Birth and childhood

Sri Ramakrishna was born on 18 February 1836,^[11] in the village of Kamarpukur in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India. Born into a very poor and pious Bengali Brahmin family,^[12] he was the fourth and the youngest child of his parents. His father, Khudiram Chattopadhyaya was born in 1775, and his mother, Chandramani Devi was born in 1791. The couple's first son, Ramkumar is said to be born in 1805. A daughter, Katyayani was born five years later, and a second son, Rameswar in 1826.^[13]

Chandramani Devi was Khudiram's second wife as his first wife had died young. Khudiram had ancestral property in the Dere Village of West Bengal, India. An unscrupulous landlord, Ramananda Roy, who was angry with Khudiram for refusing to commit perjury, brought a false petition against him in the court and took possession of his ancestral property. Bereft of all property, Khudiram and Chandramani Devi moved to Kamarpukur where a friend, Sukhlal Goswami, gifted them one Bigha and ten Chataks of land for their maintenance.^[14]

The parents of Ramakrishna are said to have experienced supernatural incidents and visions regarding his birth. In Gaya, his father Khudiram had a dream in which Bhagwan Gadadhara (a form of lord Vishnu) told him that he would be born as his son. Chandramani Devi is said to have had a vision of light entering her womb from the lingam in Yogider Shiv Mandir.^[15][16] In another vision following Ramakrishna's birth, his mother saw a strange tall person lying in the bed instead of the baby Ramakrishna.^[17]

The family was devoted to the Hindu deity Rama (the family deity was Sri Raghubir, an epithet of Rama), and the male children of Khudiram and Chandramani were given names that started with Ram or Rama: Ramkumar, Rameswar, and Ramakrishna.^[18] There has been some dispute about the origin of the name Ramakrishna, but there is "...evidence which proves beyond doubt that the name 'Ramakrishna' was given to him by his father..."^[19] Ramakrishna confirmed this himself, as recorded in "M"s diaries, "I was a pet child of my father. He used to call me Ramakrishnababu."^[20]

First spiritual experience

Around the age of six or seven, Ramakrishna experienced his first moment of spiritual trance. One morning while walking along the narrow ridges of a paddy field, eating some puffed rice from a small basket, he came across the sight of a flock of milky white cranes flying against the backdrop of a heavy rain laden black clouds, which soon engulfed the entire sky. The ensuing sight was so beautiful that he was absorbed into it and lost all his outer consciousness before falling down with the rice scattered all over. People nearby who saw this came to his rescue and carried him home.^[21]

At age nine, in accordance with Brahminical tradition, the sacred thread was vested on Ramakrishna thus making him eligible for conducting ritual worship. He would later help his family in performing worship of their deities.^[22] As a result of his devotion in worship, he started to experience Bhava-Samadhi or Savikalpa-Samadhi.^[23] He reportedly had experiences of similar nature a few other times in his childhood—while worshipping the Goddess Vishalakshi, and portraying the God Shiva in a drama during the Shivaratri festival.^[24]

Education

Ramakrishna was sent to the village school where he learned to read and write, but he had an aversion to arithmetic and didn't progress beyond simple addition, multiplication and division. He read the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and other religious books with devotion. But he observed the scholars and found that they were only interested in acquiring wealth and contrasted this with his father's standards of detachment and righteous conduct.^[25] He later lost interest in this "bread-winning education".^[21] He instead became proficient in making images, acting and painting. When he was fourteen years old, he started a drama group with some of his friends and left school to pursue it.^[25] Ramakrishna had practically no formal education and spoke ungrammatical imperfect Bengali with a rustic accent.^{[26][27][28][29]}

Kamarpukur, being a transit-point on the well-established pilgrimage routes to Puri, brought Ramakrishna into contact with many renunciate saints and holy men.^[30] He became well-versed in the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavata Purana, hearing them from the wandering monks and the Kathaks—a class of men in ancient India who preached and sang the Purāṇas. He used to sing and enact the songs and scenes from the Purāṇas to the village women. A trader, Durgadas Pyne, who enforced a strict purdah on the women in his household, criticised those who would met Ramakrishna for listening the Purāṇas. Ramakrishna argued with him that women can only be protected through good education and devotion to God, and not through Purdah. Once a challenge was thrown by Durgadas that it was impossible to look into his inner apartments, Ramakrishna accepted the challenge and dressed himself like a weaver woman, then fooled Durgadas with his disguise and entered the inner apartments of his house. Durgadas, defeated, allowed the women to go and listen to Ramakrishna's recitals.^[31]

