Author: Gopal Stavig
Translator(s)/ Editors(s): Swami Shuddhidananda
Publisher: Advaita Ashram
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 999
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788175053342
Description
Sri Ramakrishna had once said, ' I felt I was in a far-off country where people of fair complexion. They were different from us and spoke a language I could not understand. As I was wondering about the vision, the Divine Mother revealed to me they too would follow my teachings. How sincere their devotion was!'
The author, a disciple, has presented massive information in this book. Among the around 600 persons dealt with herein, there are some who had directly come in touch with Ramakrishna and his disciples, a large number of persons who had only read about them and had been impressed by their lives and ideas, many who had made literary contributions, and also many more who had only indirect association.
This book is meticulously researched out documentation of a large number of persons, mainly westerns, associated with Ramakrishna and his disciples and their thought directly or indirectly. Their background and vocation are presented in brief, and also in most of the cases, accolades they showered.
All this makes this work unquestionably important, both the scholars interested in studying the western mind coming in touch with these spiritual luminaries s well as for the ordinary devotee. For the former the book is a mine of information presented precisely, and for the latter, it is an inspiring account of admiration for Ramakrishna and his disciples and Indian thought.
On the front side of the book, the picture of Ramakrishna is a painting by a Western Admirer, Mr. Frank Dvorak, and so also is the picture of the disciples of Ramakrishna, which is a painting by another Western Admirer, Swami Tadatmananda.
The multiplicity of the manifestations of Indian genius as well as their fundamental unity give India the right to figure on the first rank in the history of the civilized nations. Here civilization, spontaneous and original, unrolls itself in a continuous time across at least thirty centuries without interruption and without deviation.
--- Sylvain Levi
COMMENTS:
Remarkable as this may sound, we have really no record of any period of Hindu thought of which we can say definitely that it was wanting in the highest and most strenuous thought, from the time of the riddle-hymn of Dirgatamas and the creation-hymn (Rig Veda), to the modern Vedantins and Paramahansas of the type of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.
--- Maurice Bloomfield
The Eastern peoples are threatened with a rapid collapse of their spiritual values, and what replaces them cannot always by counted among the best that Western civilization has produced. From this point of view one could regard Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana as modern prophets, who play the same compensatory role in relation to their people as that of Old Testament prophets in relation to their “unfaithful” children of Israel.
--- Carl Jung
This rebirth of orthodox Hinduism is associated with the public appearance of Ramakrishna…
--- Hans Kung
And it is because Ramakrishna, more fully than any other man, not only conceived but realized in himself the total Unity of this river of God; open to all rivers and all streams, that I have given him my love.
--- Romain Rolland
…the neo Hinduism of Vivekananda, in its many developments, is the most potent religious influence in modern India, and, adapted by the genius of Mahatma Gandhi, has provided the ideology of the Indian independence movement.
--- A.L. Basham
Swami Vivekananda, as most of you are aware, was the greatest spiritual ambassador of India, if I may say so, in the history of India. And for that matter, the history of Asia.
--- U Thant
Contents
Author’s Note
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part I - Western Admirers of Sri Ramakrishna
Chapter I: Devotees, Acquaintances and Biographers
Chapter II: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century European Biographers, Translators, and Tributes
Chapter III: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century American Biographers, Translators and Tributes
Part II - Western Admirers of Sri Sarada Devi – The Holy Mother
Chapter IV: Sri Sarada Devi – The Holy Mother
Part III Western Admirers of Swami Vivekananda
Chapter V: Devotees and Supporters
Chapter VI: Religious Leaders
Chapter VII: Professional Writers
Chapter VIII: Professors and Educators
Chapter IX: Musicians, Actresses and Artists
Chapter X: Social Reformers, Humanitarians, and Philanthropists
Chapter XI: Professionals and Business Personnel
Chapter XII: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century European Biographers, Translators and Tributes
Chapter XIII: Twentieth and Twenty-first Century American Biographers and Tributes
Part IV – Western Admirers of the Other Disciples of
Sri Ramakrishna
Chapter XIV: Swami Saradananda
Chapter XV: Swami Abhedananda: Up Until 1906
Chapter XVI: Swami Abhedananda: After 1906
Chapter XVII: Swami Abhedananda: Professors
Chapter XVIII: Swami Abhedananda: Religious Leaders
Chapter XIX: Swami Turiyananda
Chapter XX: Swami Trigunatitananda
Chapter XXI: Swami Shivananda and His Brother Swamis
Appendix I: Swami Saradananda’s Residences in the West: Locations and Years
Appendix II: Swami Abhedananda’s Residences in the West: Locations and Years
Appendix III: Dates and Locations of Swami Vivekananda’s Lectures and Classes in his Complete Works
Appendix IV: Two or More Reports of the Same Lecture or Class in the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
Appendix V: Publication Dates for the English Language Writings and Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and Swamis Vivekananda, Abhedananda and Saradananda
Appendix VI: A Selected List of English Language Biographical Books and Articles about Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and Swamis Vevekananda, Abhedananda and others
Appendix VII: European Language Translations of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Swami Abhedananda Books up to 1930
Bibliography
Index