Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was an Indian mystic and yogi during the 19th-century. Ramakrishna was given to spiritual ecstasies from a young age, and was influenced by several religious traditions, including devotion toward the goddess Kali, Tantra and Vaishnava Bhakti and Advaita Vedanta. The name of Ramakrishna has lately been so often mentioned in Indian, American and English newspapers that a fuller account of his life and doctrine seemed to the author likely to be welcome, not only to the many who take an interest in the intellectual and moral state of India, but to the few also to whom the growth of philosophy and religion, whether at home or abroad, can never be a matter of indifference. The author has therefore tried to collect as much information as he could about this Ramakrishna, partly from his own devoted disciples, partly from Indian newspapers, journals, and books in which the principal events of his life were chronicled, and his moral and religious teaching described and discussed, whether in a friendly or unfriendly spirit. If we remember that these utterances of Ramakrishna reveal to us not only his own thoughts, but the faith and hope of millions of human beings, we may indeed feel hopeful about the future of that country. The consciousness of the Divine in man is there, and is shared by all, even by those who seem to worship idols. This constant sense of the presence of God is indeed the common ground on which we may hope that in time not too distant the great temple of the future will be erected, in which Hindus and non-Hindus may join hands and hearts in worshiping the same Supreme Spirit—who is not far from every one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being.