Ramakrishna´s work in progress

 

Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886) was a well-known Hindu mystic from the Bengal. One of his disciples, Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), founded the Ramakrishna Order and Ramakrishna Mission, being one of the first Hindus to proselytize in the Western world. At least to an outsider, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda look very different, message-wise. And also mentality-wise! Vivekananda promoted himself in the West as a teacher of Advaita Vedanta, the “pantheist” school of Hinduism associated with the ancient sage Shankara, according to which only Brahman is real. He comes across as a serene and modern meditation practitioner, with a slight New Thought air. By contrast, his guru Ramakrishna was an ecstatic and “crazy saint” who lived most of his life in a Kali temple outside Calcutta! Not very modern, and probably not very serene either.

Since the Ramakrishna Order upholds both, the order must harmonize their respective approaches or philosophies. Luckily, both teachers had “pluralist” tendencies, themselves attempting to harmonize various Hindu traditions and practices. Also, Advaita Vedanta can be interpreted in different ways, not everyone taking the super-strict approach that the world is a literal illusion, that Brahman is wholly passive, and so on.

One possible way to harmonize Ramakrishna with both Shankara and Vivekananda can be seen in the clip above. Since this particular monk usually sounds very Advaita-orthodox, I was surprised by what he says here. It´s more in line with the perspective of Ayon Maharaj (Swami Medhananda), which I discussed before on this blog. Essentially, Sarvapriyananda argues that Ramakrishna´s “Vijnana Vedanta” *is* Advaita, or more specifically, an extension of it, but still dependent on Shankara´s basic non-dual perspective. He points out that Shankara himself wrote devotional hymns to personal deities. Vivekananda apparently established two Ramakrishna-related monasteries in India, one devotionalist, the other non-dualist. Yet, after an intervention of Sarada Devi (Ramakrishna´s “widow”, who was a spiritual teacher in her own right), the non-dualist monks were allowed to worship Ramakrishna´s portrait!

The solution to the conundrum, such as it is, is that the non-dual realizer decides to stay in the phenomenal world. Indeed, this becomes *easier* if he/she has a non-dual realization of Brahman being everything. When the wave realizes that it´s part of the sea, it can easier become friends with other waves, since they are all one. The lecturer also points out that Sarada Devi called Ramakrishna “non-dual” rather than “a non-dualist”, the point being that Ramakrishna was a personal incarnation of an impersonal Divine. Both the personal and impersonal are equally important. Usually, I get the impression that Sarvapriyananda regards devotion to a personal god as a lower stage of realization. Perhaps it is. Here, we have in effect a stage of realization beyond Brahman, with the mystic “descending” again, precisely because everything is God…

In the end, the lecturer admits that these questions are difficult and a work in progress.