Ramakrishna and Vivekananda:

Two Teachings or One?

Arpita Mitra

T
he existing body of literature on the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda tradition is vast and
spreads across several generations. Certain aspects of this tradition have come under close and
increasingly critical scrutiny by academic scholars. This essay examines one of the major points
of scholarly criticism: the pervasive claim that Swami Vivekananda’s teachings marked a distinctive
break from those of his master, Sri Ramakrishna.

PB January 2014 65
 76 Prabuddha Bharata
The Problematique
There are many aspects of this assertion. It is
claimed that Sri Ramakrishna is more tantric than
Advaitin and that his teachings could be under-
stood, ‘more adequately in the categories of tan-
tric thought and practice than in the concepts of
Shankara’s advaita’;1 that he was a ­vijnani—an
individual with special knowledge of the Abso-
lute, in which the universe is affirmed and seen as
the manifestation of Brahman—which is quite
distinct from the Advaita Vedanta of Acharya
Shankara; was primarily a bhakta and did not em-
phasize the path of jnana or karma, while Swami
Vivekananda’s focus had been on the latter; or
that although his teachings had a basis in Advaita,
‘he rarely prescribed this to his followers.’ 2
It is at times granted that at best Vedanta rep-
resented one of the many strands of Sri Rama-
krishna’s teachings but cannot be satisfactorily
called his fundamental teaching. In his expos-
ition of Advaita Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda is
also considered by some to be closer to Acharya
Shankara than to Sri Ramakrishna. Further-
more, some studies claim Swami Vivekananda,
and the institutionalization of the movement
that took place under his influence, projected
the image of an Advaitin onto Sri Ramakrishna.
However, one scholar, Gwilym Beckerlegge, has
pointed out it is difficult to accept that: ‘Viveka-
nanda accomplished his task with either the
connivance of, or a lack of effective opposition
from, disciples who had been every bit as close
to Ramakrishna, and who could claim to speak
with authority on the basis of this intimacy.’3
To be fair there are layers of analysis and in-
terpretation in the works of scholars and the
subject is so complex that no two scholars say
exactly the same thing. They may agree on
some points and disagree on others. Even in
two seemingly similar opinions there is usually
a shade of difference. To give an illustration,
66
Amiya P Sen concedes Vivekananda’s ideal of
service is not helping others but helping one-
self and this ‘moral monism’ is derived from his
guru.4 However, according to Sen, while the
Master and the disciple were similar in their
Advaitic basics, they were different in the con-
clusions each derived from such a stance. Sen
writes: ‘Whereas the social implication of Ve-
dantic non-dualism would indicate a strong
sense of altruism and the ability to rise above
rigid social classifications, none of these signifi-
cantly, were pronounced in Ramakrishna.’5
To take another example, Walter G Neeval Jr
had also acknowledged that while factors like
‘Western and Christian realism and ethical con-
cern’ had a major role to play in ‘the continued
development and reinterpretation of this trad-
ition’, and ‘if we can view Sri Ramakrishna in
his own terms rather than those of Shankara’s
Advaita, we can accept at face value Swami
Vivekananda’s claim that his social concern was
inspired directly by the Master.’ 6
previous page: ‘swamiji in meditation at belgaum’, by sudhir - digital print
The assertion that Swami Vivekananda and
Sri Ramakrishna gave two different messages to
the world is based on a claim that Swamiji’s pro-
jection of service as a cornerstone of the insti-
tutional programme was a radical upturning of
the teachings of his Master who was supposedly
sceptical of organized human endeavour of ser-
vice. It has also been pointed out that Swamiji
claimed karma yoga to be an independent path to
liberation, without necessarily grounding itself in
a belief in God, and that this is an essential differ-
ence between the guru and his foremost disciple.
In trying to locate the source of Swamiji’s
ideal of service, scholars have gone far and wide
and tried to situate it in various factors. Argu-
ments trace the roots of this ideal in general
terms to: Vivekananda’s direct exposure to West-
ern society; various experiences and influences—
both spiritual and social—during his parivrajya,
PB January 2014
 monastic wandering, in India; the so-
cial reality of abject poverty coupled
with the immediate context of colonial
critique and European orientalism;
and in more specific terms, to a pos-
sible influence of the Swami­narayan
movement of Western India. In brief,
scholars mostly locate the source of
Swamiji’s ideal of service everywhere
else, except in Sri Ramakrishna!
Not all of these claims are entirely
wrong. There was a lot that went into
the making of the swami, but no mat-
ter how big a circumference was drawn
by his life and experiences, the centre
point was laid down by Sri Rama-
krishna. By examining the teachings
of both Sri Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda, this article will demon-
strate Swamiji’s main influence was his
guru, Sri Ramakrishna.
Regarding these claims, Holy
Mother Sri Sarada Devi resolved po-
tential controversy once and for all in
two powerful strokes. The first instance
was when someone expressed doubts
‘Parivrajaka’, by Runu Misra Banerjee - watercolour (wash)

about Swamiji’s injunction that pro-

hibited image worship at the Advaita
Ashrama, Mayavati, she exhorted him
to always remember that the Master was un-
doubtedly Advaita. In another situation that took
place in the hospital of the Kashi Seva­shrama,
she claimed she saw the Master abiding in the
Sevashrama and that the boys were worshipping
him wholeheartedly by serving the patients. Holy
Mother had also maintained resolutely that san-
nyasins should engage in karma related to service,
for whose work it is if not the Lord’s? 7
Scholars have approached Swamiji’s alleged
construction of a particular representation of
Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings from two points of
departure. The first is through an examination
of the actual, empirical history of the develop-
ment of the tradition and its institutions. The
second is through an analysis of the principal
teachings of the Master and the disciple. While
there have been elaborate studies of the first, a
close and rigorous comparison of the teachings
of the Master and his foremost disciple has been
rarely undertaken. Even while scholars have tried
to relate the two sets of teachings, they have ei-
ther concentrated on a close examination of Sri
Ramakrishna’s teachings alone with only broad

PB January 2014 67
 78 Prabuddha Bharata
references to Swamiji or drawn broad conclu-
sions on the teachings of both without closely
comparing the two. This article concentrates
on analysing the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna
and Swami Vivekananda as it is the most direct
method of approaching the issue.
Without going into the existing debate on
the reliability of the sources for this tradition,
this essay relies on two conventional sources:
(i) the Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita by M,
translated into English as The Gospel of Sri Rama-
krishna; and (ii) The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda. This choice is guided by the under-
standing that the content of these basic sources
has been only partly understood, misunder-
stood outside their context and the larger pic-
ture of teachings, or even misrepresented by some
scholars. By relying on these sources it is possible
to get a different picture compared to what has
been understood by scholars so far.
Prologue: Three Attitudes of Mind
Girishchandra Ghosh reported: ‘When I wrote
the play Vilwamangal, several of his [Sri Rama-
krishna’s] disciples questioned me about it. I
told them that I had learned the art of playwrit-
ing from Sri Ramakrishna. Narendra [Swami
Vivekananda] has said that he learned science
from Sri Ramakrishna, and Mahendra [‘M’] says
Sri Ramakrishna taught him the art of teaching.
How is it possible to express Sri Ramakrishna’s
many moods and aspects? How can one say
what they are? ’ 8
Sri Ramakrishna’s own teachings reflect this
point well:
You have no doubt heard the story of the cha-
meleon. A man entered a wood and saw a cha-
meleon on a tree. He reported to his friends,
‘I have seen a red lizard.’ He was firmly con-
vinced that it was nothing but red. Another
person, after visiting the tree, said, ‘I have seen
68
a green lizard.’ He was firmly convinced that it
was nothing but green. But the man who lived
under the tree said: ‘What both of you have
said is true. But the fact is that the creature is
sometimes red, sometimes green, sometimes
yellow, and sometimes has no colour at all.’ 9
In another situation, Sri Ramakrishna said:
‘A man had a tub of dye. Such was its wonderful
property that people could dye their clothes any
colour they wanted by merely dipping them in it.
A clever man said to the owner of the tub, “Dye
my cloth the colour of your dye-stuff ”’ (538).
Sri Ramakrishna even summarized the issue by
stating: ‘Everyone speaks of me according to his
comprehension’ (593).
Sri Ramakrishna often spoke of three differ-
ent attitudes of mind. There are numerous con-
versations that record this difference and attest
the truth claim of all these apparently dissimilar
positions. For example, he states:
But, my dear sir, I am in a peculiar state of mind.
My mind constantly descends from the Abso-
lute to the Relative, and again ascends from the
Relative to the Absolute. … The manifold has
come from the One alone, the Relative from
the Absolute. There is a state of consciousness
where the many disappears, and the One, as
well; for the many must exist as long as the
One exists. Brahman is without comparison. …
Again, when God changes the state of my mind,
when He brings my mind down to the plane
of the Relative, I perceive that it is He who has
become all these—the Creator, maya, the liv-
ing beings, and the universe. Again, sometimes
he shows me that He has created the universe
and all living beings. He is the Master, and the
universe His garden (307).
Sri Ramakrishna also said: ‘No one else is
here, and you are my own people. Let me tell you
something. I have come to the final realization
that God is the Whole and I am a part of Him,
that God is the Master and I am His servant.
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
Furthermore, I think every now and then that
He is I and I am He’ (572).
In another situation, he stated: ‘Once Rama
asked Hanuman: “How do you look on Me?”
And Hanuman replied: “O Rama, as long as
I have the feeling of ‘I’, I see that Thou art the
whole and I am a part; Thou art the Master and
I am Thy servant. But when, O Rama, I have the
knowledge of Truth, then I realize that Thou art
I, and I am Thou”’ (105).
The allusion to the three different mental states
of Hanuman appears repeatedly in the Katha­
mrita. In these utterances Sri Ramakrishna articu-
lated three distinct bhavas, mental attitudes, all of
which are equally true depending on the state of
one’s mind. The validity of any one does not nul-
lify the validity of another. Despite their apparent
contradictoriness they are not a forced and unsys-
tematic synthesis of different things. They are the
articulation of spiritual realizations vividly experi-
enced by Indian mystics. Swamiji also articulated
the same point as his guru:
When Prahlada forgot himself, he found nei-
ther the universe nor its cause; all was to him
one Infinite, undifferentiated by name and
form; but as soon as he remembered that he
was Prahlada, there was the universe before him
and with it the Lord of the universe … So it was
with the blessed Gopis. So long as they had lost
sense of their own personal identity and indi-
viduality, they were all Krishnas, and when they
began again to think of Him as the One to be
worshipped, then they were Gopis again, and
immediately—‘Unto them appeared Krishna
with a smile on His lotus face, clad in yellow
robes and having garlands on, the embodied
conqueror (in beauty) of the god of love.’10
It is the Man [ Jesus Christ] who said, ‘I and
my Father are one,’ whose power has descended
unto millions … we know that the same Man,
because he was a non-dualist, was merciful to
others. To the masses who could not conceive
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79
of anything higher than a Personal God, he
said, ‘Pray to your Father in heaven.’ To others
who could grasp a higher idea, he said, ‘I am the
vine, ye are the branches,’ but to his disciples to
whom he revealed himself more fully, he pro-
claimed the highest truth, ‘I and my Father are
one’ (2.142–3).
Jnana and Vijnana
Despite appearing contradictory, the thread run-
ning through the Kathamrita is that Reality is
singular. Brahman and Shakti are inseparably one
much like ‘water and its wetness’, and ‘fire and
its power to burn’ are inseparably one.11 The Ab-
solute has become the relative, and divine Con-
sciousness pervades everything down to the worm
and the most inert matter. Now, let us examine
closely an excerpt from a lecture in Jnana Yoga de-
livered by Swami Vivekananda at London in 1896,
ten years after the passing away of the Master:
Here I can only lay before you what the Ved-
anta seeks to teach, and that is the deification
of the world. The Vedanta does not in reality
denounce the world. The ideal of renunciation
nowhere attains such a height as in the teach-
ings of the Vedanta. But, at the same time, dry
suicidal advice is not intended; it really means
deification of the world—giving up the world
as we think of it, as we know it, as it appears to
us—and to know what it really is. Deify it; it
is God alone. We read at the commencement
of one of the oldest of the Upanishads, ‘What-
ever exists in this universe is to be covered with
the Lord.’
We have to cover everything with the Lord
Himself, not by a false sort of optimism, not by
blinding our eyes to the evil, but by really see-
ing God in everything. Thus we have to give
up the world, and when the world is given up,
what remains? God. What is meant? You can
have your wife; it does not mean that you are
to abandon her, but that you are to see God
in the wife. Give up your children; what does
69
 80 Prabuddha Bharata

