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This motherland of
ours has been charting her course to guide the humanity despite hundreds of
years of persecution and almost thousand years of foreign rule and oppression
in some or other part of our country. At every time of need, the deep
conscience or the ethos of our Motherland responded to the peculiar situation
or problem by bringing up a great personality or an organisation. Therefore, each
national, cultural, and spiritual organization of this land stands for a
specific response of Mother India. Hence, to carry out the purpose of each
organization, its Karyakartas have to understand what role they have to play and what ‘need’
they must fulfil.
In this respect, it
would be worthwhile to see how Eknathji understood this need and how he placed
the same before the
Karyakartas of Vivekananda Kendra.
He said, “People of our country are, by tradition, Dharmik and this country
is therefore described as a land of Dharma and spirituality. Swami Vivekananda
used to say that the soul of our country is in Dharma. The highest and the
ultimate goal, or Purushartha, aspired for by the people of our country
is Mukti…
“If
going to temples, visiting places of pilgrimage, participating in Bhajans, Yagnyas and as
also listening to philosophical and religious discourses by millions of people,
or the presence of numerous teachers, gurus and such other men of God all over
the country are the manifestations of a growing Dharmikta, our country is,
perhaps, more Dharmik today than it ever was at any time in the past.”
“But,
unfortunately, the natural impact of this apparent God-wardness of
the general society is little in evidence today. Purposeful living, discipline,
character, truthfulness, fellow-feeling, fearlessness, subordination of the
self and a zest for works of public good, which are some of the traits that
develop in a God-ward society and which, we have enough evidence to say,
existed in good measure in our country in the past, are seen fast disappearing
from our midst. Ironically enough, with the apparent Dharmik fervour
presently on the increase, general corruption, indiscipline and other kinds of
moral degradation are also in the ascendant. How is this paradox to be
explained?”
"…Any
discerning mind will be able to see that a distorted conception of Dharma is
the root cause of most of our ills for the last several centuries, which
persist even today. It is rightly said that Dharma is the soul of our country.
But, as that itself is blurred, we have the sorry spectacle of deterioration
all round.”
“Spiritual
awakening means experiencing the presence of God in one’s own self and in the
world. That makes one conscious of the divine within and
urges him to work for its unfoldment and enables him to grow spiritually.
Simultaneously, it generates in him a sense of oneness with God’s creation and,
consequently, an intense fellow-feeling for the members of his own species –
the human race – and prompts him to work with zest for human welfare and
progress… If, and as long as, the spiritual awakening intensifies on
these lines, it is dynamic and full of tremendous potentialities for the
transformation of humanity into higher and higher planes of existence. But, if
it remains limited to rituals, forms of worship and offerings to God, or
prayers and praises addressed to Him, it becomes static and has hardly any role
to play in human advancement.”
"Swami
Vivekananda was the foremost among the modern spiritual teachers who strove to
take out Dharma from that static condition into which it had degenerated over
the centuries and drew the attention of the people to its real role. He pointed
out in no uncertain terms that ceremonies and forms are not the essence of
Dharma but that it lies rather in the realization of a higher life. He said,
'We may study all the books that are in the world, yet we may not understand a
word of Dharma or of God. …Dharma is not in doctrines or dogmas, nor in
intellectual argumentation. It is realisation in
the heart of hearts; it is touching God; it is feeling, realising that
I am a spirit in relation with Universal Spirit and all its great
manifestations.' To those who lost themselves only in forms and rituals,
turning their back on the people and the misery that had befallen them, he
said, 'What vain gods shall we go after and yet cannot worship the god that we
see all around us, the Virat(Janata Janardan).
When we have worshipped this, we shall be able to worship all other gods.”
A
Two-pronged Movement: The Need of the Hour: The
remedy for the ills of our country, therefore, lies in launching a mighty
movement of right thought sweeping the entire country. It has to be a two-pronged
move. On the one hand, it is to be aimed at (1) transforming our people’s
inherent God-wardness into the right spiritual urge rising out of the
teachings of the Upanishads, namely, (a) each soul is potentially divine and
(b) faith in God, in turn means faith in one’s self, i.e. in one’s potentiality
to rise to divine heights. On the other hand, it is (2) to convert the
spiritual fervour thus
released into works of national reconstruction”. (In the whole quotation the word religion is replaced
by Dharma, as the intended word was Dharma but in those days Dharma word was not
used in English.)
