Know about the Ramakrishna Order

Swami Tapasyananda

We present here answers to some questions about the Ramakrishna Order, culled by Br.Anant of the Chennai Math, from the book `For Enquirers about Ramakrishna Math and Mission' by Swami Tapasyananda.

India is already full of different sects and many kinds of Sannyasins. What then was the necessity of creating one more order of Sannyasins?

The new turn that Swamiji has given to Indian monasticism has put fresh vitality and significance into that hoary but dwindling institution. Sannyasa at its best has become identified with the ideal of a recluse or hermit, having minimum of contact with society, which is considered corrupt and ephemeral. At its worst, it has been equated with miracle mongering, palmistry, faith-curing and beggary. It is not unoften that we hear people speaking of hundreds of thousands of Sadhus in India, including in it all the beggars that roam over the country. While Sannyasa in the sense of beggary is bound to be prohibited in an industrialized India of the near future, it is doubtful how long the practice of it as represented in the ideal of a recluse or a hermit is likely to survive in a society that is becoming thoroughly positivistic in outlook. When the usefulness of an institution is measured in terms of its social worth, the hermit ideal of Sannyasa is likely to dwindle fast both due to want of patronage and the unattractiveness of it to intending entrants.

Swamiji wanted to vitalize and popularize this holy institution, as the great Buddha did in the days of old, by opening its door to the youth of the country to help them make the best use of their energies for their own uplift and for the good of the world.

Is it not impractical to give direct Sannyasa to youngsters instead of following the traditional Varnashrama Dharma and taking up Sannyasa after fulfilling the duties of domestic life?

The Varnashrama ideal, i.e., the traditional ideal of Sannyasa, confines the last stage to the select few, and that too, towards the evening of one's career. After one has finished all his duties, domestic and civic, he may take to the life of a recluse in his advanced years. While this has a theoretical perfection about it, due to its implication of a 'full life', it is self-negating in its conception. For, after men have become fixed in their habits and standards of living till the age of sixty and after they have cultivated every possible kind of social relationship and consequent attachments, it is superhuman to expect them to overcome all these obstructing circumstances at an age when infirmity has set in. It is due to the impracticability of this ideal that so very few grown up men of culture and calibre have been taking to the life of Sannyasa.

However, the scriptures also encouraged the youth, who have become fired with the zeal of self-enquiry, to take up the path of renunciation immediately bypassing the long-route of Varnashrama.

Why, instead of leading the life of absolute recluse devoted to study and meditation, are the Sannyasins of the Ramakrishna Order entangling themselves in secular work befitting a social worker?

Traditionally a Sannyasin is expected to abandon all work and engage himself in study and meditation. There is no place in his life for undertaking medical, educational and other social activities. But Swamiji insisted that his Sannyasins should be all-sided. He also specially laid down that the Ramakrishna Math should not become a mere temple of ceremonial worship. He has declared in unmistakable language that its object is to form character, combining Jnana, Bhakti, Yoga and Karma, and all the Sadhanas that are necessary for that end should be accepted as the Sadhanas of the Math.

The service of the enlightened teacher has always been held out in the Indian tradition as an aid to enlightenment. The particular turn that the work takes may look secular, but the faith in the guru, with which it is performed, converts it into a Sadhana leading to enlightenment.

In the Chhandogya Upanishad we read of Satyakama going to the teacher enquiring about Brahman. But instead of giving him a discourse on philosophy, the teacher asked him to go into the forest tending his cattle with instruction to return only after the cattle had doubled in number. With a heart full of reverence for the enlightened teacher and in a spirit of service to him, the disciple spent years in tending cattle in the forest. In the course of his wanderings, he received instruction in spiritual life from the spirit manifesting as various forms of Nature within and without. So he returned to his guru at the end of the period of his service, an enlightened man. Here the work done was cow-keeping, which has nothing to do with spiritual enlightenment directly. But when performed as a service of guru, the apparently secular work becomes transformed into spiritual Sadhana under the influence of faith and worshipful reverence for guru.

'This Organization is His very body, and in the Organization itself He is ever present. What the united Organization orders is verily the Lord's order. He who worships the Organization worships the Lord, and he who disregards the Organization disregards the Lord.' In the light of this conception the Ramakrishna Order becomes the symbol of Sri Ramakrishna and the medium for the working of His will. Its service thereby becomes the service of Him and a potent form of Sadhana, provided the faith at the back of this conception is strongly adhered to.

The guru who is served through the Order formed by Swamiji is not an ordinary one, but the Divine come as World Teacher, to fulfil a mission that is of world-wide significance in the present age. So Swamiji says in his Rules and Regulations: 'The Lord has not yet given up His Ramakrishna form. Some see Him in that form even now and receive instruction from Him, and everyone may see Him if he likes. This form of His will last until He comes once again in another gross body. Though He may not be visible to all, that He is in the Order and is guiding it, is patent to all. Otherwise such a world-wide movement could not have been set on foot in so short a time by the handful of insignificant, helpless and persecuted boys.'

