Religious Tourism in the Native Land of Sri Ramakrishna

Introduction:

Tourism today is the world’s fastest growing industry and revolutionary changes are taking place in the world tourism industry. The Indian state of West Bengal is a land of stupendous dimensions with a rich cultural tapestry, undulating mountains, spectacular beaches and haunting wildlife. Few states in India can match the enormous variety that the state of West Bengal has to offer. And it’s a state, which somehow gets into your blood. Love it or hate it, you can never ignore Bengal. A visit to Bengal is not something that you clinically see. It is a total experience.

The Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati tourist circuit is a popular place of pilgrimage in the state of West Bengal by virtue of being the native land of one of modern India’s spiritual giants – Sri Ramakrishna and his holy consort – Sri Sarada Devi. While Sri Ramakrishna was born in Kamarpukur, Holy Mother Sarada Devi was born in the village of Joyrambati. In fact, the villages of Kamarpukur and Joyrambati are separated by mere 3 miles from each other. If one adds Gar Mandaran (1.5 Kms. from Kamarpukur) – renowned for its scenic beauty and dreamy landscape with Kamarpukur and Joyrambati, it makes for a truly fascinating religious tourism circuit.

These two villages are not only visited by pilgrims from India but a large number of visitors from far away countries too pour in during the peak tourist season in search of inner peace and tranquility. 

In both the villages, the Ramakrishna Math & Mission have centers that are run and administered by Belur Math, the worldwide headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math & Mission. Apart from preserving the sanctity of the birthplace of Sri Ramakrishna and Holy Mother Sarada Devi by way of ritual worship, discourses on religion and celebrating important festivals like the Durga Puja, Kali Puja etc… there are numerous other philanthropic services rendered by the Ramakrishna Math & Mission by way of providing primary and vocational education, free medical checkup, upgrading rural livelihood etc. all of which aims at the development of the rural folks.

The Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati tourist circuit has a unique traditional way of life, rich in culture, crafts and folklore all of which are of great interest to the discerning international traveler.

Even though the state of West Bengal is blessed with a variety of tourist products, the state hasn’t been able to tap its inherent tourism potential. Today, in terms of tourist arrivals, West Bengal is at the bottom level as compared to its counterparts like Kerala and Rajasthan. The state’s most hallowed river – “Ganga” is now heavily polluted and the city of Calcutta is literally bursting at the seams with every bit of space being occupied to build concrete structures. Needless to say, the Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati tourist circuit too has for long remained neglected.

The environmental problems facing the world are of such great magnitude that it is not just the government – local or central whose cooperation is required. There is always the need for involving the entire community and all the individuals to contribute positively if we are to survive on planet earth.

There is an urgent need to develop world-class tourist infrastructure like Tourist Information Centers, hotels, high quality way side amenities, folk museums, craft bazaars as well as renovating the age old temples and monuments that are closely connected with the life and times of Sri Ramakrishna and Holy Mother Sarada Devi.

Swami Vivekananda – India’s foremost Tourism Ambassador:

Let us remind ourselves that the genesis of Ramakrishna Math & Mission traces its origin to the untiring efforts of Swami Vivekananda, the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna who made his mark on the world stage with his soul stirring speech as an ambassador of Hindu religion in the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in the year 1893. This unheard-of monk was for all practical purposes India’s first tourism ambassador to the West and keeping in sync with his Master’s philosophy of –“Harmony of World Religions”, contributed admirably towards enriching the overall spiritual consciousness of the Western world.

The Ramakrishna Math & Mission believes that Swami Vivekananda’s mission of “Harmonious Cultural Synthesis Between India and the Rest of the World” is an ongoing process and see the present world tourism scenario as an opportunity to showcase the very best of India’s 5000 year old spiritual heritage. As the Ramakrishna Math & Mission plunges dedicatedly on their mission to take the new age traveler on a journey of discovery, courtesy the Integrated Religious Tourism Circuit of Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati, it is of utmost importance to draw some strength and vitality out of Swami Vivekananda’s forays in the world of tourism.

Today we are facing the age of great transformation, caused by the end of World War III. Everybody is well aware of the consequences of World War I and II; however, the other important war that many people have not yet come to recognize is the Cold War between the East and the West, which is what the World War III was all about. There are many phenomena occurring in this rapidly transforming world and at the same time we are facing another crisis, that is, the beginning of World War IV. 

The Second World War was fought between the fascist regimes and the free world and the Third World War was the fight between the East and the West. Now the Fourth World War might be fought between the North and the South. Under this situation, the global community is trying to build a “New World Order” and the United Nations is at the center of this movement. The Ramakrishna Math & Mission feels that the “New World Order” will not be established by the United Nations alone.

The world is grappling with millions of problems and searching for a new civilization; otherwise we might face a very dangerous era in the coming decades. Modern civilization is based on mass production and mass consumption. If the people of the industrialized countries continue with their present life style as they do today, then by mid-21st century we will have used up all of the resources available. On the light of the above observations, what the world really needs is the creation of a totally new civilization, which can supersede the modern civilization.  Now who will take the initiative in creating such a new civilization? 

