Sri Ramakrishna’s Life and Message

Advent and Childhood

An extraordinary experience overwhelmed Rama-devotee Kshudiram Chattopadhyay in 1835 when in Gaya on a pilgrimage: appearing before him in a dream, Lord Vishnu, aka Gadadhar, expressed His wish to come to his home as his son! Taken aback, devout Kshudiram tried to dissuade Him: He, Lord Vishnu, would face great hardship in his home because poor he, Kshudiram, had not the wherewithal to adequately serve and minister to Him. But Lord Vishnu smiled and reiterated His wish.

Meanwhile in his village Kamarpukur, around the same time, Kshudiram’s wife Chandramani Devi too had a wondrous experience. She had gone to a Shiva temple near their house when a radiance emanated from the Shiva image and entered her person! Wonderstruck Kshudiram and Chandramani thought the unthinkable: God was to come to them as their son!

On 18 February 1836 (6 Falgun, second day of the waxing moon), in the rice-husking room of their Kamarpukur abode, was born their third son, soon named Gadadhar, Gadai for short. Later Kshudiram would sometimes call his favourite Gadadhar by the name Ramakrishna.

Gadai’s education began at age five in a school in front of a playhouse in Kamarpukur. Soon afterward all Kamarpukur began to know of his innate abilities and unusual qualities. Born with art in him, he showed high skill in singing, chanting sacred hymns, play-acting, painting, and making clay figurines, especially of deities. In later times, some described his singing as the sweetest of all. In contrast, he disliked mathematics and calculations; those flummoxed him, he said later.

Years afterward, as a spiritual teacher par excellence, he was to say that God cannot be apprehended by ‘calculating intelligence’; emotional bonding was essential.

What distinguished him most was his love for divinity and things divine. The road to the sacred seaside temple-town Puri went past Kamarpukur and sadhus (holy ascetics) on pilgrimage used to stop and take rest there. And, true to form, Gadai used to joyfully serve them and listen to their religious discourses and readings and storytelling. It used to make his day.

But a surprise awaited all: Gadai gave up schooling after only a few years of it. And started spending time attending to their home shrine and deity. He explained that what he wanted was not the shallow ‘mere bread-winning’ education of the conventional school but something far deeper: something that gives man ultimate fulfillment by awakening supreme knowledge in him, the realization of Ultimate Truth. Later he would often describe such realization as ‘Seeing God’.

Friendly by nature, he made friends with many Kamarpukur boys. He loved them and they loved him; he was their leader. He would spend hours playing and engaging in other collective activities with them. When he enacted his own roles while rehearsing plays with his friends in a mango orchard, he would also at the same time coach his friends in their roles.

Endowed with great memory and acumen, child Gadadhar picked up the essence of scriptural passages, religious expositions, and words of wisdom, on hearing them only a few times. Later in life, he advised religious aspirants to make their minds like photographic plates by coating them with the silver bromide of reverent attention so they register and retain pictures falling on them. As a boy he learned a fair amount of the shastras (scriptures), the religious commentaries, the epics, the histories, and mythologies, simply by listening to others narrating, reading out, or discussing those. 

His intelligence was sharp, and his mind pure and altogether uncluttered, and therefore he homed in on the truth or solution of an issue rather directly and easily, not needing complex ratiocination. That is how from a young age he could, in simple words, resolve complicated shastric (scriptural) issues during shastric deliberations of pundits. It astonished the pundits to see such clear thinking and reasoning in one so young and uninstructed.    

A most remarkable characteristic of Gadadhar was that of getting profoundly absorbed in whatever subject his mind keenly fastened on, strikingly so if the subject was sacred. For example, on a Shivaratri night (the night of Lord Shiva) he went into bhava-samadhi (transcendental spiritual ecstasy) while enacting an impromptu role of Lord Shiva in a play. When only six, he looked up at the sky one day while walking down a meadow path and saw snow-white cranes flying gracefully in formation against dark clouds that had overspread the sky. Enthralled by transcendental delight at the sight of such pure beauty, boy Gadai went into inner rapture and lost outer consciousness. On another day, a group of Kamarpukur women was walking to a neighbouring village to worship Vishalakshi Devi. Gadai too was walking along with them, singing Mother Goddess’ glories in his sweet voice, when on a sudden ― gripped by a deep reverence for ‘Mother’ ― he went into transcendental ecstasy and lost outer consciousness. He regained normalcy when the women chanted Vishalakshi Devi’s name in his ear.

Fun and games, and mischief and pranks, were not taboo to him. This, combined with his loving and loveable nature, endeared him to one and all. He was forthright and sometimes even set people right with clever but sweet words and acts. For example, seeing an aristocrat’s vainglorious bragging that no male could enter the inner women’s quarters of his house, one-day Gadadhar entered those inner quarters disguised as a girl from the weavers’ community, with none finding out and all laughing out loud when he gave himself up.

Kshudiram died when Gadai was only seven. While this sudden loss of his father came as a grievous blow to him, a firm realization also grew in him regarding the impermanence of life and all else. Alone under a banyan tree next to a canal and the cremation ground would boy Gadadhar sit for long hours immersed in deep thought and meditation.

