Ramakrishna
Paramahansa (18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), born Gadadhar Chatterjee or
Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, was an Indian Hindu mystic and saint in 19th century
Bengal. Ramakrishna experienced spiritual ecstasies from a young age, and was
influenced by several religious traditions, including devotion toward the
goddess Kali, Tantra (shakta), Vaishnava (bhakti), and Advaita Vedanta.
Reverence and admiration for him among Bengali elites led to the formation of
the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda.
Ramakrishna
was born on 18 February 1836, in the village of Kamarpukur, in the Hooghly
district of West Bengal, into a very poor, pious, and orthodox Brahmin family.
Kamarpukur was untouched by the glamour of the city and contained rice fields,
tall palms, royal banyans, a few lakes, and two cremation grounds. His parents
were Khudiram Chattopadhyay and Chandramani Devi. According to his followers,
Ramakrishna's parents experienced supernatural incidents and visions before his
birth. In Gaya his father Khudiram had a dream in which Lord Gadadhara (a form
of Vishnu), said that he would be born as his son. Chandramani Devi is said to
have had a vision of light entering her womb from Shiva's temple.
Although
Ramakrishna attended a village school with some regularity for 12 years, he
later rejected the traditional schooling saying that he was not interested in a
"bread-winning education". Kamarpukur, being a transit-point in
well-established pilgrimage routes to Puri, brought him into contact with
renunciates and holy men. He became well-versed in the Puranas, the Ramayana,
the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavata Purana, hearing them from wandering monks and
the Kathaks - a class of men in ancient India who preached and sang the Puraṇas.
He could read and write in Bengali. While the official biographies write that
the name Ramakrishna was given by Mathura Biswas—chief patron at Dakshineswar
Kali Temple, it has also been suggested that this name was given by his own
parents.
Ramakrishna
describes his first spiritual ecstasy at the age of six: while walking along
the paddy fields, a flock of white cranes flying against a backdrop of dark
thunder clouds caught his vision. He reportedly became so absorbed by this
scene that he lost outward consciousness and experienced indescribable joy in
that state. Ramakrishna reportedly had experiences of similar nature a few
other times in his childhood - while worshipping the goddess Vishalakshi, and
portraying god Shiva in a drama during Shivaratri festival. From his 10th or
11th year of school on, the trances became common, and by the final years of
his life, Ramakrishna's samadhi periods occurred almost daily. Early on, these
experiences have been interpreted as epileptic seizures, an interpretation
which was rejected by Ramakrishna himself.
Ramakrishna's
father died in 1843, after which family responsibilities fell on his elder
brother Ramkumar. This loss drew him closer to his mother, and he spent his
time in household activities and daily worship of the household deities and
became more involved in contemplative activities such as reading the sacred
epics. When Ramakrishna was in his teens, the family's financial position
worsened. Ramkumar started a Sanskrit school in Kolkata and also served as a
priest. Ramakrishna moved to Kolkata in 1852 with Ramkumar to assist in the
priestly work.
In
1855 Ramkumar was appointed as the priest of Dakshineswar Kali Temple, built by
Rani Rashmoni - a rich woman of Kolkata who belonged to the kaivarta community.
Ramakrishna, along with his nephew Hriday, became assistants to Ramkumar, with
Ramakrishna given the task of decorating the deity. When Ramkumar died in 1856,
Ramakrishna took his place as the priest of the Kali temple.
After
Ramkumar's death Ramakrishna became more contemplative. He began to look upon
the image of the goddess Kali as his mother and the mother of the universe.
Ramakrishna reportedly had a vision of the goddess Kali as the universal
Mother, which he described as "... houses, doors, temples and everything
else vanished altogether; as if there was nothing anywhere! And what I saw was
an infinite shoreless sea of light; a sea that was consciousness. However far
and in whatever direction I looked, I saw shining waves, one after another,
coming towards me."
Rumors
spread to Kamarpukur that Ramakrishna had become unstable as a result of his
spiritual practices at Dakshineswar. Ramakrishna's mother and his elder brother
Rameswar decided to get Ramakrishna married, thinking that marriage would be a
good steadying influence upon him—by forcing him to accept responsibility and
to keep his attention on normal affairs rather than his spiritual practices and
visions. Ramakrishna himself mentioned that they could find the bride at the
house of Ramchandra Mukherjee in Jayrambati, three miles to the north-west of
Kamarpukur. The five-year-old bride, Saradamani Mukhopadhyaya (later known as
Sarada Devi) was found and the marriage was duly solemnised in 1859.
