Swami Vivekananda (The Master Builder of Our Nation)

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THE BIRTH OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA MISSION

Now Naren as a leader of the group, could no more afford to be a playful boy, nor a student, nor a daring doubter. Overnight he grew up, conscious of his immense responsibility and charged with his future mission. Within a couple of months he found accommodation for all of them at Baranagore. Though it was an old dilapidated building it had the honour to house the first nucleus of the now-world-famous Ramakrishna Mission, which had its informal beginning in Sri Ramakrishna's room at Dakshineswar. After sometime, they moved this centre to Alambazar and finally to Nilambar Mukherjee's garden at Belur.

 

AS A WANDERING MONK

Establishment of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission was the greatest gift of Swami Vivekananda to India and the world. After setting his brother disciples, he began his life of parivrajaka - wandering monk, and traveled through the length and breadth of the country. He mixed freely with princes and paupers alike and came to perceive at first hand, India's strength and weakness and the problems facing our country and her people. On one side, he saw the unparalleled glorious cultural heritage of the past and on the other, the abject poverty and ignorance of the masses, both in body and mind. This disturbed him terribly. The cultural crisis which India was passing through clearly appeared before his vision. The total breakdown of the political power had shaken the people's faith in the potency of her age-old philosophy. They were torn between the lure and the lustre of materialism and their inherent loyalty towards the age-old culture and tradition of their Motherland, ignorance and neglect of our religion and philosophy were creating conflicts in their mind, destroying their simple inherent faith and leading to a peculiar slavishness in mentality.

 

THE AGONY OF SWAMIJI

During his wanderings, one fact stood out before him. That was his own conviction and firm resolution to carry out fully and unconditionally his Master's commands and dedicate the rest of his life to the service of his fellowmen. To his brother disciples at Baranagore he said: "I have now traveled all over India, but alas, it was agony to me, my brothers, to see with my own eyes the terrible poverty and misery of the masses and I could not restrain my tears. It is now my firm conviction that it is futile to preach religion among them without first trying to remove their poverty and suffering". During his travels he had occasions to live with the outcastes and untouchables. He was deeply moved by their misery and enforced degradation . Their silent submission to all the religious and social injustices pained his heart very deeply.

 

ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE

Once during his sojourn at Mt.Abu, he was questioned about his indifference to the accepted caste restrictions with regard to food and residence. His reply sums up his fiery idealism. He said: "I am sanyasi. I am above all your social conventions. I can dine even with a bhangi (a scavenger). I am not afraid of God because He sanctions it. I am not afraid of scriptures because they allow it. But I am afraid of you people and your society, who know nothing of God and scriptures. I see God everywhere, manifested even through the meaner creatures. For me there is nothing high or low"

 

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