Then it was that Sri
Ramakrishna incarnated himself in India in order to demonstrate what the
true religion of the Aryan race is; to show where amidst all its many
divisions and offshoots, scattered over the land in the course of its
immemorial history, lies the true unity of the Hindu religion, which by
its overwhelming number of sects discordant to superficial view,
quarrelling constantly with each other and abounding in customs
divergent in every way, has constituted itself a misleading enigma for
our countrymen and the butt of contempt for foreigners; and above all,
to hold up before us, for our lasting welfare, as a living embodiment of
the Sanatana Dharma, his own wonderful life into which he infused the
universal spirit and character of this Dharma, so long cast into
oblivion by the process of time.
In order to show how the Vedic truths--eternally existent as the
instrument with the Creator in His work of creation, preservation, and
dissolution--reveal themselves spontaneously in the minds of the Rishis
purified from all impressions of worldly attachment, and because such
verification and confirmation of the scriptural truths will help the
revival, reinstatement, and spread of religion--the Divine, though the
very embodiment of the Vedas, in this His new incarnation has thoroughly
discarded all external forms of learning.
That the Divine incarnates again and again in human form for the
protection of the Vedas or the true religion, and of Brahminhood or the
ministry of that religion--is a doctrine well established in the Puranas
etc.
The waters of a river falling in a cataract acquire greater velocity,
the rising wave after a hollow swells higher; so after every spell of
decline, the Aryan society recovering from all the evils by the merciful
dispensation of Providence has risen the more glorious and
powerful--such is the testimony of history.
After rising from every fall, our revived society is expressing more and
more its innate eternal perfection, and so also the omnipresent Divine
Being in each successive incarnation is manifesting Himself more and
more.
Again and again has our country fallen into a swoon, as it were, and
again and again has the Divine Being, by the manifestation of Himself,
revivified her.
But greater than the present deep dismal night, now almost over, no pall
of darkness had ever before enveloped this holy land of ours. And
compared with the depth of this fall, all previous falls appear like
little hoof-marks.
Therefore, before the effulgence of this new awakening, the glory of all
past revivals in her history will pale like stars before the rising
sun; and compared with this mighty manifestation of renewed strength,
all the many past epochs of such restoration will be as child's play.
The various constituent ideals of the Religion Eternal, during its
present state of decline, have been lying scattered here and there for
want of competent people to realize them--some being preserved partially
among small sects and some completely lost.
But strong in the strength of this new spiritual renaissance,
people—after reorganizing these scattered and disconnected spiritual
ideals—will be able to comprehend and practice them in their own lives
and also to recover from oblivion those that are lost. And as the sure
pledge of this glorious future, the all-merciful Divine Being has
manifested in the present age, as stated above, an incarnation which in
point of completeness in revelation, its synthetic harmonizing of all
ideals, and its promoting of every sphere of spiritual culture,
surpasses the manifestations of all past ages.
So at the very dawn of this momentous epoch, the reconciliation of all
aspects and ideals of religious thought and worship is being proclaimed;
this boundless, all-embracing idea had been lying inherent, but so long
concealed, in the Religion Eternal and its scriptures, and now
rediscovered, it is being declared to humanity in a trumpet voice.
This epochal new dispensation is the harbinger of great good to the
whole world, specially to India; and the inspirer of this dispensation,
Sri Ramakrishna, is the reformed and remodeled manifestation of all the
past great epoch-makers in religion. Have faith in this and lay it to
heart.
The dead never return; the past night does not reappear; a spent-up
tidal wave does not rise anew; neither does a person inhabit the same
body over again. So from the worship of the dead past, we invite you all
to the worship of the living present; from the regretful brooding over
bygones, we invite you to the activities of the present; from the waste
of energy in retracing lost and demolished pathways, we call you back to
broad new-laid highways lying very near. Those that are wise, let them
understand.
Of that power, which at the very first impulse has roused distant echoes
from all the four quarters of the globe, conceive in your mind the
manifestation in its fullness; and discarding all idle misgivings,
weaknesses, and the jealousies characteristic of enslaved peoples, come
and help in the turning of this mighty wheel of the new dispensation!
With the conviction firmly rooted in your heart that you are the
servants of the Lord, His children, helpers in the fulfillment of His
purpose, enter the arena of work.
http://www.vivekananda.org/readings.asp
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