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Sri Ramakrishna was born Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya in 1836
at village Kamarpukur about sixty miles from Kolkatta. His parents,
Khudiram and Chandramani, were poor and made ends meet with great
difficulty.
Gadadhar was the pet of the whole village. He was
handsome and had a natural gift for the fine arts. He, however, disliked
going to school and when asked why he did not want to go to school, his
reply was :"The so-called education is for earning money only ; I don't
care for this kind of education." He loved Nature and spent his time in
fields and fruit gardens outside the village with his friends. Gadadhar lost his father at the age of seven. He became more serious from now on, but he did not change his ways and habits. For instance, he would not go to school,instead, he was seen visiting monks who stopped at his village on their way to Puri. He would serve them and listen with rapt attention to the arguments they often had among themselves over religious issues. Gadadhar had now attained the age when he should be invested with the sacred thread. When arrangements were nearly complete for this, Gadadhar declared that he would have his first alms as a brahmin from a certain sudra woman of the village. This was something unheard of ! Tradition required that it should be a brahmin and not a sudra who would give him the first alms. This was pointed out to him but he was adamant. He said he had given his word to the lady and if he did not keep his word, what sort of brahmin would he be then ? No argument, no appeal, no amount of tears could budge him from his position. Finally, Ramkumar, his eldest brother and now the head of the family, had to give in. Meanwhile, the family's financial position worsened everyday. Ramkumar ran a Sanskrit school in Kolkatta and also served as priest in some families. What he earned was pitifully small and he could not send any money home regularly. He decided to bring Gadadhar to Kolkatta. His plan was to try to make him study Sanskrit. Perhaps he could also do some priestly work and make some money of his own. Gadadhar arrived, but he lost no time in making it clear that he was not going to study. He, however, did not mind doing some priestly work, not for money but for the pleasure of it. 
About this time, a rich woman of Kolkatta, Rani
Rashmoni, founded a temple at Dakshineswar. She approached Ramkumar to
serve as priest at the temple of Goddess Kali and Ramkumar agreed. After
some persuasion, Gadadhar agreed to decorate the deity. When Ramkumar
retired, Gadadhar took his place as priest. When Gadadhar started
worshipping the deity, he began to ask himself if he was worshipping a
piece of stone or a living Goddess. If he was worshipping a living
Goddess, why should she not respond to his worship? This question nagged
him day and night. Then, he began to pray to Kali - "Mother, you've
been gracious to many devotees in the past and have revealed yourself to
them. Why would you not reveal yourself to me, also ? Am I not also
your son ?" He would weep bitterly and sometimes even cry out loudly
while worshipping. At night, he would go into a near-by jungle and spend
the whole night praying. One day he was so impatient to see Mother Kali
that he decided to end his life. He seized a sword hanging on the wall
and was about to strike himself with it when he saw light issuing from
the deity in waves and he was soon overwhelmed by those waves. He then
fell down unconscious on the floor. Gadadhar was not, however, content
with this. He prayed to Mother Kali for more religious experiences. He
specially wanted to know what truths other religious systems taught.
