Vivekananda Centre London

Sri Ramakrishna (1836 – 1886)

Sri Ramakrishna was one of the most potent spiritual masters in the history of India. He achieved a state of consciousness through which he could experience God in everything. He achieved God realization through a variety of pathways, not only within Hinduism but even through Christianity and Islam. He is therefore the single most dynamic God man of the world, proving the validity of a whole range of approaches to God. He is thus the prophet of pluralism, providing the only proof that God can be reached in a variety of different ways.

Sri Ramakrishna was immersed in spiritual experience since childhood. Just the mention or sight of something that reminded him of God could cause him to start experiencing ‘Sat, Chit, Ananda’ or existence, consciousness and bliss of God. One day while walking through some paddy fields, he looked up at a flock of white cranes flying by against the dark rain clouds. The sheer beauty of this vision caused the young Ramakrishna to become immediately submerged in God experience.

As he grew older, Sri Ramakrishna devoted himself to the worship of the Mother Goddess, Kali, with all his heart. He could see her day and night, so powerful was his spiritual experience. He was also able to see God as other Hindu deities such as Rama and Krishna and could even become submerged in the deepest form of meditation to experience God as everything: Brahman. Later on he also practiced Islam and Christianity and achieved the same spiritual enlightenment through these two major world religions. Swami Vivekananda, one of Sri Ramakrishna’s principle disciples brought the philosophical ideas of Hinduism to America and the Western world. The life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna are profoundly relevant to the world of today, rife with religious extremism and hedonistic secularism.

“Sri Ramakrishna’s message was unique in being expressed in action…Religion is not just a matter for study, it is something that has to be experienced and to be lived, and this is the field in which Sri Ramakrishna manifested his uniqueness…His religions activity and experience were, in fact, comprehensive to a degree that had perhaps never before been attained by any other religious genious, in India or elsewhere”

Sir Arnold Toynbee

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