Ramakrishna's father died in 1843, a loss which he felt very strongly that made him more reticent.^[32] Sometimes, visiting the nearby cremation ground alone he would practice spiritual disciplines there.^[21] At this stage, the family responsibilities fell on his elder brother, Ramkumar, who was about thirty-one years older than Ramakrishna.^[33] When Ramakrishna was in his teens, as the family's financial position worsened, Ramkumar started a Sanskrit school in Calcutta (Jhama pukur lane), whilst also serving as a priest there. Ramakrishna moved to Calcutta in 1852 along with his brother to assist him with the priestly work.^[34]

Lead up to priesthood

In 19th century Calcutta, there lived Rani Rasmani, a wealthy woman with a commanding personality. A widow with four daughters, she was the first of the many prominent women who played a major role in the life of Ramakrishna.^[35] Inheriting property from her husband, the Rani managed to endear herself to the people of the city through her exceptional managerial skills of the estate, her resistance against the British colonial authorities, and her various philanthropic works. Well known for her kindness, benevolence to the poor and also for her religious devotion, she was much loved and revered by all and proved herself to be worthy of the title "Rani".^[36][37] Being an ardent devotee of the Goddess Kali, she had the words, "Sri Rasmani Dasi, longing for the Feet of Kali”, inscribed in her estates official seal.^[38] After having a vision of the Goddess Kali in a dream on the night before her departure for a pilgrimage to the Hindu holy city of Kashi, she founded the now famous Dakshineswar Kali Temple.^[39][40] Reportedly in the dream, the goddess instructed her that instead of visiting Kashi she better set up a stone idol of the Goddess at a beautiful place on the banks of the Bhagirathi River, and make arrangements for the daily worship and Prasada offering there; then she would manifest in the deity and receive her worship.^[39]

With great delight the Rani bought a large piece of land on the banks of Hooghly river at Dakshineswar and started the construction of a nine-spired temple, where pilgrims could congregate to catch a glimpse of the Goddess. However, being born into a Cāsi kaivarta family, she was deemed unworthy by local Brahmins to make food offerings to Kali.^[35] But it was her heart's desire to offer Prasada to Kali, and if she did so going against the norms of the Brahmanical society of the time, the devotees would no longer visit that temple, nor would a kulin Brahmin priest officiate there. To find a scriptural solution to her problem, the Rani sought written opinions of various pandits from different parts of the country. However, none of the opinions were in her favor.^[41] When all hope was seemingly lost, she received a letter from Ramkumar, who assured her that the scriptural principles would be observed intact if she made a gift of the property to a Brahmin, who could then install the deity and make arrangements for food offerings. No blemish would then be incurred by those who partook of the Prasada there.^[42] She agreed to these conditions, displaying savviness in working around the rigidities of caste privileges while apparently adhering to its restrictions.^[35]

The Rani decided to consecrate the temple and proceeded with her plans. While the search for a priest was on, a Brahmin named Mahesh Chandra Chattopadhyaya, who worked on the estate of the Rani, and her secretary Ramdhan Ghosh, both of whom were well acquainted with Ramkumar, requested him to officiate as a priest at the temple of Rani, albeit temporarily.^[43] The devout Ramkumar agreed, and later after the opening of the temple on the last day of May in 1855, on request by the Rani, Ramkumar continued as the chief priest.^[44][35]

Ramkumar informed Ramakrishna about his taking up the post of the priest and asked him to stay at the Kali Temple. At this injunction, Ramakrishna objected strenuously and reminded Ramkumar that their father never officiated in the ceremonies of the purported 'lower castes'; but the will of Ramkumar prevailed in this matter.^[35][45] Despite having Brahmanical authority since the beginning, every religious Hindu irrespective of caste, creed, and class, had access to this temple.^[46][35]

Officiation as priest

Dakshineswar Kali Temple, built under the aegis of Rani Rasmani in 1855. Sri Ramakrishna lived a major part of his life here.