Strangely enough, teachers of those systems attired as and when
necessary as if directed by some invisible power, and what is more
surprising, he reached the goals of those experiments in no time. Soon
word spread about this remarkable man and people of all denominations
and all stations of life began to come to him. From now on he came to be
known as Ramakrishna Paramahansa, and like a magnet he began to attract
true seekers of God. He taught ceaselessly for fifteen years or so
through parables, metaphors, songs and above all by his own life the
basic truths of religion. He passed away in 1886, leaving behind a
devoted band of young disciples headed by the well-known scholar and
orator, Swami Vivekananda.What did Sri Ramakrishna teach? 1. Sri Ramakrishna taught no creed or dogma. His only concern was man's upliftment. According to him, there is infinite moral and spiritual potential in man. To develop that potential is man's foremost duty in life. He taught man to strive to develop that potential without wasting time over sense pleasure or religious quibblings. 2. Religions are like so-many paths leading to the same goal, i.e., God. Man reaches his religious goal when he attains his highest moral development. 3. God is both personal and impersonal. It is difficult to conceive an impersonal God, so to begin with, God has to be thought of as a person. Can anyone think of the white color without thinking of a white object? One can look at the morning sun, but not at the midday sun. Similarly, when God is manifest in a person we know what God is like, otherwise God is impersonal and beyond thought and speech. 4. Be in the world but not of it. Perform your duties as well you can, but do not count too much upon the fruits of your action. Rather, surrender them to God. try to feel as if you are only a tool in the hands of God." 5. Religion is an experience. religion makes no sense unless its truths are experienced. Is your thirst satisfied unless you drink water when you are thirsty? 6. God is everywhere but He is most manifest in man. So serve man as God. That is as good as worshipping God. |
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Rumours spread to Kamarpukur that Ramakrishna had turned mad as a result of over-taxing spiritual exercises he had been going through at Dakshineswar temple. Alarmed,mother Chandra Devi brought him home and arranged that he might have the best medical care available in a village. The doctors who examined him declared that there was nothing abnormal about him. Chandra Devi who studied him closely also found him absolutely normal. As he had always done, Ramakrishna sang songs, told stories.... people laugh-that is all. He was interested in everything except in the financial affairs of the family. Chandra Devi's neighbours advised that if Ramakrishna could be persuaded to marry, he might be more conscious of his responsibilities to the family and accordingly pay more attention to its financial needs. Chandra Devi started looking for a suitable bride. She did not want Ramakrishna to know anything about her plan, for she feared he might see marriage as a hindrance to his spiritual progress. Ramakrishna, however, came to know, and far from objecting to the marriage, began to take an active part the selection of the bride. He, in fact, mentioned that in Jayrambati village, five kelometrs to the north-west of Kamarpukur,where the bride could be found at the house of one Ramchandra Mukherjee. The bride, six-year old and bearing the name, Sarada, was found. The marriage was duly solemnized, the bride went back to her father's house and Ramakrishna to Dakshineswar to resume his spiritual practices. Years passed by and the bride and the bridegroom seldom met. Sarada continued to live at her father's house, helping her poor peasant parents with the usual chores of feeding the cattle, carrying food to the paddy-fields for labourers working for her parents, cooking, cleaning, looking after the younger brothers, and so on. Once famine gripped Jayrambati and its surrounding areas. Starving people went about searching for food, but there was no food anywhere. It so happened that Sarada's parents had saved some food grains that year. They decided to cook some food everyday and distribute it to the starving people, fresh and hot. Sometimes, the hungry people would burn their fingers in eating hot food. Sarada, still a tiny girl, would fan the food to help it cool. She did it on her own. As Sarada grew older, neighbours began to gossip about her misfortune. They would say that her husband had gone mad. Sarada overhead such remarks and was naturally disturbed. She decided to go to Dakshineswar and see for herself the condition of her husband. She went and found her husband quite normal. She stayed with him for few months and then returned to Jayrambati. After some years, she permanently stayed with him. 
In a way, Sarada Devi was Ramakrishna's first
disciple. He taught her everything he learnt from his various Gurus.
Ramakrishna must have been pleased to see she mastered every religious
secret as quickly as himself has done, perhaps even more quickly.
