Views on Ramakrishna
Religious views
Ultimate reality
Swami Medhananda, HOD, Dept of Philosophy, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, a doctorate in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley,[5] in 2018 published a book-length philosophical interpretation of Ramakrishna's teachings with Oxford University Press.[6] Maharaj argues that "Ramakrishna's spiritual standpoint of vijnana holds the key to understanding his nuanced position on religious diversity",[7] and his analysis of Ramakrishna "combines detailed exegesis with cross-cultural philosophical investigation".[7] Pratap Bhanu Mehta characterized Maharaj's book, Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality, as "philosophically astute [and] textually scrupulous",[8] a work that defends
Ramakrishna against the charge of an indiscriminate eclecticism on the one hand, or a covert hierarchy on the other. He meticulously reconstructs Ramakrishna's thought around four pillars: the nature of God's infinitude, the nature of religious pluralism, the epistemology of mystical experience and the problem of evil. In each of these four areas, Maharaj both advances an original interpretive thesis and brings Ramakrishna into a dialogue with comparative philosophy and religious practice.[8]
Christianity
At the end of 1873 Ramakrishna started the practice of Christianity, when his devotee Shambu Charan Mallik read the Bible to him. According to
Islam
Ramakrishna's teachings and experiences have been studied from the perspective of Islam, and compared with teachings of the
Swami Vivekananda
Referring to the practice of Madhura Bhava, by his guru, in a speech in 1896, My Master, Vivekananda said,[29]
One of the Sâdhanâs was to root out the sex idea. Soul has no sex, it is neither male nor female. It is only in the body that sex exists, and the man who desires to reach the spirit cannot at the same time hold to sex distinctions. Having been born in a masculine body, this man wanted to bring the feminine idea into everything. He began to think that he was a woman, he dressed like a woman, spoke like a woman, gave up the occupations of men, and lived in the household among the women of a good family, until, after years of this discipline, his mind became changed, and he entirely forgot the idea of sex; thus the whole view of life became changed to him.
Referring to the teaching of Kama-Kanchana,
Man is a soul, and soul is sexless, neither man nor woman. The idea of sex and the idea of money were the two things, he thought, that prevented him from seeing the Mother. This whole universe is the manifestation of the Mother, and She lives in every woman's body. "Every woman represents the Mother; how can I think of woman in mere sex relation?" That was the idea: Every woman was his Mother, he must bring himself to the state when he would see nothing but Mother in every woman. And he carried it out in his life.
Speaking briefly about Sri Ramakrishna at the end of his talk - 'The Sages of India',[30] he said
There he lived, without any book-learning whatsoever; this great intellect never learnt even to write his own name, but the most graduates of our university found in him an intellectual giant. He was a strange man, this Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. It is a long, long story, and I have no time to tell anything about him tonight. Let me now only mention the great Shri Ramakrishna, the fulfilment of the Indian sages, the sage for the time, one whose teaching is just now, in the present time, most beneficial. And mark the divine power working behind the man. The son of a poor priest, born in an out-of-the-way village, unknown and unthought of, today is worshipped literally by thousands in Europe and America, and tomorrow will be worshipped by thousands more. Who knows the plans of the Lord!
Romain Rolland
In his book The Life of Ramakrishna (1929),
Leo Schneiderman
Walter G. Neevel
In the 1976 essay, "The Transformation of Sri Ramakrishna",
Ramana Maharshi
A few of Ramana Maharshi's words regarding Ramakrishna are recorded in the book, Talks with Ramana Maharshi. When asked if Ramakrishna could really have seen Kali's image to be alive, he replied that it was Ramakrishna's 'own vital force which manifested as if it were outside and drew him in.'[37]
Psychoanalysis and sexuality
Ramakrishna's personality and actions have been a popular topic of psychological analysis by scholars and writers, especially in the Western world. In addition to his mystical experiences, much attention has been paid to his attitudes towards sexuality and the role of sex in his philosophical and religious views. Some of these studies have been extremely controversial.
Dr. Jeanne Openshaw
In 1995, Dr.