On Thursday 31 May 1855, Ramkumar in the presence of his brother Ramakrishna officiated at the dedication ceremony of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple.^[22] Within three months after the consecration of the temple, Mathur Babu, the Rani's right-hand man was much impressed by Ramakrishna and appointed him with the task of dressing up the deity of Kali, and Hriday—the sixteen year old nephew of Ramakrishna was appointed as an assistant to both him and Ramkumar.^[47]

Ramkumar began to teach his brother the mode of worship and service of the Goddess in the hope that he might perform them in his absence. To initiate him properly, a Sadhaka of Shakti named Kenaram Bhattacharya was invited. He was apparently charmed to see the religious fervor in Ramakrishna, who reportedly became ecstatic as soon as a mantra was recited in his ear.^[48][49] In order to get him accustomed, Ramkumar later employed Ramakrishna on few occasions to perform the worship of Kali.^[48]

As Ramkumar grew old and infirm to carry out the difficult duties at the Kali temple, Mathur, with the permission of the Rani, requested him to move to the Vishnu temple in the complex for conducting worship, and appointed Ramakrishna to the office of priest. Ramkumar was glad with this arrangement and after serving for one year since the consecration of the temple, in 1856 he died suddenly while preparing to go home on a leave.^[48][50]

Vision of the Goddess Kali

The idol of goddess Kali as Bhavatāriṇi in the sanctum sanctorum of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple.

At age 20, Ramakrishna who by now had witnessed more than one death in his family, realising the utter impermanence of life, became more engrossed in the worship of Kali. After the daily worship, he would sit in the temple looking intently at the deity and get absorbed in her, before losing himself in devotion whilst singing with profound emotion the songs composed by devotees like Ramprasad and Kamalakanta. He regarded their songs as an aid in his worship and was certain about getting the vision of Kali as Ramprasad did. With an ardent heart, he would say, "Thou showed thyself to Ramprasad, Mother, why then shouldst Thou not reveal Thyself to me? I don't want wealth, friends, relatives, enjoyment of pleasure, and the like. Do show Thyself to me." Being averse to wasting any time, after the closure of the temple during midday or at night, he would visit the nearby jungle to think and meditate on Kali.^[51]

Before meditating, he would put down his clothes and the sacred thread aside, and meditate completely naked. When Hriday, his nephew, found this out, he confronted him to ask him to explain his strange conduct. Ramakrishna explained to him that when one thinks about God, one should be free from all attachments and the eight servitudes of "hatred, fear, shame, aversion, egoism, vanity, noble descent, and good conduct." He viewed his sacred thread as a display of the ego, of his Brahmin descent, and thus kept it aside, saying when calling upon the Mother, one should discard all such bondages and call on Her with a focused mind. He assured his nephew that he would put them on after the end of his meditation. Hriday was aghast at hearing this and left him in dismay.^[52]

In this way, he spent his days and nights altogether in prayer, singing, and meditation, while his longing for her vision kept increasing daily. It was not long before people around the temple started noticing his passion and adherence to devotion, which was quite unperturbed by the opinions of people around him. The Rani was informed by her son-in-law, Mathur thus: "We have got an extraordinary worshipper; the Goddess will be awakened very soon".^[53]

As the days passed, Ramakrishna's food intake and sleep gradually declined, and when not engaged in either worship or meditation, he was seen to be in a state of turmoil over whether he would have a vision of the Mother.^[54] Seeing the evening sun, he would cry, "Mother, another day is gone and still I have not seen you!"^[55] Eventually he would question, "Are you true, Mother, or is it all a fabrication of my mind, mere poetry without reality? If you do exist, why can't I see you?"^[22]

In time, his longing for her vision became extreme, and he was engaged in either worship or meditation for almost twenty-four hours a day. Despaired, and feeling an unbearable pain at the thought that he might never have her vision, one day, as he later recounted: "In my agony, I said to myself, 'What is the use of this life?' Suddenly my eyes fell on the sword that hangs in the temple. I decided to end my life with it then and there. Like a madman, I ran to it and seized it. And then — I had a marvellous vision of the Mother and fell down unconscious." He became overwhelmed, and before fainting, observed that to his spiritual sight — houses, doors, temples and everything else around vanishing into an empty void and "What I saw, was a boundless infinite conscious sea of light! However far and in whatever direction I looked, I found a continuous succession of effulgent waves coming forward, raging and storming from all sides with great speed. Very soon they fell on me and made me sink to the unknown bottom. I panted, struggled and fell unconscious. I did not know what happened then in the external world — how that day and the next slipped away. But, in my heart of hearts, there was flowing a current of intense bliss, never experienced before, and I had the immediate knowledge of the light that was Mother." When he regained consciousness, he was found, uttering the word "Maa" (Mother) repeatedly in an aching voice.^{[22] [56]}

Thoroughly convinced of Kali's existence, Ramakrishna now lived at her abode, all the time, and like a child disinclined to leave its mother, so was he disinclined to leave his Divine Mother Kali. Hovering in an ocean of bliss, he guided various seekers to Kali, realising one cannot experience it anywhere but from Her.^[57] When asked why he called the deity a "Mother", he answered that it was because the child is most free with the Mother, and she alone can cherish the child more than anyone else.^[58] People around him noted that he engaged in talks of spiritual matters alone and never any worldly issues, and while talking about Kali the Divine Mother, he would simply cry and be elated. When someone once asked him about Kali worship, he said:

"I do not worship Kali made of clay and straw. My Mother is the conscious principle. My Mother is pure Satchidananda — Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. That which is infinite and deep is always dark-coloured. The extensive sky is dark-coloured and so is the deep sea. My Kali is infinite, all-pervading, and consciousness itself."^[59]

Marriage

Sarada Devi (1853–1920), wife and spiritual counterpart of Ramakrishna.