70 PB January 2014
 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
that mean? To turn them out of doors, as some
human brutes do in every country? Certainly
not. That is diabolism; it is not religion. But
see God in your children. So, in everything. In
life and in death, in happiness and in misery,
the Lord is equally present. The whole world is
full of the Lord. Open your eyes and see Him.12
With Sri Ramakrishna it was ‘a case of neg-
ation and affirmation’.13 This was also the case
with his foremost disciple:
We have to go through the negation, and then
the positive side will begin. We have to give up
ignorance and all that is false, and then truth
will begin to reveal itself to us. When we have
grasped the truth, things which we gave up
at first will take new shape and form, will ap-
pear to us in a new light, and become deified.
They will have become sublimated, and then we
shall understand them in their true light. But to
understand them, we have first to get a glimpse
of truth; we must give them up at first, and then
we get them back again, deified.14
previous page: ‘Transferring of Power’, by priya nath sinha - watercolour
Sri Ramakrishna illustrates the process of neg-
ation via an analogy of climbing the stairs, claim-
ing one uses the process of ‘neti, neti ; not this,
not this’ to leave each step behind. The process
of affirmation is the realization after reaching the
terrace that the terrace and the stairs are made of
the same stuff. To think of the terrace and stairs as
made of different material is ignorance, to know
them as made of the same stuff is knowledge: ‘To
know many things [as many] is ajnana, ignor-
ance. To know only one thing [as One] is jnana,
Knowledge—the realization that God alone is
real and that He dwells in all. And to talk to Him
is vijnana, a fuller Knowledge. To love God in
different ways, after realizing Him, is vijnana.’15
Thus, to explain vijnana, Sri Ramakrishna uses
the following analogies: the stairs and the roof
(604), the bel-fruit (851), the butter and butter-
milk (477), the dialogue between Rama and the
PB January 2014
81
sage Vashishtha (648), and the story of Kacha
coming down from nirvikalpa samadhi (851).
Since God is everywhere, he is both ‘inside
and outside man’ (521); inside he resides as ‘our
Inner Guide’ (80), and outside he pervades his
own creation (545). Thus Sri Ramakrishna said:
‘Does God exist only when I think of Him with
my eyes closed? Doesn’t He exist when I look
around with my eyes open?’ (561). And Swamiji
taught: ‘The whole world is full of the Lord.
Open your eyes and see Him.’16
According to Sri Ramakrishna, ‘After attain-
ing vijnana one can live in the world as well. Then
one clearly realizes that God Himself has become
the universe and all living beings, that He is not
outside the world.’17 Swami Vivekananda may
not have spelt out the word vijnana, but what
he taught was really a re-statement of his Mas-
ter’s teachings in merely a different language. Sri
Ramakrishna’s definition of a vijnani was one
who could easily commute between the ‘Nitya,
the Absolute’ and ‘Lila, the Relative’ (523). Freda
Matchett points out that the words Brahman and
Shakti rarely appear in the public teachings of
Swamiji. It is true that the words do not but the
concepts do. He simply calls them by a different
set of terms, the Absolute [God] and the Relative
[world]. Matchett further claims that in Swamiji’s
teachings the ‘impersonal Absolute is always su-
preme and there is little trace of Rāmakrishna’s
affirmation of the value of the individual ego and
the phenomenal world’.18 The above lecture on
jnana yoga runs counter to such a claim. In the
teachings of both the Master and the pupil, the
impersonal Absolute has become the phenomenal
world. When existence-knowledge-bliss Absolute
becomes relative, we see it as the world. So much
so that Swamiji took Sri Ramakrishna’s insistence
on the value of the phenomenal world one step
further and reached its logical conclusion in his
ideal of service of a human being as God.
71
 82 Prabuddha Bharata
Moreover, according to Matchett, Sri Rama-
krishna suggested that ‘apparently lower states
of consciousness have a value of their own and
can reflect Reality just as much as the “highest”
state’ (ibid.). She contrasts it with Swamiji’s at-
titude, which, according to her, is that the value
of lower states ‘lies entirely in furnishing a ladder
to the highest state’ (ibid.).
Firstly, Sri Ramakrishna had declared une-
quivocally that: ‘Attainment of Chaitanya, Di-
vine Consciousness, is not possible without the
knowledge of Advaita, Non-duality.’19 Sri Rama-
krishna’s emphasis on the knowledge of non-­
duality comes out clearly in his statement, which
we find in the reminiscences of his direct dis-
ciple, Swami Turiyananda: ‘First tie the knot of
non-dual knowledge in the corner of your cloth;
then do as you please.’20 The goal to be attained
was the highest state without any compromise.
It was after the attainment of this highest state
that the lower states, now seen in the light of
God-realization, acquired a new value.
One could come down to a lower plane or as
Sri Ramakrishna described it: ‘come down again
by the stairs and move about on a lower floor’
after having climbed the terrace.21 ‘After a man
is firmly established in the ideal of “I am He”, he
can live as God’s servant’ (791). But Sri Rama-
krishna always insisted on the absolute neces-
sity of climbing up the terrace: ‘The important
thing is for a man somehow to climb to the roof ’
(604). The realization that the roof and the stairs
are made up of the same stuff cannot be pre-
empted on the basis of hearsay, without climb-
ing up to the terrace. One has to first climb and
only then arrive at first-hand knowledge of the
oneness of the material out of which the stairs
and the terrace are made.
Sri Ramakrishna reported that once Keshab
Sen, Pratap Mazumdar and others said to him:
‘Sir, we follow the ideal of King Janaka’ (626). Sri
72
Ramakrisha replied: ‘Mere words don’t make a
King Janaka. How many austerities King Janaka
first had to perform in solitude—standing on his
head, and so on! Do something first; then you
may become a King Janaka’ (626). He also said
elsewhere: ‘One cannot be a King Janaka all of a
sudden. Janaka at first practised much austerity
in solitude’ (139).
Secondly, while on the one hand, after attain-
ing the ‘highest’ stage, the ‘lower’ stages acquire a
different value. On the other hand, ‘lower’ stages
are also a step in attaining the ‘highest’ stage. The
steps are as important as the means despite not
being an end in themselves. This point is aptly
illustrated by the conversation that took place
between Sri Ramakrishna and Pratap Chandra
Hazra, where the Master said that the ‘aim of
spiritual discipline, of chanting God’s name and
glories, is to realize just that’ that the ‘devotee
really prays to his own Self ’, that God ‘is both
inside and outside’, and that God has become
everything; but one ‘needs the clay mould as long
as the gold image has not been cast; but when
the image is made, the mould is thrown away’
(521). On another occasion when Hazra criti-
cized Narendra’s offering of sweets to God and
singing of devotional songs, saying that God was
Infinity to whom all these did not matter, Sri
Ramakrishna observed that this made Narendra
‘sink ten fathoms’ and he reprimanded Hazra and
said, ‘How can a man live if he gives up devotion?
No doubt God has infinite splendour; yet He is
under the control of His devotees’ (792).
Jnana and Bhakti
Matchett concluded that Vivekananda was
closer to Acharya Shankara than his own Mas-
ter. However, she does not provide any close
comparative textual evidence in support of her
argument. She concludes: ‘As in Śankarā bhakti
belongs to a lower stage of spiritual development
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One? 83

than jnanā since “the Personal God and all that
exists in the universe are the same Impersonal
Being seen through our minds.” ’ 22 First of all,
Sri Ramakrishna maintained the personal God
is but a manifestation of the Impersonal Being,
that Satchidananda was like an infinite ocean
and the various forms of God were really the
freezing of the water of this ocean into ice under
the cooling effect of bhakti (191). Secondly, in
the above quotation from Swamiji that Match-
ett cites, there is really no suggestion of subordi-
nating bhakti to jnana. Claiming that a personal
God is a particular manifestation of the imper-
sonal Being does not logically establish that the
swami is trying to put bhakti on a lower footing
than jnana. One may also consider the follow-
ing extract from the Complete Works. There is
no suggestion of superiority or inferiority, only
a plain statement of facts:
Brahman is as the clay or sub-
stance out of which an infinite
variety of articles are fashioned.
As clay, they are all one; but form
or manifestation differentiates
them. Before every one of them
was made, they all existed poten-
tially in the clay, and, of course,
they are identical substantially;
but when formed, and so long as
the form remains, they are separ-
‘The Descent on Earth’, by Partha Dey - tempera
of ice, is his disciple’s clay elephant. On the other
hand, according to Swamiji: ‘There is not really
so much difference between knowledge ( Jnana)
and love (Bhakti) as people sometimes imagine.
We shall see, as we go on, that in the end they
converge and meet and end at the same point’
(3.32). Elsewhere, he says:
The Jnanis hold Bhakti to be an instrument of
liberation, the Bhaktas look upon it both as the
instrument and the thing to be attained. To my
mind this is a distinction without much differ-
ence. In fact, Bhakti, when used as an instru-
ment, really means a lower form of worship, and
the higher form becomes inseparable from the
lower form of realisation at a later stage. Each
seems to lay a great stress upon his own peculiar
method of worship, forgetting that with perfect
love true knowledge is bound to come even un-
sought, and that from perfect knowledge true
love is inseparable (3.34).

