16 / March 2018 / Yuva Bharati
great soul who aroused the nation from
its lethargic sleep and gave birth to an
Awakened Bharat, whose far-sighted and
vibrant thoughts gave inimitable power
to the Nation to shatter the chains of
dependency, whose brilliant words inspired
Hindu Dharma to realize its Self, whose
heroism of the miracles of the intellect
of the sages of India hoisted the flag of
victory of Hindu Dharma all over the
world – of this great nation-rejuvenator,
Swami Vivekananda’s rock where he got
realization, and this Memorial which
gives everyone’s soul a unique awakening
message will for a long time illumine the
world – this is the auspicious thought
dwelling within’. Dated 07-02-1972.”
Thus it is clear that the Memorial has an
‘awakening message’ in the cause of the
nation.
Let us not forget another significant facet
of our history. Fire and its heat cannot
be separated. The Sun and its radiant
brilliance cannot be separated. Just so,
Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda
cannot be thought of in isolation. This
takes us to another topic ‘Sri Ramakrishna
and the New Millennium’. This is a very
scholarly and profusely quoted Editorial
in which Shri Parameswaranji says: “Sri
Ramakrishna came to fulfil a crying
need in history. That is the considered
view of eminent intellectuals as well as
philosophers. Two of the greatest minds,
one from the East and one from the West
have attempted to evaluate the role of Sri
Ramakrishna in their own respective way.
Arnold Toynbee, the most outstandinghistorian of the century, and Mahayogi
Sri Aurobindo, the mystic philosopher
from India have asserted that the future
of humanity is decisively dependent on
the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.”
Arnold Toynbee said: “Sri Ramakrishna
was born in Bengal in 1836. He was born
into a world that, in his lifetime, was, for
the first time, being united on a literally
world-wide scale. Today we are still living
in this transitional chapter of the world’s
history, but it is already becoming clear that
a chapter which had a Western beginning
will have to have an Indian ending if it is
not to end in the self-destruction of the
human race. In the present age, the world
has been united on the material plane by
Western technology. But this Western
skill has not only ‘annihilated distance’, it
has armed the peoples of the world with
weapons of devastating power at a time
when they have been brought to point-
blank range of each other without yet
having learnt to know and love each other.
At this supremely dangerous moment in
human history the only way of salvation
for mankind is an Indian way.” (Quoted
from World Thinkers on Sri Ramakrishna-
Vivekananda, R.K. Mission Institute of
Culture).
And to quote Mahayogi Sri Aurobindo:
“...Of all these souls, Sri Ramakrishna was
the last and greatest, for while others felt
God in a single or limited aspect, he felt
Him in his illimitable unity as the sum of
an illimitable variety. In him the spiritual
experiences of the Millions of saints who
had gone before were renewed and united.