At his ‘upanayan ceremony’ [initiation, or ‘sacred thread’ ceremony], nine-year-old ‘highborn’ Gadai insisted that ‘commoner’ Dhoni Kamarini, the midwife to his delivery, be made his bhiksha-ma (‘alms-mother’) because so he had promised her beforehand. No objection from any quarter stood before the boy’s resolve to keep his word even against established popular customs. Indeed, prevalent caste divisions or folk customs could never in his life become a barrier to his overflowing love for the underprivileged classes.

Life of Sadhana

In 1853-54, when Gadadhar was about seventeen, his elder brother Ramakumar brought him over to his own (Sanskrit) school in Kolkata. There Gadadhar most likely learned some bit of secular subjects and Sanskrit, and also how-to’s of religious ceremonies. And he went about performing puja (worship) piously at some family shrines in the neighbourhood.

In a dream in 1847, wealthy philanthropist widow ― go-getter Kali-devotee Rani Rashmoni ― had received Mother Kali’s extraordinary mandate to install a beautiful image of Her in a grand temple on Ganga’s banks. And it now befell that, on 31st May 1855, on Ganga’s eastern bank in Dakshineswar some 10 Km north of Kolkata, she consecrated the magnificent Mother Kali temple complex, standing in a 4-acre paved courtyard within a 20-acre compound.

Apart from the big two-storied main Kali temple with nine spires, the complex has a Radha-Krishna temple and a dozen small Shiva temples as well; plus a big hall for religious performances, two music rooms, and a pre-existing two-storied mansion called ‘kuthi’. The complex has rooms, big and small, along the courtyard’s periphery ― for the Kali priest, for other officials, for itinerant ascetics and monks to stay, and for office, catering, storing, and sundry other purposes.

It so happened that, finding him very competent, Rani Rashmoni and her youngest son-in-law Mathuranath appointed Ramakumar the pujari (priest) of Mother Kali. And soon after, they gave Gadadhar the job of adorning the Mother every day. Simplicity personified, Gadadhar ― now perhaps more popularly known as Sri Ramakrishna ― was delighted and approached his ‘very own’ Mother Kali with unreserved wholeheartedness and passionately called Her ‘Ma’!

And then ― astonishing all ― he began to blossom into a devotee nonpareil with mind-blowing mystical nearness to divinity!

When a leg of the Krishna idol broke, sending Rani Rashmoni and Mathuranath into a tizzy as to whether to discard the idol, it was Sri Ramakrishna’s almost eccentric appeal to God’s nearness that resolved the dilemma: Would Rani Rashmoni abandon her son-in-law if he broke a leg? [According to some, Sri Ramakrishna himself mended the broken leg. (Necessary?)]

This intense feeling of ‘own’-ness towards God became a hallmark of his!

When a neighbour made censorious comments on the ‘broken’ Krishna idol, young Sri Ramakrishna ― in a sensational demonstration of easy spiritual realization in a pure devotee-heart ― turned on him: Can He Whom the shastras (scriptures) describe as ‘akhandamandalakaram’ ― ‘indivisibly round’ ― break?

This also exemplified the wide gulf that exists between ‘book knowledge’ and ‘revealed knowledge’; between ‘learning’ God and ‘realizing’ or ‘seeing’ God!

Indeed, such direct realization was the sure source of all of Sri Ramakrishna’s vast and varied spiritual knowledge and experience ― and advice!

[Incidentally, around this time, at the urging of Rashmoni and Mathurnath, he came to accept the responsibility of Radha-Krishna’s worship. (Necessary?)]

By 1885 end Sri Ramakrishna had received a formal Shakti mantra (the mantra of Goddess Kali) from a renowned Kali worshipper and been trained in formal Kali worship procedures by Ramakumar. As such, he had become eligible to formally worship Goddess Kali. Something unanticipated happened then: Ramakumar, fifty, began to suffer from ill health, so the task of Kali worship kept falling on Sri Ramakrishna every now and then. And not long after, Ramakumar passed away prematurely aged fifty-one. It thus came about that in 1886 the mantle of Mother Kali’s priesthood fell rather unexpectedly on happy-go-lucky, otherworldly, Kali-mad, twenty-year-old Sri Ramakrishna!

Continuing with his childhood trend, Sri Ramakrishna now began to slip into highest bhava-samadhi, supreme transcendental ecstasy, often and readily ― in fact so incredibly often and readily as to be unprecedented even in the millennia-long annals of India’s bhava-rich spiritual tradition. Piercing through layers of immanent reality so impenetrable to most, his mind effortlessly reached enrapturing transcendent reality like it was a homecoming to it.

And so it was! Mother Kali had placed him right up there where the immanent-relative met the transcendent-absolute ― in bhavamukha ― thus Sri Ramakrishna himself explained later. Naturally, these bhava-samadhi’s became another, and preeminent, the hallmark of his. A years-long legendary drama like no other ― of ingenuous Sri Ramakrishna vis-à-vis his ‘most own’ Mother Kali ― now began!