Drawing succor from Swami Vivekananda’s predictions, the Ramakrishna Math & Mission believes that the new civilization will be created by Asian countries. The economies of USA and Europe are on the decline; however, the Asian economies are rapidly expanding and growing and all the leading international organizations like the United Nations, The World Bank, The World Trade Organization etc. are unanimous in their opinion that in the 21st century Asia will continue to lead the global economy.

At least a century back, the great “Cyclonic Monk” Swami Vivekananda had predicted that Asia will lead the world not only in terms of economics but also in terms of culture and in the creation of a new civilization. 

It is only logical to believe that an organization like the Ramakrishna Math & Mission, whose founder was Swami Vivekananda, to follow in his hallowed footsteps and in the process of creating a new civilization, the Ramakrishna Math & Mission has identified tourism to play the role of a catalyst. The tourism industry has now grown into a global phenomenon, which has enough power to change the world.

Do we have to rely solely on politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, scholars or journalists to bring change to the world? As per the latest statistical data of the World Tourism Organization, by the year 2010, the number of tourists is expected to touch the magic figure of 1 billion. Even a decade back, the people from the “North Block” formed the bulk of the tourist traffic but now there seems to have occurred a complete role reversal as more and more people from the developing countries are also beginning to travel frequently.

With the advent of modernity, a new human breed has emerged whose beliefs correspond very little in the heritage of their forefathers. As a consequence, religion and spirituality – the kingpins of that heritage has been marginalized, both intellectually and politically. Progress has turned into something of a nightmare. According to Huston Smith, a leading figure in the study of comparative religions, “it is discouraging to discover that not only are we no wiser than our forefathers were; we may be less wise for having neglected value questions while bringing nature to heel”. Also, it is a fact that the three-hundred-year-old tension between science and religion shows no sign of easing; for science continues to be what modernity believes in.  Science still can’t deal with values and existential meanings.

Sri Ramakrishna’s Spiritual Perspective:

Sri Ramakrishna’s “Harmonious Approach” developed not through scholarship but through direct spiritual experience. He did not set out to “prove” the harmony of religions. He was a God-intoxicated soul. Having tasted supreme, transcendent bliss as a result of intense longing for God as the Divine Mother, he became eager to know how God was worshipped in different ways. His all-consuming love for God made him take up the disciplines of different Hindu sects and also of other religions. This was a unique experiment and its results were extraordinary. Sri Ramakrishna found to his childlike wonder and joy that all these paths led to the ultimate awareness of God as the Supreme Spirit. Thus, through direct spiritual experience Sri Ramakrishna proved the equal validity of all religions. This led him to formulate the following three fundamental principles, which form the cornerstone of his “Harmonious Approach” to the phenomenon of religious plurality –

1. All religions have the same ultimate purpose, namely, God-realization; everything else in religion is secondary. Stripped of all theological trappings, every religion has for its goal the transcending of human limitations to contact the Reality beyond. 
2. There is only one transcendent, ultimate Reality, which manifests in various forms, with various attributes, and even as formless, and is known by various names.
3. The Ultimate Reality can be realized through various ways developed by the world religions. Every religion has the inherent power to take its followers to the supreme consummation of human life.

Swami Vivekananda put it succinctly when he said in a lecture in USA – “The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth”. 

In another instance he explained the idea of “Harmony of World Religions” beautifully in a lecture he gave at the Universalist Church, Pasadena in the year 1900, which is quoted hereby – “Take four photographs of this church from different corners: how different they would look, and yet they would all represent this church. In the same way, we are all looking at truth from different standpoints, which vary according to our birth, education, surroundings and so on. We are viewing the truth, getting as much of it as these circumstances will permit, coloring the truth with our own heart, understanding it with our own intellect and grasping it with our own mind. We can only know as much of truth as is related to us, as much of it as we are able to receive. This makes the difference between man and man, and on occasions sometimes even contradictory ideas; yet we all belong to the same great universal truth”. How nice a summation for the doctrine of “Harmony of Religions”. 

Relevance of Introducing Religious Tourism in Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati Tourist Circuit:

To herald the dawn of organized tourism activity, the religious tourism circuit of Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati is in urgent need of extensive infrastructure development. To compliment the spiritual ethos of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda, the concept of Religious Tourism seems to be the best medium to promote ethical values common to humanity along with folklore, tradition and culture.  

Introducing Religious Tourism in the Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati tourist circuit would not only facilitate a two-way exchange between East and West that would go a long way in broadening the mental horizons of both the visitors as well as the local village folks but also develop a form of tourism, which would be community oriented and fully sustainable in nature.

A vast majority of the village folks are poor and their primary source of income is agriculture. This hallowed Religious Tourism Circuit presents a sad tale of retarded growth and their rich heritage, both natural and cultural too seems threatened.