Rumors spread to Kamarpukur that Ramakrishna became 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 take up responsibilities, and keep his attention on normal affairs rather than on his spiritual practices and visions. Ramakrishna himself mentioned that they would 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; she is also considered an avatar) was found, and the marriage was duly solemnised in 1859. Ramakrishna was twenty-three at this point, but this age difference for marriage was typical for nineteenth-century rural Bengal.^[60] They later spent three months together in Kamarpukur when Sarada Devi was fourteen, and Ramakrishna 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 eighteen.^[61]

By the time his bride joined him, Ramakrishna had already embraced the monastic life of a sannyasi; the marriage was never consummated. As a priest, Ramakrishna performed the ritual ceremony – the Shodashi Puja in his room, where he worshipped his wife, Sarada Devi as the Divine Mother.^[62] Ramakrishna regarded Sarada Devi 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 thirty-four years and played an important role in the nascent religious movement.^[63][64]

As a part of practicing a spiritual mood, called mādhurā bhavā sādhana, Ramakrishna dressed and behaved as a woman.^[65] Disciple Mahendranath Gupta quotes the Master as follows:

How can a man conquer passion? He should assume the attitude of a woman. I spent many days as the handmaid of God. I dressed myself in women's clothes, put on ornaments and covered the upper part of my body with a scarf, just like a woman. With the scarf on, I used to perform the evening worship before the image. Otherwise, how could I have kept my wife with me for eight months? Both of us behaved as if we were the handmaid of the Divine Mother.^[66]

Rama Bhakti

At some point in the period between his vision of Kali and his marriage, Ramakrishna practised dāsya bhāva,^{[note 1]} 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.^[78][80]

Bhairavi Brahmani, an ascetic who used to carry with her the Raghuvir Shila - a stone idol representing lord Rama and all Vaishnava deities,^[81] who is also well versed in the texts of Gaudiya Vaishnavism^[81] stated that Ramakrishna was experiencing a phenomenon that accompanies mahabhava, the supreme attitude of loving devotion towards the divine,^[82] and quoting from the bhakti shastras, she stated that other religious figures like Radha and Chaitanya had similar experiences.^[83]

Tantra

Tantra 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.^[84][85]

In the year 1861, an itinerant middle-aged female ascetic named Bhairavi Brahmani initiated Ramakrishna into Tantra.^[70] Under her guidance, Ramakrishna went through sixty-four major tantric sadhanas which were completed in 1863. For all the sixty-four sadhana, he took only three days each to complete.^[86] 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.^[82] 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.^[82] 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.^[87][88]

The Bhairavi also taught Ramakrishna the kumari-puja, a form of ritual in which the Virgin Goddess is worshipped symbolically in the form of a young girl. Under the tutelage of the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna also learnt Kundalini Yoga.^[82] The Bhairavi, with the yogic techniques and the tantra, played an important part in the initial spiritual development of Ramakrishna.^[89][90]

Vaishnava Bhakti

In 1864, Ramakrishna practised vātsalya bhāva under a Vaishnava guru Jatadhari.^[91] During this period, he worshipped a small metal image of Ramlālā (Rama as a child) in the attitude of a mother. According to Ramakrishna, he could feel the presence of child Rama as a living God in the metal image.^[92][93]

Ramakrishna later engaged in the practice of madhura bhāva, the attitude of the Gopis and Radha towards Krishna.^[78] During the practise of this bhava, Ramakrishna dressed himself in women's attire for several days and regarded himself as one of the gopis of Vrindavan. According to Ramakrishna, madhura bhava is one of the ways to root out the idea of sex, which is seen as an impediment in spiritual life.^[94] According to Ramakrishna, towards the end of this sadhana, he attained savikalpa samadhi (god seen with form and qualities)—vision and union with Krishna.^[95]

Ramakrishna visited Nadia, the home of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu, the fifteenth-century founders of Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava bhakti. According to Ramakrishna, he had an intense vision of two young boys merging into his body while he was crossing the river in a boat.^[95] Earlier, after his vision of Kali, he is said to have cultivated the Santa bhava—the child attitude – towards Kali.^[78]