As he went on performing the worship of Mother Kali’s idol, he also began to call on Her ardently for Her vision. When not engaged in worship he would be lost in Mother Kali’s contemplation. Deep into the night would he sometimes be immersed in meditation on the Mother in the dense woods of Panchavati in the temple compound. Neither eating properly nor sleeping, losing track of time, sunk all day and night in Mother’s thought, he would cry out ‘Show up Mother, oh please!’ so piteously as to rend many an onlooker’s hearts. When evening fell, he would rub his face on the ground, bruising it, bloodying it, and weep bitter tears: ‘Another day goes by, Mother, but I don’t get to see You!’

Thinking him sick seeing his moody state, a kaviraj (doctor) was called in to treat him. But his efforts proved futile. The passionate Mother-worshipper continued to remain engrossed in Mother’s adoration and cry his heart out for Her. He wanted nothing of worldly enjoyments, of creature comforts, of name or fame, of money or wealth. The only thing he craved for was to ‘See Mother’! 

Eventually, one day, when ― bitterly lamenting that he would never get to see his beloved Mother in this life ― he was on the point of sacrificing his life with the sacrificial scimitar of the Kali temple, he drowned and got lost in an ocean of effulgent radiance! Buildings and fittings and temples and all seemed to vanish into nothingness. There remained only one endless infinite resplendent ocean of consciousness! The waves of that ocean rushed tumultuously toward him from all sides with mighty roars and broke upon him, seized him, swallowed him, and he collapsed, losing outer consciousness!

Having received the blessing of Divine Mother’s vision, now Sri Ramakrishna’s nearness graduated to togetherness! He wanted Mother all the time, near him, with him, for him, and that is how it became! His Ma became his all. Ever so often would he now speak with Mother, intimately, pleadingly, complainingly, cheerfully, sorrowfully. And feed Her and fan Her… Others would look on dumbfounded, rubbing their eyes in disbelief!

Wonders never cease! So, togetherness now began to look so like oneness! For not just in the temple, Sri Ramakrishna now beheld Mother within himself, within all humans, all life, all creation. Seeing Mother in a cat that happened to enter the temple at worship time he fed it sanctified food, and instead of putting flowers on Mother Kali’s feet, he put them on his own head!

Scandalized temple officials wanted this sacrilegious priest out ― but discerning Mathuranath did not. He read Sri Ramakrishna’s apparent sacrilegious misdemeanour as Kali-directed acts of a Kali-possessed spiritual colossus! To him, the acts of apparent desecration were so inborn, so artless, so above board, so genuinely mystical, as to comprehensively disarm! It was bhakti ― religious adoration ― of an intensity the world had not known, nor imagined! It became yet another hallmark of Sri Ramakrishna.

When ardent spontaneous adoration overtakes synthetic simulated adoration, then the worshipper can no longer stick to the dos and don’ts of formalized worship. Not surprisingly, therefore, Sri Ramakrishna could not much longer carry on performing such worship. In later times he said that a practitioner gets the vision of God when passionate adoration develops in him. And also that when a river is in flood, the boat may be rowed straight and need not follow the river’s original serpentine course.

While all this went on in Dakshineswar, back in Sri Ramakrishna’s village Kamarpukur, his mother Chandramani Devi became distressed hearing of his son’s frenzied condition and mad acts. So she tried to arrange for her son’s marriage when he came to Kamarpukur: conjugal life might cure.

Surprise of surprises, Sri Ramakrishna himself informed her mother that his wife-to-be would be found in the house of the Mukhopadhyay’s in Jaiarambati. Saradamani, Sarada for short, the daughter of Jairambati’s Ramchandra Mukhopadhyay and Shyamasundari, was a little less than six years old then. In May 1859 she was married to the youth Sri Ramakrishna then twenty-three plus. The little newlywed Saradamani stayed back with her parents for now and Sri Ramakrishna went back to Dakshineswar. And there divine madness seized him again and he took to reckless spiritual practices with hearty abandon. But a new thing began now: magically, masters of different religious schools started coming to Sri Ramakrishna one by one, and under their guidance, he went through a range of ineffable experiences one after another.

One ‘Yogeshwari’ Bhairavi Brahmani arrived in Dakshineswar in 1861, and Sri Ramakrishna began the practice of tantra under her tutelage. Bhairavi was extraordinary: she possessed tantric mastery, erudition, acumen, everything.

Common people sometimes considered Sri Ramkrishna’s unprecedented love and restiveness for God, and his divine madness, to be a mental condition. Sometimes he would feel an intense sense of burning in his body, and sometimes he would feel exceptionally hungry right after a meal. A discerning doctor attributed these symptoms to some yoga-induced disease.

But Bhairavi Brahmani recognized these external symptoms. She understood that those were not any ailment but external signs of the practitioner’s elevated spiritual state. She explained that wearing a flower garland or having his body smeared with sandal paste would mitigate his pain. External bodily symptoms in correspondence with internal mystical feelings had been seen in the lives of yogis and acharyas, from Srimati Radha to Sri Krishna Chaitanya ― Bhairavi established this by quoting from bhakti (religious adoration) literature and shastric knowledge resources.

