Completed Reading

 

Last night completed this short biography on Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. My intrest in him was awakened when I had a discussion on the main religious gurus of India with my uncle around a year back. He was of the opinion that Ramakrishna, Kabir, Sai Baba and Osho were the people of the highest order. I had at that point of time purchsed some books on Ramakrishna and had made some hal-hearted attempts to understand his philosophy.

In December on the Jet - Airways flight from chennai to delhi I was browsing the in-flight magazine. As usual the articles were a mix of the beautiful places and how you can reach there using the Jet Airways. On the city of calcutta there was a decription of Ramakrishna and in particular one sentence - that he had attained realization not only from the traditional ways of Hinduisim but also through Islam and Christanity. Now this was quite difficult to digest. So I wanted to understand what was the truth. In nainital I spoke to Uncle ji and he confirmed that it took Ramakrishna just 3 days to attain the state of realization through Christanity.

Now this was of deep intrest to me as I had not come across this before. I have often come across the sayings that - all religions are equal and that no one method or belief is superior to another. But I had not heard of anyone following multiple paths to reach the same goal.

It turns out that Ramakrishna practicesed the Bhakti Yoga, Tantric practices, Islam and Christanity during different phases of his life.