SRI RAMAKRISHNA
[1836-1886]
Sri Ramakrishna, who was born in 1836 and passed away in 1886, represents the very core of the spiritual realizations of the seers and sages of India. His whole life was literally an uninterrupted contemplation of God. He reached a depth of God-consciousness that transcends all time and place and has a universal appeal. Seekers of God of all religions feel irresistibly drawn to his life and teachings. Sri Ramakrishna, as a silent force, influences the spiritual thought currents of our time. He is a figure of recent history and his life and teachings have not yet been obscured by loving legends and doubtful myths. Through his God-intoxicated life Sri Ramakrishna proved that the revelation of God takes place at all times and that God-realization is not the monopoly of any particular age, country, or people. In him, deepest spirituality and broadest catholicity stood side by side. The God-man of nineteenth-century India did not found any cult, nor did he show a new path to salvation. His message was his God-consciousness. When God-consciousness falls short, traditions become dogmatic and oppressive and religious teachings lose their transforming power. At a time when the very foundation of religion, faith in God, was crumbling under the relentless blows of materialism and skepticism, Sri Ramakrishna, through his burning spiritual realizations, demonstrated beyond doubt the reality of God and the validity of the time-honored teachings of all the prophets and saviors of the past, and thus restored the falling edifice of religion on a secure foundation.
The Term Paper on Dreams Time Life
Dreams In this information age, the more one 'knows' the better will be his response to his world. What better way to know oneself than through ones dreams and their interpretations. Take Joe for example. He dreamt that he was lying in bed crying. When his mother came in to see what was wrong they had sex. Initially Joe woke up, thinking he was in the middle of a nightmare. Now there are two ...
Drawn by the magnetism of Sri Ramakrishna’s divine personality, people flocked to him from far and near — men and women, young and old, philosophers and theologians, philanthropists and humanists, atheists and agnostics, Hindus and Brahmos, Christians and Muslims, seekers of truth of all races, creeds and castes. His small room in the Dakshineswar temple garden on the outskirts of the city of Calcutta became a veritable parliament of religions. Everyone who came to him felt uplifted by his profound God-consciousness, boundless love, and universal outlook. Each seeker saw in him the highest manifestation of his own ideal. By coming near him the impure became pure, the pure became purer, and the sinner was transformed into a saint. The greatest contribution of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world is his message of the harmony of religions. To Sri Ramakrishna all religions are the revelation of God in His diverse aspects to satisfy the manifold demands of human minds. Like different photographs of a building taken from different angles, different religions give us the pictures of one truth from different standpoints. They are not contradictory but complementary. Sri Ramakrishna faithfully practiced the spiritual disciplines of different religions and came to the realization that all of them lead to the same goal. Thus he declared, “As many faiths, so many paths.” The paths vary, but the goal remains the same. Harmony of religions is not uniformity; it is unity in diversity. It is not a fusion of religions, but a fellowship of religions based on their common goal — communion with God. This harmony is to be realized by deepening our individual God-consciousness. In the present-day world, threatened by nuclear war and torn by religious intolerance, Sri Ramakrishna’s message of harmony gives us hope and shows the way. May his life and teachings ever inspire us.
Tributes
Today, Sri Ramakrishna is revered by millions of people of all faiths the world over. Some look upon him as a great teacher, some as a saint, and some as a divine incarnation. Great thinkers of the East and West find in his teachings the ring of universal truth and pay tribute to him. We present below excerpts from some of their tributes to Sri Ramakrishna.
The Essay on Personal Philosophy of Man , God and the World
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I am grateful to the Almighty God for establishing me to complete this project. I wish to express my sincere thanks to SOTERO H. LAUREL Librarians, for providing me with all the necessary facilities and books that I need to be able to carefully analyze all the topics that have been discuss in philosophy of human existence. I also thank Professor Josefina C. Perez, one ...
