Ramkrishna Mission

Ramakrishna Parmhansa(1834-1886):- He was a saint who sought religious salvation through traditional renunciation, meditation, and devotional practises (bhakti). Parmhansa emphasised over and over that there are many paths to God and salvation, and that serving man is serving God, because man is the embodiment of God.

 

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902):- He was disciple of Ramakrishna Parmhansa, popularised Ramakrishna Parmhansa's religious message and attempted to adapt it to the needs of modern Indian society. He said, “Knowledge unaccompanied by action in the actual world in which we lived was useless.” In 1898, Swami Vivekananda wrote – “For our own motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam … is the only hope.”

 

•    Vivekananda denounced the caste system as well as the current Hindu emphasis on rituals, ceremonies, and superstitions, urging people to embrace the values of liberty, equality, and free thought.

 

•    To the educated Indians, Swami Vivekananda said, “So long as the millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold everyman a traitor who having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.”

 

•    Vivekananda established the Ramakrishna Mission in 1896 to carry out humanitarian and social work.

 

•    The Mission established schools, hospitals, and dispensaries, as well as orphanages, libraries, and other social services in various parts of the country.

 

1.    To establish a community of monks dedicated to renunciation and practical spirituality, from which teachers and workers would be dispatched to spread the universal message of Vedanta as exemplified in Ramakrishna's life.

 

2.    Continuing preaching, philanthropic, and charitable works with lay disciples, seeing all men, women, and children, regardless of caste, creed, or colour, as veritable manifestations of the Divine.

 

•    To achieve the first goal, Paramahansa established the Ramakrishna Math with his young monastic disciples as a nucleus. After Ramakrishna's death, Swami Vivekananda took up the second goal. The Ramakrishna Math and Mission's headquarters are in Belur, near Kolkata. Swami Vivekananda established this centre in 1898. 

 

•    The Math is a religious trust dedicated to nurturing the monastery's members' inner spiritual lives. The Mission is a charitable organisation dedicated to expressing inner spiritual life through outward collective action in men's service. 

 

•    Both the Math and the Mission have their headquarters at the Belur Math. Both organisations are inextricably linked and almost indistinguishable from one another. The Mission is a religious and social reform organisation. 

 

•    More than a century has passed since the Mission was founded. It has since grown into a global organisation. The Mission is a deeply religious organisation, but not a proselytising organisation. It isn't a Hindu sect at all. In fact, this is one of the main reasons for the Mission's success. 

 

•    The idea of social service has been given top priority by the Mission, both in terms of philanthropic work and the upliftment of religious and spiritual life. 

 

•    Vivekananda spread Ramakrishna's message throughout India. He had a charming personality and was an eloquent speaker. Vivekananda's followers included princes and priests from all social classes.

 

•    He attended Chicago's famous "Parliament of Religions" in 1893. He gave talks about Ramakrishna Paramahansa's Hindu philosophy in the United Kingdom and the United States.

 

•    Vivekananda's message to the world about human values is based on Ramakrishna's spiritual experiences, the teachings of the Upanishads and the Gita, and the examples of the Buddha and Jesus. 

 

•    He wanted to put Vedanta into practise. His goal was to close the gap between paramartha (service) and vyavahara (behaviour), as well as between spirituality and everyday life. 

 

•    He preached the doctrine of service, which he defined as the service of all beings. The worship of Siva is the service of jiva (living objects). Life is religion in and of itself. The Divine resides within man through service. 

 

•    Vivekananda advocated for the application of technology and modern science to the benefit of humanity.