In the light of this conception the Order ceases to be a mere association for the achievement of a definite physical objective, as in the case of political, social and economic organizations. It becomes the physical expression or symbol of the spiritual body of the Divinity manifest as World Teacher. To fulfil its commands and work in its service becomes a devotional act and a part of one's sadhana. The work may take different forms; it may be educational, medical, publication, mass contact or official. Whatever its form, provided it is done with humility, faith and devotion, and as the service of the Master in fulfilment of his mission, it is a devotional act and a part and parcel of one's Sadhana.

The youth cannot be left to a life of pure study and meditation. They have great creative energy that must find expression in work, and at the same time that work should be so phased and so regulated that it becomes an aid to spiritual progress of the individual and result in the general good of the society. The ideology of the Order with a programme of organized work under its auspices as the service of the Master, is the means that Swamiji has offered for adapting the monastic ideal to the needs and conditions of the modern world.

This way, the divine can be served anywhere. Why confine it only to Rama-krishna Order activities?

It may be said that this sense of dedication can be practised anywhere and in any station of life according to the Vedanta, and that the peculiar conception of the Order and the service of the Master through it are superfluous. They can be described as superfluous, if one is prepared to call all symbols and aids to worship and spiritual practice as superfluous. For example, as God is everywhere, He can be worshipped anywhere theoretically. But yet people seek churches, mosques, temples, etc., for worship and prayer, and go to books, accepted holy places and centres of worship and pilgrimage for spiritual inspiration. They do so because these symbols are effective and helpful in linking the imperfect mind of man with the Infinite and the Absolute through faith and an accepted spiritual tradition. So people resort to them in spite of the philosophical doctrine of immanence in all things. In the same way all work can be done as worship, theoretically. But for those who have faith in Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and the ideology of the Order, work in the service of God-Incarnate and his mission can become an easier and more efficient adaptation of the Vedantic doctrine of performance of dedicated work as worship.

The same service rendered by a monastic in Ramakrishna Order would have happened through him by the momentum of his past karma. Then how can it become sadhana by joining the order?

From the Vedantic point of view, it is no doubt that the result of one's past deeds puts a person into a particular environment and burdens him with a particular set of duties and makes him do various actions in life. It follows that even without entering the Order and taking up works connected with it, a member of it who happens to do medical work would have, by force of past deed, been a medical worker outside, a publishing monk, a publisher outside, and an educationist monk, an educational worker outside. What Swamiji's conception of the Order achieves is that, for those who accept it and work in the service of the Master, an effective way is provided for overcoming the binding effect of these actions born of one's past deeds. Done with the proper attitude of mind, they not only do not bind as in the ordinary course, but become positive acts of devotion and aids in the spiritual advancement of the individual just like any other accepted mode of Sadhana.

Is not deflecting the mind from the holy contemplation of the Divine, in the name of doing service to the world, a violation of the rule of Sannyasins and lowering of its ideal?

It would certainly have been valid if the Order were only just an association like so many others for running social service institutions and cultural centres, and the Sannyasins were to work under such auspices most of their time and devote their spare time for their spiritual practices like any other devotee in the world. That would have been a denial of Sannyasa itself.

But work in the Order, as conceived by Swamiji, is only service of God through the living social symbol of the Incarnate Deity. As such there is no division between the sacred and the secular in the life of a true Sannyasin of the monastic order of Sri Ramakrishna. He is as much a whole-time devotee of God as a Sannyasin of any orthodox Vedantic Order, and the work he does in this Order is a vital part of his Sadhana. Of course, it will become so only if he has a proper understanding of, and unfailing faith in, Swamiji's words and ideas, and if he maintains a constant devotional attitude in his work, eschewing all egoism, vanity and pride of achievement.

In the words of Swamiji, 'You must try to combine in your life immense idealism with immense practicality. You must be prepared to go into deep meditation now, and the next moment you must be ready to go and cultivate the fields. You must be prepared to explain the difficult intricacies of the Shastras now, and the next moment to go and sell the produce of the fields in the market. You must be prepared for all menial services, not only here but elsewhere also.'

In fact devoted work in the Order as conceived by Swamiji, has always to go hand in hand with ardent meditation and deep self-analysis, without which work, however vast it might be in extent and in worldly value, ceases to have any spiritual significance. Wherever failure is noticed in people professing to follow Swamiji, it is to be attributed not to any flaw in the great ideal of the synthesis of Yogas he propounded but to the insincerity and incompetence of the persons concerned.

By neglect of Bhakti and Jnana in the midst of their so-called works of service, people degenerate into mere busybodies almost indistinguishable from worldlings. So also by neglect of truly devoted and dedicated work in the service of God, aspirants, professing to practise Jnana or Bhakti exclusively, end by becoming ego-centred intellectuals or sentimental neurotics, unless they had already reached a very high state of excellence through the discipline of the harmonious combination of all Yogas. Since such exalted aspirants are very rare, Swamiji has ignored these ideals and laid stress on the harmonious combination of all Yogas leading to the development of the whole man. This is the ideal suited to the vast majority of aspirants, and it alone can create the right type of personalities required for the conditions of modern life.

To be concluded...