RAMAKRISHNA, VIVEKANANDA AND THE 21st. CENTURY.
Shri Ramakrishna died in 1886. Swami Vivekananda died in 1902. Few westerners know anything about their amazing lives or of the catalysing effect they have had on world culture. Millions now honour their birthday celebrations. The Calcutta monastery founded by Vivekananda may be visited by as many as 800.000 people on Ramakrishna's birthday each year and each year the numbers grow.
Perhaps the same might be true in the west, if Vivekananda had preached the divinity of Ramakrishna instead of the principles of the ‘Sanatana Dharma’ – the Eternal Religion- also known as Vedanta.
He is recorded as saying that if he had preached Shri Ramakrishna the world would worship at Ramakrishna’s feet, but he did not want to inspire another religion. Instead he blazed the trail with a brilliant interpretation and exposition of Hindu philosophy, Yoga and Vedanta, as nobody else had done before, or has done since. Shri Ramakrishna was his inspiration, his Guru, his life breath. But Vivekananda was a lion among men, not a meek follower.
‘The power that emanated from this mysterious being was so great that one all but shrank from it. It was overwhelming. It threatened to sweep everything before it. It was a mind so far transcending other minds, even those who rank as geniuses, that it seemed different by its very nature. Its ideas were so clear, so powerful, so transcendental that it seemed incredible that they could have emanated from the intellect of an ordinary human being…later some of us found that our minds were transformed.’ Wrote Christine Greenstidel who later became his disciple.
One of the fascinating aspects of the history of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda is the radical difference of their personalities.
Their wonderful relationship is part of the fascinating history of the spiritual renaissance that began with the birth of Shri Ramakrishna in 1836. This timing is one of the amazing plays in the drama of life, for it took place not far from the capital city of British India, where Ramakrishna later lived and taught, and as scientific rationalism and materialism began to dominate the world. By the time he reached adolescence the influence of western culture looked to the destruction of almost everything the Hindu culture stood for. Few could have anticipated the cultural reversal that followed.
A salient feature of His advent is the detailed family history and the records kept of His life and teachings and the many anecdotes of contemporaries, devotees and disciples. They leave little room for speculation, fanciful interpretations, controversy or doubt. The many biographies of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and the other direct disciples of Shri Ramakrishna are available from Vedanta centres around the world or specialty bookshops, as are the many works of Vivekananda.
This article will trace the most significant effects the life and teachings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have had on world culture.
But first, an introduction to the humble man who started it all. It was written by Pratab Chandra Muzumdar and appeared in the Theistic Quarterly Review in Calcutta in 1897.
‘My mind is still floating in the luminous atmosphere which that wonderful man diffuses around him whenever and wherever he goes. My mind is not yet disenchanted of the mysterious and indefinable pathos which he pours into it whenever he meets me.
‘What is there in common between him and me? I, a Europeanized, civilized, self-centred, semi sceptical so-called educated reasoner, and he, a poor, illiterate, unpolished, half-idolatrous, friendless Hindu devotee? Why should I sit long hours to attend to him, I who have listened to Disraeli and Fawcett, Stanley and Max Muller and a whole host of European scholars and divines? I who am an ardent disciple and follower of Christ, a friend and admirer of liberal-minded Christian missionaries and preachers, a devoted adherent and worker for the rationalistic Brahmo-Samaj - why should I be spell-bound to hear him?
‘And it is not I only, but dozens like me who do the same. He has been interviewed and examined by many, crowds pour in to visit and talk with him. Some of our clever intellectual fools have found nothing in him; some contemptuous Christian missionaries would call him an impostor, or a self-deluded enthusiast. I have weighed their objections well, and what I write now, I write deliberately.
‘The Hindu saint is a man under forty. He is a Brahmana by caste, he is well formed in body naturally, but the dreadful austerities through which his character has developed appear to have disordered his system. Yet, in the midst of this emaciation his face retains fullness, a child-like tenderness, a profound, visible humbleness, an unspeakable sweetness of expression and a smile that I have seen on no other face.
Ramakrishna Paramhansa is the worshiper of no particular Hindu God. He is not a Saiva, he is not a Sakta, he is no Vaishnava, and he is not a Vedantist. Yet he is all of these…he accepts all the doctrines, all the embodiments uses and devotional practices of every religious cult. Each in turn is infallible to him. He is an idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted meditator of the one formless, infinite Deity whom he terms Satchitananda (Indivisible Existence-Knowledge- Bliss)
‘Nor is his reverence confined within Hinduism. For long days he subjected himself to various disciplines to realize the Mohammedans idea of an all-powerful Allah. He let his beard grow, he fed himself on a Moslem diet, and he continually repeated sentences from the Koran. His reverence for Christ is deep and genuine. He bows his head to the name of Jesus, honours the doctrine of His son ship, and we believe he once or twice attended Christian places of worship…
‘A living evidence of the depth and sweetness of Hindu religion is the good and holy man. He has wholly controlled his flesh. He is full of soul, full of the reality of religion, full of joy, full of blessed purity…his spotless holiness, his deep unspeakable blessedness, his unstudied endless wisdom, his child - like peacefulness and affection towards all, his consuming, all absorbing love for God are his only reward.