Alan Roland
Attempts by modern authors to
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in 1997, took the example of a "dvaita" gaze of a "boy looking up obliquely at the clay and wattle frame of the image of Durga", writing that when we read the photo through Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis it would be wrongly diagnosed as "double anxiety of castration and decapitation." Spivak writes that Freud's analysis is not culturally receptive and writes that Freud's psychoanalysis is an "occupational hazard".[47] She writes that Ramakrishna was a "Bengali bhakta visionary" and that as a bhakta, he turned chiefly towards Kali.[47]
Somnath Bhattacharya
Somnath Bhattacharya further elaborates in a 2002 work on considerations related to
J.S. Hawley
John Stratton Hawley, Professor of Religion at Barnard College, in his 2004 paper The Damage of Separation: Krishna's Loves and Kali's Child[50] examines the following:
- Is it right to think of the homosexualdimension is involved.
- Second, if Hindus and Hinduism are the subject, should non-Hindus refrain from speaking?
In this study, J.S. Hawley revisits the Kali's Child debate highlighting one of its central terms — the vyakulata feeling of Ramakrishna. J.S.Hawley argues that "neither the gopis' torment nor Ramakrishna's must be allowed to devolve to a bodily level."[50] Hawley further argues that "communities of people who respond to different sexual orientations should not indiscriminately impose their thoughts on religious communities....Eros is dangerous"[51]
Kelley Ann Raab
While most of the studies have been conducted from either a primarily
- By philosophical analysis of Ramakrishna's devotional mysticism and tantric underpinnings, his visions and behavior were in keeping with his culture and tradition.
- By psychological analysis of Ramakrishna's behavior, he broke through dualistic thought patterns defining gender, humanity, and God by dressing as and imitating a woman.
Sudhir Kakar
In 1991, Sudhir Kakar wrote "The Analyst and the Mystic" [53] Gerald James Larson wrote, "Indeed, Sudhir Kakar...indicates that there would be little doubt that from a psychoanalytic point of view Ramakrishna could be diagnosed as a secondary transsexual.... For anyone even casually acquainted with Bengali spirituality and cultural life many of the symbolic visions and fantasies of Ramakrishna, which appear bizarre and even pathological when construed only in isolation or individually, become much less so when one relates the visions and fantasies to nineteenth-century Bengal."[54] Kakar sought a meta-psychological, non-pathological explanation connecting Ramakrishna's mystical realization with creativity. Kakar also argued that culturally relative concepts of eroticism and gender have contributed to the Western difficulty in comprehending Ramakrishna.[55] In 2003, Sudhir Kakar wrote a novel, Ecstasy. According to the author, the characters were modelled on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.[56]
Narasingha Sil
In 1991, historian Narasingha Sil wrote Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: A Psychological Profile, an account of Ramakrishna that argues that Ramakrishna's mystical experiences were pathological and originated from alleged childhood sexual trauma.[57] Narasingha Sil links Ramakrishna's teaching of Kamini-Kanchana to traditional rural Bengali misogyny.[58] Sil also says that Ramakrishna made his wife into a deity in order to avoid thinking of her as sexual.[59]
Sil's theory has been disputed as reductive by William B. Parsons, who has called for an increased empathetic dialogue between the classical/adaptive/transformative schools and the mystical traditions for an enhanced understanding of Ramakrishna's life and experiences.[60] Bengali Scholar William Radice wrote that, "Sil has debunked the saint so thoroughly and gleefully that it is hard to see how he will recover, once Sil's book becomes widely known."[61]
Jeffrey J. Kripal - Kali's Child
Mysticism and homo-eroticism
In 1995,
Criticisms
These views were disputed by
In 1997 Swami Atmajnanananda wrote, "Scandals, cover-ups, and other imagined occurrences in the life of Ramakrishna: An examination of Jeffrey Kripal's Kali's child".[72] Swami Tyagananda, known for his tract Kali's Child Revisited—or—Didn't Anyone Check the Documentation distributed at the 2000 American Academy of Religion conference,[73][74] co-authored Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited with Pravrajika Vrajaprana in 2010, which was published by Motilal Banarsidass.[75][76]
Christopher Isherwood who wrote the book Ramakrishna and his Disciples (1965) said in a late interview,
Ramakrishna was completely simple and guileless. He told people whatever came into his mind, like a child. If he had ever been troubled by homosexual desires, if that had ever been a problem he'd have told everybody about them.(...) His thoughts transcended physical love-making. He saw even the mating of two dogs on the street as an expression of the eternal male-female principle in the universe. I think that is always a sign of great spiritual enlightenment.[77][78]
In addition, Isherwood wrote in his autobiographical book, My Guru and his Disciple,
I couldn't honestly claim him as a homosexual, even a sublimated one, much as I would have liked to be able to do so.[79]
June McDaniel in Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies wrote,
...to understand other cultures instead of getting into conflicts with them, greater empathy and clearer sight are needed. Perhaps it would be useful to have more academics who are also practitioners, like the authors of this book, who can walk the line between criticism and empathy. Interpreting Ramakrishna brings out some of the best of each side; it mixes the idealism and dedication of a meditative path with the critical scholarship and historical analysis of academia.[80]
Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited
Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited is a book authored by Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana, published by Motilal Banarsidass in 2010.[75][76] The foreword of the book was written by religious scholar Huston Smith.