ate and different; the clay-mouse

can never become a clay-elephant,
because, as manifestations, form
alone makes them what they are,
though as unformed clay they
are all one. Ishvara is the highest
manifestation of the Absolute
Reality, or in other words, the
highest possible reading of the
Absolute by the human mind.23

What was Sri Ramakrishna’s

freezing of water to take the form

PB January 2014
 84 Prabuddha Bharata
Swamiji’s analogy of jnana and bhakti as two
wings certainly does not indicate that he held
bhakti to be of less consequence than jnana, as
two wings in a bird must always be equal. He was
definitely not in concurrence with the view that
bhakti had no value beyond being an instrument.
Swamiji distinguished between two stages
of bhakti: gauni, preparatory, dwelling mostly
on rules and rituals, where love is an instrument
to reach God; and para, supreme, where the
devotee experiences extreme love for God. In
such a state one verily sees God everywhere and
reaches a stage where ‘love, lover, and beloved be-
come one’ (6.77). The purpose of the first stage
of bhakti is to lead to the second and ‘the highest
expression of love is unification’ (7.30). Swamiji
verily equated the higher form of jnana with the
higher form of bhakti: ‘Extreme love and highest
knowledge are one’ (7.9). Sri Ramakrishna had
made exactly the same distinction between two
stages of bhakti: vaidhi bhakti, dwelling on rules
and rituals, and prema bhakti or raga bhakti, in-
tense love for God. The names the Master and
the disciple used were different, but the essence
of the definitions was the same. The former is
comprised of ceremonies, and in ordinary souls,
its practice over a long time leads to the latter.
Whereas, the latter is characterized by extreme
love and longing for God. Sri Ramakrishna in-
sisted God is unattainable without raga bhakti.24
Like his master, Swamiji believed that the
‘one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the
easiest and the most natural way to reach the di-
vine end in view.’ 25 The sheer naturalness of the
path of bhakti makes all worldly desires fall off
as the dry scales of a snake. As Swamiji states:
‘Love concentrates all the power of the will with-
out effort’ (7.44). Furthermore, ‘Bhakti is not
destructive; it teaches that all our faculties may
become means to reach salvation. We must turn
them all towards God and give to Him that love
74
which is usually wasted on the fleeting objects of
sense’ (7.83). This clearly reminds us of Sri Rama-
krishna’s advice to divert our desires and passions
towards God, thereby sublimating them. The
swami was also aware of the difficulty of jnana
yoga for the lay person:
Talk of reason! Very few people reason, indeed.
You hear a man say, ‘Oh, I don’t like to believe
in anything; I don’t like to grope through dark-
ness. I must reason.’ And so he reasons. But
when reason smashes to pieces things that he
hugs unto his breast, he says, ‘No more! This
reasoning is all right until it breaks my ideals.
Stop there!’ That man would never be a Jnani.
That man will carry his bondage all his life and
his lives to come. Again and again he will come
under the power of death. Such men are not
made for Jnana. There are other methods for
them—such as Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, or
Raja Yoga—but not Jnana Yoga (9.215).
Scholars tend to characterize Swamiji as a
jnani perhaps on account of his emphasis on
Advaita Vedanta. They seem to consider his
preaching of Advaita as preaching the jnana
marga, path of knowledge and discernment.
But Advaita cannot be explained in terms of
jnana alone. Its essence is the divinity of humans,
which Sri Ramakrishna also taught when he re-
peatedly declared that God has verily become
everything, a precept better known in the Rama-
krishna literature as vijnana. Advaita Vedanta
is the basic underlying principle because, as
Swamiji states: ‘This philosophy preaches a God
who is a sum total. If you seek a universal reli-
gion which can apply to everyone, that religion
must not be composed of only the parts, but it
must always be their sum total and include all
degrees of religious development. This idea is
not clearly found in any other religious system’
(2.141). Especially in the context of the West,
Swamiji knew that their salvation depended on
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
a ‘rationalistic religion’ (2.139), but by ‘rationalis-
tic religion’, the jnana marga alone is not meant.
It means a religion whose premises and precepts
can be explained rationally and logically with
evidence. For example, it can explain rationally
why we should not hurt our neighbour because
our neighbour is our own self in just another
form. Swamiji explained:
Though all religions have taught ethical pre-
cepts, such as, ‘Do not kill, do not injure; love
your neighbour as yourself,’ etc., yet none of
these has given the reason. Why should I not in-
jure my neighbour? To this question there was
no satisfactory or conclusive answer forthcom-
ing, until it was evolved by the metaphysical
speculations of the Hindus who could not rest
satisfied with mere dogmas. So the Hindus say
that this Atman is absolute and all-pervading,
therefore infinite. There cannot be two infin-
ites, for they would limit each other and would
become finite. Also each individual soul is a
part and parcel of that Universal Soul, which
is infinite. Therefore in injuring his neighbour,
the individual actually injures himself. This is
the basic metaphysical truth underlying all eth-
ical codes (1.384–5).
Not just jnana yoga, but all the four yogas are
premised on this reason. Advaita is not the an-
tithesis of bhakti. A personal God is perfectly ex-
plicable within the framework of Advaita as ‘the
highest possible reading of the Absolute by the
human mind’ (3.37). Again, after bhaktas real-
ize God, they know God dwells inside all, in-
cluding oneself. As Sri Ramakrishna said: ‘Most
advanced devotees say that He Himself has be-
come all this—the twenty-four cosmic prin-
ciples, the universe, and all living beings.’ 26 The
Holy Mother explained: ‘When one attains true
knowledge, God Himself ceases to exist separ-
ately. One calls upon the eternal Mother and in
the end finds Her in all creation. Everything then
becomes One. That is all.’ 27 Sri Ramakrishna
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85
gave the example of Prahlada, the quintessential
bhakta, to illustrate the Advaitic point that Hari
dwells in all. He explained:
There are three kinds of devotees: superior, me-
diocre, and inferior. The inferior devotee says,
‘God is out there.’ According to him God is
different From His creation. The mediocre de-
votee says: ‘God is the Antaryami, the Inner
Guide. God dwells in everyone’s heart.’ The
mediocre devotee sees God in the heart. But
the superior devotee sees that God alone has
become everything; He alone has become the
twenty-four cosmic principles. He finds that
everything, above and below, is filled with God.
Read the Gita, the Bhagavata, and the Vedanta,
and you will understand all this. Is not God in
His creation? 28
It is worthwhile to note that he cites the
Bhagavadgita, the Bhagavata, and Vedanta as
stating the same truth of God being ever-present
in creation. Sri Ramakrishna used to cite from
the Bhagavata, the crest-jewel text of the path of
devotion, the fourfold outward signs of a person
who has had the vision of God. One ‘behaves
sometimes like a child, sometimes like a ghoul,
sometimes like an inert thing, and sometimes like
a madman’ (451). Incidentally, Acharya Shan-
kara’s Vivekachudamani lists similar outward
signs of a knower of the Atman: ‘He wanders in
the world, sometimes like a madman, sometimes
like a child and at other times like a ghoul.’ 29
On the other hand, vijnana is not bhakti
alone. Sri Ramakrishna defined a vijnani as
having both ‘ripe knowledge and devotion.’30
One of his favourite scriptures was the Adhya­
tma Ramayana, from which he was very fond of
quoting and that he considered a fusion of jnana
and bhakti.
Some scholars have approached this issue
from a different perspective, distorting evidence
and putting forth flimsy arguments based on
75
 86
superficial understanding. N P Sil has miscon-
strued Swamiji’s apparent reservations about the
dissemination of the Radha-Krishna ideal as his
sharp divergence from his guru. Swamiji’s state-
ment in the concerned letter written to Swami
Ramakrishna­nanda and cited by Sil was in the
context of a particular devotee, Biligiri Iyengar,
a worshipper of Rama. The full citation is: ‘There
is not the least necessity for teaching the divine
Love of Radha and Krishna. Teach them pure
devotion to Sita-Ram and Hara-Parvati. See that
no mistake is made in this respect. Remember
that the episodes of the divine relationship be-
tween Radha and Krishna are quite unsuitable
76
for young minds. Specially Biligiri and other fol-
lowers of Ramanujacharya are worshippers of
Rama; so see to it that their innate attitude of
pure devotion is never disturbed.’ 31
Sil has erased the context of Rama worship
‘Untitled’, by S Nandagopal - brass
and of Biligiri Iyengar and in support of his ar-
gument has only cited: ‘Remember that the epi-
sodes of the divine relationship between Radha
and Krishna are quite unsuitable for young
minds’. Sil omitted Swamiji’s emphasis on pre-
serving a devotee’s innate devotion towards his
Ishta Devata, Chosen Ideal, and distorted his
qualifications about the difficulty of grasping
the meaning of the divine love of Radha and
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
Krishna. Sil quoted Swamiji out of context to
claim that he was preaching ‘against Radha-
Krishna worship—something that would have
sorely troubled his master.’ 32
Contrary to such assertions, the truth is that
it is generally believed one of young Narendra­
nath’s first vision of God with form was of
Sri Radha. Sri Ramakrishna mentioned that
Narendra­nath respected Radha: ‘He says that
if anyone wants to know how to love Satchid-
ananda, he can learn it from her.’ 33 His brother
disciples testify that Swamiji used to say: ‘Radha
was a froth in the Ocean of Love. She was not of
flesh and blood.’ 34 On the other hand, Swami
Brahmananda explained the reason behind
Swamiji’s reservations regarding a free preach-
ing of the Radha-Krishna ideal:
Swamiji has said, ‘A little awakening of the Kun-
dalini is dangerous.’ Unless the Kundalini rises
to the higher planes, lust, anger, and other low
passions become very powerful. That is why
the Vaishnava practices as a lover or friend are
dangerous. Constantly dwelling on the love-
relations between Shri Krishna and Shri Radha,
they cannot control their lust and are degraded.
I know of one who practised this way for a long
time, but afterwards married a bad woman.
One, therefore, should not in the beginning
study books on Shri Krishna’s love-relations
with the Gopis.35
Therefore, the distinction identified by
scholars between Sri Ramakrishna’s bhakti and
Swami Vivekananda’s jnana is superficial. Bhakti
and jnana are not mutually exclusive opposites.
How is it possible to love God without knowing
that God alone is real? Sri Ramakrishna pointed
this out: ‘How can you love someone unless you
know him? ’ 36 True bhakti is premised in jnana.
This stance has been repeatedly maintained, as
Swamiji stated: ‘Existence without knowledge
and love cannot be; knowledge without love and
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87
love without knowledge cannot be.’ 37 Swamiji
also said: ‘Real existence, real knowledge, and
real love are eternally connected with one an-
other, the three in one: where one of them is, the
others also must be; they are the three aspects
of the One without a second—the Existence-
Knowledge-Bliss’ (1.58).
Sri Ramakrishna trained his householder and
future monastic disciples according to his in-
nate temperament and stage of development.
That is the reason why his different teachings
appear contradictory at times. But the basis of
all his teachings was that God pervades his own
creation down to inert matter. As for Swamiji,
his lectures were mainly public but even therein
he gave broad options to everybody to choose
from, depending on their temperament and ap-
titudes, while keeping Advaita as the basis. In
his personal life Swamiji had a curious quality,
which had been observed by several people close
to him. One testimony is that of Josephine Mac­
Leod who notes in her reminiscences: ‘He had
a curious quality that when he was a bhakta, a
lover, he brushed aside karma and raja and jnana
yogas as if they were of no consequence whatever.
And when he was a karma-yogi, then he made
that the great theme. Or equally so, the jnana.
Sometimes, weeks, he would fall in one particu-
lar mood utterly disregardful of what he had
been, just previous to that.’ 38 One should note
that similar observations have been made about
Sri Ramakrishna as well. Swami Brahmananda
has noted: ‘When he talked about knowledge
[jnana], he did not talk about anything else.
Again, when he talked about devotion [bhakti],
he spoke of nothing but devotion.’ 39
We get a clue to the real meaning of such
changeable attitudes of mind in an observation
by Sister Nivedita. In reference to a certain in-
cident she said: ‘Swami is all against bhakti and
emotion now—determined to banish it, he says.
77
 88 Prabuddha Bharata

