Published by Vedanta Kesari - August 2015.
Religion as Sri Ramakrishna taught it was never vague or dismal. It went to the man where he was and lifted him up. It was not like an eagle which soars high in the air and calls to the tortoise, ‘Come up here.’ Can the tortoise ever hope to rise to the eagle? No, it can only say, ‘If you will come and lift me up, then I can go up there.’ So Sri Ramakrishna in his teaching came down and carried the man up by degrees. It gave him new hope and courage.
- Swami Ramakrishnananda (Sri ramakrishna and his Disciples, Pg. 109)
The national ideals of India are renunciation and service. Intensify her in those channels, and the rest will take care of itself.RamakrishnaThis is also true in the case of Individuals & other Countries. This is the only way to overcome the Environmental Problems the World is facing.
Consumerism, Climate Change, and Voluntary Renunciation
Majority of the scientific community has come to believe that the climate of earth is showing abnormal variations in critical determinants like temperature, precipitation and polar ice and sea levels etc. Mountainous consumption levels of world population, especially the commodity fetish of the rich societies and peoples, are, in large part, responsible for ecological and climatic deterioration. Mainstream economic behavior remains obsessive of commodity based utility and profit maximization. Growth imperative of global economies, thereby, adds momentum to resource depletion and pollution accumulation. Affluent entities, individuals and states, seem to have created for them a narcissist consumer self, added by an accentuated alienation of the self from historical symbiosis between man and nature along social and spiritual confluence.
Voluntary renunciation of non-basic consumption forms, therefore, seems to have become inevitable in order to restrict the damage already done to earth’s atmosphere. The article attempts to discuss the climatic causation of consumerism and the need to have a consciousness of ecological prudence. The role of voluntary simplicity and want-lessens is discussed in this regard.
The concept of renunciation is evolved in the perspective of Asiatic spiritualism as the substance of the discussion which aims at concern with ‘our common future’.
What is Ramakrishna Movement?
(Taken from “The Ramkrishna Movement in Sri Lanka with a brief introduction to the life of Sri Ramakrishna” by Swami Virupakshnanda)
Sri Ramakrishna’s religious activity and experiences were comprehensive to a degree that had perhaps never before been attained by any other religious genius in India or elsewhere.
Sri Ramakrishna’s life is a story of religion in practice and enables us to see God face to face.
Sri Ramakrishna has realized in himself more fully than any other man the total unity of the river of God which is open to all rivers and all streams.
Sri Ramakrishna is a rare combination of
· Individuality and Universality
· Personality and Impersonality
When Sri Ramakrishna had attained perfection in all sadhanas and had become firmly established in Bhava mukha, he came to certain conclusions. Two of those conclusions are
1. Mother of the Universe would found through him a new Movement to disseminate the universal doctrines illustrated in his own life.
2. She would send dedicated band of workers who would accept him as their ideal and spread his liberal doctrines and spiritual teachings to the world.
Returning to India at the beginning of 1897, Swami Vivekananda had given lavishly his unlimited spiritual and intellectual powers in an attempt to restore the greatness of his beloved Motherland, a greatness deeply rooted, as he again and again reminded the Indian people, in their ancient and incomparably rich religious heritage. Through many lectures and innumerable informal talks Swami had outlined his programme for the revival of a strong, spiritually oriented India, vigorous on all levels of thought and activity. Over and over, in a cascade of words, he had exhorted the Hindu people to live by and for the great ideals that had sprung from the very soul of the country itself, and to make them real. To put his program into operation, he wanted to convert India’s deep-rooted and highly honoured institution of sannyasa or monasticism, into an organized force that would, through service, regenerate the country materially, intellectually, culturally, and, above all, spiritually. To this end, he had organized the Ramakrishna Math and Mission setting in motion the “machine” that was to carry on his work forward and from which his Master’s teachings would spread and, as he said, “penetrate the world to the very bone.”
None can deny the fact that the Ramakrishna Movement has become a mighty source of power and glory. It has become a living symbol of Truth, Service, Renunciation, Universal Peace and Harmony in a world torn by mutual hatred and discord.
Naturally, then, the question rises whether this Movement is a new shoot of an old tree or a new shoot of a new tree. As in the case of the glacier ‘Gomukh’ giving birth to the mighty Ganga, a tide of noble thoughts with vast mass of spiritual energy flew out of the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, and manifested as the Ramakrishna Movement.
Thus, the Ramakrishna Movement is its twin aspects of Math and Mission is the Divine Will of the Mother of Universe crystallized into an organization through Sri Ramakrishna and his apostles led by Swami Vivekananda.
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