Author: Swami Bodhananda
Translator(s)/ Editors(s): Swami Bodhananda
Publisher: Advaita Ashram
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 696
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8175053607
Description
Sri Ramakrishna made his appearance and delivered his message at the time and the place at which he and his message were needed. This message could hardly have been delivered by anyone who had not been brought up in the Hindu religious tradition. Sri Ramakrishna was born in Bengal in 1836.
He was born into a world that, in his lifetime, was for the first time, being united on a literally worldwide scale. Today we are still living in this transitional chapter of the world’s history, but it is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race.
…At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is an Indian way. The Emperor Ashoka’s and the Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence and Sri Ramakrishna’s testimony to the harmony of religions: here we have the attitude and the spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family –and, in the atomic age, this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves.
--- Arnold Toynbee
In regard to Ramakrishna, his disciples saw in him just the embodiment of Indian spiritual wisdom accumulated over thousands of years. In him the Upanishads, the “Gita” and the Puranas were again embodied, and it was also not difficult for his worshippers to see in him a re-embodiment of Rama, Krishna and Chaitanya.
He saw himself as the last link so far – and in no way the “Seal” – in the chain of divine manifestations, the avatars or “descents” of God, among whom he also included Buddha and above all Christ.
--- Hans Torwesten