New Paradigm

India is a land of religions. So many paths and so many peoples, so many mentalities. And from the hoary past many spiritual prescriptions gather unto themselves suitable votaries and devotees. Yogis, real or professed, have never been rare at any given time. Sometimes an engulfing personality sweeps the stage and the history twists around them for a moment. And always for a moment before the flow gyrates back to its stream. Perhaps such a moment was the advent of Sri Ramakrishna. Is it not? Or is it totally unique? I think it is unique in the history of human thought, the advent of Sri Ramakrishna and more so, the publication of the noumenon viz., Sri Ramakrishna to the world in the form of Vivekananda, the Phenomenon.

Of course the closest parallel happens to be the ancient and puranic pair Nara Narayana. To be the Master and to be the Disciple in the self-same incarnation. But it is just an happy parallel and remains only such without explaining very much the uniqueness of the modern event. It is a habit of thought with us to match the new with the old, however distant and however strange. And it is a favorite theme with us to reiterate that the time and hence the events are always cyclical, the old repeats itself. 

But I think it will be a lot more effective towards understanding, if we, for a turn, are able to shuffle off these parametric approaches and take the events as unique in themselves. Nothing wrong with the old parameters, but we scarcely understand their dynamic meanings, which should have been alive at least in the minds of some past masters of theology, though not in recent times but definitely in the relevant periods of the past. 

Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda form the text and the commentary in themselves. One illustrates and the other explains. One intuits the meanings through life and the other illustrates by language and logic, the meanings imbibed. The Old happens anew and the Modern rediscovers its roots. The transcendental immortalizes itself in the transitory life and the temporal search finds its fulfillment in encountering the Eternal. It is a single happening janus-faced or janus-phased. 

I think it is only in understanding Vivekananda in Sri Ramakrishna and again Sri Ramakrishna in Vivekananda that the modern India's self-discovery becomes complete. And this self-education has never become such a task of Nationalism in any past ages as it has become a necessity in our times. That is why I say we must keep away the old parameters apart for a turn and approach afresh our New Manifesto, which comprises all Nationalism, Spirituality and Universality in one. 

***