Mathuranath invited Vaishnavcharan, the famous pundit of those times, to Dakshineswar. The combination of the main nineteen bhavas (spiritual manifestations) or states ― called mahabhava in bhakti-shastras ― had been seen in the lives of Sri Radha and Sri Krishna Chaitanya only. Speechless Vaishnavcharan now saw all those nineteen signs in guileless Mother Kali’s child Sri Ramakrishna!

Tantra practitioner Gauri Pundit came. He was a boastful man; he prided himself on his tantric abilities. But his pride withered in Sri Ramakrishna’s company as he came to recognize him as God Himself, and this so absolutely transformed him that he went on to give up worldly life in quest of God.

Sri Ramakrishna had this mysterious mystical pull that drew kindred souls to him. Whenever he attained climax in the spiritual discipline of any particular bhava, amazingly, practitioners of such bhava would spontaneously start coming to him. Beholding the fullest ideal of their bhava in him they would feel blessed to receive his help and support, and recognizing him as an avatara of God ― God Incarnate ― they would pour their heart’s adoration and love at his lotus-feet.

Following the procedures advised by his guru, Sri Ramakrishna practised the Vaishnava disciplines of sakhya (as between friends), vatsalya (as between parent and child), and madhura (as between man and woman) bhavas. Adopting a certain special spiritual course, for some time he lived as a sakhi (woman’s female-friend) dressed in women’s clothes, and, he once waved the ceremonial chamor (fly-brush) at Goddess Durga as a woman.

When Rama-devotee Jatadhari came to Dakshineswar Sri Ramakrishna took Rama-mantra diksha (initiation) from him. Jatadhari had Ramalala ― an idol of child Rama ― with him, and he cherished him with all his heart. Ramalala was a real presence to Jatadhari; he would actually feed Ramalala and they would actually play with each other, and so on. But his beloved Ramalala grew close to Sri Ramakrishna. Jatadhari recognized this intimate relationship. So, when parting with Sri Ramakrishna, Jatadhari bid goodbye to him with a full heart by leaving Ramalala behind in his care.

Then of a sudden appeared the stern Advaita Vedanta sannyasi (religious renunciant) Totapuri one day. It was probably the month of January of 1865. Advaita is all about the Absolute Reality, the Transcendent Noumenon, while, at least seemingly, Sri Ramakrishna’s worship was of the Immanent God, Mother Kali, the Goddess of Phenomena. Yet Sri Ramakrishna easily took sannyas from Totapuri with Mother Kali’s approval and plunged into Advaita practice under his tutelage without ado. And in no time his attainments in Advaita struck everybody dumb, redoubtable Totapuri not excepted!

While Totapuri went on cajoling Sri Ramakrishna to free his mind of all thought, all memory, all imagery, in order to attain transcendence, Sri Ramakrishna, even after freeing his mind of thought and memory, could not banish the vision of his beloved Mother Kali. Until one day ― when Totapuri jabbed a sharp edge between Sri Ramakrishna’s eyebrows to draw concentration there ― Sri Ramakrishna sliced his dearer-than-life Mother Kali’s vision in two with the sword of viveka, discrimination, and at once leaped to the highest ― nirvikalpa samadhi, or spiritual absorption in Supreme Transcendental Reality! [Where only the rarest of the rare can stay on alive and come back from.] And then, to Totapuri’s alarmed amazement, Sri Ramakrishna stayed on in such samadhi for three days and three nights ― an unheard-of achievement! Later he went on to stay in the Advaita plane for a full six months, no less!

Scaling newer heights, Sri Ramakrishna attained spiritual climax by following Sufi disciplines as per Sufi practitioner Govinda Rai’s instructions. Later, in 1873, after gazing intensely at the picture of Jesus in Mother Mary’s lap in one Jadu Mullick’s garden-house, for three days he stayed in the religious bhava, mood, shown by Jesus, and went on to experience Jesus merging in his, Sri Ramakrishna’s, body!

But all through this decades-long life of intense spiritual striving ― that drained psyche and strained body-mind to breaking ― he never strayed from his responsibility to his mother. [And he served Holy Mother (?) to the best of his ability when she lived in the Nahabat, and, with Mathurbabu’s assistance, he went on a pilgrimage to Kashi and Prayag taking Chandramani Devi along with him. ?]

Pilgrimage

Out on a pilgrimage, Sri Ramakrishna was distressed one day to see the abject misery of the poor of the neighbourhood. He urged Mathuranath to feed them and give them clothing, refusing to continue with the pilgrimage unless that was done. It was a great demonstration of his feeling for the poor, the miserable, the distressed.

At Kashi (Varanasi), he met the famous saint Trailangaswami. Seeing him as Shiva himself, he offered payasanna (sweetened milk-and-rice porridge) to him. From Varanasi he went to Prayag, the holy confluence of the holy rivers Ganga and Yamuna some 120 kilometres away, and spent three nights there. Then he returned to Varanasi. There he met ‘Yogeshwari’ Brahmani. At the famous Manikarnika ghat in Varanasi he had the vision of the divine forms of Shiva and Maha Kali ― the Deliverers from the bondages of sanskaras [inherent tendencies born of past karma] and rebirth ― freeing the departed from bondage.

