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Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa
(1836-1886, India)
Biography Excerpt:
Born to a poor, orthodox Brahman family
in a remote village in Bengal, India, the coming of Ramakrishna was foretold
to his father through a vision. During a spiritual pilgrimage, the Hindu
god Vishnu proclaimed to him that he would incarnate in the body of his
son. While Ramakrishna was still quite young, his father died. Having little
interest in school or the material world, young Ramakrishna often drifted
off from the outer world into states of ecstasy. In fact, he once lost
consciousness while playing the role of the Lord Shiva in a performance
at school.
Disillusioned with the material emphasis
of academics, Ramakrishna chose to devote himself to a life of spiritual
pursuit and, in order to support himself, became a temple priest. It was
there, amidst an image of the blissful Mother Kali, that Ramakrishna worshipped.
Enlightenment Story Excerpt:
Soon after the Master's return to Dakshineswar
after his marriage, his old divine madness seized him again. About the
state of his mind in those days he said: "The ordinary man would have died,
if he were to experience even a fourth of the spiritual metamorphosis that
my body and mind underwent. And of this body too (meaning himself) the
same would have been the fate; but fortunately the major portion of my
days was passed in ecstatic oblivion of the Mother's divine vision. Henceforth
for six long years not a wink of sleep ever visited my eyes, and the eye-lids
would never close, try though I might. All sense of time vanished from
me, and the body idea was totally obliterated