Sri Ramakrishna (born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, c. 1836-86) was one of the most charismatic and influential Hindu personalities of the nineteenth century. Constantly lapsing into altered states of consciousness, he claimed direct experience of the ultimate reality. Many of his discourses, largely triggered by devotees’ questions, were recorded by Mahendranath Gupta (‘M’) in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Srisriraniakrishnakathanirita). Ramakrishna’s name has been perpetuated in the Ramakrishna Mission and Math, founded by his disciple, Swami Vivekananda (see Vivekananda, Swami), although that movement substantially reflects the latter’s direction. The wider dissemination of Ramakrishna’s influence owed much to the many, prominent Hindus who came to hear him, including members of the Brahmo Samaj.
Brought up in the village of Kamarpukur north of Calcutta, Ramakrishna gained a reputation for spiritual precocity as a child. After the death of his father, in 1855 he followed his brother to Calcutta where both served as brahmins in the newly built temple to Kali at Dakshineshwar, and where Ramakrishna resided until struck down by terminal illness. His anguished attempts to experience directly Kali, the Divine Mother, led him to accept a succession of spiritual teachers over a period of some thirteen years, including an Advaitin who probably initiated him as a sannyasin and gave him the name of Ramakrishna. In 1859, fearing for his sanity, his family arranged his marriage to Saradamani Mukhapadhyay who as Sarada Devi became the holy Mother of the Ramakrishna movement.
Based on his experiments with various Hindu disciplines and certain Muslim and Christian practices, Ramakrishna affirmed the validity of all ways to God. He emphasized that God-realization should be put before all else, stressing to his male followers the dangers of attachment to ‘women and gold’. Although portrayed in the later Ramakrishna movement as a non-dualist, Advaita Vedantin, Ramakrishna’s repeated assertion of the equal validity of personalist views testify to the enduring influence upon him of Tantra and the worship of Shakti, traditions centred on the Mother Goddess.