Ramakrishna was 23 at this point, but the age difference was typical for 19th
century rural Bengal.They later spent three months together in Kamarpukur.
Sarada Devi was fourteen while Ramakrishna was thirty-two. Ramakrishna became a
very influential figure in Sarada's life, and she became a strong follower of
his teachings. After the marriage, Sarada stayed at Jayrambati and joined
Ramakrishna in Dakshineswar at the age of 18.
By
the time his bride joined him, Ramakrishna had already embraced the monastic
life of a sannyasi; as a result, the marriage was never consummated. As a
priest Ramakrishna performed the ritual ceremony—the Shodashi Puja–where Sarada
Devi was made to sit in the seat of goddess Kali, and worshiped as the Divine
Mother. Ramakrishna regarded Sarada as the Divine Mother in person, addressing
her as the Holy Mother, and it was by this name that she was known to
Ramakrishna's disciples. Sarada Devi outlived Ramakrishna by 34 years and
played an important role in the nascent religious movement.
After
his marriage Ramakrishna returned to Kolkata and resumed the charges of the
temple again, and continued his sadhana. According to his official
biographers, he continued his sadhana under teachers of Tantra, Vedanta
and Vaishnava.
At
some point in the period between his vision of Kali and his marriage,
Ramakrishna practised dasya bhava, during which he worshiped Rama with the attitude of Hanuman,
who is considered to be the ideal devotee and servant of Rama. According to
Ramakrishna, towards the end of this sadhana, he had a vision of Sita, the consort of Rama, merging into his body.
In
1861, Ramakrishna accepted Bhairavi Brahmani, an orange-robed, middle-aged
female ascetic, as a teacher. She carried with her the Raghuvir Shila, a stone icon representing Ram and all
Vaishnava deities. She was thoroughly conversant with the texts of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and practised Tantra. According to the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna was
experiencing phenomena that accompany mahabhava, the supreme attitude of
loving devotion towards the divine, and quoting from the bhakti shastras,
she said that other religious figures like Radha
and Chaitanya had similar experiences.
The
Bhairavi initiated Ramakrishna into Tantra. Tantrism focuses on the worship of shakti and the object of Tantric training is
to transcend the barriers between the holy and unholy as a means of achieving
liberation and to see all aspects of the natural world as manifestations of the
divine shakti. Under her guidance, Ramakrishna went through sixty four
major tantric sadhanas which were completed in 1863. He began with mantra rituals such as japa
and purascarana and many other rituals designed to purify the mind and
establish self-control. He later proceeded towards tantric sadhanas, which
generally include a set of heterodox practices called vamachara
(left-hand path), which utilise as a means of liberation, activities like
eating of parched grain, fish and meat along
with drinking of wine and sexual intercourse. According to Ramakrishna and his
biographers, Ramakrishna did not directly participate in the last two of those
activities (some even say he didn't indulge in meat eating), all that he needed
was a suggestion of them to produce the desired result. Ramakrishna
acknowledged the left-hand tantric path, though it had "undesirable
features", as one of the "valid roads to God-realization", he consistently
cautioned his devotees and disciples against associating with it. The Bhairavi
also taught Ramakrishna the kumari-puja, a form of ritual in which the
Virgin Goddess is worshiped symbolically in the form of a young girl. Under the
tutelage of the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna also learnt Kundalini Yoga. The Bhairavi,
with the yogic techniques and the tantra played
an important part in the initial spiritual development of Ramakrishna.
Vivekananda
Among
the Europeans who were influenced by Ramakrishna was Principal Dr. William
Hastie of the Scottish Church College, Kolkata. In the course of explaining the
word trance in the poem The Excursion by William Wordsworth, Hastie told his
students that if they wanted to know its "real meaning", they should
go to "Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar." This prompted some of his
students, including Narendranath Dutta (later Swami Vivekananda), to visit
Ramakrishna.
Despite
initial reservations, Vivekananda became Ramakrishna's most influential
follower, popularizing a modern interpretation of Indian traditions which
harmonised Tantra, Yoga and Advaita Vedanta. Vivekananda established the
Ramakrishna order, which eventually spread its mission posts throughout the
world. Monastic disciples, who renounced their family and became the earliest
monks of the Ramakrishna order, included Rakhal Chandra Ghosh (Swami
Brahmananda), Kaliprasad Chandra (Swami Abhedananda), Taraknath Ghoshal (Swami
Shivananda), Sashibhushan Chakravarty (Swami Ramakrishnananda), Saratchandra
Chakravarty (Swami Saradananda), Tulasi Charan Dutta (Swami Nirmalananda),
Gangadhar Ghatak (Swami Akhandananda), Hari Prasana (Swami Vijnanananda) and
others.
