Word: ramakrishna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Brahman, Ramakrishna knew the formalities of Hindu worship. Hinduism asks its devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. To the initiate, each name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved - and it may take a million reincarnations - a Hindu devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore Hindu deities must be bathed, clothed, decked with ornaments. They must...
These rites Ramakrishna himself practiced as a priest. In 1856 he became a priest of Kali, Hinduism's Divine Mother, in a vast new temple at Dakshineswar, on the Ganges, just north of Calcutta. The temple and its 20 acres of gardens had been built by a wealthy fourth-caste widow named Rani Rasmani, and Ramakrishna showed his disregard for caste by serving as priest there. He had no false respect for his patron. One day as Rani Rasmani was listening to his singing in the temple, the young priest abruptly turned and slapped her. He said that while...
...Ramakrishna, no deity was dearer than Kali. For years his absorbing passion was to become a paramahamsa-one who reached life's highest earthly stage-and see Kali "as tangibly as the temples, the trees, the river." Eventually...
When he had successively materialized the Hindu gods, Ramakrishna turned to other religions. In 1874 he tried Christianity. "Breaking through the barriers of creed and religion, he entered a new realm of ecstasy. Christ possessed his soul. For three days he did not set foot in the Kali temple. On the fourth day ... he saw coming toward him a person with beautiful large eyes, serene countenance, and fair skin. As the two faced each other, a voice rang out in the depths of Sri Rama-krishna's soul: 'Behold the Christ, who shed His heart's blood...
From 1879 until his death from cancer of the throat in 1886 crowds of all classes and castes thronged to see Ramakrishna. He answered visitors' questions for 20 hours out of every 24, steadily undermined his health while doing so. Faced with the same problem, Gandhi solved it by one day of silence every week...