Sri Ramakrishna, an Introduction

#SpiritualityinAction

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was a 19th century Indian mystic, saint and spiritual leader. He was the spiritual guru of Swami Vivekananda and the fountainhead of the spiritual wisdom that established Ramakrishna Mission as a distinctive spiritual order within Hinduism.

He was not well-educated and yet could discuss the highest philosophical truths contained in the scriptures, using the simplest examples from everyday life. He took religion away from the confines of books, pundits and rituals and emphasized on understanding and practising the essence. Thereby, making religion accessible and practical for the ordinary man and woman. At that time, the spirit of the ordinary Indian had been been subjugated by centuries of invasions. Indians were made to feel that their culture, religion and their entire civilizational heritage were inferior. People had moved away from the profound truth contained in the scriptures and confined themselves to practising rituals. Sri Ramakrishna emerged at this time, and with his simple stories connected people back to religion.

His famous saying, “yata mat tato path - as many souls, so many pathways to God” was not just a theoretical statement. He immersed himself in each religion and practised it fully, to the extent of even giving up his beloved Goddess Kali during these periods. There were no half measures, and at the end, he would inevitably experience the Absolute Truth. He lived so that by his example, a Christian would be encouraged to be a better Christian, a Hindu a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, and so on.

“Religions differ in their appearance, but not in their essence. No matter which path you take it will usher you in the end into his presence: the end of all! As the many-colored rivers tear and claw their way to the ocean and are lost in its steady emerald level, so all the religions, turgid with dogmatism, lose themselves in the serenity of God. Since religions are but means to finding God, why quarrel about their respective merits and defects? That will take you nowhere.”

Source: Sri Ramakrishna the Face of Silence by Swami Nikhilananda and Dhan Gopal Mukerji.

India is a land of seekers and religious faith plays an important role in our society. Probably the seeds of a secular India, where every citizen is free to practise his or her faith were laid by Sri Ramakrishna.

My grand-parents and parents were devotees of Sri Ramakrishna and I would dutifully join my hands in worship before Him, the Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda. It was a perfunctory to-be-done ritual and I did not really connect with Him or the Mission. Even much later in life, when I got initiated into active spiritual practices, I stayed away from Him. It was last year that He suddenly entered and took over my life in the most subtle yet profound way. It was the same appeal, I am sure that He had over His faithful disciples. They were all young, bright and educated in the Western scientific way of logic and reasoning. They wouldn’t just accept whatever was said and were forever ready for a debate till they were convinced.

Let's take the example of Swami Turiyanada. He was born in an orthodox family of Brahmins. His father was one of the ablest Sanskrit scholars. He trained his son in Vedanta and Yoga. Before he had passed his teens, Turiyananda knew the Patanjali yoga by heart. He was so well versed in different branches of Hindu philosophy that he used to take over his father's classes whenever the venerable scholar would be away from home. Witnesses have recounted how even in his old age, he would recite from memory, chapter and verse from the Upanishads and Sankara Bhashya for more than two hours at a stretch. Once someone asked him: “Where did you acquire so much knowledge and such powers of convincing people?”

He replied, “My father taught me almost all of it, and Sri Ramakrishna fulfilled the rest.”

While he was still a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, he met Vivekananda and they became deeply attached to each other and, studied ancient Sanskrit texts together. Whenever they failed to understand something, they went to Ramakrishna for elucidation. One day, when he had solved a difficult problem raised in a text, they exclaimed, “Sir, you who never read these books, how do you know what they mean?”

Ramakrishna answered, “I belong to the great house. The place that I have been to, your books have not yet reached.”

[Source : Sri Ramakrishna The Face of Silence, by Swami Nikhilananda and Dhan Gopal Mukerji]

Indeed, till the very end of the Master’s life, Narendra (the pre-monastic name of Swami Vivekananda) fell victim to the doubt in his mind. He said to himself, “If in the midst of this racking physical pain he declares his Godhead, then only shall I accept him as an Incarnation of God.” He was alone by the bedside of the Master. It was a passing thought, but the Master smiled. Gathering his remaining strength, he distinctly said, “He who was Rama and Krishna is now, in this body, Ramakrishna — but not in your Vedantic sense.” <Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna>

[For those who are not familiar, Vedanta states that the true Self in each individual is the Brahman. He purposefully made that distinction while responding to Narendra’s query].

Image courtesy : Ramakrishna Math and Mission www.belurmath.org

While I accept him as an Incarnation of God, it is not necessary for others to do so. Swami Vivekananda himself discouraged his fellow monks and disciples from aggressively pushing his Master as God’s Incarnation to the public. That would probably have gone against what the Master himself would have wanted. He wanted every man and woman to connect with whichever faith resonated with him or her and sincerely follow the path till the end. It didn’t matter which Personal God you believed in, or were a pure Vedantist and believed in the non-dualistic Impersonal Absolute. As long as you were honest in your intent and sincere in your efforts, God-realization would come to you in the form that you worshipped in the altar of your heart.

There is a story of an Indian Christian named Prabhudaya Misra who came to see Ramakrishna. He was a holy man and had the reputation of a saint.

No sooner had he seated himself before Ramakrishna then he propounded, “It is the Lord who shines through every creature.”

The Master answered very slowly, “ The Lord is one, but is called by a thousand names.”

“ But I believe Jesus is God himself.”

“ Do you see any visons?” questioned Ramakrishna

Prabhudaya Misra answered, “I used to see effulgence. But later I beheld Jesus. No word can describe his beauty. There is no woman, man, or anything else on earth to equal that beauty when the Invisible breaks the folds of the visible and reveals himself.”

Ramakrishna sat silent. No one spoke. After what seemed hours, Misra felt the force of the Master's being. He said, “ I feel the same power behind you as I perceived in my own Savior's face. Can you tell me if there is any difference?”

Ramakrishna said, “It is the one flame; eyes of men see it in different colors.”

Misra exclaimed, “I would like to surrender everything to you, and follow you.”

Ramakrishna forbade him. “No, no. Follow your own unique path. The light that you see now will be dimmed by the greater brightness that it will shed further ahead. Go on, stop not till the end is reached.”

[Source: Sri Ramakrishna The Face of Silence, written by Swami Nikhilananda and Dhan Gopal Mukerji]

Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda believed that religion or spirituality needed to be practical. There is no point in teaching religion to a hungry man. The basic needs of a man need to be taken care of before he can turn his mind to religion. What we see today is probably the reverse. The hungry man will still pray to God for his daily bread but those who have enough, want more. Those who have more, want some more, and a lot more!

This is a never-ending cycle, that finally does not bring the fulfillment that every human seeks and has a right to.

Whatever we acquire for enriching our material life, ends up enslaving us. Its only when we enrich our spiritual life that we get the contentment, freedom and fulfillment that we so desperately seek.

Even though we are not conscious of it.

Sri Ramakrishna used simple stories from everyday life to connect the ordinary to the sublime. I pray to Him that my new series #SpiritualityinAction, in which I hope to recount some of those stories, will inspire people to look inward and become aware of their own divinity.

#Hinduism #Ramakrishna #Vivekananda #spirituality #religion #RamakrishnaMission #Vedanta #philosophy