Tota Puri and Vedanta

Towards the end of 1864, an itinerant monk named Tota Puri, the tall naked mendicant with tangled hair, a Naga sadhu of Mahanirvani Akhara, born probably in Punjab, arrived at Dakshineswar while on a pilgrimage through various holy places in India. He was the head of a monastery and claimed leadership over seven hundred sannyasis.^{[96][97] [98]} These sannyasis are renowned to be the knowers of Brahman, and as beings thoroughly satisfied in themselves, see the whole universe as Brahman and its manifestation through Maya. They are always on move, traveling to different pilgrimage places, visiting various temples and meeting holy men, in order to experience Brahman there. Tota Puri was one such man who was on a similar visit when he arrived at Dakshineswar. It was a traditional convention with him to not spend more than three days at any one place, and arrived at the Kali temple, expecting to spend only three days there.^[99]

Experience of samadhi

The Panchavati and the hut, where Ramakrishna performed his advaitic sadhana. The mud hut has been replaced by a brick one.

Quoting scriptures, Tota explained to his disciple the need to attain the non-dual consciousness, as it alone can provide a person the supreme bliss. He tried to enable his disciple to experience the gains from his lifelong Sadhana, right on that day and attempted to make him attain Samadhi. He asked his disciple to free his mind from all functions, and merge it in the meditation of the Self. It so came to pass that when Ramakrishna sat for meditation, he could by no means make his mind stop from functioning. He would withdraw his mind easily from everything, but as soon as he did so, the intimately familiar form of the divine Mother, made up of pure consciousness, would appear before him as a living and moving being, making him unmindful of renunciation. Every time he sat for meditation, this happened all over again, and becoming nearly hopeless, he said to his guru, "No, it cannot be done; I cannot make the mind free from functioning and force it to dive into the Self." Criticizing his disciple very harshly for his defiance, Tota now feverishly went about searching for something in the hut. After finding a broken piece of glass, he took it into his hand and forcibly pierced its needlelike pointed end on his disciple's forehead between the eyebrows and said, "Collect the mind here to this point With a firm determination." Ramakrishna, now determined, sat for meditation, and when as previously the form of the divine Mother appeared before his mind, he immediately cut her mentally in two with the sword of knowledge. There remained then "no function in the mind, which transcended quickly the realm of names and forms, making me merge in Samadhi."^[102]

After being near his disciple for a long time, who now entered into Samadhi, Tota came out of the hut and locked its door lest someone enter. Taking his seat outside under the Panchavati, he awaited a call to open the door. Days passed by and nights rolled on, and at the end of three days when there was no call, surprised and curious, he entered the hut and found Ramakrishna sitting in the exact same posture in which he left him, with no sign of breath whatsoever and face calm and radiant. Highly versed in the phenomena of Samadhi, Tota was astonished and thought, "Is it indeed true, what I see enacted before me? Has this great soul actually realized in a day what I could experience only as the fruit of forty years of austere Sadhana?" In disbelief, he now began to examine and inspect in detail, all the signs manifested in the body of Ramakrishna. He particularly examined if his heart was beating and whether there was the smallest amount of breath coming out through his nostrils. He touched and checked his body, which was now in a firm posture like a piece of fixed wood. Seeing no signs of change, nor any return of normal consciousness, Tota, brimming with joy and awe, exclaimed, "Is it in truth Samadhi? Is it the Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the ultimate result attained through the path of knowledge spoken of in the Vedanta? Ah, how very strange is the Maya of the Divine." He then began the process of bringing back his disciple to normal consciousness by chanting the Mantra, "Hari Aum", the sound of which reverberated the entire space around Panchavati.^[104]

Perception in samadhi

Some time after the departure of Tota Puri from Dakshineswar, Ramakrishna owing to his lack of any restraining elements in life or desires in the world, decided to dwell in the plane of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. As he attempted to do so, once again the form of the divine Mother, "beautiful, more beautiful than the most", started appearing in front of his mind and he, not having the heart to leave her behind and go ahead, would return. After much internal deliberation, with great courage, he again, while meditating, took up knowledge as the sword and cut her form into two, and "there was nothing left in the mind then; and it rushed quickly up to the complete Nirvikalapa state."^[111][107]

