The late Swami
Niyanandaji Maharaj
The establishment of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda
Mission, Vivekananda Math & Sarada Kanya Sangha is a landmark in the history
of the late 20th century in West Bengal by a single monk Swami Nityananda who
came out from the great Ramakrishna Mission around October 1976 and did it with
his goal to put into practice the twin ideas of Swami Vivekananda: God Worship
in Man irrespective of caste, creed and religion especially God worship in the
distressed humanity, and the Education & Training of girls and women, as
society cannot prosper with development of male-wing only. He started the
organization registered under the West Bengal Society Registration Act in the
year 1976 with only 20 tribal children from remote villages of West Bengal. His
sincerity and love for the poor and destitute attracted the attention of many
ordinary local people and some influential persons. They came forward to help
him in this noble task. And within a
very short period of time the Mission of Swami Nityananda received popularity
and it unfurls its wings of services for all types of social malady right from
child welfare to welfare of aged people from general people to disabled, especially
sensory impaired people. He earned a great
reputation of his selfless work as the founding secretary of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda
Mission in the form of the Institutional National Award from the Government of
India from its Ministry of Women & Child Development and Social Welfare in
the years 1984, 1992 and 2003. Moreover
in the year 2007 he was personally honoured by the Government of India with a
prestigious National Award in public recognition of his outstanding
contribution in the field of child welfare. At present there are 34 institutions set up by
him. It is now serving 2,312 poor,
distressed and orphaned children, 142 deaf and blind girls, 143 women-in-distress,
15 deserted Babies, 13,245 students, and 89,278 poor patients from all walks of
life, without having any distinction in their Caste, Creed, Gender, Religion
and Region, paving the way for the creation of citizens for a secular and peaceful
society with mutual understanding of harmony of religions having an impact on lives
of 100,000’s of people in India and abroad.
Rev. Swami Nityanandaji Maharaj was a true follower of
Swami Vivekananda and he will be counted as an example for putting into
practice the dictum of Swami Vivekananda which runs like this :-
Ye! I be born again and
again
and suffer a thousand
miseries
If I could serve the only
God I believe in,
the only God I dream of -
My God the wicked, my God
the poor,
my God the illiterate of all
Races and all Nations.
Dated: 7th March 2014
David Green
(Adapted from writings of
Swami Nityarupananda
Secretary Ramakrishna Vivekananda
Mission)
