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Ramakrishna had rejected formal education in his own life. He had instead opted for the knowledge of the Self. Education that aimed merely at equipping oneself for survival in the material world was not his fancy. Ramakrishna longed for real education, Brahma-vidya, the immediate perception of Truth. His elder brother Ramkumar, a professor of Sanskrit studies in the Indian traditional system, thus, could not get him enrolled as a student in his own Sanskrit Tol (school). Well, that was it. Ramakrishna's academic career was over even at the very onset of it, at the elementary level. He could barely read and write. He now began reading quite a different book altogether,'The Book Of Life.'
In later life the Prophet of Dakshineshwar averred that for one's own spiritual illumination one need not study much, for after all the books can never reveal the Truth hidden in the cavity of the heart. They at best give us merely some hints or suggestions about the Supreme Truth but they can never lead us directly to it. On the contrary, too much learning is apt to confuse the mind as it struggles to grapple with the subtler elements of Nature. The aspirant is befuddled by various philosophical speculations, complex theories and the intricacies of logic of diverse schools of thought and he is led away from the royal avenue of spiritual realisation towards the blind alleyway of dialectical disputation.Thus, many an aspirant come to grief, fruitlessly expending their life's energy in pursuit of dry scriptural knowledge while the Truth hidden in their hearts goes abegging, unsought and unrealised. Ramakrishna's attitude towards formal learning must, therefore, be understood against the backdrop of this stupendous ideal of Self-realisation which to him was the highest and ultimate purpose of human life. That Ramakrishna devalued academic learning is a complete misapprehension of the seer's motivations and a gross misrepresentation of facts and it is worthwhile remembering that the seer had made this utterance as well in Dakshineshwar, "To kill oneself one needs merely a chisel but to kill another one needs to be armed with sword and shield." He thereby meant that for one's own liberation one need not be highly literate but if one were to help free others, then one needed great erudition as one had to hold one's own in dialectical disputations with intellectual and philosophical adversaries. In fact, this was precisely the reason why Ramakrishna had chosen Vivekananda as the principal carrier of his message and of his mission. Vivekananda , apart from being a soul of the highest order, a perfected sage from antiquity in the Master's estimation, had such a vast erudition and a vaster potentiality that Ramakrishna was convinced that this burning mass of youthful fervour steeped in Advaitic realisation would be the fittest channel for the dissemination of the age-old philosophy of the Vedas and the re-establishment of the Sanatan Dharma (The Perennial Philosophy) in the modern world that had lost its spiritual moorings.
Ramakrishna used to cleverly induce the young Narendranath to read him the Vedantic treatise called 'Ashtavakra Samhita', a highly philosophical work on non-dualism. Narendranath, in those days, was a Brahmo monotheist and quite inimical to the philosophy of non-dualism. Ramakrishna had to trick him into reading the text by feigning that it was his great desire to hear about non-dualism but, being illiterate, he had no access to these books. Hence, if Narendra would read him out the text, he would be much obliged. The unsuspecting young man carried out his Master's wish only to see his entire world-view transformed gradually by the content of the text and the magic touch of the Master which careered his soul into the realm of the Infinite.
The Master was proud of his disciple's considerable talents including his scholarship and heaped praises on him before his other devotees. He was ever appreciative of Narendra's superfine intellect and used to gleefully recount before others how his protege had on occasion torn to shreds the arguments of an adversary who also happened to be one of the devotees of the Master. At times the old man would exhort Narendranath and Girish, the playwright, to debate before him in English, so much did he revel in these intellectual pastimes, unlettered though he was. For Ramakrishna's was the mind that was ever located at the source of all ideas (bhavamukha) at the junction point of the relative and the absolute.
Finally, may we never forget the Master's golden words uttered in the twilight years of his earthly sojourn, "As long as I live, so long do I learn." And surely here the Master must have included knowledge not merely sacred but secular as well for did he not absorb the city-culture in his interactions with the elite of Calcutta although he would never subscribe to any of its westernised pretensions. And so, Ramakrishna ratifies the relative necessity of knowledge of the diverse disciplines that constitute life and with it accepts academic learning as an imperative in life as well. He was a highly original man, acutely sensitive to the needs of the times and had a rustic practicality about him which matured him into being the 'scientist of the soul'. He had an acute understanding of life's problems and set about solving them first in his own life and then through his illustrious disciples in the world at large. He knew full well the importance of academic knowledge and its limitations, too, in solving life's problems. He, thus, gave a comprehensive philosophy of life and living for posterity to shape its destiny, a harmonious world-view based on the oneness of existence with the material man at the periphery and his innate divinity at the centre of the circle of life.
