Ramakrishna Mission

Ramakrishna Mission (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ মিশন) is an Indian religious organization which forms the core of a worldwide spiritual movement known as the Ramakrishna Movement or the Vedanta Movement. The mission is a philanthropic, volunteer organisation founded by Ramakrishna's chief disciple Vivekananda on 1 May 1897. The mission conducts extensive work in health care, disaster relief, rural management, tribal welfare, elementary and higher education and culture. It uses the combined efforts of hundreds of ordered monks and thousands of householder disciples. The mission bases its work on the principles of karma yoga.

The mission, which is headquartered near Kolkata at Belur Math in Howrah, West Bengal, subscribes to the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta. It is affiliated with the monastic organisation Ramakrishna Math, with whom it shares members.

Overview

The Math and the Mission are the two key organisations that direct the work of the socio-religious Ramakrishna movement influenced by 19th-century saint Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and founded by his chief disciple Vivekananda. Also referred to as the Ramakrishna Order, the Math is the movement's monastic organisation. Founded by Ramakrishna in 1886, the Math primarily focuses on spiritual training and the propagation of the movement's teachings.

Belur Math

Belūr Maṭh or Belur Mutt is the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, founded by Swami Vivekananda, a chief disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. It is located on the west bank of Hooghly River, Belur, West Bengal, India and is one of the significant institutions in Calcutta. This temple is the heart of the Ramakrishna Movement. The temple is notable for its architecture that fuses Hindu, Christian and Islamic motifs as a symbol of unity of all religions.

History

In January 1897, Swami Vivekananda arrived in Colombo with his small group of Western disciples. Two monasteries were founded by him, one at Belur, which became the headquarters of Ramakrishna Mission and the other at Mayavati on the Himalayas,in Champawat Dist. Uttrakhand called the Advaita Ashrama. These monasteries were meant to receive and train young men who would eventually become sannyasis of the Ramakrishna Mission, and to give them a training for their work. The same year the philanthropic activity was started and relief of the famine was carried out.

Ramakrishna

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ পরমহংস) ( Ramkṛiṣṇo Pôromôhongśo ) (18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), born Gadadhar Chatterji or Gadadhar Chattopadhyay (Gôdadhor Chôṭṭopaddhae), was an Indian mystic and yogi during the 19th-century.

Ramakrishna was given to spiritual ecstacies from a young age, and was influenced by several religious traditions, including devotion toward the goddess Kali, Tantra and Vaishnava bhakti, and Advaita Vedanta.

The perception amongst Bengali elites of what they considered his exemplary life, led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda, which acquired worldwide influence in the spread of modern Hinduism.

Biography

Birth and childhood

Ramakrishna was born on 18 February 1836, in the village of Kamarpukur, in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, into a very poor, pious, and orthodox brahmin family. Kamarpukur was untouched by the glamour of the city and contained rice fields, tall palms, royal banyans, a few lakes, and two cremation grounds. His parents were Khudiram Chattopadhyay and Chandramani Devi. According to his followers, Ramakrishna's parents experienced supernatural incidents and visions before his birth. In Gaya his father Khudiram had a dream in which Lord Gadadhara (a form of Vishnu), said that he would be born as his son. Chandramani Devi is said to have had a vision of light entering her womb from Shiva's temple.

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda Bengali: [ʃami bibekanɒnɖo], Shāmi Bibekānondo; 12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Dutta (Bengali: [nɔrend̪ro nat̪ʰ d̪ɔt̪t̪o]), was an Indian Hindu monk, a chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna. He was a key figure in the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world and is credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion during the late 19th century. He was a major force in the revival of Hinduism in India, and contributed to the concept of nationalism in colonial India. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. He is perhaps best known for his speech which began, "Brothers and sisters of America ...," in which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.

Born into an aristocratic Bengali family of Calcutta, Vivekananda was inclined towards spirituality. He was influenced by his Guru, Ramakrishna Deva, from whom he learnt that all living beings were an embodiment of the divine self; therefore, service to God could be rendered by service to mankind. After Ramakrishna's death, Vivekananda toured the Indian subcontinent extensively and acquired first-hand knowledge of the conditions prevailing in British India. He later travelled to the United States, representing India at the 1893 Parliament of the World Religions. Vivekananda conducted hundreds of public and private lectures and classes, disseminating tenets of Hindu philosophy in the United States, England and Europe. In India, Vivekananda is regarded as a patriotic saint and his birthday is celebrated there as National Youth Day.

Ramakrishna Order

The Ramakrishna Order (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ সংঘ) is the monastic organization inspired by Sri Ramakrishna and founded by his disciple Swami Vivekananda.

Information

The Ramakrishna Order encompasses the twin organizations Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, both headquartered at Belur Math near Kolkata, India. The organization was inspired by the great Bengali saint, Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Ramakrishna was born in the year of 1836. Ramakrishna decided to entrust his people to his top disciple, Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda then founded the Ramakrishna Order in the year of 1897. It involves the two ideas of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. There are over 166 centers for the Ramakrishna Order that are located on the Indian subcontinent, Europe, Russia, Japan, South America, Africa, Canada and the United States. Ramakrishna Mission tries to provide relief and aid from famine, epidemic, fire, flood, earthquake, cyclone, and communal disturbances.

The seal of the Ramakrishna Order