Ramakrishna

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ( Sanskrit: रामकृष्णपरमहंस; Bengali: রামকৄষ্ঞ পরমহংস, Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahamsa, Birth Name: Ramakrishna Chattopadhyay, in his youth Gadadhar or Gadai called; born February 18, 1836 in Kamarpukur, Bengal; † August 16, 1886 in Kolkata ) was an important Hindu mystic. Paramahamsa is a religious title of honor in Hinduism.

Life

Already in his childhood reported Ramakrishna of spiritual visions. He was sent with sixteen years of his family to earn money to his brother Ramkumar to Kolkata, who worked there as a priest and a Sanskrit school operation. Ramakrishna's devotion to the absorption in the worship of the gods was striking and unusual. He was not content to recite mantras, but is said to have felt the presence of the goddess and worshiped her until she revealed to him. The money-making over, he showed an utter aversion.

He eventually became a priest in the temple complex of Dakshineshwar on the Ganges, a northern suburb of Kolkata by special circumstances. There were twelve Shiva temples, a Radha- Kanta Temple ( Krishna and Radha dedicated ) and as the head temple of the Kali temple. Kali is worshiped there as the savior of the world ( Bhavatarina ).

Ramakrishna was a priest of the Kali temple and devoted himself with characteristic zeal of his task. Thus began an intense spiritual search for him. The tradition reports: He sat crying in front of the statue of the goddess, she called for help and begged that she might show him. He ate and did not sleep. In desperation he tried to take his own life, as revealed Kali.

He described this vision with the following words:

When he regained consciousness for its environment, he had used the word 'mother' on the lips.

A commission of Hindu scholars ( Pandits ) was only the presence of a divine incarnation ( Avatar) could explain Ramakrishna's ecstatic states. The simple priest was publicly declared an avatar and thus assimilated other great saints like Buddha or Jesus. For Ramakrishna himself seemed to have no meaning. He remained the simple servant of his mother Kali.

When he was already Samnyasin ( Hindu monk), he married Sarada Devi, who had already been promised to him as a child. The marriage was - reportedly - never physically consummated. Sarada Devi was his student and after Ramakrishna's death itself guru.

Ramakrishna's religiosity consisted of three major currents of Hinduism: Tantrism, Vaishnavism and Vedanta. He quickly acquired all the necessary skills and practiced the associated exercises. When he practiced Vedanta, he got with Tota Puri a new teacher, a wandering monk, who taught him to realize the Absolute beyond all relativity. It is reported, so that was the last barrier for Ramakrishna fallen and he had reached the stage of nirvikalpa samadhi, the ' non-duality '. This is considered as the highest divine state from which no man returns normally, does not have a special mission.

After Ramakrishna had Hinduism internalized through their own experience, he tried to personally Islam and Christianity capture by living for some time as a Muslim and as a Christian. In both cases, he noted a principle of equality of religions; the same destination with different paths. Again, he felt led to absolute consciousness.

A parable for Ramakrishna's equality of all religions:

Ramakrishna was now a teacher himself. Many students, followers of different directions, sought him out in Dakshineshwar. His most famous student was Vivekananda.

On August 15, 1886 Ramakrishna died in his class of throat cancer. His work was continued by Vivekananda, who carried the legacy of Ramakrishna in the West, Hinduism and yoga made ​​known to a wider public for the first time in the U.S. and Europe and the Ramakrishna Mission founded.