The Ramakrishna Order is a modern Hindu monastic and philanthropic movement, and its distinctive teaching is that service of human beings is itself a form of the worship of God.
Vivekananda and his teacher
The order was founded by Swami Vivekananda as a memorial to his teacher, the Bengali mystic Sri Ramakrishna, and organised in the 1890s into two linked bodies, the Ramakrishna Math, a monastic order, and the Ramakrishna Mission, its philanthropic arm. Vivekananda drew from the vision of Ramakrishna, who taught the harmony of religions and the presence of the divine in all beings, a practical conclusion: that the monk should serve the poor, the sick and the ignorant as living images of God, so that social service and contemplation are united rather than opposed. This principle, service to man as service to God, is the charism of the order.
A modern Hindu institution
The order established its headquarters at Belur Math near Kolkata and grew into a widely respected institution running hospitals, schools, colleges and relief work across India, together with centres for the study and practice of Vedanta abroad, the Vedanta Societies that Vivekananda founded in the West being among the earliest organised expressions of Hinduism outside India. The Ramakrishna Order thus represents a reformed and outward-looking Hinduism, monastic in its core but committed to education and welfare, and it has been one of the principal agents in presenting Hindu thought to the modern and the Western world.