‘Then in the intensity of that burning love of God which is in his simple heart, the poor devotee’s form and features suddenly grow stiff and motionless; unconsciousness overtakes him, his eyes lose their sight and tears trickle down his fixed, pale but smiling face. There is a transcendental sense and meaning in that unconsciousness. What he perceives and enjoys in his soul when he has lost all outer perception who can say? Who can fathom that depth of that insensibility which the love of God produces? But that he sees something, hears and enjoys when he is dead to the outward world there is no doubt; why should he in the midst of that unconsciousness burst into floods of tears and break out into prayers, songs and utterances, the force and pathos of which pierce the hardest heart and bring tears to eyes that never wept before by the influence of religion’
Reading the biographies and the ‘Gospel of Ramakrishna’ – a record of the events and conversations that took place in his teaching years, it is difficult not to feel that there has never been or ever will be such another incredible human being. For in practicing all the yogas, religions and forms of devotion Ramakrishna revivified them. Then Swami Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Mission he founded brought the knowledge of this to the world in a spirit of service.
Since Vivekananda addressed the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 Ramakrishna's teachings have spread around the world, opening the way for the influence of Hindu culture, spiritual science, philosophy, music, art and literature. The influence is easier to see in western literature which gave rise to new world-views through the works of Emerson, Whitman, Huxley, Maugham, Toynbee, Isherwood, Watts, and Durrell to name but a few of the more famous.
The spiritual experiments and experiences of Ramakrishna became some of the most potent words spoken at the Parliament of Religions. Vivekananda said:
‘May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in heaven of the Christians, give strength to you. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his own individuality and grow according to his own law of growth…The Parliament of Religions have proved…that holiness, purity and charity are not the exclusive possession of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character…Upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: ‘help and not fight’ ‘Assimilation and not destruction’ ‘Harmony and peace and not dissension’.
In spite of bigotry this spirit is everywhere. All over the world there are inter-religious conventions, meetings and dialogues. The Christian Protestants are experimenting with unity as barriers built by dogma are collapsing.
In 1999 I attended a week-end retreat run by a Benedictine Monk. It was attended by novitiates, retired nuns and priests and Catholic laity, and at the first meeting each of us was asked to introduced ourselves and explain a little of our background. When my turn came I had to confess that I was not a Christian and that my spiritual background was Hindu. At lunch the officiating priest called me over to his table and asked me to sit with him. Expecting to be proselytized or patronized, I was amazed when he told me he was a Sadhu, initiated in India and knowledgeable in Vedanta! He also followed the mantra meditation methods started by Father John Main OSB who founded the burgeoning Christian Meditation Centre in 1975. (Before joining the order John Main had been a member of the diplomatic corps in the East where a Swami introduced him to mantra meditation.) It is such a short time since Vivekananda uttered those prophetic words that there is great hope that given another few hundred years they may become a fact of life.
At their first meeting the young Vivekananda asked Ramakrishna the provocative question ‘Have you seen God?’ – expecting the usual non-committal response or some form of sophistry. But Ramakrishna replied with sincere enthusiasm, ‘O yes! I have seen God. I see Him as I see you there but only more clearly. God can be seen. One can talk to Him. But who cares for God? …Who weeps for the vision of God?’
Now into the 21st century, it is possible that more people of all nationalities are actively seeking God than ever before in the history of the world. Doctrines, dogmas and religious affiliation are now taking second place to methods of speeding human evolution by freeing the psyche. It is realistic to speculate that more people are now practicing some form of meditation than all the monks of Europe have in the past.
Following the Parliament of Religions in 1893 Vivekananda continued to cause a stir across America. The sincere few that became disciples and other noble sympathizers were far outweighed by opportunists, entrepreneurs, con men and religious cranks. Swami Kripananda, one of his western disciples, wrote of these times,
‘This hotbed of pseudo-religious monstrosities, devoured by a morbid thirst for the abnormal, the occult, for the exceptional – whence a senseless credulity leads to the dissemination of hundreds of societies: goblins, ghosts, mahatmas, false prophets – this refuge for aliens of all colours was an abominable place for Vivekananda. He felt himself obliged to cleanse this Aegean stable at the outset.’
Counteracting the fascination for the superficial, the psychic and the mysterious Vivekananda taught the philosophies of the Vedanta, especially the non-dualistic Advaita Vedanta and the mental disciplines of Raja yoga. He had learned from Ramakrishna that the highest most abstract realizations of spiritual truth are not inimical to reason or the life of the intellect, and that woolly thinking and airy vagueness are not indicative of spiritual endeavour. After Vivekananda's return to India he said of the west,
‘Most of the cultured men and women there are already weary of this competition, this struggle, this brutality of their commercial civilization and are looking for something better…The thoughtful people of the west find in our ancient philosophy, especially the Vedanta, the new impulse they are seeking, the very spiritual food and drink for which they are hungering and thirsting. …The whole of western civilization will crumble to pieces in the next fifty years if there is no spiritual foundation…’
And before leaving India for the west he said, ‘I go forth to preach a religion of which Buddhism is nothing but a rebel child, and Christianity with all its pretensions, only a distant echo’. In later years the ideas he taught informed deep thinkers in many different disciplines, especially psychology and theoretical physics. He was the first to see the relevance of Advaita Vedanta to physics and science. Now in the 21st century some of the greatest scientists have acknowledged the debt they owe to the insights provided by Vedanta philosophy. The dialogue started by Vivekananda culminated in the ‘World Congress for the synthesis of Science and Religion’ in Bombay over four days in 1986.
Ramakrishna imbued Vivekananda with the ideal of service of a new kind. Ramakrishna spurned notions of ‘helping the world’ as egocentric. His idea was to give whatever aid one could to individuals, serving them as manifestations of God, for work and service was a form of worship. Since Vivekananda mobilized many young Indians to apply this attitude, a revolution has taken place in Indian monastic life as evidenced by the social and cultural work undertaken by the monks and nuns of the Ramakrishna Mission. Saints and sages have also come out of forest retreats and caves to teach, help, serve and inspire.