Ramakrishna remained in the Nirvikalapa state continually for a period of six months, a state of perception said to be from which no ordinary person returns, as the body would then fall dead after twenty-one days, like a dry leaf from a tree. He remained unconscious of the outer world throughout this period, and stayed put like a dead man, with matted hair and flies moving through his mouth and nostrils. He might have passed away then if not for the untiring efforts of an unknown monk, who happened to be present in Dakshineswar at the time, and who on recognising the state in which Ramakrishna was, thought his body must be kept alive for the betterment of the world as the work of the Mother is still to be done with it, and made attempts every day to bring it back to awareness by beating him with a stick, and feeding him in the resulting fleeting moments of consciousness, which though appeared very rarely for a few moments on some days. This period of being in the Nirvikalapa state came to an end after Ramakrishna received a command from the Mother to remain in Bhava Mukha, a state of consciousness bordering between being absorbed into the absolute and remaining in the relative world, for the sake of enlightening people. This was followed by him having an affliction with a severe bout of dysentery. After suffering an intense pain in the intestines continually for about six months, his mind gradually returned to the normal plane of consciousness, before that it used to rise and be fixated at the Nirvikalpa state every now and then.^[112]

He then firmed his awareness at the sixth chakra of Tantra, and lived with his consciousness oscillating between being either absorbed into the impersonal absolute, or remaining in personal devotion to the Mother.^[113] Later in his life, it was observed that while talking about or listening to subjects related to God, Ramakrishna with his face beaming a smile and body turning radiant, would become noticeably stiff and unconscious. When one of his disciples asked him why does it happen so and what does he experience in that state? Ramakrishna smiled and replied:

"Well, it is called samadhi, the culmination of meditation. I borrow one-sixteenth part of the mind from the Divine Mother and talk and laugh with you, but the remaining portion rests with the Mother, meditating on her real essence as Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. When I talk or hear about the Mother, the whole mind goes to the Absolute and samadhi immediately ensues. Do you know what samadhi really is? It is complete absorption in Brahman. Do you know how I feel at that time? Suppose there is a basin of water on the seashore and a fish is confined in it. If the basin is accidentally broken, the fish finds its way to the unfathomable ocean. It then frolics in the height of joy, doesn't it? Similarly, during samadhi my mind leaps out of this body, as it were, and plunges into Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Hence the body appears like that. In other words, there is no body-consciousness, and the soul merges in the higher Self — the Paramatman — in the thousand-petalled lotus of the head and experiences unspeakable bliss. That experience sends a wave of divine bliss to the face, and the body becomes radiant. This very self then becomes Shiva, the Absolute."^[114]

The periods of Samadhi would later become a regular part in the life of Ramakrishna, and people near him used to find him in a state of Samadhi every now and then, sometimes for almost twenty four hours a day. Once a government official found him remaining in a state of ecstasy for three days and three nights straight. When found deeply absorbed in Samadhi for a long period of time, his devotees would rub cow ghee on his spine from neck to the lower back, and on knees down to the soles of his feet pulling in a downward direction, so as to bring him back to the plane of normal consciousness. Ramakrishna used to say that the natural tendency of his mind is towards the Nirvikalpa plane and once in Samadhi, he would not be inclined to come back to the normal plane of consciousness, but would return for the sake of his devotees and sometimes even this will was not enough, so he would fill his mind with trivial desires like, "I will smoke tobacco", "I will drink water", "I will take this", "I will see so and so, "I will talk", and by repeatedly saying such things to his mind, he would make it gradually return to the plane of body consciousness. He would later often tell his devotees to "tie the Knowledge of non-duality in the corner of your cloth and then do whatever you want".^[115]

Islam and Christianity

Keshab Chandra Sen and the "New Dispensation"

Ramakrishna in bhava samadhi after singing about Kali. His nephew Hriday, supporting him started uttering Om in his ear, bringing him back to normal consciousness. With Brahmo Samaj devotees at the house of Keshab Chandra Sen, 21 September 1879.

In 1875, Ramakrishna met the influential Brahmo Samaj leader Keshab Chandra Sen.^{[128] [129]} Keshab had accepted Christianity, and had separated from the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Formerly, Keshab had rejected idolatry, but under the influence of Ramakrishna he accepted Hindu polytheism and established the "New Dispensation" (Nava Vidhan) religious movement, based on Ramakrishna's principles—"Worship of God as Mother", "All religions as true" and "Assimilation of Hindu polytheism into Brahmoism".^[130] Keshab also publicised Ramakrishna's teachings in the journals of New Dispensation over a period of several years,^[131] which was instrumental in bringing Ramakrishna to the attention of a wider audience, especially the Bhadralok (English-educated classes of Bengal) and the Europeans residing in India.^[132][133]

