Is Sri Ramakrishna an Avatar?

The first thing about the argument is what his contemporaries and later spiritual leaders have felt about him. Bhairavi Brahmani, his own Guru who taught him the Tantric Sadhana, was perhaps the first to recognise a special manifestation of Lord’s power in him and she declared it in the assembly of learned Pundits and asked any of them to counter it… Then his Advaitha Guru Sri Totapuri also discovered that Lord dwells in the body of Sri Ramakrishna.

Sri Ramakrishna’s parents had a dream in which Lord Vishnu appeared and said that he will be born as their son. These are all facts which form a very strong support base. (For the Dashavatara theory and that Sri Ramakrishna’s name is not there, it can be simply dismissed on the grounds that God needn’t act according to a fixed theory. He’s free and that his ways are endless.)

Everybody knew that Sri Ramakrishna went into spiritual ecstasy and entered into Samadhi just as he wished. There certainly have been many great saints in India who have entered into Samadhi and have attained individual salvation. Samadhi was not everything about Sri Ramakrishna.

There was a purpose behind his advent which we will look into shortly…In the meantime we find Swami Vivekananda, who was a rebel against anything unreasonable, and anything that’s misleading, testing Sri Ramakrishna very rigorously…It can safely be said that after his traveling through the entire country and after his triumphant visit to the West, the great Swami, by then had realised the significance and importance of his Guru’s advent. There was open before him the world mission, a mission that dare was never attempted before in the history of mankind in the spiritual realm.

That mission was before him and that all important message that Man’s destiny is towards God. Sri Ramakrishna’s greatest contribution was that he realised that in essence, all religions can lead to God… His emphatic acceptance of all religions based on realisation is in itself a new inspiration for the world under which the whole of humanity can live together in peace and harmony.

Swami Vivekananda said something very remarkable to that effect, “All that I am, all that the world itself will someday be, is owing to my Master, Shri Ramakrishna, who incarnated and experienced and taught this wonderful unity which underlies everything, having discovered it alike in Hinduism, in Islam, and in Christianity…”

What do you expect of an Avatara? To kill a demon like Hiranyakashipu or Ravana? Or to preach Bhagavadgita in the war field? They both had their necessities and both have contributed for the betterment of the world. On similar grounds it looks perfectly logical to argue that for the current times, Sri Ramakrishna has contributed enough to be accepted as an Avatar. I won’t hesitate to say that we are still witnessing only a part of his greatness and soon I’m sure it will change the very complexion of this world.

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