On the full moon night of Deepavali, he waxed rapturous on seeing the gold image of Devi Annapurna!

The pilgrims then moved to Vrindavan, the hallowed scene of Lord Krishna’s early life. There, after visiting Nidhuvan, Radhakund, Shyamkund, and Giri Govardhan ― places steeped in blessed Krishna-lore ― he dressed as a Vaishnava (Lord Krishna’s devotee). One day, in a transport of joy at the sight of Bankebihari (a certain image of Lord Krishna), he craved to enfold the image in his embrace.

He met accomplished tapaswini (female holy ascetic) Ganga-ma in Nidhuvan. Moved by her spirituality he wanted to stay on in Vrindavan in her company ― but changed his mind on remembering that his mother Chandramani Devi was in Dakshineswar.

Seeing some shepherd boys crossing the Yamuna at Vrindavan one day Sri Ramakrishna experienced an upsurge of Krishna-bhava in his heart: he saw Lord Krishna Himself and His shepherd boy chums from the long ago! And then, in fervent quest of Lord Krishna, his whole being rushed about the area and away afar beyond sight.

After coming back to Dakshineswar from Vrindavan he once visited Ranaghat, Kalaighat, Kalna, and Nabadwip in the company of Mathuranath. On a boat ride in Nabadwip, he had the divine vision of Shri Krishna Chaitanya [identity ?].

Spreading Bhava [religious sentiments] and Establishing Dharma:

Sri Ramakrishna’s foremost monastic disciple Swami Vivekananda ― pre-monastic Narendranath ― has said that the best leader is one who leads like a child. And Mother Kali’s child Sri Ramakrishna has explained that it was She Who supplied him with words, and that is how naïve and unlearned he could discourse with erudite personages and savants!

He would often say that three words pricked him, namely, ‘Father’, ‘Master’ and ‘Guru’ (Teacher). In the initial stages of his sadhana, it was the meek sadhaka-bhava, or child-bhava, that used to be his default mode, with only occasional and short-lived manifestations of the teacher-bhava. His teacher-bhava matured later, and then he came to dwell mostly in that bhava.

But it all happened without any conscious effort on Sri Ramakrishan’s part. A striking feature of his preaching was the utter unpretentiousness of it. He would often say that he was an instrument in his Mother’s hands: he acted and spoke as She bid. Indeed, he mostly conveyed traditional teachings of scriptures, mythologies, saints, and sages, and hardly gave out brand new religious prescriptions that one might call Sri Ramakrishna’s own.

It seems he came to fulfill, not to destroy. Through tete-a-tetes simple in language and pleasing in the imagery he described complicated principles in an uncomplicated manner. That is how he explained how the common man could take the name of God even amid his busy routines of worldly life. One example: Just as a man’s mind dwells on his toothache through all his activities, so should one’s mind dwell on God through all one’s daily chores!

Interestingly ― as another hallmark of his ― he used parables to drive points home. Example: Running out of matchsticks one night, lantern in hand, a worried smoker walks through deep darkness to his neighbour’s and wakes him up for light; and the amused neighbour smilingly points to his lantern! Message: Your light is within you, why look elsewhere? Small wonder that his parables have hit home with many.

God is central to Sri Ramakrishna’s scheme of things, and this even ― or perhaps especially ― for the modern age. He disseminated emotions and sentiments ― bhavas ― centred in and around God, thereby purveying the true essence of all religions, namely, spirituality. Giving up everything for the sake of God was to him the true index of one’s character and conduct. God alone is real, to wit, eternal; everything else is unreal because it will pass away ― that is what he repeatedly said. Thus, (a) that God is the only Reality, (b) that He can be realized, and (c) that such God-realization ― ‘seeing God’ ― is the very purpose of human life, these constitute his religion ― born not in mentation but in inner realization!

Loving, compassionate Sri Ramakrishna showed to men and women their paths to mukti / emancipation. He showed them how they could deepen their love and affection for God no matter what condition or status they happened to be in. To his renunciate devotees, he taught the highest ideals of monasticism, and to his householder devotees, he taught how to look up at God from under the crushing load of worldly responsibilities.

His devotees took him around Kolkata. He went to the famous Kalighat shrine, watched a play or two in a theatre, and saw a circus performance. Seeing the circus, he observed that a certain acrobat must have put in hundreds of hours of keen practice, else she could fall and die ― so why can’t one put in at least some amount of spiritual practice? He visited ‘must-visit’ places in Kolkata: Eden Gardens, Fort William, the Maidan, the famous Asiatic Society, the zoo, and the Kolkata Museum. Incidentally, in the museum he pointed out that plants and animals have become stone by keeping company with stones; so, take care to keep holy company!

If Sri Ramakrishna taught through what he spoke, he also taught through how he conducted himself. An instance of this is his frequent chanting of names of gods and goddesses and bowing to pictures of deities.

He was surprisingly sociable for one so God-centred. And he was astonishingly cheerful ― nay, jovial ― too! His Dakshineswar room would so often be filled with devotees and seekers with whom he would converse for hours, advising, teaching, and cracking hilarious jokes.

