Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
|
Missing image Ramakrishna.jpg Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa |
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (February 18, 1836 - August 16, 1886) was a Bengali saint. His early name was Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya. A devotee of the goddess Kali and a teacher of Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, which contain the beliefs of Smartism, a denomination of Hinduism, he preached that "all religions lead to the same goal." He placed "spiritual religion" above "blind ritualism."
| Contents |
Traditional biography
Usually in India, people concentrate more on the teachings of saints and less on the historically significant events related to them, for example their date of birth, other events related to their life etc. But in the case of Ramakrishna, we have authentic accounts of his life and times. This was possible as many of his disciples were well educated and had a strong desire to present only the facts which could be verified from multiple sources. The main credit for collecting and recording such facts goes to Swami Saradananda, a disciple of the Master. He wrote an authoritative biography to sift the facts from the legends and stories which were growing around Ramakrishna. A new English translation of this by Swami Chetanananda is available.
Traditional account of his childhood
Gadadhar’s parents, Khudiram and Chandramani, were poor and made ends meet with great difficulty. Gadadhar was the pet of the whole village. He was handsome and had a natural gift for the fine arts. He, however, disliked going to school, not interested in earning money only. He loved Nature and spent his time in fields and fruit gardens outside the village with his friends. He was seen visiting monks who stopped at his village on their way to Puri. He would serve them and listen with rapt attention to the arguments they often had among themselves over religious issues.
Gadadhar attained the age when he should be invested with the sacred thread (Upanayana). When arrangements were nearly complete for this, Gadadhar declared that he would have his first alms as a Brahmin from a certain Sudra woman of the village. This was something unheard of! Tradition required that it should be a brahmin and not a sudra who would give him the first alms. This was pointed out to him but he was adamant. He said he had given his word to the lady and if he did not keep his word, what sort of brahmin would he be? No argument, no appeal, no amount of tears could budge him from his position. Finally, Ramkumar, his eldest brother and now the head of the family after the passing away of their father, had to give in.
Meanwhile, the family's financial position worsened every day. Ramkumar ran a Sanskrit school in Calcutta and also served as purohit priest in some families. About this time, a rich woman of Calcutta, Rani Rashmoni, founded a temple at Dakshineswar. She approached Ramkumar to serve as priest at the temple of Kali and Ramkumar agreed. After some persuasion, Gadadhar agreed to decorate the deity. When Ramkumar retired, Gadadhar took his place as priest.
Traditional account of his career as priest
When Gadadhar started worshipping the deity Bhavatarini, he began to ask himself if he was worshipping a piece of stone or a living Goddess. If he was worshipping a living Goddess, why should she not respond to his worship? This question nagged him day and night. Then, he began to pray to Kali: "Mother, you've been gracious to many devotees in the past and have revealed yourself to them. Why would you not reveal yourself to me, also? Am I not also your son?"
He would weep bitterly and sometimes even cry out loudly while worshipping. At night, he would go into a nearby jungle and spend the whole night praying. One day, he was so impatient to see Mother Kali that he decided to end his life. He seized a sword hanging on the wall and was about to strike himself with it when he saw light issuing from the deity in waves and he was soon overwhelmed by those waves. He then fell down unconscious on the floor.
Gadadhar was not, however, content with this. He prayed to Mother Kali for more religious experiences. He specially wanted to know what truths other religious systems taught. Strangely enough, teachers of those systems came to him when necessary as if directed by some invisible power, and what is more surprising, he reached the goals of those experiments in no time. Soon word spread about this remarkable man and people of all denominations and all stations of life began to come to him.
Traditional account of his married life
When rumours spread to Kamarpukur that Ramakrishna had turned mad as a result of over-taxing spiritual exercises at Dakshineswar, alarmed, neighbours advised Ramakrishna’s mother that he could be persuaded to marry, so that he might be more conscious of his responsibilities to the family. Far from objecting to the marriage, he, in fact, mentioned Jayrambati, three miles to the north-west of Kamarpukur, as being the village where the bride could be found at the house of one Ramchandra Mukherjee. The bride, six-year old and bearing the name, Sarada, was found. The marriage was duly solemnised. Sarada Devi was Ramakrishna's first disciple. He taught her everything he learnt from his various Gurus. She mastered every religious secret as quickly as Ramakrishna has done. Impressed by her great religious potential, he began to treat her as the Universal Mother Herself and performed a Puja considering Sarada as veritable Tripura Sundari Devi. He said, 'I look upon you as my own mother and the Mother who is in the temple'. Ramakrishna made Sarada Devi feel as if she was not only the mother of his young disciples, but also of the entire humanity. At first, Sarada Devi was shy about playing this role, but slowly, she filled that role with courage.
But the most amazing thing about her was her renunciation, a quality she shared with her husband in a measure equal to, if not more than, his. The true nature of their relationship and kinship was beyond the grasp of ordinary minds. Sri Ramakrishna was convinced that her relationship and attitude toward him were firmly based on a divine spiritual plane. He came to this conclusion after having constant and close association with her. As they shared their lives, day and night, no other thought, other than that of the divine presence arose in their minds. Such a continued divine relationship between two souls of opposite gender is unique in religious records, never known in any of the past hagiographies and a source of inspiration for generations to come. After the passing away of Ramakrishna she even became a religious teacher in her own rights.
Traditional account of later life
From now on he came to be known as Ramakrishna Paramahansa, and like a magnet he began to attract real seekers of God. He taught ceaselessly for fifteen years or so through parables, metaphors, songs and above all by his own life the basic truths of religion. He had developed throat cancer and attained Mahasamadhi at a Garden House in Cossipore on 18 August, 1886, leaving behind a devoted band of 16 young disciples headed by the well-known saint-philosopher and orator, Swami Vivekananda and host of householder disciples.