Vivekananda Kendra
thus works with the twin ideals of Man
– making and Nation-building.
Man-making means giving confidence to a person to rise to divine heights and
work for the nation with a feeling of Oneness. Nation building is possible only
by creating teams of such men who would take up the work of national
reconstruction to fulfil her mission of guiding the world in spirituality.
Thus, the service activities of Kendra do not depend on the occurrence of
cyclones, earthquakes, poverty etc. Mananeeya
Eknathji says in 'Sadhana of Service', "If
we are merely a service-oriented organization, we will have to pray to God to
create cyclones, floods, famines and accidents to provide us opportunities of
service. Service with a spiritual orientation results in man making, which is
invariably and inseparably connected with nation building. It is the core of
all our thoughts behind this organization.”
Real service is
awakening a person to his potential divinity and making him realise the
purpose of life. The purpose of life also has to be the fulfilment of the
mission of this nation. The mission of this nation has been to evolve a society
based on the vision of Oneness as the sages of our nation have been doing. This
spiritually oriented service is what Kendra is doing.
When the objective is
Man making and Nation building,
the Karyakarta is very clear that the activities are the medium to reach out to
the people and not the final goal. The final goal is ultimately to mould men
with capital ‘M’ as told by Swami Vivekananda. That is - through activities to inspire, mould ourselves and others to give
primary importance to nation, by contributing their time and energy; to become such
self propelled who do not need others to remind them to work for nation, for
whom dayitva is an arrangement and not a designation. The teams of such
dedicated Karyakartas is the strength of any organisation and nation.
There is another
dimension of spiritually oriented service too. Vivekananda Kendra is also a
thought movement. Which thought does Kendra want to work out as an organisation?
Dharma is the soul of this nation. But, if our understanding of Dharma gets
limited to lifeless outer forms,
then the nation declines and the society becomes callous and indifferent. Its
assertiveness is affected. Therefore, the need is to stress the right meaning
of Dharma, to imbibe the life-giving principles of Sanatana Dharma
embedded in Upanishads, so that our life is transformed and our energies are channelised for rebuilding the nation. What are the sublime principles of Sanatana Dharma?
The whole existence is the expression of the Divine and hence, the family,
society, nation and the whole creation – are ever expanding circles of
Consciousness and are linked to each other. Each soul is potentially divine,
and the goal of life is to manifest that divinity. Spirituality
means experiencing the presence of God in one’s own self and in the world. Such practice of Dharma evolves a person.
As per Patanjali Yoga
Sutra – Total surrender to God - ईश्वरप्रणिधान is one of the ways of spiritual practice. Eknathji always gave
stress on this. This continuous
Bhava in Karyakarta of surrender - of being the instrument of
Divine - is the core of our work. Eknathji says in ‘Sadhana of Service’, “That
service is the best and the noblest which is performed with the attitude of
total surrender to God. …It is the divine design that I should render service
on His behalf. He desires the betterment of the world and I am being used as a
tool or a means to carry out His design. I am just an instrument in His hands
…the action must be performed without any attachment but sincerely and honestly
to the best of our ability with an attitude of being a tool only. We have been
called upon to execute whatever is essential and possible as willed by God.
This is SERVICE. We are doing His work. Such work elevates us and leads to
Self-realization, which is the supreme goal of human life.”
As the service
rendered with this bhava of
being the instrument in the hands of God leads to self-realization, it is
termed as “spiritually oriented service”. Such surrender helps the karyakarta to
merge with the organization and thereby strengthens him to carry out work of
national reconstruction. To see Mother Bharat seated on her eternal throne,
rejuvenated, more glorious than she ever was, the Sadhana needed at this hour
is to render such "spiritually oriented" service.
May the collective
thinking on this Sadhana Diwas elevate us and make us better instruments to
continue doing Ishvara-Karya.
Nivedita Raghunath
Bhide