Following Keshab, other Brahmos such as Vijaykrishna Goswami started to admire Ramakrishna, propagate his ideals and reorient their socio-religious outlook. Many prominent people of Kolkata—Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, Shivanath Shastri and Trailokyanath Sanyal—began visiting him during this time (1871–1885). Mazumdar wrote the first English biography of Ramakrishna, entitled The Hindu Saint in the Theistic Quarterly Review (1879), which played a vital role in introducing Ramakrishna to Westerners like the German indologist Max Müller.^[131] Newspapers reported that Ramakrishna was spreading "Love" and "Devotion" among the educated classes of Kolkata and that he had succeeded in reforming the character of some youths whose morals had been corrupt.^[131]

Ramakrishna also had interactions with Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath Tagore, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a renowned social worker. He had also met Swami Dayananda.^[128] Ramakrishna is considered one of the main contributors to the Bengali Renaissance.

Swami Vivekananda

Some Monastic Disciples (L to R): Trigunatitananda, Shivananda, Vivekananda, Turiyananda, Brahmananda. Below Saradananda.

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) Swami Turiyananda and others.

Other devotees and disciples

Mahendranath Gupta, a householder devotee and the author of Sri-Sri-Ramakrisna-Kathamrta.

As his name spread, an ever-shifting crowd of all classes and castes visited Ramakrishna. Most of Ramakrishna's prominent disciples came between 1879 and 1885.^[64] Apart from the early members who joined the Ramakrishna Order, his chief disciples consisted of:^[93]

• 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).^[134] Gauri Ma founded the Saradesvari Ashrama at Barrackpur, which was dedicated to the education and upliftment of women.^[135]

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.^[136]

Last days

Various disciples and devotees of Ramakrishna at his funeral.

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.^[9]

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.^[132] According to traditional accounts, before his death, Ramakrishna transferred his spiritual powers to Vivekananda, and assured him of his avataric status. Requesting other monastic disciples to look upon Vivekananda as their leader,^[9][137] Ramakrishna asked Vivekananda to look after the welfare of the disciples, saying, "keep my boys together", and asked him to "teach them".^[138]

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.^[9] His last word, on one account was "ma", while another states he uttered thrice, the word "Kali", before passing away.^[139]

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.^[64]

Teachings

The principal source for Ramakrishna's teaching is Mahendranath Gupta's Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, which is regarded as a Bengali classic^[154][155] and "the central text of the tradition".^[156] Gupta used the pen name "M", as the author of the Gospel. 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 to 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. Swami Nikhilananda worked with Margaret Woodrow Wilson, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson, who helped the swami to refine his literary style into "flowing American English". The mystic hymns were rendered into free verse by the American poet John Moffitt. Wilson and American mythology scholar Joseph Campbell helped edit the manuscript.^[157][158] Aldous Huxley wrote in his Forward to the Gospel, "...'M' produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute detail."^[159] Philosopher Lex Hixon writes that The Gospel of Ramakrishna is "spiritually authentic" and a "powerful rendering of the Kathamrita".^[160] Malcolm Mclean and Jeffrey Kripal both argue that the translation is unreliable,^[161][162] though Kripal's interpretation is criticized by Hugh Urban.^[163]

Ramakrishna's teachings were imparted in rustic Bengali, using stories and parables.^[89] These teachings made a powerful impact on Kolkata's intellectuals, despite the fact that his ideas were far removed from issues of modernism or national independence.^[164] According to contemporary reports, Ramakrishna's linguistic style was unique, even to those who spoke Bengali. It contained obscure local words and idioms from village Bengali, interspersed with philosophical Sanskrit terms and references to the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras. For that reason, according to philosopher Lex Hixon, his speeches cannot be literally translated into English or any other language.^[165] Scholar Amiya P. Sen argued that certain terms that Ramakrishna may have used only in a metaphysical sense are being improperly invested with new, contemporaneous meanings.^[166]

Ramakrishna's primary biographers describe him as talkative. According to the biographers, Ramakrishna would reminisce for hours about his own eventful spiritual life, tell tales, explain Vedantic doctrines with extremely mundane illustrations, raise questions and answer them himself, crack jokes, sing songs, and mimic the ways of all types of worldly people, keeping the visitors enthralled.^[136][167] As an example of Ramakrishna's teachings and fun with his followers, here's a quote about his visit to an exhibition, “I once visited the MUSEUM ^{[note 4]} There was a display of fossils: living animals had turned into stone. Just look at the power of association! Imagine what would happen if you constantly kept the company of the holy.” Mani Mallick replied (laughing): “If you would go there again we could have ten to fifteen more years of spiritual instructions.”^[168]