The authors of Interpreting Ramakrishna write that the conclusions arrived at by Kali's Child involve methodological problems including "
A panel discussion on Interpreting Ramakrishna was held at the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM) annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in October, 2010.[86][87]
Tantra Sadhana
Different views on Ramakrishna's
Neevel argues that some of Ramakrishna's followers tend to be apologetic about his taking up tantric practices because of the eroticism that has discredited tantric schools in general and those of Bengal in particular. Neevel argues that the influence of tantra on this spiritual development is underestimated.[94] Ramchandra Datta one of the early biographers of Ramakrishna is reported to have said, "We have heard many tales of the Brahmani but we hesitate to divulge them to the public."[95]
In
Notes
- ^ JSTOR 1385254.
- ^ Copley, Antony (2000). Gurus and Their Followers: New Religious Reform Movements in Colonial India. Oxford University Press. p. 235.
- ^ Children of Immortality. The Ramakrishna Movement with Special Emphasis on the South African Context by Anil Sooklal
- ^ Swami Atmajnanananda
- ^ "Faculty, Programme in Philosophy". Retrieved 18 March 2019.
- OCLC 1079877496.
- ^ OCLC 610584887. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
- ^ a b Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (10 March 2019). "The Seeker of Infinity". The Indian Express. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
- ^ Parama Roy, Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Post-Colonial India Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998 [page needed]
- ISBN 9788175053342
- ^ Ramakrishna Mission Singapore (April 2007). "Lay Disciples of Ramakrishna". Nirvana. Ramakrishna Mission, Singapore.
- ^ Wadia, Sophia (1966). The Aryan Path. Indian Institute of World Culture. p. 490.
- ^ Rolland, Romain. The Life of Ramakrishna. p. 12.
- ISBN 978-1-931816-00-7.
- ^ Clooney, Francis X. "Ramakrishna and Christ". Studies on Sri Ramakrishna. p. 89.
- ^ a b c
Sarma, D. S. (March 1927). "The Experience of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa". The Journal of Religion. 7 (2). America: The University of Chicago Press: 186–203. S2CID 170116972.
- ^ Rolland, Romain (1929). "Kali the Mother". The Life of Ramakrishna. p. 16.
- ^ a b Kripal 1995.
- ^ The vision recorded by Swami Saradananda has some variants in different texts and biographies.Jeffrey J. Kripal (1995), Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna. First edition. University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Swarup, Ram, Ramakrishna Mission.(1986). Ramakrishna Mission: In search of a new identity. [1]
- ^ Isherwood 1980, p. 124.
- ^ Rolland, Romain (1929). "The Return to Man". The Life of Ramakrishna. pp. 49–62.
- ^ a b c Tyeb, A. J. A. (1988). "Sri Ramakrishna from the Islamic standpoint". Studies on Sri Ramakrishna. The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. pp. 99–105.
- .
- ^
Clarke, Peter Bernard (2006). New Religions in Global Perspective. Routledge. p. 209.
[Vivekananda was] at one time a member of the Protestant-like, puritanical, anti-image worshipping, and deistic Brahmo Samaj movement.
- ^ a b Rolland, Romain (1929). "Naren the Beloved Disciple". The Life of Ramakrishna. pp. 169–193.
- ^
Rolland, Romain (1929). "Naren the Beloved Disciple". The Life of Ramakrishna. pp. 169–193.
Even if millions of men called you God, if I had not proved it for myself, I would never do so.
- ^
Vivekananda, Swami. . . Vol. 8. p. 263.
'How I used to hate Kali!' he [Vivekananda] said, referring to his own days of doubts in accepting the Kali ideal, 'And all Her ways! That was the ground of my six years' fight — that I would not accept Her. But I had to accept Her at last! Ramakrishna Paramahamsa dedicated me to Her, and now I believe that She guides me in everything I do, and does with me what She will... Yet I fought so long!'
- ^ a b Vivekananda, Swami (1896). . . pp. 154–188.