The principal goal of Tourism in the circuit has to be the alleviation of poverty through eco-friendly tourism that is sustainable in nature and keeping this in mind the project on Religious Tourism has be pro-poor, pro-rural folks and pro-women, all of which will enable the benefits accrued through Tourism to reach the grass roots level workers of the tourist circuit. 

USP of Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati Tourist Circuit:

According to Christopher Isherwood, who was the chief proponent of the Vedanta philosophy in the West and credited with popularizing the Vedanta movement in the US from the 1940s through the 1980s, in his tribute to Sri Ramakrishna unequivocally declared that the Ramakrishna Movement is a phenomenon. In his bestselling book “Ramakrishna and His Disciples”, which he completed after visiting the ancestral villages of Kamarpukur, Joyrambati, the Dakshineswar Kali temple and other places associated with Sri Ramakrishna, he begins with an introduction thus – “This is the story of a phenomenon. I will begin by calling him simply that, rather than ‘holy man’, ‘Mystic’, ‘saint’ or ‘avatar’; all emotive words with mixed associations which may attract some readers, repel others”.

According to Isherwood, a phenomenon is often something extraordinary and mysterious. Sri Ramakrishna and Holy Mother Sarada Devi were both extraordinary and mysterious; most of all to those who were best fitted to understand them. A phenomenon is always a fact, an object of experience. That is how he approached the Ramakrishna movement.

In one of his moving accounts on his journey from Kolkata – the capital of the state of West Bengal to the ancestral village of Kamarpukur and Joyrambati, Isherwood was overwhelmed by the simplicity of rural Bengal and he states – “If you leave Kolkata airport early one morning on a West-bound flight, you will be able to have supper that night at Rome. If instead, you take a car to Kamarpukur, Sri Ramakrishna’s birthplace, you will easily arrive in time for lunch. In the first case, you will have traveled well over four thousand miles; in the second, about seventy. Yet in one sense the shorter journey can be said to be the longer, because it takes you backward in time.

In spite of the backwardness of the villages of Kamarpukur and Joyrambati, devotees and pilgrim tourists from the Western world as also domestic pilgrims have continued to flock to this part of rural Bengal, braving pot holed roads, lack of electricity, lack of sanitized drinking water, telecommunications and other bottlenecks in tourist infrastructure. The tourist circuit of Gar-Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati have changed little in appearance during the last hundred years and according to Isherwood – “if Kamarpukur has changed more than its neighbors, it is in having become an international center of pilgrimage with a modern temple dedicated to Sri Ramakrishna. That is to say, it is less concerned with the possibilities of its future than with the great event of its past”.  

The houses of these village hamlets are predominantly built of mud and the roofs are made of thatch. The rural hutments are more often than not barren with just a single cot and a bunch of sleeping mats. The kitchen floors are still rubbed with cow dung as it used to be century’s back.  

The village roads, although narrow, meanders through in a zigzag manner with sewerage gutters on either side. The well or the village pond still serves as the primary source of drinking water and these rain-feed ponds or reservoirs also doubles up as places for bathing and washing clothes.

These villages even if taken together is not large enough to find mention on the tourist map of India or for that matter the tourist map of West Bengal. The characteristic feature of these villages are that usually they will be shielded by groves of banyan trees or even mango orchards.  

Most Western visitors are truly charmed by the sight of rice growing agriculture lands and the century’s old system of ploughing through Ox and Water Buffaloes. 

However, with India positioning itself on the world stage, the winds of change are there for all to see. Due largely to the pioneering charitable-philanthropic activities of the Ramakrishna Math & Mission, public education, state-of-the-art healthcare system, emancipation of women etc…are now a reality. And the slogans of democracy too are being heard in these miniscule villages.

The Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati Tourist circuit offers all the simplicity of an Indian village along with the lofty ideals of Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy of “Harmony of World Religions” and “Service to Mankind”. 

The age old and time-tested ideal of “Doing Good to the World with a Spirit of Worship and thereby paving the Path for One’s Own Salvation” (“Atmano Mokshartham Jagad Hitaya Cha”) is what drives the Ramakrishna Math & Mission’s spiritual-philanthropic activities. Through the manifold activities that range from discourses on the Bhagvad Gita by senior monks to holistic Ayurvedic healing therapies and local community activities to the mind elevating meditation sessions, an amazing array of new age survival strategies relevant to every generation is on offer in the sylvan surroundings of rural Bengal – the Gar Mandaran-Kamarpukur-Joyrambati pilgrim tourist circuit. 

This circuit is at once the birthplace of Sri Ramakrishna and his holy consort Sri Sarada Devi and blends splendidly with the fascinating undisturbed, unpolluted and untainted rural bliss, which is the trademark feature of this tourist circuit. The circuit has the authenticity of rural India and an ocean of spiritual bliss that still attracts the crème de la crème of the world. 

In the light of the above observations, it is only logical that an Integrated Religious Tourism Circuit be developed for the new age traveler to undertake the journey of spiritual discovery from the place from where modern India’s spiritual regeneration or the great Indian Spiritual Renaissance began.