But how tremendous is that unity of mind and
heart, from which he starts. He can afford to
dispense with either—since both are fully de-
veloped.’ 40 Swamiji was the embodiment of the
perfect harmonious development of human per-
sonality, the perfect joining of the ‘hand, head
and heart’ on which he harped all the time.
Swami Saradananda recorded: ‘It was charac-
teristic of Naren that though jnana was so strong
in him and he was so manly in every respect,
still he was very gentle and full of devotion. Sri
Ramakrishna often remarked on this, and once
he said, looking at Naren’s face: “Could one who
is only a dry jnani have such eyes? You have,
along with jnana, all the tender feelings of the
devotee. You have the strength of a man and the
devotion of a woman.” ’ 41
(To be continued)
References
1. Walter G Neeval Jr, ‘The Transformation of Sri
Ramakrishna’ in Hinduism: New Essays in the
History of Religions, ed. Bardwell L Smith (Lei­
den: E J Brill, 1976), 76.
2. Amiya P Sen, Hindu Revivalism in Bengal 1872-
1905: Some Essays in Interpretation (Delhi: Ox­
ford University, 1993), 298.
3. Gwilym Beckerlegge, Swami Vivekananda’s Leg-
acy of Service (New Delhi: Oxford University,
2006), 6.
4. See Amiya P Sen, Explorations in Modern Bengal
c.1800-1900: Essays on Religion, History and Cul-
ture (Delhi: Primus, 2010), 104.
5. Hindu Revivalism in Bengal 1872-1905: Some Es-
says in Interpretation, 317.
6. Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Reli-
gions, 56.
7. Dushyanta Pandya, The Universal Mother
(Delhi: Roadworthy, 2008), 140.
8. Swami Chetanananda, Girish Chandra Ghosh: A
Bohemian Devotee of Sri Ramakrishna (Kolkata:
Advaita Ashrama, 2009), 27.
9. M, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami
Nikhilananda (Chennai: Ramakrishna Math,
2002), 559.
10. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,
9 vols (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989;
9, 1997) 3.40–1.
11. Gospel, 287.
12. Complete Works, 2.145–53.
13. Gospel, 562.
14. Complete Works, 2.167.
15. Gospel, 598–9.
16. Complete Works, 2.146.
17. Gospel, 418.
18. Freda Matchett, ‘The Teachings of Rama­
krishna in Relation to the Hindu Tradition and
as Interpreted by Vivekānanda, Religion, 11/2
(April 1981), 177.
19. Gospel, 308.
20. Swami Chetanananda, Ramakrishna As We Saw
Him (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2008), 210.
21. Gospel, 562.
22. ‘The Teachings of Ramakrishna in Relation
to the Hindu Tradition and as Interpreted by
Vivekānanda’, 178.
23. Complete Works, 3.37.
24. Gospel, 172–3, 196, 588.
25. Complete Works, 3.32.
26. Gospel, 133.
2 7. In the Company of the Holy Mother (Kolkata:
Advaita Ashrama, 2006), 51.
28. Gospel, 909–10.
29. Acharya Shankara, Vivekachudamani, trans.
Swami Madhavananda (Calcutta: Advaita
Ashrama, 1978), 540.
30. Gospel, 523.
31. Complete Works, 8.398.
32. Narasingha P Sil, ‘Vivekānanda’s Rāmakṛṣṇa:
An Untold Story of Mythmaking and Propa­
ganda’, Numen, 40/1 (January 1993), 38.
33. Gospel, 786.
34. Smritir Aloye Swamiji, ed. Swami Purnatma­
nanda (Kolkata: Udbodhan Karyalaya, 2001), 17.
35. Spiritual Talks by the First Disciples of Sri Rama-
krishna (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2008),
37–8.
36. Gospel, 718.
37. Complete Works, 2.143.
38. His Eastern and Western Admirers, Reminis-
cences of Swami Vivekananda (Kolkata: Advaita
Ashrama, 2004), 234.
39. Ramakrishna As We Saw Him, 77.
40. Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda, 289.
41. Ramakrishna As We Saw Him, 185.