He was not reclusive. He looked and behaved average, and so his spiritual depth remained unknown even to many who saw him frequently! He loved people and visited many devotees' homes: to simply meet and talk, to bless someone very ill, to engage in religious musical performances, to participate in religious celebrations of different schools.

‘The sight of a congregation of people stimulates a divine feeling in me’ ― that was a remarkable statement he made and repeated for effect. Not just that ― stupefying all, he sometimes went into deep samadhi in the embrace of a crowd! Many felt blessed to receive his feet’s dust, and many felt great joy in his entertaining company.

Through such conduct, he narrowed the gulf between religion and workaday life and clothed humanity with a mantle of honour. Very importantly, his cheerfulness betokened that religiosity could be, should be, and often is, an enjoyable pursuit if sincere: joyousness and goodwill are a sine qua non of religion! Easy does it.

He disliked the concept of sin and cautioned against sin-obsession. He preferred the word ‘error’ to ‘sin’ ― saying that one should try to avoid errors as best one could. Knowing that man was inherently error-prone as to his religious practice, he did not have harsh words of condemnation for errors as such, but he did have motherly counsel against the unbridled repetition of errors.

Catholicity was his refrain: he disliked the one-sided and the close-minded. God can be worshipped in many moods and he relished them all. Hearty devotion to divinity too was his refrain: he disliked ‘dry’ monks. Sometimes he would sing devotional songs like one intoxicated and sometimes go into spiritual ecstasy listening to another’s devotional song. And ofttimes would he be heard softly chanting God’s name in his sweet voice. On occasion, he might be seen dancing ecstatically to devotional choruses.

He demonstrated something extraordinary through his sadhana: how to love and serve God as one’s very own, one’s nearest and dearest ― beseeching, or if need be, even importuning, Him/Her for favour and grace! ‘Mother is your very own; you may even pressure Her!’ ― that was remarkable advice of his, fully meant!

What is Sri Ramakrishna’s own is this breathing of vigorous new life into religion ― and that too in the face of contrary sentiments of the modern-day ― by boldly inducting God into every sphere of human activity at every level and in every human society! And going one better, by also breathing deep faith in the hearts of devotees and aspirants: ‘How on earth can sin touch me when I have taken God’s name in earnest?!’

By thus putting God centre-stage in life, by thus combining the secular, the worldly, with the religious ― on the strength of his own mystical realization ― he has offered a novel paradigm of modern living. ‘No distinction, henceforth, between the sacred and secular’, said Swami Vivekananda’s Irish-born nun-disciple Sister Nivedita later.

And through this paradigm of living, he unassumingly evolved a concept of universal religion multi-dimensionally suitable for the modern-day man:

• He did not merely think ― but actually experienced ― that the same truth ― that is to say, the one God called by different names, God, Ishwar, Allah, Jehovah, Brahman, and so on ― underlies all genuine religious formulations, no matter how seemingly dissimilar on the surface. All religions are true and lead to the same Divinity ― ‘as many views so many paths’ ― this inner realization of his, free from narrow-mindedness and hate, is an ideal that is history’s first. And he felt sure that, as Goddess Kali’s chosen person, it was only he who was to preach this sentiment. ‘God has made different religions to suit different aspirants, times, and countries,’ said he ofttimes ― and thereby ratified religious variety.
• The variety that he envisaged and approved of in religion is incredibly wide, to suit modern-day requirements. One example is that God with form and God without form ― two opposite poles as it were ― are both true! The formless can assume form. Another example is that, as such, God can be worshipped through images, ie, through symbols, as much as through ideation and feeling. A third example is that God can be worshipped even in values held sacrosanct, such as truthfulness. He advised people to improve as human beings by practising values together with sagacity [?] And a fourth is that living beings too, notable humans, can very well be worshipped! ‘If images can be worshipped, then why not humans of flesh and blood?’ Fifth: Have an intimate and private relationship with divinity ― worship divinity ‘in your mind, in a secluded corner, and in the woods’! [‘Keep the Mother tenderly in your heart. O My Mind, let only you and I see Her, and none else!’ (Necessary?)]
• Through all this Sri Ramakrishna reaffirmed the traditional Indian concept of ‘Ishta Devata’, or ‘Cherished Deity’ ― made modern. Here the concept of ‘Deity’ includes God and aspects and attributes of God as well; for instance, Saraswati represents Learning and the Arts. This approach represents Advaita (Non-Dualism) ― which is not Monotheism, ‘One God’, but Monism, ‘Everything is God’! Sister Nivedita says: ‘…it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths to realization. To labour is to pray.’
• Resolute adherence to truth, and to statements made, was a strong lifelong characteristic of his: a high value followed as sadhana. It ran in his family. His father, Kshudiram Chattopadhyay, had to relinquish his aristocratic Deregram homestead and go away from there with his family for not consenting to honour the village landlord’s command to give false evidence in a lawsuit. Luckily, a friend of his gave him shelter in Kamarpukur village, and they relocated there. When one day his illness prevented him from visiting his neighbour as he had told him he would, Sri Ramakrishna slowly walked up to the gate of the neighbour’s house and returned ― just to uphold the truth. Truthfulness was his great Ishta Devata. ‘He who is holding fast to truth is lying in God’s lap’, he would repeatedly say from the height of spiritual experience.  
• Delving into bhava one day in Dakshineswar Sri Ramakrishna spoke of service to living creatures in the awareness that they are divine: ‘Shiva gyane jiva seva’. This fired up Narendranath ― aka Swami Vivekananda later ― and through his instrumentality, opened the floodgates of the wonderful modern-day religion of service to God-in-Man! It is spreading visibly and invisibly, and may well become the panacea for today’s and tomorrow’s world! By replacing selfish ‘mine’-ness by ennobling selfless service, it may well ensure sustainability as nothing else can!
• As to the practice of religion, Sri Ramakrishna repeated the time-honoured Indian tradition that Divinity could be pursued adopting any one or more of the broad paths of (a) unselfish work, (b) bhakti or religious adoration, (c) meditation, and (d) spiritual knowledge, with details added to customize. Though he strongly and repeatedly emphasized religious adoration or bhakti as the principal and the most appropriate path for today’s world, he advised following the other three too to an extent, as one could. By thus combining these elements in different measures and adding the worship of one’s Cherished Deities ― with the ultimate focus on ‘Seeing God’ by whatever name called ― he laid out a ‘Food Court of Religions’ where variety does not lead to bigotry but to brotherhood! This too may well become just what the doctor ordered for today’s and tomorrow’s world!

