Harmony of Religion

This world has had many hundreds of admirable poets and philosophers, but of these hundreds only a very few have has the future to attract a Boswell or and Ekra­mann.

In the spiritual firmanent Sri Ramakrishana is a waxing crescent. Within 173 years of his birth his message has spread over land and sea.

World renowned French nobel laureate Romain Rol­land said, " It is always the same man, the son of Man, the eternal, our Son, our God reborn. With each return he reveals himself a little more fully, and a more enriched by the universe.

Ramakrishna Paramhamsa is the worshipper of no partic­ular Hindu God. He accepts all the doctrines, all the embodi­ments, usages and devotional practices of every religious cult. Each in turn is infallible to him. He is and idolater, yet is a faithful and most devoted mediator of the perfections of the one formuless, Infinite Deity whom the terms, “Akhanda Sachchidananda”

(Indivisible Existence-knowl­edge-Bliss). His religion unlike the religion of ordinary Hindu Sadhus, does not mean too much dogma or controversial proficiency or the untoward worship with flowers and san­dal-wood, incense and offer­ing. His religion means ecsta­sy, his worship means tran­scendental insight, his whole nature burns day and night with the permanent fire and fever of strange faith and feel­ing.

As a result of his ralisation through all forms of discipline, he was firmly convinced that all religions were true – that every doctrinal system repre­sented a path to God.

Thus he used to say to his disciples: "The tank has sever­al ghats. At one Hindus draw water in pitchers and call it 'Jat', at another ghat Mohammedans draw water in leather bottles and call it 'Pani', at a third ghat Chris­tians draw water and call it 'Water'. Can we imagine that the water is not jal, but only pani or water? How absurd! The substance is one under different names and everyone t: is seeking the same substance”.

Further he told: “Different t creeds are but different paths to reach the God. Various are the paths that take men to the E house of the Lord. Every religion is nothing but one of such paths"

He told another place, "You C see many stars at night in the sky but find them not when r the sun rises. Can you say that I there are no stars in the heaven of Day? So O men because

you behold not Got in the days of your ignorance, say not there is no God?"

He spoke on the manifestation of one and the same infi­nite God, illustrating it by the following parables: "Some blind men happened to come across an elephant. Someone told them what it was and asked them to describe it as it seemed to them, The one who touched the leg said , 'the ele­phant is like a coloumn’. The 1 second one said, 'the elephant f is like a winnowing fan' – he I had felt one of its ears. Similarly those who had touched its trunk or belly gave different opinions. So with God, every­one conceives Him according to his experience."

Renowned British historian Arnold I Toynbee said, "The emperor Ashoka's and Mahat­ma Gandhi's principle of non­violence and Sri Ramakrish­na's testimony to the harmony of religion, here we have the attitude and 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 of destroying our­selves."

The epochal messages of Sri Rarnakrishna like the accep­

tance of the Universal gospels of all religions, reverence and love for the prophets and divinities of other religions, respect and glorification of all women as human embodi­ments of the Divine Mother.