Ramakrishna Paramhamsa (1836-1886 AD)

 

Ramakrishna's childhood name was Gadadhar Chattopadhyay. He was born in 1836 AD in a poor Brahmin family in Hooghly district of Bengal.

He had no interest in education since childhood. He was engrossed in religious thoughts all the time. When he was 17 years old, his father died.

At the age of 21, he became a priest in the temple of Kalidevi in Dakshineswar near Calcutta.

He learned Tantric practice for two years from a Brahmin monk named Bhairavi.

A great Vedantic monk named Totapuri taught him Vedanta practice.

Through his spiritual practice, he proved that religion and knowledge are not a matter of knowledge, but a matter of experience.

Ramakrishna died of tuberculosis on 16 August 1886.

His biography was written by Max Muller. Then Romain Rolland also published a biography.

                            Personality of Param Hans

1.     Not a Pandit but a Saint

There is the same difference between a Pandit and a Saint as there is between the heart and the intellect. What the intellect cannot understand even after trying hard, the heart suddenly sees.

Through the propaganda of Dayanand, Rammohan Roy and Annie Besant, it was proved that Hindu religion is not condemnable but noble, but the public wanted to see what the living form of the religion is like. He saw this living form of religion when Paramahamsa Ramakrishna (1836-1886 AD) appeared.

2.     Not logic but feeling

With the arrival of Ramakrishna the experience of religion became evident. He showed through his life that religious truths are not merely an object of intellectual speculation, they are a matter of direct experience and in front of them all the desires and pleasures of the world are completely insignificant.

He practiced all the paths of Hinduism. For some days, he became a true Muslim and practiced Islam and for some time he also practiced Christianity. There can be no bigger and more useful solution to the religious problem of India than the one given by Ramakrishna. By becoming Vaishnav, Shaiva, Shakta, Tantric, Advaist, Muslim and Christian, Paramhansa Ramakrishna proved that the external forms of religions are only external forms. They do not make any difference to the basic principle. There are many means and ways. Man can choose anyone among them.

3.     The embodiment of religion

He took initiation into Advaita practice from Mahatma Totapuri who himself came to his hut. He got the practice of Tantra from a Bhairavi who herself had reached Dakshineshwar while travelling. Similarly, his guru of Islamic practice was one Govind Rai who had converted from Hindu to Muslim and he practiced Christianity with Shambhu Charan Mallik who was well-versed in Christian scriptures. But, even while delving into all the spiritual practices and investigating the deep secrets of religion, his faith in the feet of Kali remained unshakable.

Paramhansa Ramakrishna was the embodiment of the depth and sweetness of Hinduism. His senses were completely under his control. From head to toe he was full of the light of the soul. The glow of joy, purity and virtue surrounded him. He remained engrossed in spiritual thoughts day and night. Worldly happiness and prosperity, even Suyash, had no value in front of him.

4.     Disenchantment with Kanchan

To test the fact that Ramakrishna does not touch money and the mere touch of it causes pain, Narendra Dutt one day surreptitiously hid a rupee under Paramahamsa ji's bed. When Ramakrishna returned and sat on the bed, he felt as if he had been stung by a scorpion and he jumped up and stood up. People looked around, but there was nothing anywhere. Finally, when he removed the bed and looked down, he saw that there was a rupee lying under it. Everyone was stunned. Only Narendra was surprisingly serious. Ramakrishna was aware of his mischievousness and said, “Okay Ray; The Guru should be examined to his heart's content." This aversion towards money kept increasing in him. At last it became such that he could not even touch a bronze vessel without wrapping his hand with a cloth.

5.     Indifference towards wife

Ramakrishna was a monk who remained with his wife till his last days. He had left his home after marriage and the truth is that he had not even formally left his home because, even after attaining maturity, he went to his village and lived there with his family in the same manner as The householder should stay. After this journey, his wife joined him in Dakshineshwar and Paramhansaji did not hesitate at all in keeping her with him. But, he did not have physical relations with his wife, this is known from all the details.

He said that although women are a part of Jagadamba, yet they are sacrificial for the seeker and sage.

6.     Preaching in the saint's way

His style of presenting the subject was exactly the same which was adopted by the ancient sages of India like Parshvanath, Buddha and Mahavira and which has traditionally been the method of preaching of Indian saints. He used to take less help of arguments; whatever had to be explained, he used to explain it through analogies and examples.

He said, “If the attachment of Kamini-Kanchan is completely destroyed, then the body is separate and the soul is separate, this becomes clearly visible. When the coconut water dries up, the copra (Gari) inside it gets separated from the drain, the copra and the drain both start appearing separately (like that), or as can be said about a sword kept inside the scabbard. That the scabbard and the sword are two different things, likewise, know about the body and the soul.”

To understand the idea that idol worship also has real importance in the worship of God, he would say, “Just as the court is remembered when we see a lawyer, in the same way, God is remembered when we see an idol.”

“Maya is the power of God, it resides in God only, then is God also as bound by Maya as we are?” To solve this problem he would say, “Oh, no brother! It is not like that...look at this. There is always poison in the snake's mouth. He always eats and drinks with the same mouth, but he himself does not die from that matter.”

The famous Brahmo-Samaji seeker and scholar Acharya Pratapchandra Majumdar has written that “Before having the darshan of Shri Ramakrishna, no one even understood what is called religion. It was all ostentation. What a religious life is like, I came to know after benefiting from the company of Ramakrishna.”