RAMAKRISHNA PARMAHAMSA Biography - Religious Figures & Icons

 
 

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RAMAKRISHNA PARMAHAMSA
       

Ramakrishna Parmahamsa is one of the best-known saints of the nineteenth century India. He was born in a poor Brahman family in 1836 at a small town near Kolkata, West Bengal. Ramakrishna had little interest in school but was a regular visitor to the temple of Kali. It was built by a pious widow, Rani Rasmati.

       

He was very dedicated to Goddess Kali. At one time, he became frustrated, feeling he could not live any longer without seeing her. He threatened to take his own life with a ritual dagger. A yogin named Tatapuri then became Ramakrishna’s mentor. Ramakrishna adopted the role of renunciant and learned.

       

Ramakrishna explained on different occasions that God is both formed and formless and can appear to the devotee either way. His acceptance of different approaches to the worship of God and the validity of different religious paths is the best tradition of the universalist approach to religion common throughout India today. He died in 1886.