Context

The Prime Minister has participated in the 125th Anniversary celebrations of Sri Ramakrishna Math at Vivekananda House in Chennai.

About the Ramakrishna Mission:

• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-1886), a 19th-century saint, was the founder of the Ramakrishna Order of monks and is regarded as the ‘spiritual founder’ of the Ramakrishna Movement.
• Ramakrishna was a priest in the Dakshineswar Kali Temple and attracted several monastic and householder disciples.
• Narendra Nath Datta (1863-1902) later known as Swami Vivekananda was the most devoted pupil of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who carried the message of his Guru Ramakrishna all over the world, especially in America and Europe.
• Later, Vivekananda became the first spiritual leader who thought beyond religious reforms.
• He felt that Indian masses required secular as well as spiritual knowledge to empower them to believe in themselves.
• Vivekananda established the Ramakrishna mission after the name of his guru Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
• Through his speeches and writings, he brought out the essence of Hindu culture and religion.
• He believed in the spirit of Vedanta and the essential unity and equality of all religions.

Ramakrishna Math:

• The Ramakrishna Math is headquartered at Belur math on the bank of river Ganga in West Bengal.
• After the death of Ramakrishna in 1886, the monastic disciples formed the first Math (monastery) at Baranagore.
• Ramakrishna Math is an Order of sannyasins having Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), regarded as the prophet of the modern age, as the ideal.
• Ramakrishna Math is a registered society engaged in the service of mankind in the spirit of ‘service of God in man’.
• Ramakrishna Math was registered as a Trust in 1901 by Swami Vivekananda himself.

Teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa:

• Ramakrishna Paramahamsa highlighted the essential unity of religions and the need to lead a spiritual life.
• He believed that the different religions of the world are only different ways to reach the same god.
• He believed that there were many roads to God and the service of man was the service of God, because the man was the embodiment of God.
• Hence, sectarianism had no place in his teachings.
• He realised the divinity in humanity and looked upon the service of mankind as a means to salvation.