Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Essay

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RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA 1. Introduction Ramakrishna, whose real name was Gadadhar Chatterjee, was born on February 20,1834, at Kamarpukar, in Bengal. His father was a village priest. As a child he got mystical visions. He did not have any formal education .But he was very much interested in Hindu epics. At the age of seventeen he joined the Kali temple of Dakshineswar . At Dakshinesvar, he felt a terrible longing for a vision of the Mother goddess (Kali) and he used to spend sleepless nights in a near-by forest, meditating on Kali. At dawn he was seen with his eyes swollen with weeping. Twelve years was a period of intense spiritual agony and excruciating pain for Ramakrishna. He used to say: “Another day is gone, Mother and I have not seen you. Another day of this short life has passed and I have not known the truth”. Divine experience Then came the first flash of immense illumination. It came at a critical point in his life, when he thought of putting an end to his life with the sword that he found in the Kali temple. He thus describes that first mystical experience or trance: “The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and all vanished form my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead, was a limitless, infinite, affluent ocean of consciousness or spirit. As far as the eye could reach, the shining billows were madly rushing towards me from all sides to swallow me up. In the twinkling of an eye, they were on me and I was cast down senseless”. This traumatic spiritual experience had tremendous effect on his thought and behavior. He behaved at times like a mad man. He made terrific efforts to have frequent trances, but without success. This made him desperate and he used to spend long hours in painful efforts at meditation and prayer. This ruined his health. All medicines proved of no
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