“The time was ripe for one to be born, who in one body would have the brilliant intellect of Sankara and the wonderfully expansive, infinite heart of Chaitanya; one who would see in every sect the same spirit working, the same God; one who would see God in every being, one whose heart would weep for the poor, for the weak, for the outcast, for the downtrodden, for every one in this world, inside India or outside India; and at the same time whose grand brilliant intellect would conceive of such noble thoughts as would harmonize all conflicting sects, not only in India but outside of India, and bring a marvelous harmony, the universal religion of head and heart into existence. Such a man was born, and I had the good fortune to sit at his feet for years. Let me now only mention the great Sri Ramakrishna, the fulfillment of the Indian sages, the sage for the time… For the first time I found a man who dared to say that he saw God, that religion was a reality to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world. I began to go to that man, day after day, and I actually saw that religion could be given. One touch, one glance, can change a whole life. I learnt from my Master that the religions of the world are not contradictory or antagonistic. They are but various phases of one eternal religion… The first part of my Master’s life was spent in acquiring spirituality, and the remaining years in distributing it… His life is a searchlight of infinite power thrown upon the whole mass of Indian religious thought. He was the living commentary to the Vedas and to their aim. He had lived in one life the whole cycle of the national religious existence in India.”
UNIVERSAL TEACHINGS OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA
SEE GOD IN ALL
I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.”
The Essay on The Man after God’s Own Heart
David, King of Jews, possessed every weakness and sin that “a man of blood” is capable and yet God still showered and bestowed him with abundant blessings. He was the adulterer of Bathsheba whom he forced to go with him to bed and convinced to lie about her pregnancy to her husband Uriah. He was the murderer of his friend Uriah whom he sent in front of the battlefield if only to own Bathsheba. He ...
GOD IS WITHIN YOU
Do you know what I see? I see Him as all. Men and other creatures appear to me only as hollow forms, moving their heads and hands and feet, but within is the Lord Himself.
PERSEVERE IN YOUR SEARCH FOR GOD
There are pearls in the deep sea, but one must hazard all to find them. If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them. Dive again and again. You are sure to be rewarded in the end. So is it with the finding of the Lord in this world. If your first attempt proves fruitless, do not lose heart. Persevere in your efforts. You are sure to realize Him at last.
TRUST COMPLETELY IN GOD
What are you to do when you are placed in the world? Give up everything to Him, resign yourself to Him, and there will be no more trouble for you. Then you will come to know that everything is done by His will.
LOVE OF GOD IS ESSENTIAL
Unalloyed love of God is the essential thing. All else is unreal.
JANUARY 1st: THE DAY OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA’S SELF-REVELATION
“‘I shall make the whole thing public before I go,’ the Master has said some time before. On January 1, 1886, he felt better and came down to the garden for a little stroll. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. Some thirty lay disciples were in the hall or sitting about under the trees. Sri Ramakrishna said to Girish (Ghosh), ‘Well Girish, what have you seen in me, that you proclaim me before everybody as an Incarnation of God?’ Girish was not the man to be taken by surprise. He knelt before the Master and said with folded hands, ‘What can an insignificant person like myself say about the One whose glory even sages like Vyasa and Valmiki could not adequately measure?’ The Master was profoundly moved. He said: ‘What more shall I say? I bless you all. Be illumined!’ He fell into a spiritual mood. Hearing these words the devotees, one and all, became overwhelmed with emotion. They rushed to him and fell at his feet. He touched them all, and each received an appropriate benediction. Each of them, at the touch of the Master, experienced ineffable bliss. Some laughed, some wept, some sat down to meditate, some began to pray. Some saw light, some had visions of their Chosen Ideals, and some felt within their bodies the rush of spiritual power.”
The Essay on God vs. Evil
God, like Adam and Eve, suffered consequences. Genesis 3:14-17, God says: “Because you did this…” referring to the serpent who tempted Eve, then to Eve, and finally to Adam, “Because you did…” Humankind invited the existence of Evil into the goodness of God’s creation. No longer did God walk in the breeze of the Garden of Eden; no longer did God remain in the actual presence of humankind. No ...
“Those words words of profound blessing, untouched by the slightest tinge of selfishness, directly entered the devotees’ hearts where they raised high billows of bliss. They forgot time and space, forgot the disease of the Master and forgot their previous determination not to touch him till he recovered, and had the immediate feeling that sympathizing with their misery, and heart overflowing with compassion, had come down to them from heaven and called them affectionately to Him for protection, like a mother sheltering her children against all ills.”
