Sri Ramakrishna, who was born in 1836 and passed
away in 1886, represents the very core of the spiritual realizations of
the seers and sages of India. His whole life was literally an
uninterrupted contemplation of God. He reached a depth of
God-consciousness that transcends all time and place and has a
universal appeal. Seekers of God of all religions feel irresistibly
drawn to his life and teachings. Sri Ramakrishna, as a silent force,
influences the spiritual thought currents of our time. He is a figure
of recent history and his life and teachings have not yet been obscured
by loving legends and doubtful myths. Through his God-intoxicated life
Sri Ramakrishna proved that the revelation of God takes place at all
times and that God-realization is not the monopoly of any particular
age, country, or people. In him, deepest spirituality and broadest
catholicity stood side by side. The God-man of nineteenth-century India
did not found any cult, nor did he show a new path to salvation. His
message was his God-consciousness. When God-consciousness falls short,
traditions become dogmatic and oppressive and religious teachings lose
their transforming power. At a time when the very foundation of
religion, faith in God, was crumbling under the relentless blows of
materialism and skepticism, Sri Ramakrishna, through his burning
spiritual realizations, demonstrated beyond doubt the reality of God
and the validity of the time-honored teachings of all the prophets and
saviors of the past, and thus restored the falling edifice of religion
on a secure foundation. Drawn by the magnetism of Sri Ramakrishna's
divine personality, people flocked to him from far and near -- men and
women, young and old, philosophers and theologians, philanthropists and
humanists, atheists and agnostics, Hindus and Brahmos, Christians and
Muslims, seekers of truth of all races, creeds and castes. His small
room in the Dakshineswar temple garden on the outskirts of the city of
Calcutta became a veritable parliament of religions. Everyone who came
to him felt uplifted by his profound God-consciousness, boundless love,
and universal outlook. Each seeker saw in him the highest manifestation
of his own ideal. By coming near him the impure became pure, the pure
became purer, and the sinner was transformed into a saint. The greatest
contribution of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world is his message of
the harmony of religions. To Sri Ramakrishna all religions are the
revelation of God in His diverse aspects to satisfy the manifold
demands of human minds. Like different photographs of a building taken
from different angles, different religions give us the pictures of one
truth from different standpoints. They are not contradictory but
complementary. Sri Ramakrishna faithfully practiced the spiritual
disciplines of different religions and came to the realization that all
of them lead to the same goal. Thus he declared, "As many faiths, so
many paths." The paths vary, but the goal remains the same. Harmony of
religions is not uniformity; it is unity in diversity. It is not a
fusion of religions, but a fellowship of religions based on their
common goal -- communion with God. This harmony is to be realized by
deepening our individual God-consciousness. In the present-day world,
threatened by nuclear war and torn by religious intolerance, Sri
Ramakrishna's message of harmony gives us hope and shows the way. May
his life and teachings ever inspire us.
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Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