78 PB January 2014
 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda:
Two Teachings or One?
Arpita Mitra
(Continued from the previous issue )
M
oving on to Sri Ramakrishna, let us
review the perspective held by most
scholars. Neeval writes: ‘While Sri
Ramakrishna was an intelligent person capable
of subtle speculation, his dialogues clearly re-
veal him to have been a mystic and bhakta who
disparaged the power of the intellect, denied
the possibility and necessity of rational under-
standing of the Divine, and held in small honor
those who were preoccupied with philosophical
and theological considerations.’ 42 This statement
is representative of the view that most scholars
hold about the Master. Let us now examine the
validity of such claims.
Sri Ramakrishna actually spoke of know-
ledge in three distinct senses: (i) Knowledge,
as in jnana; (ii) knowledge and reason as epis-
temological faculties, and (iii) knowledge and
reasoning, as in book-learning, argumentation,
discussion, debate, and talking.
The first concept encompasses several related
precepts: God exists, God alone is Real, and the
world of the senses is transitory—a reasoning that
is called ‘discernment’; ‘to know one’s own Self ’ 43
is knowledge; ‘to know many things is ajnana, ig-
norance, to know one thing is jnana, Knowledge’
(598–9); ‘God has become everything’ (105); ‘I
and mine’, that is, a sense of one who possesses it, is
ignorance, knowledge is to know that everything
belongs to the Lord; the sense of ‘I am the doer’
is ignorance, that ‘God is the real doer and I am
the instrument’ (98) is knowledge.
194
Master: ‘One cannot realize Truth by futile ar-
guments and reasoning.
Pratap: Shouldn’t we reason any more then?
Master: I am asking you not to indulge in
futile reasoning. But reason, by all means, about
the Real and the unreal, about what is perman-
ent and what is transitory. You must reason
when you are overcome by lust, anger, or grief.
Shashadhar: That is different. It is called rea-
soning based on discrimination.
Master: Yes, discrimination between the
Real and the unreal (496).
On another occasion a Brahmo devotee
asked: ‘How can one realize God?’ The Master
replied: ‘By directing your love to Him and con-
stantly reasoning that God alone is real and the
world illusory’ (220).
Thus, the assertion that Sri Ramakrishna’s
teachings were distinct from the path of jnana
is an ill-founded one. Bhakti without discerning
reasoning achieves little; without renunciation
and discernment all spiritual austerities lead to
naught, just as a container with holes does not
retain water.
All paths lead to the same Truth, and the two
paths of knowledge and love may even be joined:
‘The path of knowledge leads to Truth, as does
the path that combines knowledge and love. The
path of love, too, leads to this goal’ (104).
About his denial of ‘the possibility and ne-
cessity of rational understanding of the Di-
vine’, we come to the second sense in which Sri
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
Ramakrishna used words such as ‘knowledge’
and ‘reason’—in the sense of epistemological fac-
ulties. God is beyond knowledge and ignorance
in the sense in which we ordinarily understand
these terms (101, 102–3, 106), but Sri Rama-
krishna adds a caveat:
Sadhaka: Is it possible to see God?
Master: He is unknowable by the mind en-
grossed in worldliness. One cannot attain God
if one has even a trace of attachment to ‘woman
and gold’. But He is knowable by the pure mind
and the pure intelligence—the mind and intel-
ligence that have not the slightest trace of at-
tachment. Pure Mind, Pure Intelligence, Pure
Atman, are one and the same thing (524).
As long as a man analyses with the mind,
he cannot reach the Absolute. As long as you
reason with your mind, you have no way of get-
ting rid of the universe and the objects of the
senses—form, taste, smell, touch, and sound.
When reasoning stops, you attain the Know-
ledge of Brahman. Atman cannot be realized
through this mind; Atman is realized through
Atman alone. Pure Mind, Pure Buddhi, Pure
Atman—all these are one and the same (802).
I have observed that a man acquires one
kind of knowledge about God through reason-
ing and another kind through meditation; but
he acquires a third kind of Knowledge about
God when God reveals Himself to him, His
devotee (734).
Next, in the third sense of the term ‘reason-
ing’, Sri Ramakrishna did repeatedly disparage
reasoning, argumentation, discussion, futile de-
bate about spiritual matters, because spiritual-
ity is a matter of realization and practice—no
amount of book-learning can bring the know-
ledge of God, and no amount of dry discussion
without sadhana and first-hand experience can
have the final word about God. In this sense, he
used the term in opposition to sadhana and the
realization that sadhana leads to. And, in this
PB February 2014
37
sense, innumerable times did Swamiji too dispar-
age futile talking devoid of practice: ‘This is the
watchword of the Vedanta—realise religion, no
talking will do.’ 44
Without taking the complexity of the cat-
egories into account, one is likely to arrive at only
a partial understanding of Sri Ramakrishna’s at-
titude towards knowledge and reason at best, or
be left in utter confusion at worst.
To conclude this section, it may be reiter-
ated that the distinctions scholars tend to
make between jnana, bhakti, or karma are
really superficial. The following passage from
Swami Premananda’s reminiscences is particu-
larly incisive:
Each avatar represented a particular ideal. It
is not that other ideals were absent in them.
They were the embodiments of all ideals, but
they publicly gave expression to a particular
one, according to the need of the people of
their time. Chaitanya was an Incarnation of
divine love. He was love crystallized. So also
Shankara was the embodiment of knowledge,
and Buddha of renunciation. Krishna was the
embodiment of selfless work, and he synthe-
sized all religions and philosophies. He dem-
onstrated that karma, jnana, bhakti, and yoga
are all components of the great sadhana. To
prove this, he formed his life on the basis of
selfless action. Selfless action purifies the heart,
and in the pure heart comes renunciation.
Buddha came with this renunciation. He did
nothing for himself, not even for his own sal-
vation. Everything he did was for the good of
others, for suffering humanity. After renun-
ciation comes knowledge. Shankara brought
this knowledge. And after knowledge comes
love, so Chaitanya came to distribute this love
to all. People thought that all these paths were
contradictory. In this present age Sri Rama-
krishna removed all these contradictions and
brought a harmony of all paths of yoga and of
all religions.45
195
 38 Prabuddha Bharata
Is Karma Yoga a Direct and
Independent Means to Moksha?
There are many important issues that Ananta­
nand Rambachan raises in his article on
Swamiji’s karma yoga. However, for our present
purpose, we restrict ourselves to only the per-
tinent ones. Rambachan continuously empha-
sizes Swamiji’s insistence on the directness and
independence of each of the yogas as a path to
liberation or knowledge of the Self. On the basis
of such assertions, in later works, scholars like
Amiya Sen conclude Swamiji’s ‘view that karma
yoga could be entirely unrelated to the paths of
gyan or bhakti, [does not occur] in the teachings
of Sri Ramakrishna,’ 46 and is, therefore, a point
of divergence.
First of all, while on the one hand it is true
that Swamiji once claimed the directness and in-
dependence of each yoga; on the other, he often
asserted that none of the yogas could be really
looked upon as hermetically separate:
The grandest idea in the religion of the Vedanta
is that we may reach the same goal by different
paths; and these paths I have generalised into
four, viz. those of work, love, psychology, and
knowledge. But you must, at the same time,
remember that these divisions are not very
marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each
blends into the other. But according to the type
which prevails, we name the divisions. … These
divisions are made in accordance with the type
or the tendency that may be seen to prevail in a
man. We have found that, in the end, all these
four paths converge and become one. All reli-
gions and all methods of work and worship lead
us to one and the same goal.47
Secondly, there have been numerous other in-
stances where he has qualified that good or non-
attached actions lead to moksha indirectly, only
serving as a means for self-purification: ‘Bhakti
is indirectly helped by all good works. Good
196
thoughts and good works create less differen-
tiation than bad ones; so indirectly they lead to
freedom’ (7.38). Again, we can consider a passage
which Rambachan himself cites, but we extend
it a bit here: ‘Can Jiva-seva (service to beings)
alone give Mukti? Jiva-seva can give Mukti not
directly but indirectly, through the purification
of the mind. But if you wish to do a thing prop-
erly, you must, for the time being, think that that
is all-sufficient. The danger in any sect is want
of zeal. There must be constancy (Nishtha), or
there will be no growth. At present it has become
necessary to lay stress on Karma’ (5.325).
We shall come to the significance of the last
sentence later. For the time being it is clear that,
depending on the context, Swamiji highlights
the interconnectedness of all the yogas to em-
phasize the unity of the purpose. He also says
that rarely do qualities exist in unmixed forms—
lest one thinks that qualities like knowledge or
love are and can exist hermetically separate.
Furthermore, for him personally, the ideal was
always the development of a harmonious per-
sonality. At other times he emphasizes the inde-
pendence of each path in order to underscore the
need to practise each path rigorously instead of
dilly-dallying with several: ‘Our various Yogas do
not conflict with each other; each of them leads
us to the same goal and makes us perfect; only
each has to be strenuously practised’ (1.92). Sri
Ramakrishna himself emphasized the need to
follow rigorously whichever path one chooses.
Swamiji explains further: ‘No one method
can suit all. These different methods are not steps
necessary to be taken one after another. Ceremo-
nials are the lowest form; next God external, and
after that God internal. In some cases gradation
may be needed, but in many only one way is re-
quired. It would be the height of folly to say to
everyone, “You must pass through Karma and
Bhakti before you reach Jnana”’ (7.60).
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
Next, according to Rambachan, it was prob-
ably to emphasize the distinction between karma
yoga and bhakti yoga that Vivekananda insisted
that detachment is also possible for one who
does not accept a personal God.48 If we examine
this closely, we see that Swamiji was merely giv-
ing an option, as he gave the other option too:
Here are the two ways of giving up all attach-
ment. The one is for those who do not believe
in God, or in any outside help. They are left to
their own devices; they have simply to work
with their own will, with the powers of their
mind and discrimination, saying, ‘I must be
non-attached’. For those who believe in God
there is another way, which is much less diffi-
cult. They give up the fruits of work unto the
Lord; they work and are never attached to the
results. Whatever they see, feel, hear, or do, is
for Him.49
Swamiji actually maintains his preference
for God-centred acts of service, while not dis-
counting the value of compassion independent
of belief in God either. When asked, ‘What
should be our motive in work—compassion,
or any other motive?’ He responded, ‘Doing
good to others out of compassion is good, but
the Seva (service) of all beings in the spirit of
the Lord is better’ (5.325).
Regarding karma and jnana Rambachan
writes: ‘In order to further strengthen his claims
for karmayoga as a direct and independent path
to jnana, Vivekananda distinguishes it—one
supposes from jnanayoga—by describing it as
being free from all doctrines and dogma.’50 We
cannot be sure if in describing karma yoga thus,
Swamiji was guided by such intentions. Given
the general line of Swamiji’s thought and teach-
ings, what he must have meant by ‘doctrines and
dogmas’ here is what he usually meant by these
terms—rigid theories, even book-­learning, as
opposed to realization and practice. ‘Religion
PB February 2014
39
is not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellec-
tual argumentation, it is being and becoming,
it is realisation.’51 Or for instance: ‘This is one
great idea to learn and to hold on to, this idea
of realisation … religion is not in books and
temples. It is an actual perception. Only the
man who has actually perceived God and soul
has religion’ (2.163).
Karma and Its Functions
According to Rambachan, there is no ‘single dis-
cussion in the lectures and writings of Viveka-
nanda where one can turn to find a clear and
comprehensive statement of his understanding
of karmayoga. What exactly constitutes karma­
