?Vivekananda Rock Memorial was the outcome of National Consensus?

New Delhi: RSS Sarsanghachalak Shri Mohan Bhagwat appealed to the countrymen to visit the Swami Vivekananda Rock Memorial, Kanyakumari and try to know the service activities being undertaken as per the dreams of Swamiji by Vivekananda Kendra.

In a video message, aired as part of 50 years of the Memorial, Shri Bhagwat said: “Vivekananda Kendra is a spiritually oriented service mission working on Swami Vivekananda’s twin objectives of man making and nation building. He said the present generation may have some information about the Rock Memorial but it does not practically know the history behind its creation. They should know how this wonder memorial was created. The cooperation, sadhana and tapasya of many people are surely behind it. What is significant to know about it is that this work was done with full consensus of the country. Obviously, there have always been differences among the people in the name of politics or other reasons, such obstacles were there then too. But Eknath Ranade, the brain behind the project, did it with perfection. He proved in practice that such national work can be done with collective efforts and consensus,” Shri Bhagwat said.

He further said that building such a grand memorial at a rock was indeed a Herculean task. But Ranadeji did not take rest even after building this memorial. He worked tirelessly to materialise the vision of Swami Vivekananda in practice. Swamiji used to say that the well-to-do people of the society should help the needy people of the society. He had called upon the countrymen to let other deities sleep for 50 years and serve only Bharatmata by serving her needy children. That is why Ranadeji started motivating youth to dedicate some of their time to the service of the needy people. A good number of youth today are working with this vision across the country. The young generation should also know how the opposition to the project turned into support. Ranadeji used to say that Swami Vivekananda belonged to all. Hence, all should contribute at least rupee one for the project. The success of this project is that not only a befitting memorial has been created but the service projects as per the dreams of Swamiji have been started. These efforts surely inspire everyone,” the Sarsanghachalak said.