- ^ Vivekananda, Swami (1896). . .
- ^
Rolland, Romain (1929). "The Master and his Children". The Life of Ramakrishna. pp. 143–168.
Let the learned men of Europe, who are preoccupied by the problems of mystic psycho-analysis, put themselves in touch with these living witnesses while there is yet time. I myself, I repeat, have little curiosity about such phenomena, whose subjective reality is not in doubt, and I believe it my duty to describe them; for they are hedged about by all possible guarantees of good faith and analytical intelligence. I am more interested in the fact of great religious intuition in that which continues to be rather than in that which has been, in that which is or which can be always in all beings rather than in that which is privilege of a few.
- ^ Fisher, "Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland: The Terrestrial Animal and His Great Oceanic Friend", p. 29,
- ^ Werman, "Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland", p. 236
- ^ Neevel, Walter G.; Smith, Bardwell L. (1976). "The Transformation of Ramakrishna". Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Religions. Brill Archive. pp. 53–97.
- ^ a b c
Sen, Amiya P. (June 2006). "Sri Ramakrishna, the Kathamrita and the Calcutta middle classes: an old problematic revisited". Postcolonial Studies. 9 (2): 165–177. S2CID 144046925.
- ^
Sen, Amiya P. (June 2006). "Sri Ramakrishna, the Kathamrita and the Calcutta middle classes: an old problematic revisited". Postcolonial Studies. 9 (2): 165–177. S2CID 144046925.
Ramakrishna's "mandate" to Vivekananda that he consume his life in doing "good" to the world is ambiguous enough to permit very different interpretations. In all likelihood, the "good", in the saint's own perception, was the growth of religious fervour; on the other hand there remains room enough for a synthetic integration of spirituality and social service.
- )
- ^ a b
Openshaw, Dr Jeanne (15 December 1995). "The mystic and the rustic". Retrieved 23 August 2008.
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(help) - ISBN 0-415-91478-7.
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- ^ Roland, A. (1980). Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Personality Development in India. Int. R. Psycho-Anal., 7:73-87.
- ^ ISBN 978-81-291-1182-1
- S2CID 21072291.
- ^ a b Roland, Ramakrishna: Mystical, Erotic, or Both?, p. 33.
- ISBN 978-81-291-1182-1, p. 414.
- ^ a b Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (28 December 2007). "Moving Devi". Other Asias. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 195–197.
- ^ Infinity Foundation website. Accessed on 2008-09-24. Cited as published online on 14 December 2002, by Ramaswamy and DeNicholas, p. 152; cited as published on 14 December 2002, by Prema Kurien (2007), A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism, p. 265
- ^ GSR 798; KA 4.214. Quoted by S. Bhattacharyya
- ^ a b
Hawley, John Stratton (June 2004). "The Damage of Separation: Krishna's Loves and Kali's Child". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 72 (2): 369–393. PMID 20681099. Retrieved 18 August 2008.
- ^ a b
Hawley, John Stratton (June 2004). "The Damage of Separation: Krishna's Loves and Kali's Child". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 72 (2): 369–393. PMID 20681099.
- ^ a b
JSTOR 1465404.
- ^ In The Indian Psyche, 125-188. 1996 New Delhi: Viking by Penguin. Reprint of 1991 book.
- JSTOR 1465656.
- ^ Kakar, Sudhir, The Analyst and the Mystic, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p.34
- ^ "The Rediff Interview/Psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar". Retrieved 18 August 2008.
- ^ Sil, Narasingha, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. A Psychological Profile, (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1991), p.16
- ^ Sil, Divine Dowager, p. 52
- ^ Sil, Divine Dowager, p. 55
- ^ Parsons, William B., The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling: Revisioning the Psychoanalytic Theory of Mysticism, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.125-139
- S2CID 144772890.
- ^ McDaniel 2011, p. 53.
- ^ Balagangadhara 2008.
- ^ Parsons, William B., "Psychology" in Encyclopedia of Religion, 2005 p. 7479
- ^ Kripal(1995) Kali's Child 1 edition[page needed]
- ^ Atmajnanananda 1997.
- S2CID 21072291.
- ^ a b Raab 1995, pp. 321–341.
- ^ Invading the Sacred, p.152-168
- ^ Spivak (2007), "Moving Devi", Other Asias, pp.195–197
- ^ See:p.127 and "Interpretation in Cross-Cultural Contexts". In Tyagananda & Vrajaprana 2010
- S2CID 141766938.