yoga is, therefore, not obvious and apparent. … As
we search for his central definition of karma­yoga,
the concept which emerges most often, there-
fore, is the idea of unselfish action.’52 However,
Swamiji did delineate what he meant by karma
yoga. He states it is that which makes a science of
work; ‘how best to utilise all the workings of this
world’ to our spiritual advantage, the ‘knowledge
of the secret of work’.53 It is ‘a system of ethics and
religion intended to attain freedom through un-
selfishness, and by good works’ (1.111). Now, what
is work, or karma? He defined that as well: ‘Any
work, any action, any thought that produces an
effect is called a Karma’ (1.94). He used the word
‘karma’ in three senses: (i) any activity like talk-
ing, listening, breathing, or walking (1.29) or any
work (1.27): ‘Every mental and physical blow that
is given to the soul, by which, as it were, fire is
struck from it, and by which its own power and
knowledge are discovered, is Karma, this word
being used in its widest sense’ (1.29); (ii) house-
holders’ duties (1.46); and (iii) rituals (1.72).
For Swamiji, karma had several functions:
(i) Work is inescapable, all of us are bound to
do at least a fixed quantum of work. So, we should
use work to our spiritual advantage (1.100).
197
 40 Prabuddha Bharata
(ii) Work is meant to exhaust the share of en-
joyment and suffering that we must experience
in this world before we are saturated and turn to
higher things (1.40; 2.171).
(iii) The world and working in this world are
meant for the training of the mind, it is a ‘moral
gymnasium’ to make us ‘stronger and stronger
spiritually’ (1.80), so that knowledge about the
real nature of the world can be acquired through
experience, which helps us in the path of attain-
ing knowledge of the Self (1.57, 98–9).
(iv) Through work, non-attachment and
198
selflessness can be cultivated thereby purifying
ramakrishna mission institute of culture
‘selfless serVice’, by ratan acharya - pencil on paper
the mind, selflessness and a pure mind being the
pre-condition for God-realization (1.76, 84–5).
Sri Ramakrishna used the word ‘karma’ exactly
in the three senses in which Swamiji used it:
(i) any activity, such as breathing, even prayer,
and meditation; (ii) householders’ duties; and
(iii) rituals. Sri Ramakrishna says: ‘All, without
exception, perform work. Even to chant the name
and glories of God is work, as is the meditation
of the non-dualist on “I am He”. Breathing is also
an activity. There is no way of renouncing work
PB February 2014
 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
all together. So do your work, but surrender the
result to God.’54 He also says: ‘Do your [worldly]
duty with one hand and with the other hold to
God. After the duty is over, you will hold to God
with both hands’ (138). ‘Karmayoga is very hard
indeed. In the Kaliyuga it is extremely difficult to
perform the rites enjoined in the scriptures’ (143).
Using the word in the first sense, the Mas-
ter says it is not possible to renounce activity al-
together, a person’s very nature will make one
work, therefore, one should try to work with non-
attachment to the result, thereby using work to
one’s spiritual advantage (452). When once Girish
Ghosh expressed the desire to give up work, the
Master said: ‘No, work is good. When the ground
is well-cultivated and cleared of stones and peb-
bles, whatever you plant will grow. But one should
work without any personal motive’ (679). Sri
Ramakrishna actually pointed out the import-
ance of karma even in spiritual life: ‘It is necessary
to do a certain amount of work. This is a kind of
discipline. But one must finish it speedily’ (209).
Once a devotee asked: ‘Sir, why has God put us in
the world?’ To which the Master replied:
The world is the field of action. Through action
one acquires knowledge. The guru instructs the
disciples to perform certain work and refrain
from others. Again, he advises the pupil to per-
form action without desiring the result. The
impurity of the mind is destroyed through the
performance of duty. It is like getting rid of a
disease by means of medicine, under the in-
struction of a competent physician.
Why doesn’t God free us from the world? Ah,
He will free us when the disease is cured. He will
liberate us from the world when we are through
with the enjoyment of ‘women and gold’ (185).
In another situation, Sri Ramakrishna said:
‘Nothing can be achieved except in its proper
time. Some persons must pass through many
experiences and perform many worldly duties
PB February 2014
41
before they can turn their attention to God. …
If an abscess is lanced before it is soft, the result
is not good; the surgeon makes the opening
when it is soft and has come to a head (162).
‘Most people don’t feel any longing for God un-
less they have once passed through the experi-
ence of wealth, name, fame, creature comforts,
and the like, that is to say, unless they have seen
through these enjoyments’ (216).
In this respect the similarities between the
teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swamiji are
too evident to be elaborated. Therefore, asser-
tions such as Sri Ramakrishna had a poor work
ethic or that his teachings represented a break
from the path of karma do not hold good. In
fact, the claims that Sri Ramakrishna’s teach-
ings symbolized withdrawal from jnana and
karma are nullified by a single statement of his:
‘Think of King Janaka. What courage he had,
indeed! He fenced with two swords, the one
of Knowledge and the other of work. He pos-
sessed the perfect Knowledge of Brahman and
also was devoted to the duties of the world’
(194). It is well known that the Master was fond
of referring often to King Janaka.
Sri Ramakrishna’s attitude towards work
has evidently been misunderstood by scholars.
Swami Premananda writes:
We sometimes find people wasting time by sit-
ting idle in the name of japam and meditation.
This is a sign of tamas [inertia]. The Master did
much work. We saw him working in the gar-
den, and he also swept his room. He could not
tolerate work done in a slipshod manner. He
himself did everything precisely and gracefully,
and he taught us to do the same. … He did all
these things, and yet how inward he was all the
time! … We heard him say many times, ‘Yoga is
skill in action.’55
Holy Mother had repeatedly highlighted the
benefits of work: ‘One should work all the time.
199
 42 Prabuddha Bharata
Work keeps fit both body and mind.’ 56 Once when
a woman devotee was lamenting that they hardly
got respite from worldly duties to give undivided
time to spiritual pursuits, the Holy Mother re-
marked: ‘At the same time, it is essential that one
should work. It is through work alone that one
may break asunder the bonds of karma, only then
one is free from desires. One shouldn’t be with-
out work even for a single moment’ (139). Would
scholars call this an upturning of the teachings of
the Master? It certainly was not. While knowing
that the goal of life is God-realization, one should
keep one’s mind steady on God and continue to
work for the time required. In the case of ordin-
ary persons, work prevents the mind from going
astray. It provides a much required discipline.
On another occasion a disciple presented two
contending opinions on the importance of work
in spiritual life to the Holy Mother and asked
for a clarifying resolution. One said that spir-
itual progress could be attained through work.
The other dismissed this opinion and held that
the only means of attaining God-realization was
meditation. While emphasizing the need of sim-
ultaneously engaging in prayer and meditation
along with work to develop a mind that can dis-
cern between right and wrong, the Holy Mother
said in support of the first argument: ‘You will
work as a matter of course. … The mind keeps
well, when engaged in work. And yet japa, medi-
tation, prayer also are specially needed … that
acts as a rudder to a boat.’57 To the second argu-
ment, which said that work is of no avail in spir-
itual life, she said: ‘How did they know, what
will be fruitful and what not?’ (Ibid.). Thereafter,
referring to the case of a particular individual she
said: ‘How many can make japa and meditate
for ever? At first one does something. And then
like N—one becomes puffed up. Next one loses
peace thinking of all worthless things like stones
and trees. It is much better to work, than to make
200
the mind lazy and let it loose. The mind creates
trouble whenever it is let loose. It is after noticing
all these that my Naren introduced works with-
out motive’ (360).
In the second sense in which the word ‘karma’
is used, we know that the Master says that worldly
duties should be performed by all means, but with
non-attachment and with the prayer that one day
they are lessened to the bare minimum so that
one gets more time to contemplate God. Worldly
duties also have the function of maintaining the
world. Firstly, Sri Ramakrishna reiterated that it is
the duty of one who earns, to earn through good
means and to spend on good purpose—upkeep
of family, but not on luxury, service of the poor
and the holy. Swamiji had also listed the duties of
the householder and underscored the possibility
of realizing one’s spiritual potential through the
performance of one’s immediate duties at hand,
illustrated in the examples of the devoted wife
and the vyadha, butcher, in his Karma Yoga. Sec-
ondly, for those who are earning through hon-
est means and living in a family devoted to God,
Sri Ramakrishna also points out the advantages
of calling on God from the position of a house-
holder, which is akin to fighting from a fort, as all
needs of sustenance are easily met.
Sri Ramakrishna’s advice to householders re-
garding what they should do varies according to
the person he addresses. For instance, he asked
Ishan to lessen his involvement in worldly duties
and devote more of his mind to God, because
he had already performed enough duties.58 On
the other hand, we find instances in the Katha­
mrita where he tells some householder devotees
that the fruits of their actions were not yet ad-
equately exhausted and that it was not yet time
for them to renounce, therefore they should con-
tinue with their duties while constantly remem-
bering God. There is a third kind of case, where
he exhorts devotees like Nilkantha to continue
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
with the work they are doing, because God has
ramakrishna Mission institute of culture
‘the c all’, by ashoke mullick - charcoal on paper
kept them in this world for some purpose, and
that he need not worry as his mind was already
turned towards God. ‘Your eyes fill with tears
when you utter the name of God. … Divine love
has grown in you’ (598).
Religion does not give abstract advice to any-
body; while keeping the fundamental principles
intact, a course of action is suggested for each,
taking his or her stage of spiritual development
and potential into account. As Swamiji says:
‘Every man should take up his own ideal and
endeavour to accomplish it. That is a surer way
of progress than taking up other men’s ideals,
which he can never hope to accomplish.’59
And as Swami Ramakrishnananda observed:
43
‘Religion as Sri Ramakrishna taught it was never
vague or dismal. It went to the man where he
was and lifted him up. It was not like an eagle,
which soars high in the air and calls to the tor-
toise, “Come up here.” Can the tortoise ever
hope to rise so high? … So Sri Ramakrishna in
his teaching came down and carried the man up
by degrees.’ 60 The real meaning of the Master’s
teachings gets veritably distorted when one con-
siders them detached from their context.
The Three Gunas
According to Rambachan, without any devel-
opment of argument, Swamiji claims that karma
yoga has to do with the understanding of the
three gunas, qualities, and their employment for
 44 Prabuddha Bharata
success in activity. However, in his Karma Yoga
and elsewhere, Swamiji does develop his argu-
ment about the three gunas quite extensively;
this theory is not superfluous in karma yoga, it
is in fact very central to it.
Work is a training to awaken, develop, and
manifest the potential power lying within. ‘You
must remember that all work is simply to bring
out the power of the mind which is already there,
to wake up the soul. The power is inside every
man, so is knowledge; the different works are
like blows to bring them out, to cause these gi-
ants to wake up.’ 61
Secondly, work is meant to facilitate a step-
by-step process from inactivity, to activity, to
calmness; from bad to good and even beyond.
Before reaching this highest ideal [of non-­
resistance], man’s duty is to resist evil; let him
work, let him fight, let him strike straight from
the shoulder [rajasic]. Then only, when he has
gained the power to resist, will non-resistance
be a virtue. … Inactivity should be avoided by
all means. Activity always means resistance. Re-
sist all evils, mental and physical; and when you
have succeeded in resisting, then will calmness
come (1.39–40).
One man does not resist because he is
weak, lazy, and cannot, not because he will not