Impressed by her great religious potential, he began to treat her as the
Universal Mother Herself. He said, 'I look upon you as my own mother
and the Mother who is in the temple'. Ramakrishna fell sick with cancer
in the throat. He was removed to Cossipore for treatment. By now he had
come to be known as a great religious teacher. Many of the Kolkatta
elite came under his influence, but Ramakrishna was not satisfied until
he had a band of young men who were prepared to mould themselves
strictly according to his instructions. Such young men, fifteen or
sixteen in number, were all with a good family background and modern
education. All of them are well-known for their later achievements as
religious teachers. The leader was Swami Vivekananda, who in fact
influenced every aspect of Indian national life. It is this band of
young men who later formed the Ramakrishna Order. Before passing away,
in 1886, Ramakrishna made Sarada Devi feel as if she was the mother of
these young men, nay of the entire humanity. At first, Sarada Devi was
shy about playing this role, but slowly, she filled that role, and even
became a religious teacher in her own rights. For the thirty-four years
or so that she lived after Ramakrishna's passing away, she inspired
people, both monastic and lay, with the ideals that Ramakrishna himself
had preached and practiced. She did this in the same way as
Ramakrishna-she lived those ideals. But her life was more testing and
complicated than Ramakrishna's. Being an ideal monk, Ramakrishna always
kept away from the cross-currents of a family life.He loved to watch the
fun called life but was careful enough never to be drawn into its
maelstroms.Sarada Devi, on the contrary, was at the very heart of it.She
was the head of a large family comprising men and women, most of them
not even distantly related to her. And what an assortment of characters
they were ! Some of them were great souls by any standard but there were
also some who were mean, jealous, and positively mischievous. How she
managed to keep them all together without loosing her balance in mind in
the process is a mystery. And each of them was convinced that she loved
him or her the best. They were all of them dependent on her, not only
spiritually but also materially. She was not only their 'mother' but
also their guru. She gave them full satisfaction on both scores.Sarada Devi had a hard life from the beginning to end. As a daughter, wife, and finally, as the beloved mother of a large community of people cutting across race and language, there were demands on her much more than a woman in her circumstances has to meet. She fulfilled them in a manner possible only for her. But what is remarkable is that, in the midst of all her cares, she maintained a degree of aloofness which Hinduism attributes to the highest and best among men and women. Through the eskein of all the varying situations which she faced, she remains absolutely calm as if these were no concern of hers. Her fortitude, courage, and wisdom, tested again and again, amazed everybody.But the most amazing thing about her was her renunciation, a quality she shared with her husband in a measure equal to, if not more than, his. She often found herself in a situation in which starvation seemed certain, but under no circumstances would she seek aid from any quarter. Even when her disciples had grown to a considerable number and there were people among them with means to keep her in comfort and also anxious to be of service to her, she would never so far as even drop a hint that she had any difficulty. She taught not by percepts but by examples. There were irritants galore in the way people around her behaved, but she was an indulgent mother who knew the best way to educate an erring child was to set an example before him, which she did. She had seen the worst side of man, but she never lost faith in him, knowing that, given affection, sympathy, and guidance, he could overcome all his limitations. She was human, yet divine. Her divinity shone through everything she did, even if it was something entirely mundane. She was a simple woman, but in thought, speech, and action she was attuned to God. She was a true saint, but she never claimed she was. She passed as an ordinary woman, but everything about her was extraordinary. |
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Swami Vivekananda was born Narendranath Dutta, son of a well-known lawyer in Kolkatta, Biswanath Dutta, and a very intelligent and pious lady, Bhuvaneswari Devi, in the year 1863. Biswanath often had scholarly discussions with his clients and friends on politics, religion and society. He would invite Narendranath to join in these discussions. Narendra, being not embarrassed, rather would say whatever he thought was right, advancing also arguments, in support of his stand. Some of Biswanath's friends resented Naren's presence among them, more so because he had the audacity to talk about matters concerning adults. Biswanath, however, encouraged him. Naren would say 'Point out where I'm wrong, but why should you object to my independent thinking?' Naren learnt the Epics and Puranas from his mother, who was a good story-teller. He also inherited her memory among other qualities. He, in fact, owed much to her as he used to say later. Naren was all-round. He could sing, was good at sports, had a ready wit, his range of knowledge was extensive, had a rational frame of mind and he loved to help people . He was a natural leader. He was much sought after by the people because of his various accomplishments Naren passed Entrance Examination from the Metropolitan Institute and F.A. and B.A. Examinations from the General Assembly's Institution (now Scottish Church College). Hastie, Principal of the College, was highly impressed by Naren's philosophical insight. It was from Hastie that he first heard of Sri Ramakrishna. As a student of Philosophy, the question of God was very much in his mind. Was there a God ? If there was a God, what was He like ? What were man's relations with Him ? Did He create this world which was so full of anomalies ? He discussed these questions with many, but no one could give him satisfactory answers. He looked to persons who could say they had seen God, but found none. Meanwhile, Keshab Sen had become the head of the Brahmo Movement. He was a great orator and many young people, attracted by his oratory, enrolled as members of the Brahmo Samaj. Naren also did the same. For some time he was satisfied with what the Brahmo Samaj taught him, but soon he began to feel it did not quite touch the core of the matter, so far as religion was concerned. A relation of his used to advise him to visit Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar, who, he said, would be able to remove all his doubts about religion. He happened to meet Ramakrishna at the house of a neighbour, but there is nothing on record about the impression that he created on Naren's mind. He, however, invited Naren to visit him at Dakshineswar some day. As the days passed, Naren began to grow restless about the various riddles that religion presented to him. He particularly wanted to meet a person who could talk about God with the authority of personal experience. Finally, he went to Ramakrishna one day and asked him straightaway if he had seen God. He said he had, and if Naren so wished, he could even show God to him. This naturally took Naren by surprise. But he did not know what to make of it, for though his simplicity and love of God impressed Naren, his idiosyncrasies made him suspect if Ramakrishna was not a 'monomaniac'. He began to watch him from close quarters and after a long time he was left in no doubt that Ramakrishna was an extraordinary man. He was the only man he had so far met who had completely mastered himself. Then, he was also the best illustration of every religious truth he preached. Naren loved and admired Ramakrishna but never surrendered his independence of judgment. Interestingly, Ramakrishna himself did not demand it of him, or of any other of his disciples. Nevertheless, Naren gradually came to accept Ramakrishna as his master. 