- Kurien, Prema A.(2007). "Challenging American Pluralism". A place at the multicultural table. Rutgers University Press. pp. 201–202.
- ^ Sharma, Arvind (Spring 2004). "Hindus and Scholars". Religion in the News. 7 (1). Trinity College. Archived from the original on 11 May 2010. Retrieved 11 October 2008.
- ^ ISBN 978-81-208-3499-6.
- ^ a b
Goldberg, Philip (2010). American Veda. Foreword by Huston Smith. New York: Harmony Books. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-385-52134-5.
- ^ "Christopher Isherwood: An Interview" Carolyn G. Heilbrun and Christopher Isherwood Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 22, No. 3, Christopher Isherwood Issue (Oct. 1976), pp. 253–263 Published by: Hofstra University
- ISBN 978-1-57806-408-3.
- ^ My Guru and His Disciple, page 249
- .
- ^ Tyagananda & Vrajaprana 2010, pp. 270–272
- ^ Tyagananda & Vrajaprana 2010, p. 165
- ^ Tyagananda & Vrajaprana 2010, p. xvi
- ^ Tyagananda & Vrajaprana 2010, pp. 218–222
- ^ Tyagananda & Vrajaprana 2010, pp. 1–45
- ^ "Panel discussion on Interpreting Ramakrishna" (PDF). Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM). Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ^ Ponangi, Ravi R. "4,500 religion scholars gather at AAR Annual Meeting in Atlanta". India Tribute. Retrieved 3 February 2011.
- ^ Mahatyagi, Raman Das (2008). Yatan Yoga: A Natural Guide to Health and Harmony. YATAN Ayurvedics. p. 19.
- ^ a b c
Harding, Elizabeth U. (1998). Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-81-208-1450-9.
Through the steadfast spiritual practice, the godlike aspirant rouses the Kundalini and makes her pierce the six centers of mystic consciousness.[...]It is sheer nonsense and gross perversion to truth to brand it as gross egoistic hedonism or unrestrained sensualism. Rama Prasada, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Bama Ksepa, and other Sakta saints attained God-realization
- ^ The Great Master, "Tantra Sadhana"
- ^ a b Ramakrishna and his Disciples, p.101-102
- ^ Varenne, Jean; Coltman, Derek (1977). Yoga and the Hindu Tradition. University of Chicago Press. p. 151.
- ^
Muralimadhavan, Pi. Si (2000). Facets of Indian Culture. p. 66.
Remember that in tantra yoni does not mean generative organ of a woman. It means karana or cave-the womb of the universe.
- ^
Neevel. Transformation of Sri Ramakrishna. pp. 75–76.
Their anxiety about misunderstanding leads them, in my opinion, to underestimate and obscure the importance of tantric influences on his spiritual development.
- ^ Sil, Divine Dowager, p. 42
- ^ Kali's Child, p.27
- ^ Kali's Child, p.71
- ^ Amiya P. Sen (2001), Three Essays on Sri Ramakrishna and His Times, p.22
Further reading
- Balagangadhara, S.N.; Claerhout, Sarah (Spring 2008). "Are Dialogues Antidotes to Violence? Two Recent Examples From Hinduism Studies" (PDF). Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. 7 (19): 118–143. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 August 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
- Bhattacharyya, Somnath. "Kali's Child: Psychological And Hermeneutical Problems". Infinity Foundation. Archived from the original on 4 October 2007. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
- Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna. University of Chicago Press.
- Sivaramkrishna, Dr. M. (August 2004). "Ramakrishna Vedanta in the West : New Interfaces and Challenges (Part I)". Prabuddha Bharata. ISSN 0032-6178.
- Sivaramkrishna, Dr. M. (September 2004). "Ramakrishna Vedanta in the West : New Interfaces and Challenges (Part II)". Prabuddha Bharata. ISSN 0032-6178.
- Ramaswamy, Krishnan; de Nicolas, Antonio (2007). Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America. Delhi, India: Rupa & Co. ISBN 978-81-291-1182-1.
- Shourie, Arun (2017), Two Saints: Speculations around and about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharishi., Harper Collins.
- Tyagananda, Swami. "Kali's Child Revisited or Didn't Anyone Check the Documentation?". Infinity Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 February 2008. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
External links
- Openshaw, Dr. Jeanne (11 December 1998). "Crucifying a Saint". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
- Openshaw, Dr. Jeanne (15 December 1995). "The mystic and the rustic". Retrieved 23 August 2008.