[tamasic]; the other man knows that he can strike
an irresistible blow if he likes; yet he not only
does not strike, but blesses his enemies [sattvic].
The one who from weakness resists not commits
a sin, and as such cannot receive any benefit from
the non-resistance; while the other would com-
mit a sin by offering resistance (1.38–9).
Swamiji also states: ‘In order to be free we
have to pass through vice to virtue, and then get
rid of both. Tamas is to be conquered by Rajas,
both are to be submerged in Sattva; then go be-
yond the three qualities’ (7.46). ‘Sattva binds
through the search for happiness and knowledge,
Rajas binds through desire, Tamas binds through
202
wrong perception and laziness. Conquer the two
lower by Sattva, and then give up all to the Lord
and be free’ (7.81).
The principle is that one would graduate from
tamas to rajas to sattva and thereafter move be-
yond the three gunas. The destination beyond the
realm of these three—where God is—is reached
through sattva and one cannot jump from tamas
to sattva. It was especially true in the context of
India, where the vast majority of the masses were
immersed in tamas. This tamas often disguised
itself as sattva, that is, indolence, inactivity, and
weakness masquerading as goodness, and Swamiji
was poignantly aware of it. A weak and inactive
mind cannot perceive God. Without first de-
veloping internal strength and self-reliance, any
mass spiritual development is difficult in a coun-
try, where ignorance, weakness, poverty, hunger,
and illness are rampant. The only way to raise the
masses from tamas to sattva is via rajas, activity,
which would bring out the power within. This is
the meaning of the statement we encountered a
little while ago: ‘At present it has become neces-
sary to lay stress on Karma’. But the ultimate goal
is spiritual realization, these are merely necessary
steps to the goal.
Sen is evidently wrong in claiming that Swamiji
‘held Rajas (work and valour) to be by no means
inferior to Sattva (piety and religious virtue)—a
theory that contradicts the traditional ordering
of human qualities, endorsed in Ramakrishna.
By putting action at least on the same footing
as ascetic contemplation, Vivekananda seems to
have not only departed from the negative work
ethic of his Master but also implicitly suggested
a fresh look at traditional (Hindu) value sys-
tems.’ 62 Firstly, what ‘traditional (Hindu) value
systems’ actually were calls for a separate study,
but it can be briefly stated here that an under-
standing of it has been substantially distorted
through the lens of colonial historiography,
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
which apart from having an agenda of domin-
ation, also approached a study of India with its
own epistemological opposition between active
versus contemplative lives. Secondly, as is clearly
evident from the above citations, Swamiji did not
hold rajas to be on a par with sattva. Swamiji’s ex-
hortation to his young disciple to follow the path
of action—which Sen cites as evidence to support
his argument—is not tantamount to a valoriza-
tion of rajas. If it were so, then the Bhagavadgita
should be the most rajasic text in the world! He
only considered it to be a necessary step to the
attainment of sattva from the even lower state of
tamas. In itself, rajas had no value for him, unless
it helped to attain the higher state of sattva. Here,
he is very much in keeping with both his guru and
traditional Hindu thought.
(To be concluded)
References
42. ‘The Transformation of Sri Ramakrishna’, 54.
43. Gospel, 98 and 204.
(Continued from page 186)
Considering the present sociocultural and pol-
itical situation, both nationally and globally, the
question arises: Can we really have an ideal so-
ciety as dreamt by Vivekananda? When we ob-
serve such a wide gap between the have and the
have-nots, developed and developing nations,
it becomes difficult to visualize an ideal society.
Modern technology has put dreadful weapons of
destruction at the disposal of those who have no
moral or universal outlook. The spending of tril-
lions for military purposes is awful while billions
of people are left without food, shelter, sanita-
tion, health, and access to education and modern
technology. Everything is organized instrumen-
tally for the satisfaction of some undefined, in-
tangible need of personal ‘security’ and individual
PB February 2014
45
44. Complete Works, 2.165.
45. Ramakrishna as We Saw Him, 109–10.
46. Explorations in Modern Bengal c.1800-1900, 105.
47. Complete Works, 1.108.
48. See Anantanand Rambachan, The Limits of
Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinterpretation of the
Vedas (Delhi: Sri Satguru, 1995), 68.
49. Complete Works, 1.102.
50. The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinter-
pretation of the Vedas, 69.
51. Complete Works, 2.43.
52. The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinter-
pretation of the Vedas, 66.
53. Complete Works, 1.99.
54. Gospel, 113–4.
55. Ramakrishna as We Saw Him, 110–11.
56. In the Company of the Holy Mother, 127.
57. Her Direct Disciples, At Holy Mother’s Feet:
Teachings of Shri Sarada Devi (Calcutta: Advaita
Ashrama, 1963), 358.
58. See Gospel, 613.
59. Complete Works, 1.41.
60. Ramakrishna as We Saw Him, 153.
61. Complete Works, 1.31.
62. Hindu Revivalism in Bengal 1872–1905: Some Es-
says in Interpretation, 319–20.
fulfilment. Despite all these challenges, we should
not lose faith; the world has also gone through
greater crises in the past. These present problems
are one of the many stages of humankind’s jour-
ney. We are not here to sit still but to move on.
That has been the wonderful capacity and his-
tory of humankind. The innate Divinity will not
rest, calling on us till we reach the divine voice.
Today that voice of Divinity has been embodied
as Swami Vivekananda to encourage and inspire
us all to reach our real universal nature. P
References
1. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,
9 vols (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989;
9, 1997), 1.423.
203
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda:
Two Teachings or One?
Arpita Mitra
(Continued from the previous issue )
Sri Ramakrishna on
Duty and Philanthropy
S
ri Ramakrishna’s stance on phil­
anthropy also differed according to the
context and the case in question. We have
different cases as examples. He evaluated Vidya­
sagar as having genuine sattvic compassion, but
not being aware that God lies hidden within
his heart. He very much appreciated Vidya­
sagar’s endeavours, while only making some
qualifications. In the case of Shambhu Mallick,
whose fiery devotion he now and then praised,
Sri Ramakrishna felt that after having engaged
so much in work, he should now turn towards
God. The emphasis of Sri Ramakrishna’s ad­
vice to him is quite clear in relevant conversa­
tions.63 There was the third case of Krishnadas
Pal, whom the Master found to be of a totally
rajasic temperament and having no real inner
substance. Krishnadas Pal’s statement that a
person’s duty was to do good to the world was
countered by Sri Ramakrishna: ‘Is the world
such a small thing that you think you can help
it?’ (605). Sri Ramakrishna did the same in the
case of the Brahmo devotee, albeit with more
compassionate consideration and elaborate ex­
position of the whole matter (142).
On the other hand, there is the instance of
the ascetic Gauri­ma, whom he prepares for a
life of service. The Master opined that Gauri­
ma had performed sufficient spiritual austerities
and acquired great spiritual power, and now this
PB March 2014
power had to be put to the use of the uplift of
Indian women whose condition was very poor
and painful.64 Sri Ramakrishna maintained re­
peatedly that some do good to the world even
after attaining God, as they do it under God’s
command, and that God brings some perfected
souls to this earth for the welfare of humankind.
The Master, in fact, positively acknow­
ledged the importance of philanthropy: firstly,
as a value—compassion; secondly, as an obliga­
tion—to spend money on service; and thirdly, as
a means of reaching God. Once, while discussing
the plight of the people affected in the Damodar
flood, the Holy Mother asked one of her lay dis­
ciples to do good to the world.65
What is generally projected as Sri Rama­
krishna’s low opinion of philanthropy is a dis­
tortion of the real picture. Statements like ‘He
thought Pandit Ishvar Candra Vidyasagar … was
merely wasting time in trying to reform society’66
presents in a distorted light, what actually tran­
spired in a distorted light with the projection of
the mind of the scholar in question. The episode,
as recorded in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, is:
(To Vidyasagar): The activities that you are
engaged in are good. It is very good if you can
perform them in a selfless spirit, renouncing
egotism, giving up the idea that you are the
doer. Through such action one develops love
and devotion to God, and ultimately realizes
251
 46 Prabuddha Bharata
Him. … By these philanthropic activities you
are really doing good to yourself. If you can
do them disinterestedly, your mind will be­
come pure and you will develop love of God.
As soon as you have that love you will realize
Him. Man cannot really help the world. God
alone does that. … The man who works for
others, without any selfish motive, really does
good to himself.67
Again: ‘The activities that Vidyasagar is en­
gaged in are good. Charity is very noble’ (267).
Such statements demonstrate the positive light
in which Sri Ramakrishna appreciated Vidya­
sagar’s efforts—far from thinking that he ‘was
merely wasting time’.
Among the glories of true knowledge, like
love of God and renunciation, Sri Ramakrishna
also counted compassion. Apart from being
a quality of great value in itself, for both Sri
Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, there
is an affirmative spiritual function of compas­
sion as well. Work done for others in a spirit
of total selflessness and non-attachment to the
fruits, without any idea of being a doer, puri­
fies the mind. Love for God naturally grows in
a pure mind, and when such love has grown,
one is not far from attaining God. Sri Rama­
krishna stated:
Through selfless work, love of God grows in
the heart. Then through His grace, one realizes
Him in course of time. God can be seen. One
can talk to him as I am talking to you (109).
Remember that daya, compassion, and
maya, attachment, are two different things.
Attachment means the feeling of ‘my-ness’ to­
wards one’s relatives. … Compassion is the love
one feels for all beings of the world. It is an at­
titude of equality. If you see anywhere an in­
stance of compassion as in Vidyasagar, know
that it is due to the grace of God. Through com­
passion one serves all beings. Maya also comes
from God. Through maya God makes one serve
252
one’s relatives. … Maya keeps us in ignorance
and entangles us in the world, whereas daya
makes our hearts pure and gradually unties our
bonds. God cannot be realized without purity
of heart (161).
Your [Vidyasagar’s] activities are inspired
by sattva. Though they are rajasic, they are in­
fluenced by sattva. Compassion springs from
sattva. Though work for the good of others be­
longs to rajas, yet this rajas has sattva for its basis
and is not harmful. Suka and other sages cher­
ished compassion in their minds to give people
religious instruction, to teach them about God.
You are distributing food and learning. That is
good too. If these activities are done in a selfless
spirit they lead to God. But most people work
for fame or to acquire merit. Their activities are
not selfless (101).
Thus the Master lays the dynamics of work,
the three gunas, and God-­realization. Is it still
possible to argue that he was against philan­
thropy? He points out that the three gunas are
three robbers that hinder final liberation (218–
9), but he repeatedly mentions that God cannot
be realized without the development of sattva,
and that sattva begets bhakti (250). The path
to the Infinite necessarily goes by way of sat-
tva. Therefore, Swamiji only echoes the Master
when he says that evil has to be first counter­
acted by good, and then one has to move be­
yond both.
Following the theories of Mortimer Ostow,
who considers mysticism ‘a result of the same
psychic mechanism as psychosis’ and believes
that ‘a psychotic individual finds his intra­
psychic, personal, or social reality unaccept­
able’, Sil concludes that this ‘explains, at least
partly, why Ramakrishna’s teachings were so
antisocial or at least asocial and the man so de­
void of social conscience or consciousness.’ 68
What makes Sil think that Sri Ramakrishna
was ‘antisocial’ or ‘asocial’ and bereft of social
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 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
conscience is not clear. We know that he ex­
horted Keshab­chandra Sen and other house­
holder devotees with families not to abandon
their dependant wives and children: ‘If you dis­
appear altogether in the river of bhakti, then
