Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86,) spelled Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṃsa, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, was a renowned Hindu guru and religious exemplar of India. A mystic, he asserted, based on many ecstatic experiences, that all religions represent aspects of a single truth.
Born in Kamarpukur in Bengal to a rural family of poor Vaiṣṇava Brahmins, Ramakrishna moved to Calcutta in 1855 to join his brother as a priest at the city’s Dakṣhineswar Kālī Temple. Following his brother’s death, Ramakrishna became more absorbed with and more emotionally devoted to the Goddess Kālī. He experienced a series of trances that led him to regard the image of the Kālī as his mother, and as the Mother of the universe. He lived at the temple as a spiritual practitioner and an ascetic. In 1859, his family married him to a five-year-old girl, Śāradā Devī, who joined him in Calcutta when she turned 17. She became his disciple, and he revered her as an incarnation of the Goddess. Ramakrishna’s followers (who later organized the Ramakrishna Mission) worshiped Devī as the Holy Mother (“Sri Maa,”) which was Ramakrishna description for Goddess Kālī.
Ramakrishna became very renowned in Calcutta and other parts of India. Crowds regularly assembled to witness the intensity of his religious passion, and to hear him emphasize the need for engagement with God and religion. Some modern scholars have argued that Ramakrishna’s passionate mystical experiences were pathological, possibly due to a distressed upbringing or a deep-seated emotional turmoil.
Ramakrishna put none of his teachings in writing himself. Still, his devotees documented many of his orations and published such celebrated texts as Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, (The Gospel of Ramakrishna; Mahendranath Gupta; 1902–32.) In his teachings, Ramakrishna denounced lust, wealth, and the caste system, and advocated that all religions that bring about the mystical experience are evenly virtuous and pure.
Ramakrishna’s religious school of thought led to the establishment of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda. Ramakrishna continues to have a profound influence on the intellectuals and gurus who advocate Neo-Vedānta and other varieties of Neo-Hinduism.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Recommended Reading
- ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna‘ by Swami Nikhilananda, Aldous Huxley
- ‘Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings‘ by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
- ‘Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: The Sadhaka of Dakshineswar‘ by Amiya P. Sen
- ‘1,001 Pearls of Yoga Wisdom: Take Your Practice Beyond the Mat‘ by Liz Lark
Inspirational Quotes by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Indian Hindu Philosopher)
As a toy fruit or a toy elephant reminds one of the real fruit and the living animal, so do the images that are worshipped remind one of the God who is formless and eternal.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Once a person has faith, he has achieved everything.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Rain-water never stands on high ground, but runs down to the lowest level. So also the mercy of God remains in the hearts of the lowly, but drains off from those of the vain and the proud.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Topics: Opportunity
Dislodging a green nut from it’s shell is almost impossible, but let it dry and the lightest tap will do it.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Topics: Preparation, Planning
It is the mind that makes one wise or ignorant, bound or emancipated.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Topics: The Mind
As long as I live, so long do I learn.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Because you cannot find God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
If you first fortify yourself with the true knowledge of the Universal Self, and then live in the midst of wealth and worldliness, surely they will in no way affect you.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Disease is the tax which the soul pays for the body, as the tenant pays house-rent for the use of the house.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
I see God walking in every human form. 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.”
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
As you pray to God for devotion, so also pray that you may not find fault with anyone.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
More are the names of God and infinite are the forms through which He may be approached. In whatever name and form you worship Him, through them you will realise Him.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of any punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and God is the end.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Topics: Expectation
The winds of grace are blowing all the time. You have only to raise your sail.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
Topics: Opportunity
Men are like pillow-cases. The colour of one may be red, that of another blue, and that of the third black; but all contain the same cotton within. So it is with man; one is beautiful, another is ugly, a third holy , and a fourth wicked; but the Divine Being dwells in them all.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
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