Ramakrishna Mission's service among
God The Hungry, God The Poor and God The Needy
For a very good introduction to The Ramakrishna Mission, please visit the Madras Math and their activities, as well as at The Ramakrishna Mission Institue of Culture.

With an existence spanning 100 years and across 130 centers worldwide, the force behind the work is that mighty force of Swami Vivekananda, whose words and ideals are the inspiration behind the work:

Calm and silent and steady work and no newspaper humbug, no name-making, you must always remember this.
Go, all of you, wherever there is an outbreak of plague or famine, or wherever the people are in distress, and mitigate their suffereings. At the most, you may die in the attempt. What of that? How many like you are taking birth and dying like worms, every day? What difference does that make to the world at large? Die you must, but have a great ideal to die for, and it is better to die with a great ideal in life. Preach this ideal from door to door and you will yourselves be benefited and at the same time, be doing good to your country. On you lies the future hope of our country. I feel extreme pain to see your leading a life of inaction. Set yourselves to work - to work! Do not tarry - the time of death is approaching day by day! Do not sit idle, thinking that everything will be done in time, later. Mind - nothing will be done that way.
Even the least work done for others awakens the power within; even thinking of the least good of others gradually instils into the heart the strength of a lion. I love you all ever so much, but I would wish you all to die working for others - I should be rather glad to see you do that! 
Work unto death - I am with you, and when I am gone, my spirit will work with you. This life comes and goes - wealth, fame, enjoyments are only for a few days. It is better, far better, to die on the field of duty, preaching the truth, than to die like a worldly worm. Advance! 		 I bequeath to you, young men, this sympathy, this struggle for the poor, the ignorant, the oppressed. Go now this minute to the temple of Parthasarathi, and before Him who was friend of the poor and lowly cowherds of Gokula, who never shrank to embrace the pariah Guhaka, who accepted the invitation of a prostitute in preference to that of the nobles and saved her in His incarnation as Buddha - yea, down on your faces before Him and make a great sacrifice, the sacrifice of a whole life for them, for whom He comes from time to time, whom He loves above all, the poor, the lowly and the oppressed.
He who wants to serve Siva must serve His children - must serve all creatures in this world first. It is said in the Sastras that those who serve the servants of God are His greatest servants. Unselfishness is the test of religion. He who has more of this unselfishness is more spiritual and nearer to Siva. And if a man is selfish, even though he has visited all the temples, seen all the places of pilgrimage, and painted himself like a leopard, he is still further off from Siva.
This is the gist of all worship - to be pure and to do good to others. He who sees Siva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased, really worships Siva; and if he sees Siva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary. He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Siva in him without thinking of his caste, creed or race, or anything, with him Siva is more pleased than with the man who sees Him only in temples.
What good is it, if we acknowledge in our prayers that God is the Father of us all, and in our daily lives do not treat every man as other brother?
WORK AND IT's SECRET
 Swami Vivekananda 
...
Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you but multiplied a thousand fold but the attention must not be on that. Yet have the power to give: give, and there it ends. Learn that the whole of life is giving, that nature will force you to give. So give willingly. Sooner or later you will have to give up. You come into life to accumulate. With clenched  hands you want to take. But nature puts a hand on your throat and makes your hands open. Whether you will it or not, you have to give. The moment you say, "I will not". the blow comes; you are hurt. None is there but will be compelled, in the long run, to give everything. And the more one struggles against this law, the more miserable one feels. It is because we dare not give, because we are not resigned enough to accede to this grand demand of nature, that we are miserable. The forest is gone, but we get heat in return. The sun is taking up water from the ocean, to return it in showers. You are a machine for taking and giving: you take, in order to give. Ask, therefore, nothing in return; but the more you give, the more will come to you. The quicker it will be filled up by the external air; and if you close all the doors and every aperture, that which is within will remain, but that which is outside will never come in, and that which is within will stagnate, degenerate, and become poisoned. Be as the river that is continually emptying itself into the ocean and is continually filling up again. Bar not the exit into the ocean. The moment you do that, death seizes you.
WE HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE WORLD
Swami Vivekananda
...
The desire to do good is the highest motive power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to help others. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, "Here, my poor man," but be grateful that the poor man is there so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that  you are allowed to exercise your power of  benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect. All good acts tend to make us pure and perfect. What can we do at best? Build a hospital, make roads, or erect charity asylums! We may organize a charity and collect two or three millions of dollars, build a hospital with one million, with the second give balls and drink champagne, and of the third let the officers steal half, and leave the rest finally to reach the poor; but what are all these? One mighty wind in five minutes can break all your buildings up. What shall we do then? One volcanic eruption may sweep away all our roads and hospitals and cities and buildings. Let us give up all this foolish talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my help; yet we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessing to ourselves. That is the only way we can become  perfect. No beggar whom we have helped has ever owed a single cent to us; we owe everything to him, because he has allowed us to exercise our charity on him. It is entirely wrong to think that we have done or can do good to the world, or to think that we have helped such and such people. It is a foolish thought, and all foolish thoughts bring misery. We think that we have helped some man and expect  him to thank us; and because he does not, unhappiness comes to us. Why should we expect anything in return for what we do? Be grateful to the man you help, think of him as God. Is it not a great privilege to be allowed to worship God by helping our fellow-men? If we were really unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could cheerfully do good work in the world. Never will unhappiness or misery come through work done without attachment. The world will go on with its happiness and misery through eternity.  .... This world is like a dog's curly tail, and people have been striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years; but when they let it go, it has curled up again. ...
Last updated on 07/02/2000.