what will be the fate of those behind the screen
[family]? ’ 69 Numerous times did he speak of
the necessity of householder devotees to spend
money judiciously, not for enjoyment but for
the upkeep of their families and for the ser­
vice of holy men, the poor, and the destitute.
Sri Ramakrishna had spoken both on duties
towards the family as well as on those towards
society.
He had spoken of the householder’s debts to
the gods, ancestors, rishis, parents (424), and to
wife and children (156). He was even irritated
with a certain Ramprasanna for being busy pro­
curing opium and milk for a hatha yogi while his
aged mother did not have enough to eat and had
to walk to the market to buy groceries (425). He
once recounted: ‘Hazra doesn’t inquire about
his family. His son said to Ramlal: “Please ask
father to come home. We shall not ask any­
thing of him.” … Hazra’s mother said to Ram­
lal: “Please ask Pratap to come home just once”’
(573). After giving the examples of Sri Chaitanya
and the rishi Narada, he gave his own example,
where he had almost made up his mind to settle
in Vrindavan, but came back to Calcutta forth­
with when he was reminded of his aged mother.
He had said to himself: ‘My devotion to God
will take to its wings if I have to worry about my
mother. I would rather live with her. Then I shall
have peace of mind and be able to meditate on
God’ (574).
His were no hollow didactic injunctions. A
model character to emulate, Sri Ramakrishna
performed these in his own life, be it in his
duty towards his mother or towards his wife.
Apart from his devotion to his mother and his
PB March 2014
47
extremely caring behaviour towards his wife,
he even looked after the latter’s material wants.
In spite of the fact that he hardly knew how
to look after himself, could not even touch
money, and on different occasions had refused
monetary assistance from people, before giv­
ing up the mortal body he had provided for
the upkeep of his wife by assigning a monthly
allowance that she was to receive on his passing
away.70 His life is an object-lesson for human­
kind to follow.
A lesser-known incident may also be re­
counted here. During the last days of the Master
at Cossipore, at the time of the chariot festi­
val of Jagannath in 1886, Swami Ramakrishna­
nanda, who was attending to the Master, was
not willing to leave him alone, but the latter in­
sisted that he go to the festival. The swami came
back with a small paring knife to cut lemons
for the Master, which he purchased for only
two pice. The Master was very happy to see that
he had bought something from there without
being asked. He said: ‘You should not fail to
visit such festivals and make some purchase,
however small. Poor people prepare so many
things on these special occasions and bring
them to the fair for sale with the hope of earn­
ing something.’ 71
In support of his argument, Sil continues
that Sri Ramakrishna ‘did not approve of work­
ing for a living’ and cites the instance of how
aggrieved he was to hear the news of Nitya
Niranjan Ghosh [later Swami Niranjanananda]
taking up an employment.72 The link between
his alleged ‘antisocial’-ness or ‘asocial’-ness and
his disapproval of working in this particular
case is, once again, not logically established.
Firstly, it is not as a general principle that Sri
Ramakrishna did not approve of working for a
living. For those who had families to look after,
he also praised the advantages of having money,
253
48 Prabuddha Bharata
provided it was put to proper use. He, in fact,
held it a prime duty to ensure the upkeep of
dependants. In the specific case cited above he
said that it was Niranjan’s duty to fend for his
old mother. But the reason for his reservation
in this case was that he had noticed this em­
ployment to have a negative impact on Niran­
jan’s otherwise pure and stainless character. The
Master had specifically selected young God­
oriented minds for a future life of renunciation
and was preparing them for it.
Lastly, Beckerlegge has pointed out that
owing to intense spiritual sadhana, Sri Rama­
krishna’s own body was not in a state to engage
in systematic acts of service. Therefore, he ‘de­
pended more upon opportunities for service to
humanity presenting themselves to him than
upon actively seeking out such opportunities
as a priority for spiritual growth.’ 73 But Swami
Premananda notes:
Sri Ramakrishna was the embodiment of com­
passion. There was no limit to his mercy. Once
he went on a pilgrimage … seeing the poverty
and distress of the people [at Deoghar] the
Master told Mathur: ‘Feed and clothe these
people well or else my pilgrimage ends here.’
In spite of being criticized, the Master helped
people. When he was suffering from the excru­
ciating pain of cancer, every day
he would wait for seekers of God
to come. Sometimes he would
look out at the street and say:
‘What has happened? Nobody
has come today.’ 74
Spiritual service is also ser­
vice; nay, it is service of the high­
est order.
Disciples and devotees have
noted that Sri Ramakrishna was
deeply moved at the sight of
‘in the pursuit of truth’, by pAMpA pAnwAr - Acrylic on pAper
poverty and destitution and that
he at times even lamented that
given the condition of his own
body, he could not do enough
for the alleviation of human suf­ rAMAkrishnA Mission institute of culture
fering. One should keep in mind
that Sri Ramakrishna’s case can­
not be compared with anybody
else’s. In his situation these acts
sprang from God­realization
and were not a mere means of
spiritual growth. He was verit­
ably Swamiji’s ‘highest man’, one
who is beyond all bondage. In
the words of the Holy Mother,
PB March 2014
 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?
he was the embodied form of shuddha-sattva,
pure sattva, and as such systematic worldly ac­
tivity would be markedly less in such manifest­
ations. One day, while revealing his identity to
his close devotees, Sri Ramakrishna said refer­
ring to himself: ‘It is the fullest manifestation of
Satchidananda; but this time the Divine Power
is manifested through the glory of sattva.’ 75
In one of his lectures Swamiji mentions the
following:
The highest men … leave their ideas to the
world; they put forth no claims for them­
selves and establish no schools or systems in
their name. Their whole nature shrinks from
such a thing. They are the pure Sattvikas, who
can never make any stir, but only melt down
in love. … The highest men cannot work for
in them there is no attachment. Those whose
whole soul is gone into the Self, those whose
desires are confined in the Self, who have be­
come ever associated with the Self, for them
there is no work. Such are indeed the highest
of mankind; but apart from them every one
else has to work.76
Conclusion
It may be concluded that often the teachings of
the Master and his foremost disciple are com­
pared by (i) taking words and terms—­vijnana,
Brahman, Shakti for example—and the ab­
sence of these as the guiding factor, instead of
an analysis of concepts and ideas behind these
terms; (ii) pitting several concepts as mutually
exclusive opposites—jnana and bhakti, Advaita
and vijnana; (iii) conflating and equating con­
cepts—Advaita Vedanta and jnana-marga;
(iv) overlooking the complexity of different
meanings in which the same word is used in
different contexts—vichara, discernment, and
karma; (v) not taking into account the immedi­
ate context of enunciation of the teachings—the
addressee in the case of Sri Ramakrishna—and
PB March 2014
49
the overall corpus of teachings, especially in the
case of Swamiji, in whom an explication or a
resolution of an apparent contradiction may lie
in a different lecture.
Swami Vivekananda is actually Sri Rama­
krishna all over, only put in a different lan­
guage. The latter had already declared that
among all his disciples ‘Naren would be the
one who would understand him most fully’.77
This paper tried to demonstrate that one misses
the way if one tries to analyse Sri Ramakrishna
and Swami Vivekananda through preconceived
categories, instead of examining their teach­
ings on their own terms, in their totality, and in
their context. Their teachings symbolize broad
liberality of mind—the mother prepares dif­
ferent dishes of the same fish to suit the stom­
ach of her different children. Therefore, both
Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda gave
broad options to humanity, keeping in mind
the specificity of the modern age. This liberality
is not a superimposition, nor does it comprom­
ise with the foundational principle that God
has verily become everything. We may enjoy
God according to our individual aptitudes of
mind, but not by losing sight of this basic prin­
ciple or trying to reduce the Infinite to only
one finite form.
Arguments like ‘Sri Ramakrishna preached
a kind of withdrawal from karma and jnana’,78
that he had ‘a negative work ethic’, that he had
a low opinion of philanthropy and was ‘antiso­
cial’ or ‘asocial’; that Swamiji had a ‘philosoph­
ical slant towards gyan yoga’,79 that he put jnana
over bhakti and was closer to Acharya Shankara
than to his Master,80 or that Swamiji ‘achieved a
tour-de-force which apparently inverted much
of his master’s teaching’,81 do not hold good in
the light of the complexity of the reality that
this paper has tried to present. P
(References on page 259)
255
 Eternal Words
developed a little faith. If you go to such persons
thinking them to be good religious people, they
will give such sermons as to cause doubts to rise.
See the danger! Those who are genuine will never
do such things. Rather, they will say such words
to you that will make your faith stronger.
It is wrong to suddenly think someone is
guilty, because he or she may not be guilty at all.
If one is innocent, it will come as a relief. If one is
not, there is no help. If you cause an innocent per­
son to suffer, you yourself will have to suffer. Until
you get specific proof, you should not doubt any­
one. Suspicion is very bad as it brings separation.
That is why I say that you should first see where
the fault exists, then find out the culprit.
You people think, ‘Let people see me.’ After
developing a small amount of devotion, you
instantly think, ‘Let people watch me.’ What
will they find in you? Have you become Swami
Vivekananda? Do you possess that fathomless
devotion and endless knowledge that others
should look at you? After practising only a lit­
tle devotion and meditation your ego puffs up.
Holy Company
If one remains always in the company of the
holy, desires disappear and one’s mind becomes
pure. Reading holy texts and associating with
holy people are the same. They bring the same
result if one has the power to understand. For
one lacking the power to understand, whether
one associates with the holy or reads holy texts,
nothing at all happens. But the association of the
holy will never go in vain; in time it will surely
yield good results. Why can’t he understand? It
is because he lacks celibacy. He utterly lacks self-
restraint; how could he understand? Celibacy is
required. The power of perception does not de­
velop in one who lacks celibacy and self-control.
There are many benefits of holy company.
By associating with the holy, one’s mind gets
PB March 2014
53
uplifted, one can understand God and one’s spir­
itual work becomes easy. Because Yudhisthira
obtained holy company, he attained victory in
this world and the next.
(To be continued)
(Continued from page 255)
References
3. See Gospel, 142–3, 453.
6
64. See Swami Chetanananda, They Lived with God
(Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2006), 182.
65. See Sri Sri Mayer Katha (Kolkata: Udbodhan,
2009), 82.
66. Narasingha P Sil, Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramhaṁsa: A
Psychological Profile (Leiden: E J Brill, 1991), 19.
67. Gospel, 108.
68. Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramhaṁsa: A Psychological Pro-
file, 19.
69. Gospel, 561.
70. See Sri Sri Mayer Padaprante, ed. Swami
Purnatma­nanda, 4 vols (Kolkata: Udbodhan,
2010), 4.891–2.
71. Swami Chetanananda, God Lived with Them
(Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2006), 272.
72. See Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramhaṁsa: A Psychological
Profile, 19.
73. Gwilym Beckerlegge, Swami Vivekananda’s Leg-
acy of Service: A Study of the Ramakrishna Math
and Mission (New Delhi: Oxford, 2006), 93.
74. Ramakrishna as We Saw Him, 110.
75. Gospel, 720.
76. Complete Works, 1.105–6.
77. Ramakrishna as We Saw Him, 150.
78. Partha Chatterjee, ‘A Religion of Urban Domes-
ticity: Sri Ramakrishna and the Calcutta Mid-
dle Class’, in Issues in Modern Indian History:
For Sumit Sarkar, ed. Biswamoy Pati (Mumbai:
Popular Prakashan, 2000), 111.
79. Explorations in Modern Bengal c.1800­–1900: Es-
says on Religion, History and Culture, 105.
80. See Freda Matchett, ‘The Teachings of Rāma­
krishna in Relation to the Hindu Tradition and
as Interpreted by Vivekānanda’, Religion, 11/2
(April 1981), 177.
81. Sumit Sarkar, An Exploration of the Rama-
krishna Vivekananda Tradition (Simla: Indian
Institute of Advanced Study, 1993), 10.
259