Ramakrishna was skilled with words and had an extraordinary style of preaching and instructing, which may have helped convey his ideas to even the most skeptical temple visitors.^[64] His speeches reportedly revealed a sense of joy and fun, but he was not at a loss when debating with intellectual philosophers.^[169] Philosopher Arindam Chakrabarti contrasted Ramakrishna's talkativeness with the Buddha's legendary reticence, and compared his teaching style to that of Socrates.^[170]

Society

Ramakrishna taught that yatra jiv tatra Shiv (wherever there is a living being, there is Shiva). His teaching, "Jive daya noy, Shiv gyane jiv seba" (not kindness to living beings, but serving the living being as Shiva Himself) is considered the inspiration for the philanthropic work carried out by his chief disciple Vivekananda.^[171]

In the Kolkata scene of the mid to late nineteenth century, Ramakrishna was opinionated on the subject of Chakri. Chakri can be described as a type of low-paying servitude done by educated men—typically government or commerce-related clerical positions. On a basic level, Ramakrishna saw this system as a corrupt form of European social organisation that forced educated men to be servants not only to their bosses at the office, but also to their wives at home. What Ramakrishna saw as the primary detriment of Chakri, however, was that it forced workers into a rigid, impersonal clock-based time structure. He saw the imposition of strict adherence to each second on the watch as a roadblock to spirituality. Despite this, however, Ramakrishna demonstrated that Bhakti could be practised as an inner retreat to experience solace in the face of Western-style discipline and often discrimination in the workplace.^[172]

His spiritual movement indirectly aided nationalism, as it rejected caste distinctions and religious prejudices.^[164]

Transformation into neo-Vedantin

Photograph of Ramakrishna, taken on 10 December 1881 at the studio of "The Bengal Photographers" in Radhabazar, Calcutta (Kolkata).

Vivekananda portrayed Ramakrishna as an Advaita Vedantin. Vivekananda's approach can be located in the historical background of Ramakrishna and Calcutta during the mid-19th century.^[178] Neevel notes that the image of Ramakrishna underwent several transformations in the writings of his prominent admirers, who changed the 'religious madman' into a calm and well-behaving proponent of Advaita Vedanta.^[78] Narasingha Sil has argued that Vivekananda revised and mythologised Ramakrishna's image after Ramakrishna's death.^[179] McDaniel notes that the Ramakrishna Mission is biased towards Advaita Vedanta, and downplays the importance of Shaktism in Ramakrishna's spirituality.^[180] Malcolm McLean argued that the Ramakrishna Movement presents "a particular kind of explanation of Ramakrishna, that he was some kind of neo-Vedantist who taught that all religions lead to the same Godhead."^[181]

Carl Olson argued that in his presentation of his master, Vivekananda had hid much of Ramakrishna's embarrassing sexual oddities from the public, because he feared that Ramakrishna would be misunderstood.^[182] Tyagananda and Vrajaprana argue that Oslon makes his "astonishing claim" based on Kripal's speculations in Kali's Child, which they argue are unsupported by any of the source texts.^[183]

Sumit Sarkar argued that he found in the Kathamrita traces of a binary opposition between unlearned oral wisdom and learned literate knowledge. He argues that all of our information about Ramakrishna, a rustic near-illiterate Brahmin, comes from urban bhadralok devotees, "...whose texts simultaneously illuminate and transform."^[184]

Amiya Prosad Sen criticises Neevel's analysis,^[166] and writes that "it is really difficult to separate the Tantrik Ramakrishna from the Vedantic", since Vedanta and Tantra "may appear to be different in some respects", but they also "share some important postulates between them".^[185]

Analysis of samadhi

From his 10th or 11th year of school, trances became a common part of his life, and by his final years Ramakrishna's samadhi periods occurred almost daily.^[24] Early on, these experiences have been interpreted as epileptic seizures,^{[186][187][188][189]} an interpretation which was rejected by Ramakrishna himself.^{[188][note 5]}

Psychoanalysis

In 1927 Romain Roland discussed with Sigmund Freud the "oceanic feeling" described by Ramakrishna.^[191] Sudhir Kakar (1991),^[192] Jeffrey Kripal (1995),^[117] and Narasingha Sil (1998),^[193] analysed Ramakrishna's mysticism and religious practices using psychoanalysis,^[194] arguing that his mystical visions, refusal to comply with ritual copulation in Tantra, Madhura Bhava, and criticism of Kamini-Kanchana (women and gold) reflect homosexuality.