Teachings
Ramakrishna's mystical realization, classified by Hindu tradition as nirvikalpa samadhi (literally, "constant meditation", thought to be absorption in the all-encompassing Consciousness), led him to believe that the gods of the various religions are merely so many interpretations of the Absolute, and that the Ultimate Reality could never be expressed in human terms. This is in agreement with the Rigvedic proclamation that "Truth is one but sages call it by many a name." As a result of this opinion, Ramakrishna actually spent periods of his life practising his own understandings of Islam, Christianity and various other Yogic and Tantric sects within Hinduism.
Ramakrishna's realization of nirvikalpa samadhi also led him to an understanding of the two sides of maya (illusion), to which he referred as avidyamaya and vidyamaya: He explained that avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation (eg sensual desire, evil passions, greed, lust and cruelty), which keep the world system on lower planes of consciousness. These forces are responsible for human entrapment in the round of birth and death, and they must be fought and vanquished. Vidyamaya, on the other hand, represents the higher forces of creation (e.g. spiritual virtues, enlightening qualities, kindness, purity, love, and devotion), which elevate human beings to the higher planes of consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya, devotees can rid themselves of avidyamaya and achieve the ultimate goal of becoming mayatita - that is, free from maya.
The four key concepts in Ramakrishna's teachings were the following:
- the oneness of existence
- the divinity of human beings
- the unity of God
- the harmony of religions
A personal account of his life and teachings, is recorded by his disciple, Mahendranath Gupta, simply known as "M", in the Gospel of Ramakrishna. Like Adi Sankara had done more than a thousand years earlier, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa revitalized Hinduism which had been fraught with excessive ritualism and superstition in the nineteenth century and helped it better respond to challenges from Islam, Christianity and the dawn of the modern era.
Reception
The Hindu Renaissance that India experienced in the 19th century may be said to have been spurred by his life and work. Although the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj preceded the Ramakrishna Mission, their influence on a larger level was limited. With the emergence of the Mission, however, the situation changed dramatically. The Ramakrishna Mission was founded by Swami Vivekananda, but it was his spiritual master, Ramakrishna, who indirectly provided the main impetus for this movement. According to Sudhir Kakar, Ramakrishna (along with Ramana Maharshi) is widely considered the pre-eminent Hindu mystic of the last three centuries.
It could be argued that Ramakrishna's vision of Hinduism, and its popularisation by western converts like Christopher Isherwood, have largely coloured western notions of what Hinduism is. Ramakrishna's beliefs, along with his followers, were all Smarta in belief. Others, like Andrew Harvey and Ken Wilber, see the beginning of a new universal consciousness with Ramakrishna's life.
Recent controversy
In 1995, Rice University Professor of Religious Studies Jeffrey Kripal's book Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna was released, a highly controversial psychoanalytic study of Ramakrishna. It won the American Academy of Religion's Best First Book in the History of Religions Prize in 1996. Far from the innocent saint of traditional stories, Ramakrishna is portrayed as driven by homoerotic, pedophiliac passions. Kripal argues that "Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences...were in actual fact profoundly, provocatively, scandalously erotic."[1] Unsurprisingly, Kripal's claims have offended and enraged Hindu laymen, scholars, and religious leaders. Censoring the book was even debated in the Parliament of India. Kripal maintains, however, that less than 100 copies have been sold in India, and that few of its opponents have actually read the book.
Swami Tyagananda, minister of the Ramakrishna-Vedanta Society in Boston, wrote an 173 page rebuttal, entitled "Kali’s Child Revisited, or Didn’t Anyone Check the Documentation?". Tyagananda severely criticized Kripal's translation of Bengali phrases and said that Kripal tended to quote selectively and deceptively from the Kathamrita in order to create evidence for his interpretation. In the essay, Tyagananda described no less than 191 alleged mistakes or deceptions by Kripal.
Kripal's response was to apologize for his translation errors, but to maintain that they are not serious enough to damage the book's overall interpretation. Additionally, Kripal points out that all interpretations are the product of the interaction of the reader's horizon of understanding with that of the author's.
Quotations
- "Knowledge leads to unity. Ignorance, to disunity."
- "As a man thinks, so he becomes."
External links
- www.sfvedanta.org 'Main page of the Vedanta Society of Northern California. Also an excellent source of religious books and books on Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, et. al.'
- www.vedanta.org 'Main page of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.'
- Ramakrishna Kathamrita literally, The Nectar of Ramakrishna, usually translated as The Gospel of Rmakrishna.
- Main page of Ramakrishna Math, Chennai
- American website
- Sri Ramakrishna Biography and selected works
- Kali's Child - Jeffrey Kripal's controversial study and interpretation of Ramakrishna and his legacy
- Kali's Child Revisited "Didn't Anyone Check the Documentation ?" - a critique of Kripal's scholarship by Swami Tyagananda
- Textuality, Sexuality, and the Future of the Past: A Response to Swami Tyagananda Dr. Kripal's response to Swami Tyagananda's critique
Further reading
- The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (I & II)- Mahendranatha Gupta ISBN 982-3
- Sri Ramakrishna Upanishad - C. Rajagopalachari ISBN 038-9
- Ramakrishna and His Divine Play - Swami Saradananda ISBN 0-916356-65-5
- The life of Ramakrishna - Romain Rolland ISBN 02001
- Ramakrishna and his disciples - Christopher Isherwood ISBN 02002
- Ramakrishna : a biography in pictures ISBN 02003
- Ramakrishna as we saw Him - Swami Chetanananda ISBN 02011
- Kali's Child : The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna - Jeffrey J. Kripal ISBN 0226453774