In later life the Prophet of Dakshineshwar averred that for one's own spiritual illumination one need not study much, for after all the books can never reveal the Truth hidden in the cavity of the heart. They at best give us merely some hints or suggestions about the Supreme Truth but they can never lead us directly to it. On the contrary, too much learning is apt to confuse the mind as it struggles to grapple with the subtler elements of Nature. The aspirant is befuddled by various philosophical speculations, complex theories and the intricacies of logic of diverse schools of thought and he is led away from the royal avenue of spiritual realisation towards the blind alleyway of dialectical disputation.Thus, many an aspirant come to grief, fruitlessly expending their life's energy in pursuit of dry scriptural knowledge while the Truth hidden in their hearts goes abegging, unsought and unrealised. Ramakrishna's attitude towards formal learning must, therefore, be understood against the backdrop of this stupendous ideal of Self-realisation which to him was the highest and ultimate purpose of human life. That Ramakrishna devalued academic learning is a complete misapprehension of the seer's motivations and a gross misrepresentation of facts and it is worthwhile remembering that the seer had made this utterance as well in Dakshineshwar, "To kill oneself one needs merely a chisel but to kill another one needs to be armed with sword and shield." He thereby meant that for one's own liberation one need not be highly literate but if one were to help free others, then one needed great erudition as one had to hold one's own in dialectical disputations with intellectual and philosophical adversaries. In fact, this was precisely the reason why Ramakrishna had chosen Vivekananda as the principal carrier of his message and of his mission. Vivekananda , apart from being a soul of the highest order, a perfected sage from antiquity in the Master's estimation, had such a vast erudition and a vaster potentiality that Ramakrishna was convinced that this burning mass of youthful fervour steeped in Advaitic realisation would be the fittest channel for the dissemination of the age-old philosophy of the Vedas and the re-establishment of the Sanatan Dharma (The Perennial Philosophy) in the modern world that had lost its spiritual moorings.
Ramakrishna used to cleverly induce the young Narendranath to read him the Vedantic treatise called 'Ashtavakra Samhita', a highly philosophical work on non-dualism. Narendranath, in those days, was a Brahmo monotheist and quite inimical to the philosophy of non-dualism. Ramakrishna had to trick him into reading the text by feigning that it was his great desire to hear about non-dualism but, being illiterate, he had no access to these books. Hence, if Narendra would read him out the text, he would be much obliged. The unsuspecting young man carried out his Master's wish only to see his entire world-view transformed gradually by the content of the text and the magic touch of the Master which careered his soul into the realm of the Infinite.
The Master was proud of his disciple's considerable talents including his scholarship and heaped praises on him before his other devotees. He was ever appreciative of Narendra's superfine intellect and used to gleefully recount before others how his protege had on occasion torn to shreds the arguments of an adversary who also happened to be one of the devotees of the Master. At times the old man would exhort Narendranath and Girish, the playwright, to debate before him in English, so much did he revel in these intellectual pastimes, unlettered though he was. For Ramakrishna's was the mind that was ever located at the source of all ideas (bhavamukha) at the junction point of the relative and the absolute.
Finally, may we never forget the Master's golden words uttered in the twilight years of his earthly sojourn, "As long as I live, so long do I learn." And surely here the Master must have included knowledge not merely sacred but secular as well for did he not absorb the city-culture in his interactions with the elite of Calcutta although he would never subscribe to any of its westernised pretensions. And so, Ramakrishna ratifies the relative necessity of knowledge of the diverse disciplines that constitute life and with it accepts academic learning as an imperative in life as well. He was a highly original man, acutely sensitive to the needs of the times and had a rustic practicality about him which matured him into being the 'scientist of the soul'. He had an acute understanding of life's problems and set about solving them first in his own life and then through his illustrious disciples in the world at large. He knew full well the importance of academic knowledge and its limitations, too, in solving life's problems. He, thus, gave a comprehensive philosophy of life and living for posterity to shape its destiny, a harmonious world-view based on the oneness of existence with the material man at the periphery and his innate divinity at the centre of the circle of life.
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