Sri Ramakrishna
(1836-1886)
Ramakrishna was born into a Brahman family who had little money but were spiritually rich. They lived in a small town near Calcutta, India. His parents were very devotional in temperament, and they both experienced visions of the divine. His father once had a vision in which Vishnu appeared to him and told him that he himself would be born into their family as their son. When he was born they named him Gadadhar.
From a very early age, Gadadhar had ecstatic experiences and spiritual visions. His earliest ecstatic spiritual experience came when he was five years old and he saw a flock of whites cranes flying in the air above his head. In the moment of seeing this common sight, he fell into a state of spiritual bliss. On another occasion, he was playing the role of the God Shiva in a school play and lost consciousness as he experienced himself as Shiva.
Gadadhar was not a great scholar, and had little interest in learning about the world. He was a daydreamer and spiritual visionary, a lover of nature, spending long hours wandering in the fields and along the river. He was very creative and artistic, as well a storyteller and actor. His father died when he was 7, and the financial status of his family became very difficult. At the age of 16, he began to work as a priest in the temple of Kali at Dakshineswar.
He became a passionate devotee of the Divine Mother Goddess, and began to spend much of his time making offerings and meditating on Her image. Not long after this he experienced a spontaneous spiritual awakening in his deeply devout desire to see the Divine Mother, Kali. His longing to receive a visit from Kali was so strong that he decided to take his life. He described this incident: “When I jumped up like a madman and grabbed a sword, suddenly the Blessed Mother revealed herself. The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up. I was caught in the rush and collapsed, unconscious… within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother.
Following this experience, many teachers came to the temple and taught Gadadhar, and he made great progress, mastering all the Yogic teachings. Very soon word spread of his spiritual accomplishments. It was during this time he received the name of Ramakrishna. He became a renunciate, and studied the non-dualist form of Vedanta philosophy, which views God as the formless, unmanifest energy that supports the cosmos. He experienced the powerful and deep form of trance called nirvilkalpa samhadi, which can be described as complete absorption of one's being into the Divine Ocean of consciousness. He began to show what many of the temple saw as mental instability, but a holy woman who appeared at the temple determined that Ramakrishna's madness was spiritual madness, that he was literally mad for a vision of God.
He began to gather disciples around him, at which time his most devoted disciple, the Swami Vivekananda, began to record his teachings. Another of his disciples, Sarada Devi, became his wife and spiritual companion, she herself being enlightened, and a perfect compliment to Ramakrishna. She was considered to be an incarnation of the Holy Mother, and many came specifically as her disciples. It was during this time as that Ramakrishna began to study different religious paths such as Christianity and Islam, deciding after doing so that all religions reach the same goal when practiced with devotion and singular focus. His teachings became widely known, and all who came to see him felt blessed by his profound presence, obvious God-consciousness, unconditional love and compassion for all beings, and his expression of Oneness. People of all faiths, religions, and races were drawn to his teachings of the universal reality of God's presence permeating perceived boundaries. He often asked people how they viewed God, and then he tailored his teachings to their beliefs.
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 a saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form 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 only as hollow forms, moving their heads and hands and feet, but within is the Lord himself.
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.
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 to 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.
Many people can sense the spring of consciousness matter within all life. Is it a sense of the divine design the makes us all consciously human? It is the belief of some that catching consciousness on a higher level will bring us closer to a divine awakening. Belief bridging between the physical parts of earth and the consciousness of the awakening earth guides us to understanding divine law. As a human one can manifest and design our existence through conscious matter. Finding spiritual enlightenment often leads to a spring awakening within you.