Ramkrishna Paramhamsa in Swami Vivekananda's OWN words.
Impulsum blogs has countless times taken Swami Vivekananda, his life and teachings as a reference to explain many topics. Impulsum considers Swamiji's messages and its relevancd to almost every subject, whether it be related to society, politics, nation-building and obviously, philosophy, religion and spirituality.
Swami Vivekananda's quotes in our blogs have become like a supreme court judgement to our journey. However far we may roam around in topics, we finish our blogs by concluding only and only Vivekananda.
In this blog, we have dared to attempt something extraordinary. In this blog we've taken Shri Ramkrishna, even Vivekananda's guru, as our subject of discussion. No doubt Impulsum mentions some fragments of even Shri Ramkrishna's views on certain things, but this time we have aimed to cover Shri Ramkrishna's life in its all entirety. However, the fun part is that I have compiled Swami Vivekananda's all the lecture extracts where he talks about his guru in his own words.
As I am simply not capable of doing so, we will study Shri Ramkrishna in the light of Swami Vivekananda himself.
At one occasion, introducing himself, and further describing his guru, Swami Vivekananda had said,
"I am a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a perfect Sannyasin, under whose influence and ideas I fell. This great Sannyasin never assumed the negative or critical attitude towards other religions, but showed their positive side - how they could be carried into life and practised."
He then adds how peculiar Shri Ramkrishna's Vedanta teachings was and how it helped Vivekananda.
"It was given to me to live with a man, who was as ardent a Dualist, as ardent an Advaitist, as ardent a Bhakta and a Jnani. And living with this man first put into my head to understand the Upanishads and the text of the scriptures from an independent and better basis, than by blindly following the commentators; and in my researches, I came to the conclusion that these texts are not all contradictory."
"Never during his life did he (Sri Ramakrishna) refuse a single prayer of mine; millions of offences has he forgiven me; such great love even my parents never had for me. There is no poetry, no exaggeration in all this. It is the bare truth, and every disciple of his knows it. In times of great danger, great temptation, I have wept in extreme agony with the prayer: “O God, do save me” and no response has come from anybody; but this wonderful saint, or Avatara or anything that he may be, has come to know of all my affliction through his powers or insight into human hearts and has lifted it off - in spite of my desire to the contrary - after getting me brought to his presence ... Him alone I have found in this world to be like an ocean of unconditioned mercy.
Time and again, have I received in this life the marks of his grace. He stands behind and gets all the work done by me. When lying helpless under a tree in an agony of hunger, when I had not even a scrap of cloth for kaupin, when I was resolved on travelling penniless round the world, even then help came in, always by the grace of Sri Ramakrishna. And again when crowds jostled with one another in the streets of Chicago to have sight of this Vivekananda, then also I could digest without difficulty all the honours - a hundredth part of which would have been enough to turn mad an ordinary man - because I had his grace, and by his will, victory followed everywhere."
Here Swami Vivekananda credits Shri Ramkrishna for whatever he has achieved in his life. He mentions how unflickering faith Shri Ramkrishna had in Vivekananda.
"He (Sri Ramakrishna) was all Bhakti without, but within he was all Jnana; I am all Jnana without, but within my heart, it is all Bhakti. All, that has been weak, has been mine. All, that has been life-giving, strengthening pure and bold, has been his inspiration, his words and he himself.
If there has been anything achieved by me, by thoughts, or words, or deeds, if from my lips has ever alien one word that has helped anyone in the world, I lay no claim to it; it was his. But if there have been curses falling from my lips, if there has been hatred coming out of me, it is all mine and not his.
Sri Ramakrishna himself is his own parallel. Has he any exemplar? Truly, I tell you, I have understood him (Sri Ramakrishna) very little. He appears to me to have been so great that whenever I have to speak anything about him, I am afraid lest I should ignore or explain away the truth, lest my little power should not suffice, lest in trying to extol him I should present his picture by painting him according to my lights and be little him thereby!
Sri Ramakrishna's was a different case. What comparison can there be between him and ordinary men? He practised in his life all the different ideals of religions to show that each of them leads but to the One Truth. Shall you or I ever be able to do all that he has done? None of us has understood him fully. So I do not venture to speak about him anywhere and everywhere. He only knows what he really was; his frame was a human one only, but everything else about him was entirely different from others.
The fact is that Sri Ramakrishna is not exactly what the ordinary followers have comprehended him to be. He had infinite moods and phases. Thousands of Vivekanandas may spring forth through one gracious glance of his eyes! But instead of doing that, he has chosen to get things done this time through me as his single instrument and what can I do in this matter?"
What you read just now was a flood of Guru-Bhakti flowing from Vivekananda's heart. We see how he tremendously developed under the shade of Shri Ramkrishna.
Summarising the life message of Shri Ramkrishna in brief, Swami Vivekananda says,
"This is the Message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world: “Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or churches or temples; they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality, and the more this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he. Earn that first, acquire that, and criticise no one, for all doctrines and creeds have some good in them. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names, or sects, but that it means Spiritual Realisation. Only those can understand, who have experienced. Only those, who have attained to spirituality, can communicate to others, can be great teachers, of mankind. They alone are the powers of light”.
To proclaim and make clear the fundamental unity underlying all religions, was the Mission of my Master. Other teachers have taught special religions, which bear their names, but this great Teacher of the nineteenth century made no claim for himself."
Explaining the necessity of Shri Ramkrishna's birth in relation to the trends of the time, he says,
"Sankara had a great head, Ramanuja had large heart; and the time was ripe for one to be born, the embodiment of both this head and heart; the time was ripe for one to be born, who in one body would have the brilliant intellect of Sankara and the wonderfully expansive infinite heart of Chaitanya; one, who would see in every sect the same spirit working, the same God; one, who would see God in every being; one, whose heart would weep for the poor, for the weak, for the outcast, for the downtrodden, for everyone in this world, inside India or outside India, and bring a marvellous harmony, the Universal Religion of head and heart into existence.
Such a man was born, and I had the good fortune to sit at his feet for years. The time was ripe, it was necessary that such a man should be born, and he came; and the most wonderful part of it was that his life's work was just near a city which was full of Western thought, a city which had run mad after these occidental ideas, a city, which had become more Europeanised than any other city in India. There he lived, without any book-learning whatsoever; this great intellect never learnt even to write his own name, but the most graduates of our university found in him an intellectual giant. … Let me now only mention the great Shri Ramakrishna, the fulfilment of the Indian sages, the sage for the time, one, whose teaching is just now, in the present time, most beneficial. And mark the divine power working behind the man. The son of a poor priest, born in an out-of-the-way village, unknown and unthought of, today is worshipped literally by thousands in Europe and America, and tomorrow will be worshipped by thousands more. Who knows the plans of the Lord!"
And here our blog ends.
We see what reverence Swami Vivekananda had for Shri Ramkrishna.
We also see what Shri Ramkrishna came here actually for.
We kind of got to know the essence of his teachings directly from his chief disciple - Swami Vivekananda.
To know more about Shri Ramkrishna's life events and message deeply, here is a PDF of a lecture of Swami Vivekananda called "My Master" where he explains the essence of Shri Ramkrishna's birth and his legacy -
https://archive.org/details/MyMasterSwamiVivekananda
Thanks,
Daksh Parekh.
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