RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHANSA (originally Gadadhar Chatterjee) [1836

1886]

Hindu religious teacher, born in the Hooghly district of Bengal, India, the son of a poor Brahmin family with little formal education. He became a priest at Dak shineswar Kali temple, near Calcutta, eventually forming his own religious order . He believed in self-realization and God-realization - expressing God by the wa y one lives and worships - and taught that all religions were different paths to the same goal. His most noteworthy disciple was Vivekananda. Several books of h is sayings were later published by his followers. His whole life was literally a n uninterrupted contemplation of God. He reached a depth of God-consciousness th at transcends all time and place and has a universal appeal. Seekers of God of a ll 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 obscure d by loving legends and doubtful myths. Through his God-intoxicated life Sri Ram akrishna 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 h im, deepest spirituality and broadest catholicity stood side by side. The God-ma n 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 fal ls 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 beyon d 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. Drawn by the magnetism of Sri Ramakrishna's div ine 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 a ll 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 religion s. Everyone who came to him felt uplifted by his profound God-consciousness, bou ndless love, and universal outlook. Each seeker saw in him the highest manifesta tion of his own ideal. By coming near him the impure became pure, the pure becam e 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 religion s. To Sri Ramakrishna all religions are the revelation of God in His diverse asp ects to satisfy the manifold demands of human minds. Like different photographs of a building taken from different angles, different religions give us the pictu res of one truth from different standpoints. They are not contradictory but comp lementary. Sri Ramakrishna faithfully practiced the spiritual disciplines of dif ferent religions and came to the realization that all of them lead to the same g oal. 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 di versity. 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 deep ening our individual God-consciousness. In the present-day world, threatened by nuclear war and torn by religious intolerance, Sri Ramakrishna's message of harm ony gives us hope and shows the way. QUOTATIONS 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 my self, "God in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the f orm of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous." GOD IS WITHIN YOU Do you know what I see? I see Him as all. Men and other creatures appear to me o nly as hollow forms, moving their heads and hands and feet, but within is the Lo rd Himself. PERSEVERE IN YOUR SEARCH FOR GOD There are pearls in the deep sea, but one must hazard all to find them. If divin g once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea i s 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.

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