Sri Ramakrishna, who was born in 1836 and passed away in 1886, represents the very
core of the spiritual realizations of the seers and sages of India. His whole life was
literally an uninterrupted contemplation of God. He reached a depth of God-consciousness
that transcends all time and place and has a universal appeal. Seekers of God of all
religions feel irresistibly drawn to his life and teachings. Sri Ramakrishna, as a silent
force, influences the spiritual thought currents of our time. He is a figure of recent
history and his life and teachings have not yet been obscured by loving legends and
doubtful myths. Through his God-intoxicated life Sri Ramakrishna proved that the
revelation of God takes place at all times and that God-realization is not the monopoly of
any particular age, country, or people. In him, deepest spirituality and broadest
catholicity stood side by side. The God-man of nineteenth-century India did not found any
cult, nor did he show a new path to salvation. His message was his God-consciousness. When
God-consciousness falls short, traditions become dogmatic and oppressive and religious
teachings lose their transforming power. At a time when the very foundation of religion,
faith in God, was crumbling under the relentless blows of materialism and skepticism, Sri
Ramakrishna, through his burning spiritual realizations, demonstrated beyond doubt the
reality of God and the validity of the time-honored teachings of all the prophets and
saviors of the past, and thus restored the falling edifice of religion on a secure
foundation. Drawn by the magnetism of Sri Ramakrishna's divine personality, people flocked
to him from far and near -- men and women, young and old, philosophers and theologians,
philanthropists and humanists, atheists and agnostics, Hindus and Brahmos, Christians and
Muslims, seekers of truth of all races, creeds and castes. His small room in the
Dakshineswar temple garden on the outskirts of the city of Calcutta became a veritable
parliament of religions. Everyone who came to him felt uplifted by his profound
God-consciousness, boundless love, and universal outlook. Each seeker saw in him the
highest manifestation of his own ideal. By coming near him the impure became pure, the
pure became purer, and the sinner was transformed into a saint. The greatest contribution
of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world is his message of the harmony of religions. To Sri
Ramakrishna all religions are the revelation of God in His diverse aspects to satisfy the
manifold demands of human minds. Like different photographs of a building taken from
different angles, different religions give us the pictures of one truth from different
standpoints. They are not contradictory but complementary. Sri Ramakrishna faithfully
practiced the spiritual disciplines of different religions and came to the realization
that all of them lead to the same goal. Thus he declared, "As many faiths, so many
paths." The paths vary, but the goal remains the same. Harmony of religions is not
uniformity; it is unity in diversity. It is not a fusion of religions, but a fellowship of
religions based on their common goal -- communion with God. This harmony is to be realized
by deepening our individual God-consciousness. In the present-day world, threatened by
nuclear war and torn by religious intolerance, Sri Ramakrishna's message of harmony gives
us hope and shows the way. May his life and teachings ever inspire us.
