SRI RAMAKRISHNA - A SAINT OR PROPHET

Abstract

In the galaxy of the world's mystic philosophers from Parmenides to Hegel, and from the Upanishadic s~ersto Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna stands out among the most recent and outstanding ones. A product of the Hindu religious ethos, he demonstrated that 'the experience of God' can be Pagan, Hindu, Christian or Islamic - an experience in which no frontiers exist and no demands are made on sensory knowledge. He did not propagate a new religion or a new philosophy. Without the semantics of a metaphysician, which he never was, he showed how everyone can recover his sense of community and comprehend the truth of unity. He laid bare the profile of a moral and spiritual crisis which has dogged mankind all along, now even more than ever, with the aggressive advance of materialism. He preached that at the core of all religions lay one truth, one taste and one flavour ...that of LOVE. As ayogi who experienced different states of mystic bliss he unravelled a world of Supreme Consciousness, which is more real and more universal than our immediate world of plurality and which should be comprehensible to anyone who would only dare.