Through his intelligence, keen power of observation, experiences gained during pilgrimages, and deep insights acquired from spiritual practices, Sri Ramakrishna got a true picture of the pitiable condition of Indian society of his times. He was especially pained by the prevalence of irreligion, the narrow-mindedness of the religions of his times, the ignorance of religious leaders about the identity of the ultimate goals of all religions, and their inability to formulate ‘customized’ religious paths based on considerations of location, time and subject.

He gave the answer: His ‘Food Court of Religions’ plus his ‘Service of God-in-Man’!

At the close of his worship of Sarada Devi as Jagadamba (Shodashi or Tripura Sundari) on the night of Phalaharini Kalipuja, [5 June 1872] Sri Ramakrishna surrendered the fruits of his sadhana and his japa-mala [string of beads for mantra-chanting?] at her feet. Ever since then, his heart began to ache for the sight of his yet-unknown, yet-unseen, followers and devotees. In divine passion he would rush anxiously to the rooftop of the Kuthi (mansion) and tearfully call out to them: ‘O, where are you all, do please come to me! My heart pines so for you!’

On 15 March 1875, in the garden house of one Joygopal Sen of Belgharia, Sri Ramakrishna met up with Keshab Sen, the chief devotee of Brahmo Samaj of the time. After that, attracted by news of Sri Ramakrishna’s divine vision and advice, many a seeker questing for self-knowledge and thirsting for spirituality began to come to him.

Endgame

With an ailment afflicting his throat and worsening, Sri Ramakrishna was shifted from Dakshineswar to Kolkata on 26th September 1885 for better treatment. Not liking a certain [hired?] accommodation, Sri Ramakrishna moved into the house of one Balaram Bose, one of his principal devotees. Thereafter he was shifted to accommodation in Kashipur on 2nd October.

And there, to his unbelieving devotees’ rapturous jubilation, on Kali Puja day, Sri Ramakrishna owned up to being Mother Kali Herself and accepted their worship as such! 

Based on the likelihood of his treatment improving in clean and open natural surroundings, Sri Ramakrishna was moved to one Gopal Ghosh’s Garden house in Kashipur on 11 December 1885. There in that Kashipur garden house on 1 January 1886 ― in a dramatic display of highest grace ― Sri Ramakrishna ― like a ‘Kalpataru’ or Wish-Fulfilling Tree ― blessed many a householder-devotee that they may gain Chaitanya, Supreme Transcendental Knowledge!

And again, there in that same garden house he handed over gerua (ochre) clothing and rudraksha-malas to eleven renunciant disciples of his marking them out as his monastic-sons.

That is how, prior to attaining the final Maha Samadhi (Great Spiritual Absorption in the Absolute), he astutely entrusted them with the responsibility of carrying out his grand future works ― notably ‘Food Court of Religions’ and ‘Worship of God-in-Man’!

He told Sarada Devi: ‘The people of Kolkata are stumbling about in darkness; you please look after them.’ And he empowered Narendranath to educate mankind. In the early days of Narendranath’s acquaintance with him, Sri Ramakrishna had told him after his [first?] experience of nirvikalpa samadhi: ‘The key to this door will remain with me. Now you have to work. I will open the door in the fullness of time.’

And so, just a few days before the day of his Maha Samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna fixed his eyes on Narendranath’s face and went into samadhi. Narendranath felt as if subtle rays of power emanated from Sri Ramakrishna and entered Narendranath’s person like an electric current. Coming out of his samadhi Sri Ramakrishna said to Narendranath tearfully: ‘Today I gave you my all and became a beggar. Empowered by this you will work for the world and return home when the work is done.’

Even at this fag end of Sri Ramakrishna’s life, rational Narendranath was still not free from doubts as to whether Sri Ramakrishna was indeed an avatar. Sri Ramakrishna, the ‘inner guide’, understood this and said: ‘I tell you truly, He Who was Rama, Who was Krishna, He currently inhabits this person as Ramakrishna ― but not in your Vedantic way.’

