Origin

During the nineteenth century, the adverse effect of the several centuries of alien rule by the Mohammedans and the Christians was causing severe damage to the national life of India. In addition to this external danger, the Hindu society was getting stuck up in the letter of the scriptures. It was at this critical time that Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886) deigned to appear, to give force and drive to the national life.

He was born in the village Kamarpukur in West Bengal in a family of material poverty that was nevertheless rich in its spiritual and cultural aspects. The last child of Sri Kshudhiram Chatterji and Srimati Chandramani Devi, Gadadhara (which was the childhood name of Sri Ramakrishna) was indifferent to the study of scriptures but always turned his young and pure mind to God. Instead of going to the village school, he would spend time happily with his classmates in a nearby mango grove in singing Bhajans and worshipping God.

And even as a child, a significant feature found in his character was that Truth was the basis of his life.  He could renounce everything in life but not truth.  For instance, when he had to take his first bhiksha after upanayana, young Gadadhar was stubborn in having it from Dhani, a low-caste woman, instead of from the learned Brahmins of the village for the simple reason that he had promised to abide by the request of that loving, good woman to give her the pleasure of feeding the lad newly invested with the sacred thread. From the beginning to the end Ramakrishna’s life was a revelation of Satya and Dharma.

Gadadhar did not spend his time in listening to pundits and studying and scrutinising the scriptures in a formal way; directly hitting the Mark through intuition was his method. But young Gadadhar had frequent, though brief, associations with sadhus and saints who passed through his village on their way to Gangasagar. From his young age he felt that it is not sufficient to believe in God; he wanted to see God face to face. Hence he dedicated his pure life to God-realisation, the true aim of human life, and spent all his time in the pursuit of realising the Divine through longing and prayer of an extraordinary sincerity. And in answer to his heart-rending prayers, the Divine Mother blessed this extraordinary child of Hers with Her darshan.

When Sri Ramakrishna was twenty-three years old, Saradamani, a six-years old little girl, had been united with him in marriage. But his mind was never given to lust and gold and hence, never stained by marriage, he pursued his spiritual life as before. And in course of time, when the little girl grew into a beautiful maiden, she became his first disciple.

Sri Ramakrishna did not stop his spiritual pursuit with the realisation of the Divine Mother. He proceeded to pursue the means of enlightenment as taught not only in the various sects within the large umbrella of Sanatana Dharma, but followed the teachings of the Bible and the Quran as well and realised that all religions lead to the same Ultimate Divinity.

Thus having acquired the best possible spiritual culture accumulated by the several thousand years old Bharatiya civilisation through family tradition, satsangha and above all through intuition and his innate character, Sri Ramakrishna developed into a maker of Vedanta and the forerunner of rejuvenated Indian national life.

One of the central teachings of Sri Ramakrishna is that all religions are true, leading their adherents to the same Godhead. Amidst the tangle of sectarian assertions that are ruling the philosophical circles, Sri Ramakrishna stands unique in the universalism which he arrived at as a result of his all-phase contact with Reality. To contend that one’s own religion is superior to another’s is a sign of immaturity in knowledge.  They who have faith in the immensity of God’s cosmic plan dare not say so.

Another of the grand teachings of the Paramahamsa is: Seek the noumenon with the aid of the phenomenon, as Brahman is at once the Noumenon and the Phenomenon. His own life was a proof of this teaching in that initially he realised the highest Truth through Image worship.

When Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was full to the brim with Godliness, aspirants sought him for spiritual instruction, as bees would gather round the honey-filled lotus. Among his disciples sixteen young men became his disciples of the inner circle as they renounced the world and dedicated their pure lives to following his teachings. Chief of this circle of monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna was Swami Vivekananda, who started the spiritual movement in the name of his Guru.