THE PEERLESS PARAMAHAMSA --- AN ANALYSIS (1)

Who Ramakrishna was is difficult to ascertain, perhaps impossible to do so. He is the transcendent Reality, the immanent principle in Nature. He was full of divine consciousness right to his very epidermis. These are strange assertions but not untrue for his very life bears testimony to these facts. Ramakrishna passed the bulk of his adult life in samadhi (super-consciousness). He lived the remaining part of the same, being one with nature in the plane of Bhavamukha (the plane which is the interface of immanence and transcendence of Nature, the junction point of the relative and the Absolute, the source and origin of all ideas). Ramakrishna was a human being, yet, he transcended all human limitations and became one with the higher Prakriti (the Cosmic Power). He remained Prakriti-leen (immersed in Nature Supreme). These are spiritual states difficult, perhaps impossible, to comprehend through mere intellectual tools. They may best be apprehended through spiritual realisations. There is no instance of such an exalted state of spirituality in recorded human history. Other Divine Incarnations and Prophets have occasionally risen to such transcendent heights as Ramakrishna but none ever gained access to such a vast spectrum of spiritual realisations and the discovery of their inner harmony as the peerless Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar. His was a totality of vision supreme, a catholicity of spiritual perception, a fundamental understanding and interpretation of the spiritual basis of all life and living, a massive commentary on the spiritual traditions of the world through the breadth of his spiritual culture and realisation. The great French savant Romain Rolland, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915, wrote of Ramakrishna : "The man whose image I here invoke was the consummation of two thousand years of the spiritual life of three hundred million people." This single statement encapsulates the personality of Ramakrishna better than any other whose elaboration and analysis shall follow in subsequent issues on this page. For now it is merely an affirmation without reasonable support of the unique status of Ramakrishna in the spiritual firmament of the world. Let us ruminate on his glorious life and message whose every breath was inspired for the salvation of the world. Jai Ramakrishna!