Ramakrishna - Perfect Master Or Not?

Ramakrishna Paramahansa (18 February 1836 - 16 August 1886) born Gadadhar Chatterjee was an Indian Hindu mystic and yogi during the 19th century who achieved local fame and reverence among Bengali elites during his remarkable, if not scandalous, spiritual ecstasies. His fame became international after his his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda, made a successful appearance at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893. This tradition has been kept alive by the members of the Ramakrishna Mission and it's swamis. The Ramakrishna Mission is a far larger and more important organisation than Prem Rawat's Words of Peace Global and has the fame and international respect he so richly desires and so obviously doesn't deserve.

But Prem Rawat (Maharaji) has many, many times given satsang that Jesus Christ, Krishna, Ram, Buddha, Mohammed, Kabir, Guru Nanak and many others were also Perfect Masters in the lineage of Perfect Masters who revealed the same Knowledge as he does. He has also given satsang about Sri Ramakrishna being a Perfect Master and he doesn't fit in at all

Caracas Venezuela, 4th February 1981
In this chaotic speech in 1981 Rawat was exuberant but there was even less continuity and progression than usual. He mentions the famous story of Swami Vivekananda finding Paramhans Ramakrishna. He gives full credence to Ramakrishna's statements about seeing feeling and touching God and yet Ramakrishna does not fit into the parampara or lineage of Rawat's acknowledged predecessors. One of Rawat's bedrock doctrines is that there is only ever one Perfect Master on the planet at one time. Yet Ramakrishna was born in 1836 and died in 1886. This was a time when Param Hans Dayal Sri Adwetanand Ji (1840-1919) was the Perfect Master according to the lineage of Shri Swarupanand, Hans Rawat's Perfect Master and predecessor.

PMT #008: Guru Maharaj Ji (aka Prem Rawat) Chicago, 17th August 1973
When Swami Vivekanand came and into into this into this West of course he was very much welcomed here and it probably whatever it was he knowsbetter than we can, we can really understand but when he was in search of this Knowledge he was going to different, different Masters, he was going to different, different people, he was really in desperate search of this knowledge because he desperately required it, he spiritually needed it. He was going to different people, he was asking them, he was asking them, "Can you show me God? Have you seen God?" And many people used to just nod their heads and say, "No. I'm sorry. I haven't seen God and I can't show you God." When he finally went to Ramkrishna for a month and he asked him, "Have you seen God?" And he said, "Yes, I have seen God." And then he asked, "Can you show me God?" And he said, "Yes I can show you God. And I can, I have seen God face to face more near than I am see him seeing you within inside myself because he's right there and if you want to know God, if you want to know God, if you want to see God as I've seen God it's also possible for you to see God as I've seen God."

Public Program, Manchester, 28th September 1981
But I know You. I've seen You, I've felt You and this is exactly what Vivekanand went through. In his, in his quest for that Creator, in his quest for that, for that love that he was looking for in his life. A place to place he went asking to guru after guru, "Hey, can you show me?" He went to one person, he said "Listen man, you know, this is not the way it goes. You just have the faith in your whole life time that God exists and when you die, maybe you'll see." A very standard story but he didn't buy it. He wanted that experience in this lifetime, he says "Look, if I can have that experience in this lifetime I know God exists and I have something to look for in the future life, if it exists too. But if I'm having a hard time believing Him now I won't even get any any chances in the next lifetime. How I even gonna get to that place , how am I even gonna get to that point?" And yet when he went to that to that true Master, to that Perfect Master who could truly teach him that perfectness, not a Perfect Master that he never got a cold. No, but he was perfect cause he could teach that perfectness.

Rawat mentions the famous story of Swami Vivekananda finding Paramhans Ramakrishna. While he doesn't mention Ramakrishna's name he says he is a Perfect Master and repeats his statements about seeing feeling and touching God though not as poetically as it is told by Vivekananda and yet Ramakrishna does not fit into the parampara or lineage of Rawat's acknowledged predecessors. One of Rawat's bedrock doctrines is that there is only ever one Perfect Master on the planet at one time. Yet Ramakrishna was born in 1836 and died in 1886. This was a time when Param Hans Dayal Sri Adwetanand Ji (1840-1919) was the Perfect Master according to the lineage of Shri Swarupanand, Hans Rawat's Perfect Master and predecessor

What do you have to say about Bhagwan Ramakrishna Param Hans initiating Swami Vivekananda?

It was the Knowledge imparted by Ramakrishna Param Hans that made Swami Vivekananda understand all the mysteries. In the Gita, Arjuna asks so many questions, and Krishna answers them. But because of this Arjuna did not say, "Oh Lord, you are the yogis' Yogi and the gurus' Guru. I am sorry I called you my friend and cousin." When he realized the Knowledge he said that. There were many discussions between Swami Ramakrishna Param Hans and Swami Vivekananda, but that didn't satisfy him. The Knowledge itself satisfied him and I must give priority to that thing that satisfies me. Because what was it that made Swami Ramakrishna Param Hans a guru, a Holy Man? It was not the knowledge of scriptures, because many people today have a good understanding of scriptures. But we are lacking for Knowledge itself.

To describe it, different words have been used in different literatures. In the Vedas, it has been called "Vergo", in the Upanishads and the Gita it is called " yoti-Swaroop", in the Ramayan it is called "Pranam-Prakash", in the Holy Koran it is called "Noor-e-Elahi", in the Bible it is called "Divine Light", in the Guru Granth Saheb it is called "Chandna", all synonymous with self-effulgent light. But this Light is so subtle that it cannot be seen with these material eyes. It is. practically seen with the Divine Eye alone. Every human being possesses this Divine Eye but it remains closed. The Divine Light is seen when the Divine Eye is opened. Lord Krishna opened the Divine Eye of Arjuna and showed him the Divine Light. Sujata, the milk-maid, opened the Divine Eye of Lord Buddha and showed Him the Divine Light within Himself. Similarly Lord Jesus Christ, Hazrat Mohammed, Swami Ramakrishna, and others, all saw the Divine Light with the Divine Eye. When the Divine Light is seen and the mind is infused into it, it attains equanimity and stability. We all know that a newly-born child, who certainly has a guileless mind, takes delight in the Light, and that he cries in darkness. This is because his mind, being untarnished by the ways of the world, loves light. Man's mind naturally loves light and loves to be infused in it, because subconsciously he knows that light is his true nature with which he was once merged and from which he is temporarily separated. When the mind is turned from that Divine Light within, and the Inner Eye becomes closed through lack of usage, mind then turns towards wordly impurities, it is plunged into the world of incon stancy and unsteadiness, and all sorts of troubles naturally and inevitably arise therefrom. The mind itself takes on the impure, flickering qualities of the objects to which it attaches itself, and it is these mental impurities which are simply and quickly burned away by infusion in Divine Light. As an impure gold is purified by melting in fire, in the same way the impure mind obtains purity by infusion in Divine Light.

Then he went to Swami Ramakrishna Paramhans and he said, "Sir, have you seen God?" and Ramakrishna Paramhans said, "Yes, I have seen God. I have seen God more nearer than you are standing before me, and I have talked to Him more frequently than I am talking to you."