RAMAKRISHNA AND HIS FLOWING GRACE

RAMAKRISHNA AND HIS FLOWING GRACE 

Sri Ramakrishna was supremely non-violent. He never converted anybody. Rather he raised people spiritually along their natural lines of growth. He lived the life that he preached and had the power to kindle the latent spirituality in others which he did to divine effect. The result was Sri Sarada Devi, Vivekananda, Brahmananda, Premananda, Yogananda, Niranjanananda, Saradananda, Ramakrishnananda, Shivananda, Turiyananda, Abhedananda, Advaitananda, Adbhutananda, Akhandananda, Trigunatitananda, Subodhananda, Vijnanananda, Nirmalananda, Purna Chandra Ghosh, Nag Mahashay (Durgacharan Nag), Master Mahashay (Mahendranath Gupta), Girish Chandra Ghosh, Balaram Basu, Ramchandra Datta, Manomohan Mitra, Sundranath Mitra, Devendranath Majumdar, Bhavanath Chattopadhyay, Baikunthanath Sanyal, Gauri Ma, Lakshmi Didi, Nabagopal Ghosh, Mohendranath Datta, Nistarini Devi, Krishnabhamini Basu and a host of others.

A fascinating feature of this grace of the Avatar of the Age was that he showered it on his own spiritual mentors. His Gurus Bhairavi Brahmani, Jatadhari and Tota Puri were each one raised spiritually in no uncertain terms even as Sri Ramakrishna received spiritual instructions from them.

Sri Ramakrishna was an ocean of mercy, of compassion, of grace. He had graced his patrons Rani Rashmoni and Mathuranath Biswas, his playmates and village folk, his relatives like Hridayram and Ramlal, the scavenger Rasik, the doubting Thomas at his doorstep in the form of Pratap Chandra Hajra, the Sikh soldiers Kuwar Singh, Kumar Singh and their comrades-in-arms in the Dum Dum Cantonment, scholar-ascetics like Gauri Pandit, Narayan Shastri, Shashadhar Pandit, Vaishnavcharan, Padmalochan, and even the leading lights of the day like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, Keshav Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay,  Sivanath Shastri, Pratap Chandra Mazoomdar, Bijoy Krishna Goswami, Trailokyanath Sanyal and others. Even Michael Madhusudan Dutt met Sri Ramakrishna in connection with a court case and had a brief conversation with him. Rabindranath Tagore saw Sri Ramakrishna from a distance at a meeting of the Nandanbagan Brahmo Samaj but had no interaction. 

Leading men from all walks of life and religious persuasions flocked to Sri Ramakrishna to be abundantly showered upon with his unbounded spiritual grace. Such was Sri Ramakrishna who Swamiji had on being questioned by the western media characterised as 'L-O-V-E personified'.

Written by Sugata Bose