Ramakrishna

(1836–86) Bengali mystic and saint who
was one of the most remarkable figures
in the nineteenth-century revival of
Hinduism. Ramakrishna was the son of
a village priest and received little formal
education during his life. He retained
much of his rustic simplicity and spent
his adult life as a temple priest at the
Kali temple at Dakshineshwar, outside
the city of Calcutta. From his childhood
Ramakrishna had been devoted to the
Goddess Kali, and characterized himself as being “intoxicated with God.”
He sought and found the divine, first
through Kali but later through a variety
of other religious paths, including the
abstract monism of the speculative
Upanishads, devotion to the god
Vishnu, Christianity, and Islam. Out of
these experiences came his conviction
that the inner experience in all religious traditions was the same and led to
the same divine presence. Although
Ramakrishna did not publicize himself,
he became known in Calcutta’s religious
circles through his association with
Keshub Chander Sen, the leader of the
reformist Brahmo Samaj. This association brought him disciples who would
spread his teachings, particularly
Narendranath Datta, better known as
Swami Vivekananda. For a devotee’s
perspective on Ramakrishna, see
Christopher Isherwood, Ramakrishna
and His Disciples, 1965; for a modern
psychological reading, see Jeffrey Kripal,
Kali’s Child, 1995.