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He looked just like an ordinary man, with nothing remarkable about him. He used the most simple language, and I thought, 'Can this man be a great teacher?' I crept near him and asked him the question which I had been asking others all my life: 'Do you believe in God, sir?' 'Yes.' `How can you?' 'Because I see Him just as I see you here, only in a much more intense sense.' That impressed me at once. For the first time I found a person who dared to say that he saw God, that religion was a reality, to be felt, to be sensed in an infinitely more intense way than we can sense the world. I began to go to that man, day after day, and I actually saw that religion could be given. One touch, one glance, can change a whole life.
said Swami Vivekananda about
his guru Sri Ramakrishna.
Born in the village of Kamarpukur in West Bengal on February 18, 1836 in a pious family, Sri Ramakrishna was very clear in his mind from boyhood that the aim of life is God-realization.
As a priest of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar he worshipped the Deity with such intensity that She revealed Herself to him and became his constant companion. He could talk, play and joke with Her. He then practised not only the different spiritual streams of Hinduism, like Vaishnavism and Tantrism, but also other religions like Christianity and Islam. He was able to revalidate by his personal experience the Rig Vedic declaration, 'Truth is One, the wise speak of It variously.' He became the prophet of harmony of religions.
Great scholars and savants sat at his feet and imbibed the grand spiritual truths he explained in an astonishingly simple way. The parables he narrated with scintillating humour are guidelines to all spiritual aspirants. He specially trained a band of young men who renounced the world, and after his passing away in August 16, 1886, formed the monastic Order, viz. Ramakrishna Math & Ramakrishna Mission.
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- You see many stars in the sky at night, but not when the sun rises. Can you therefore say that there are no stars in the heavens during the day? Friends, similarly you cannot see God because of your ignorance, but say not that there is no God.
- One should feel a yearning for God like the yearning of a person who has lost his or her job and is wandering from one office to another in search of work.
- Be not a traitor in your thoughts. Be sincere. Act according to your thoughts and you shall surely succeed. Pray with a sincere and simple heart, and your prayers will be heard.
- Whoever wants God intensely, finds Him. Go and verify it in your own life.
- Remain always strong and steadfast in your own faith, but eschew all bigotry and intolerance.
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