Sri Ramakrishna

Born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay on 18 February 1836 in the village of Kamarpukur in rural Bengal, Ramakrishna showed an extraordinary spiritual sensitivity from childhood. He would fall into states of ecstasy at the sight of cranes flying against dark clouds, or while watching a village drama about the gods.

At age twenty, he became the priest of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar, built by Rani Rashmoni on the banks of the Ganges near Calcutta. Here his spiritual life ignited into a blazing fire. His longing for the vision of the Divine Mother Kali became so intense that he wept for hours, rolled on the ground, and once seized a sword to end his life, at which point, he later said, the vision came: an infinite ocean of consciousness, luminous and blissful.

Over the next twelve years, Ramakrishna practiced every major spiritual path with total sincerity. Under the Bhairavi Brahmani, he completed all the Tantric sadhanas. Under Totapuri, a naked Advaita monk, he attained nirvikalpa samadhi, the highest non-dual realization. He then practiced Islam under a Sufi teacher, and Christianity by meditating on Christ. In each case, he reached the same ultimate experience.

In his final years, disciples gathered around him: young, educated Bengalis who would become the monks of the Ramakrishna Order. Chief among them was Narendranath Datta, later known as Swami Vivekananda, who would carry his master's message to the world. Ramakrishna died of throat cancer on 16 August 1886, but not before transmitting his spiritual power to his disciples in ways that would transform modern Hinduism.