Ramakrishna suffered from cancer and passed away in
1886. During his illness, a group of select young men had gathered
around him and began to nurse him while receiving spiritual guidance
from him. Naren was the leader of this group. Ramakrishna had wanted
that they take to monastic life and had symbolically given them saffron
cloth. They accordingly founded a monastery at Baranagar and began to
live together, depending upon they got by begging. Sometimes they would
also wander about like other monks. Naren also would sometimes go
travelling. It was while he was thus travelling that he assumed the name
of Swami Vivekananda. Vivekananda travelled extensively through India,
sometimes on foot. He was shocked to see the conditions of rural India -
people ignorant, superstitious, half-starved, and victims of
caste-tyranny. If this shocked him, the callousness of the so-called
educated upper classes shocked him still more. In the course of his
travels he met many princes who invited him to stay with them as their
guest. He met also city-based members of the intelligentsia-lawyers,
teachers, journalists and government officials. He appealed to all to do
something for the masses. No one seemed to pay any heed to him-except
the Maharaja of Mysore, the Maharaja of Khetri and a few young men of
Madras. Swami Vivekananda impressed on everybody the need to mobilize
the masses. A few educated men and women could not solve the problem of
the country; the mass power had to be harnessed to the task. He wanted
the masses educated. The ruler of Mysore was among the first to make
primary education free within his State. This, however, was not enough
in Swamiji's view. A peasant could not afford to send his children to
school, for he needed help in his field. He wanted education taken to
the peasant's door-step, so that the peasant's children could work and
learn at the same time. It was a kind of 'non-formal' education which
perhaps he visualized. His letters to the Maharaja of Mysore on the
subject show how much he had given to the subject and how original he
was.Other princes, or the intelligentsia as a whole, were impressed by Swamiji's personality, but were much too engrossed with their own affairs to pay any heed to his appeals. Some of the young men of Madras, Perumal specially, dedicated himself to the ideas Swamiji propounded and his contributions to the success of his mission were significant. Swamiji could guess the reason why the so-called leaders of the society ignored him. Who was he ? A mere wandering monk. There were hundreds of such monks all over the country. Why should they pay any special attention to him ? By and large, they followed only Western thinkers and those Indians who followed the West and had had some recognition in the West by so doing. It was slave mentality, but that was what characterized the attitude of the educated Indians over most matters. It pained Swamiji to see Indians strutting about in Western clothes and imitating Western ways and manners, as if that made them really Western. Later he would call out the nation and say, 'Feel proud that you are Indians even if you're wearing a loin-cloth'. He was not opposed to learning from the West, for he knew the Western people had some great qualities and it was because of those qualities that they had become so rich and powerful. He wanted India to learn science and technology from the West and its power to organize and its practical sense, but, at the same time, retain its high moral and spiritual idealism. But the selfishness of the so-called educated people pained him more. They were happy if they could care for themselves and they gave a damn to what happened to the people. Swamiji wanted to draw their attention to the miserable condition of the masses-illiterate, always on the verge of starvation, superstitious and victims of oppression by the upper castes and the rich landlords. It was Swamiji's hope that India would create a new social order and a new civilization by combining her best spiritual traditions with the latest advancements in science and technology. She would be rich both materially and spiritually. He knew affluence was not enough, man had to be human, too. He wanted India to set an example in this. | |||||
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