When They Came - 4

Ramakrishna was born in a poor Brahmin family, he was devoid of formal knowledge and education but he was not "illeterate" as some of the contemporary studies would like to believe. He got to know of scriptures from various sources like enlightened discussions, but what would be the need of a formal education for a person who is born illuminated. Just as it says in Gita that for a "Brahmavid or the knower of the Brahman, the knowledge of the vedas is as limited as compared to a small water tank in an area which is flooded with water". He did not need to know the scriptures, he was born to teach them from his own direct experience, of arriving at the same truth by following various disparate paths. He was a personification of the Upanishad's profound statement - "There is but one truth, the wise call it by various names". He, using simple colloquial Bengali language, similies and metaphores, clarified effortlessly the most profound and most difficult to understand statements, in such lucid styles that even great scholars accepted them and common men understood them. It is said that in a gatherining of eminent scholars, his first Guru, the Brahmani or the wise lady proved that he was a divine incarnation as per the Shastras, and everybody accepted that. However this space is not intended for propagating his greatness, it is too small a space for doing so. This is just to analyze the purpose of his coming.
To understand a tree we need to look at its fruits. Similarly to understand Ramakrishna we need to look at his disciples, each of them were spiritual giants, most of them were men of merits and great talents, like M, the author of his gospels, who was a brilliant student and a professor. However we just need to take a peep at two, very different persons - one of them of course is Vivekananda, a man of unparallel greatness, the other being a householder disciple Durga Charan Nag or Nag Mahasaya, a man of absolute humility. Girish Chandra Ghosh, the famous Bengali poet and an ardent disciple wrote that Mahamaya, the great force of nature which binds human beings to worldly life, could not bind two despite her best attempts - one was Vivekananda, who became so great that he was far beyond her reach, and the other was Nag Mahasaya, who became so small that he easily evaded her, by completely getting rid of his ego and by dedicating himself to the service of  god.
What did Ramakrishna's advent achieve? I would go to the extent of saying that it achieved a complete rejuvenation and transformation of India. Look at the array of luminaries who came along with him or after him, esp. in Bengal - Rabindranath Tagore, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Dinabandhu Mitra, Surendranath Bannerjee, Keshab Chandra Sen, Dr. Mahendralal Sarakar, Girish Chandra Ghosh, Jagadish Chandra Bose and many others who were all directly and indirectly influenced by him. Keshab Chandra Sen, it is said, worshipped him. Spirit of Nationalism revived, art, literature and culture flourished, scientific knowledge gained prominence, education thrived and more and more women came out of their cocoons to get educated and transformed. Vivekananda played a pivotal role in the rise of nationalistic spirit, even though it is not widely acknowledged - most of the young revolutionaries from Bengal were directly influenced by his words and writings, some of them being handpicked by Vivekananda's foremost disciple, Sister Nivedita. The most prominent of the revolutionaries was Aurobindo Ghosh (later Sri Aurobindo). Subhash Chandra Bose was an ardent follower of Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda and his brother disciples started the spirit of selfless work for the betterment of others in the field of health and education, poverty alliviation etc. which impacted a very large section of the society. And this time the divine incarnation had come with a divine consort, the holy mother, specifically bearing in mind the plight of Indian women, for their salvation, through modern education. Through some efforts of Nivedita, through active encouragement of the holy mother (even though she herself was not literate) and other women disciples of Ramakrishna, several prominent institutions came up for the general Indian women. Even though Brahma samaj and missioneries had already started some work in this front and Vidyasagar's social reforms were reaping great dividends, a major push was needed for the welfare of the common women, and that came during this period. The other was Ramakrishna's work to protect Dharma from falling prey to viscious attacks from foreign traditions and customs on the one hand and to unite the various strife ridden sects - a massive counter attack against Macaulay and British divide and rule, which swept away all endeavors to "Anglicize" India.
There is very little attempt of knowing and understanding swami Vivekananda and his contribution to India, in an era of false gods and godesses, even far less attempt has been made to know his Guru and his influence and teachings. But one thing is acknowledged by even his detractors - the message of universal love and harmony that was taught by Ramakrishna is unparallel in the history of mankind. He had taught us that the concept of "tolerance" preached by Western civil societies is a joke, because human civilization should be based upon love of god and "respect", not "tolerance", because goal of human life is to realize god and everybody is trying to do the same thing in their own way, according to their own culture and upbringing. Just as a mother cooks different preparations of fish to suit the tastes and preferences of her different children - fry for one, curry for another and soup for another, so also the universal mother has provided different ways and means of satisfying everybody's tastes and preferences. So the claims of "my religion is greater than yours" is laughable, but one should follow one's own tastes. However difference between Indian and Semitic religions is while Indian religions have known this since time immemorial and it took Sri Ramakrishna to assert the truth through his own practical experience, semitic religions have always believed that their faiths are inherently superior to others and therefore considered their sacred duty to convert others, often forcefully through fear and pain of death.
Just as Jesus regarded God as "father", Ramakrishna regarded him as "mother". Or perhaps he and his mother were the same, as Jesus also said "I and my father are the same".
Ramakrishna's advent definitely paved the way for the growth of a new world and emergence of a new India, an India supremely self confident and ready to reclaim its role in the world.