Sri Rama­kri­shna

Sri Rama­kri­shna
(1836–1886)

Sri Rama­kri­shna, born in Kamarpukur, an obscure vil­lage not far from Cal­cutta, became one of the world’s most highly revered saints within a few years of his pass­ing away. His mes­sage of the har­mony of reli­gions, based on his own real­iza­tions of the truth of var­i­ous reli­gious paths, opened the way for a new era of mutual under­stand­ing among the world’s great reli­gions. His spe­cial mes­sage was the one­ness of exis­tence and the divin­ity of humankind. He taught that God, or the higher Self, could be real­ized in this very life­time through the paths of knowl­edge, med­i­ta­tion, ecsta­tic love and self­less service.

Swami Vivek­a­nanda said of him:

In the pres­ence of the Mas­ter I found out that man could be per­fect, even in this body. Those lips never cursed any one, never even crit­i­cized any one. Those eyes were beyond the pos­si­bil­ity of see­ing evil, that mind had lost the power of think­ing evil. He saw noth­ing but good. That tremen­dous purity, that tremen­dous renun­ci­a­tion is the one secret of spirituality.