem­ber 1990 at the Con­fer­ence of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Per­avi, Tamil Nadu, India, orga­nized by Sri Rama­kri­shna Math, Madras. Swami Gahananan­daji later became the 14th Pres­i­dent of the Rama­kri­shna Math and Rama­kri­shna Mis­sion and passed away in Novem­ber, 2007)

Sri Rama­kri­shna is the cen­tral source of all power in the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment. He came with a world­wide mis­sion, and all the activ­i­ties now are going on in his name are to be regarded as man­i­fes­ta­tions of his divine mis­sion. He is the focal point upon which the lives of the men and women and the func­tions of the var­i­ous insti­tu­tions of the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment con­verge. The Upanisad says: Yatra viś­vam bha­vati eka nidam, “Where the whole world finds its com­mon nest, i.e. com­mon home.” This is indeed true of Sri Rama­kri­shna, although it may take more time for the world to real­ize this fact. Devo­tees of Sri Rama­kri­shna con­sti­tute a sin­gle fam­ily. We may have been born in dif­fer­ent places, we may speak dif­fer­ent lan­guages, we may have dif­fer­ent cul­tural back­grounds; nev­er­the­less, we all belong to the same fam­ily of Sri Rama­kri­shna. The foun­da­tion of this world­wide fam­ily was laid by Sri Rama­kri­shna him­self dur­ing his lifetime.

What does the word “Move­ment” mean in this con­text? The rapid spread of the influ­ence of a set of moral and spir­i­tual ideas among a grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple is what “Move­ment” means. A Move­ment is much vaster than an insti­tu­tion and is more dynamic than a sect. The Rama­kri­shna Move­ment sat­is­fies both these con­di­tions. It is one of the most pro­gres­sive move­ments of the present cen­tury. Some of the high­est and noblest ideas and ideals of the mod­ern world have been given to this Move­ment by Sri Rama­kri­shna and Swami Vivekananda.

The Rama­kri­shna Move­ment con­sists of four streams. The Rama­kri­shna Math and Rama­kri­shna Mis­sion together form the main stream. These twin insti­tu­tions were started by Swami Vivek­a­nanda at the behest of Sri Rama­kri­shna and with the help of the other great dis­ci­ples of the Mas­ter, and the orig­i­nal inspi­ra­tion and power are main­tained through an unbro­ken suc­ces­sion of spir­i­tual teach­ers and cen­tral­ized administration.

The lay devo­tees of Sri Rama­kri­shna form the first stream of the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment. The lay devo­tees have as impor­tant a part to play in the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment as the monks. It may be remem­bered here that Sri Rama­kri­shna did not encour­age his house­holder dis­ci­ples to renounce the world. On the other hand, one of his teach­ings was that house­hold­ers also could real­ize God by ful­fill­ing cer­tain con­di­tions. And sev­eral of the Master’s lay dis­ci­ples proved through their exem­plary lives the truth of his teach­ings. These exam­ples should inspire our house­holder devo­tees to tread the spir­i­tual path with faith, hope and dignity.

The lay devo­tees of Sri Rama­kri­shna include quite a num­ber of young men who do not want to marry but who for var­i­ous rea­sons can­not become monks. In every Ashrama, you will find these young men doing lot of vol­un­tary ser­vice. They are usu­ally referred to sim­ply as “Vol­un­teers.” They belong to the sec­ond stream.

Sri Sarada Math and Rama­kri­shna Sarada Mis­sion may be said to con­sti­tute the third stream of the Rama­kri­shna Movement.

The “Pri­vate Ashra­mas” func­tion­ing inde­pen­dently, with­out admin­is­tra­tive affil­i­a­tion to the Rama­kri­shna Math and Rama­kri­shna Mis­sion, con­sti­tute the fourth stream of the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment. Of course, there is noth­ing “pri­vate” about them. They are indeed pub­lic insti­tu­tions based on the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda ideals of spir­i­tu­al­ity and service.

The Rama­kri­shna Move­ment has as its com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tics cer­tain tra­di­tions and val­ues. Some of these are enu­mer­ated below:

• No miracle-mongering. Sri Rama­kri­shna never encour­aged inter­est in mirac­u­lous pow­ers as it is a great obsta­cle to spir­i­tual progress. The fol­low­ers of the Mas­ter are expected to be free from reli­gious hypocrisy and spir­i­tual pretensions.
• Mod­ern out­look. In our way of life, social man­ners, per­sonal habits and atti­tudes, we should be mod­ern and pro­gres­sive. Relics of past social cus­toms like caste dis­tinc­tions have no place in our indi­vid­ual or col­lec­tive life.
• Non-sectarian approach. Swamiji has stated that the one thing Sri Rama­kri­shna never liked was set­ting lim­its to God. God has infi­nite pow­ers and can assume var­i­ous forms. A true fol­lower of Sri Rama­kri­shna looks upon all reli­gions as valid means of real­iz­ing the ulti­mate Truth and regards the var­i­ous cul­tic prac­tices and spir­i­tual tech­niques as suited to dif­fer­ent tem­pera­ments. Those who belong to the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment should never asso­ciate them­selves with fanat­i­cal reli­gious groups or leaders.
• Love. Sri Rama­kri­shna was the embod­i­ment of love. It man­i­fested itself fully through Holy Mother. And Swami Vivek­a­nanda sac­ri­ficed his life for the wel­fare of human­ity. The love of these great per­son­ages is a pre­cious her­itage of the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment. Love must man­i­fest out­wardly as hos­pi­tal­ity. Hos­pi­tal­ity has been one of the time-honored virtues of Indian cul­ture. And in the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment, hos­pi­tal­ity has always been asso­ci­ated with our Ashramas.

The Rama­kri­shna Move­ment stresses on three more prin­ci­ples in our prac­ti­cal life:

• First of all comes char­ac­ter. Unselfish­ness, truth­ful­ness and purity in per­sonal life are essen­tial virtues for a worker of the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment. In order to do the work of the Lord we need great inner strength. True inner strength can come only through inner purity.
• The sec­ond prin­ci­ple is spir­i­tu­al­ity. Though moral­ity is essen­tial, mere moral­ity can­not bring last­ing peace or ful­fill­ment. The Rama­kri­shna Move­ment is pre-eminently a spir­i­tual movement.
• Finally, the prin­ci­ple of social ser­vice. Although there are now a num­ber of other orga­ni­za­tions actively engaged in social ser­vices, the need for social ser­vice has not been reduced.

Swami Vivek­a­nanda wrote in one of his letters :

A hun­dred thou­sand men and women, fired with the zeal of holi­ness, for­ti­fied with the eter­nal faith in the Lord, and nerved to lion’s courage by their sym­pa­thy for the poor and the fallen and the down­trod­den, will go over the length and breadth of the land, preach­ing the Gospel of sal­va­tion, the Gospel of help, the Gospel of social raising-up—the Gospel of equality.

It is the duty of every one of the mem­bers of the Rama­kri­shna Move­ment to strive his utmost in bring­ing to fruition this great wish and hope of Swamiji.