Other devotees and disciples
As
his name spread, an ever-shifting crowd of all classes and castes visited
Ramakrishna. Most of Ramakrishna's prominent disciples came between 1879–1885.
Apart from the early members who joined the Ramakrishna Order, his chief
disciples consisted of:
· Grihasthas or The householders—Mahendranath
Gupta, Girish Chandra Ghosh, Mahendra Lal Sarkar, Akshay Kumar Sen and others.
· A small group of women disciples
including Gauri Ma and Yogin Ma. A few of them were initiated into sanyasa
through mantra deeksha. Among the women, Ramakrishna emphasised service to
other women rather than tapasya (practice of austerities). Gauri Ma founded the
Saradesvari Ashrama at Barrackpur, which was dedicated to the education and
uplift of women.
In
preparation for monastic life, Ramakrishna ordered his monastic disciples to
beg their food from door to door without distinction of caste. He gave them the
saffron robe, the sign of the Sanyasi, and initiated them with Mantra Deeksha.
In
the beginning of 1885 Ramakrishna suffered from clergyman's throat, which
gradually developed into throat cancer. He was moved to Shyampukur near
Kolkata, where some of the best physicians of the time, including Dr.
Mahendralal Sarkar, were engaged. When his condition aggravated he was
relocated to a large garden house at Cossipore on 11 December 1885.
During
his last days, he was looked after by his monastic disciples and Sarada Devi.
Ramakrishna was advised by the doctors to keep the strictest silence, but
ignoring their advice, he incessantly conversed with visitors. According to
traditional accounts, before his death, Ramakrishna transferred his spiritual
powers to Vivekananda and reassured Vivekananda of his avataric status.
Ramakrishna asked Vivekananda to look after the welfare of the disciples,
saying, "keep my boys together" and asked him to "teach
them". Ramakrishna also asked other monastic disciples to look upon
Vivekananda as their leader. Ramakrishna's condition gradually worsened, and he
died in the early morning hours of 16 August 1886 at the Cossipore garden house.
According to his disciples, this was mahasamadhi. After the death of their
master, the monastic disciples led by Vivekananda formed a fellowship at a
half-ruined house at Baranagar near the river Ganges, with the financial
assistance of the householder disciples. This became the first Math or
monastery of the disciples who constituted the first Ramakrishna Order.
The
principal source for Ramakrishna's teaching is Mahendranath Gupta's Sri Sri
Ramakrishna Kathamrita, which is regarded as a Bengali classic. Kripal calls it
"the central text of the tradition" The text was published in five
volumes from 1902 to 1932. Based on Gupta's diary notes, each of the five
volumes purports to document Ramakrishna's life from 1882–1886.
The
most popular English translation of the Kathamrita is The Gospel of Sri
Ramakrishna by Swami Nikhilananda. Nikhilananda's translation rearranged the
scenes in the five volumes of the Kathamrita into a linear sequence.
Ramakrishna
emphasised God-realisation as the supreme goal of all living beings.
Ramakrishna taught that kamini-kanchana is an obstacle to God-realization.
Kamini-kanchan literally translates to "woman and gold."
Ramakrishna
is considered an important figure in the Bengali Renaissance of 19th–20th
century. Several organisations have been established in his name. The
Ramakrishna Math and Mission is the main organisation founded by Swami
Vivekananda in 1897. The Mission conducts extensive work in health care,
disaster relief, rural management, tribal welfare, elementary and higher
education. The movement is considered as one of the revitalisation movements of
India. Amiya Sen writes that Vivekananda's "social service gospel"
stemmed from direct inspiration from Ramakrishna and rests substantially on the
"liminal quality" of the Master's message.
Other
organisations include the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society founded by Swami
Abhedananda in 1923, the Ramakrishna Sarada Math founded by a rebel group in
1929, the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission formed by Swami Nityananda in 1976,
and the Sri Sarada Math and Ramakrishna Sarada Mission founded in 1959 as a
sister organisation by the Ramakrishna Math and Mission.
Websites:
Websites:
No comments:
Post a Comment