M.R.Lalu
Throughout the history of humanity there were personalities who chose to appear in a particular period of time and help societies around and within their personal access to flourish through the thoughts they propagated. This has been the reality everywhere. Impact of such philosophical interferences by great people in the journey of societies had been tremendous. As time passed, ideals of many influencers among this clan of religious, philosophical and spiritual reformation could not survive as they confronted more convincing ideologies that sprung in the same way and fashion. And people in every millennium kept changing their choices, shifting their focus from one philosophy to the other. As a result of this, there have been multiple thought-provoking approaches to life gaining momentum and there have also been countless saints and sages walking on the planet with amazing thoughts for the wellbeing of generations. India stands out with its legacy of a chain of seekers turning their essential inquisitiveness into an unfathomable genre of philosophical classics that the country time and again propagated with complete earnestness. Lessons those spiritual luminaries drew our attention to were full of values for life on this planet and beyond.
Putting a well-competent analysis on Buddha’s appearance in India, Swami Vivekananda makes it clear. He says the presence and life and messages of Buddha, was an essential requirement of a society that was fully enmeshed in the influence of authoritative priests who thought the ever-powerful God can be attained only through them. Vivekananda says this was basically a contradiction that Buddha thought he should attend and help the society to grow with adequate clarity. Vivekananda goes on saying that the birth of Buddha enjoying all the royal luxuries and the sacrifice that he made in a later period had paved the way for his philosophical expressions to flourish. Dismantling the common notions which were prevalent in the society came his thoughts and the social connect he could establish was the result of his preaching the most common truths, the truths that societies remained oblivious for centuries. The space, the gap in which Siddhartha Gautama made his entry was apt and the impact of his contribution was deep and profound. Though there had been intellectual encounters, the chain of philosophical interferences that he made through his disciples had spiritually resonated and strengthened the imaginations of people.
Why could Buddha connect to the common men? The ideals that he was propagating for the society gained sudden traction due to their well-connectedness with common human life. Systematically sidelining the ceremonials existed in societies calling them delusive and misleading; Buddha began to find solutions for the miseries that protruded in human life. For people, his assertions were real and exact. They understood the power of his words as they were simple and heart-touching. Teachers, with their prophetic farsightedness and common bond with people could always successfully connect. Though their teachings are sometimes criticized as unscientific, they are universally accepted and practiced. From Buddha to Shankara to Vivekananda, our assessment on the impact of their thoughts helps generate a better understanding of their deep involvement in the life of ordinary people. The eras they communicated with the societies still remain the best examples for such profound socio-spiritual interventions. Their thoughts and their marvelous aroma of philosophical grace overflowed, and a large part of our life even today is influenced by their essence.
Before pronouncing anything about the spiritual movement that Vivekananda strengthened India with, there should be words adorably amplifying the inner potency that he received from his spiritual master Sri Ramakrishna. Vivekananda makes candid efforts to explain as to why in his life he thought that the presence and essence of a Guru was the most essential. Addressing the basic tenets of India’s Guru-Shishya Parampara he says, “Every soul is destined to be perfect and every being, in the end, will attain the perfection. Whatever we are now is the result of our acts and thoughts in the past and whatever we shall be in the future will be the result of what we think and do now. The perfection, according to Vivekananda, brings a spiritual awakening in life and growth is animated and man becomes holy and perfect in the end. This quickening impulse cannot be derived from books. We may study books all our lives, we may become very intellectual but, in the end, we find that we have not developed spiritually. And to quicken this spiritual impulse it must come from another soul. The person from whose soul such impulse comes is called the Guru-the teacher and the person to whose soul the impulse is conveyed is called the Shishya-the student.” Though delivered in a relatively modern period, the Guru-Shishya tradition that he highlighted here began millennia ago.
Extending this articulate narrative on the tradition, Vivekananda further expounds the qualifications of the aspirant and the teacher. “How are we to know a teacher, then?” asks Vivekananda. “The Sun requires no torch to make him visible; we need not light a candle in order to see him. When the sun rises, we instinctively become aware of the fact and when a teacher of men comes to help us, the soul will instinctively know the truth has already begun to shine.” So, what according to Vivekananda are the conditions necessary to become a student? He says the first condition necessary for the teacher is purity, a real thirst for knowledge and perseverance. None of us can get anything other than what we fix our hearts upon. The second condition necessary in a teacher according to Vivekananda is sinlessness. It is not what he says that matters. What should matter for the student is his teacher’s behavior. Religion cannot be taught by impure minds. The worthy vibration of spirituality in a pure personality can be transmitted to a student, who is a seeker. The third condition he says is in regard to the motive. The teaching with ulterior selfish motives can never succeed. The Guru-Shishya tradition existed in India with the student’s intense desire for seeking knowledge and the teacher’s wisdom penetrating his intellect through various strategies. Religion according to Vivekananda cannot be bought nor can it be acquired from books as it is the highest knowledge.
Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s master has dominated this domain of influence so vividly that he could liberate his students from the baggage of ignorance almost completely. After his passing away, it was the responsibility of his students to discover the unseen sides of wisdom that the Guru left for them to experiment and experience. This empirical learning was the principal reason that forced Vivekananda to come out and pace the length and breadth of India. That was an irresistible movement and a moment that demanded deep reflections. This could not have been possible without a well-realized spiritual luminary igniting the thirst in his students.
Sri Ramakrishna, though illiterate, had the spiritual eminence of a prophet who controlled the spiritual imaginations of a nation through his unfathomable penance. The splendor of his spiritual greatness was capable of disseminating the ideal and intellectual essence of Sanatana Dharma after Adi Shankara. Throughout his life he remained a pure personification of truth, innocence, compassion and extreme spiritual devotion. Going through his revelations, one thing becomes clear, that his intense sadhana was the foundation of his saintly makeover. With him began an indubitable flow of Dharmic renaissance in India, especially through idol worship. The temple priest in him developed an intense devotion to the symbol of divinity that he worshipped in an idol with extreme purity of mind. And with this unconvinced spiritual fantasy of Sri Ramakrishna began the modern version of Bhakti movement, a spiritual renaissance, which opened doors for idol worship during the days when India was passing through the crucial period of external invasion. This, with its absolute commitment to divinity was the well framed strategy that the saint of Dakshineswar propagated and the one practice his chief disciple Vivekananda questioned in his initial days. What was the most astonishing element of this spiritual tradition that Sri Ramakrishna began with his intense penance was that, for all practical reasons, he never forced his students into the path of idol worship. Though it began quite informally, the spiritual tradition that unfolded from the days of Sri Ramakrishna and evolved through the penance of Vivekananda, the Ramakrishna Mission has successfully transcended the limits of ordinary human nature. Its involvement in the field of spiritually disciplining people has succeeded for generations.
—M.R.Lalu