One day Sri Ramakrishna asked a monk-disciple Jogin (a monk-disciple] to read out some auspicious dates and times from the almanac. He stopped the reading after hearing in detail about the day of Sravana Sankranti (last day, 31 of Sravana). To Sarada Devi, he spoke words suggestive of a final goodbye: ‘I feel as if I am going a long way away through the water.’

On 16 August 1886 (31 Sravana 1293), deep at night at two minutes past one, Sri Ramakrishna gathered up his worldly play into Maha Samadhi. 

Epilogue

The most fundamental question facing modern man is what, if any, is the purpose of human life. Sri Ramakrishna has given clear answers to this from his own experiences gained from his years-long and diverse spiritual strivings at the highest level. It is to ‘see God’ that a man is born ― he has said so unequivocally. And also that God sees the aspirant’s sincerity and devotion and not what work he is engaged in and where.

Being in bhavamukha, he was never without access to the Supreme Truth. That is why his words of advice and benediction are of the greatest value and significance. He himself has explained this picturesquely: Rainwater falling on the roof of a mansion flows down a rainwater pipe and issues through the open mouth of the stately lion-head end of the pipe, and people think the water comes from the lion’s mouth ― little realizing that it actually comes from the sky!

Swami Vivekananda proclaimed him the ‘Greatest avatar ― God-incarnate ― of all time’.

An advocate of bhakti, religious adoration, as the most suitable path for the modern-day, Sri Ramakrishna had once renounced pairs of opposite values at Mother’s feet, thus: ‘O Mother, here, take Thy dharma (righteousness), here take Thy adharma (unrighteousness), give me pure adoration for Thee. Here, take Thy virtue, here take Thy vice, give me pure adoration for Thee. Here, take Thy knowledge, here take Thy ignorance, give me pure adoration for Thee.’ He explained that when one renounces dharma and adharma then all that remains is adoration for God ― that adoration that is stainless, that is motiveless, and that is adoration for the sake of adoration without a whisper of quid pro quo!

Then he added that, yet, he could not renounce truth ― for were he to do so, all his acts of renunciation would lose sanctity at once!

One day he had himself told Sarada Devi that a time will come when his photo will be worshipped in every home! And it is coming true and increasingly many are finding supreme refuge and peace today by following paths indicated by Sri Ramakrishna.

Chronological Events in his life:

18 February 1886

Life-giving messages

Practice

As Uncle Moon is every child’s uncle, so is God everyone’s own; all have a right to beseech Him. He will gratify whoever beseeches Him.

One has to take His name all the time. One has to keep one’s mind on Him while being engaged in work.

Great mental strength comes from practice; then it becomes less difficult to restrain the senses ― to subdue lust, anger.

One has to always take the name of God and sing His praises. And the holy company ― from time to time one has to visit devotees and monks.

The practice of calling on Him daily engenders eagerness.

Daily living

If you can work without self-interest, then your heart will get purified, you will develop a love for God. Developing that you will gain God.

If you keep your mind in the bad company then you will get such speech, such thoughts. If you keep it with devotees then you will get God-recollection, God-discourse ― and suchlike.

The company of monks is always necessary; the monk introduces one to God.

Truthful speech is the religious austerity of kali-yuga. Other austerities are difficult in kali-yuga. God is gained by holding on fast to the truth. He who is truthful, the Mother does not allow his words to be false.

Those who are engaged in worldly work ― office work or business ― they too should adhere to the truth. Truthful speech is the austerity of kali-yuga.

Meditate in your mind, in a secluded corner, or in the woods. The fewer people get to know of your Godward thoughts the better.

Everyone should be loved. None is a stranger. That same God is in all beings. There is none other than God.

If someone is good in singing, or in playing musical instruments, or in dancing, or in some art, if he strives then he can quickly attain Godhead.

There is no quality higher than that of forbearance. He who forbears survives. There are three S’s in the alphabet. All should have forbearance.

God sees the mind. And not who is engaged in what works and where. ‘God responds to emotion.’

Prayer

You have to pray to him with all your heart. If sincere, he will surely listen to your prayer.

If you want to renounce, then you will have to pray to God for purushakar, prowess [?]. Instantly discard what looks false.

Do not criticize others, not even the insect. It is God Who has assumed these forms. As you pray for bhakti or love for God, so also say this ― ‘May I never criticize anyone.’

Pray to Him with all your heart that you may get propitious circumstances, that a favourable breeze blow. If you call on Him earnestly then He opens up opportunities.

Renunciation

Others will learn to renounce seeing the 100 percent renunciation of the all-renouncing monk. Else they will fall. All-renouncing monks are world-Gurus.

Respect

Bow to all faiths, but there is this thing called loyal/steadfast devotion.  Do bow to all, yes, but love for one with all one’s heart is called loyal/steadfast reverence.

He who constantly says ‘I am a sinner', ‘I am a sinner’, it is he who falls. On e should rather say, I have taken His name, will sin still stick to me? What sin can I have? What bondage?

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