Sri Ramakrishna was an Indian mystic, whose religious beliefs are based on spirituality and practices outside of traditional religion. Ramakrishna disliked going to school, and was not interested in the pursuit of money. He was born in a poor family and his parents were hardly able to make both ends meet. Ramakrishna developed intense devotion to Mother Kali and spent hours in loving adoration of her image, forgetting the rituals of priestly duties.

Ramakrishna Math, and Ramakrishna Mission are twin organizations which form the core of a worldwide spiritual movement (known as Sri Ramakrishna Movement or Vedanta Movement), which aims at the harmony of religions, harmony of the East and the West, harmony of the ancient and the modern, spiritual fulfillment, all-round development of human faculties, social equality, and peace for all humanity, without any distinctions of creed, caste, race or nationality. Sri Ramakrishna taught no creed or dogma.

Sri Ramakrishna saw the Divine in his wife, in his disciples, in others, even in fallen women, and treated them all with respect. Drawn by the magnetism of Sri Ramakrishna's divine personality, people flocked to him from far and near -- men and women, young and old, philosophers and theologians, philanthropists and humanists, atheists and agnostics, Hindus and Brahmos, Christians and Muslims, seekers of truth of all races, creeds and castes.

At a time when the very foundation of religion, faith in God, was crumbling under the relentless blows of materialism and skepticism, Sri Ramakrishna, through his burning spiritual realizations, demonstrated beyond doubt the reality of God, and the validity of the time-honored teachings of all the prophets and saviors of the past, and thus restored the falling edifice of religion on a secure foundation.

Ramakrishna said that God could be reached by all religions but at the same time God could not be confined by any religion. Sri Ramakrishna, also known as Paramahamsa taught ceaselessly for fifteen years the basic truths of religion through parables, metaphors, songs and by his own life. Sri Ramakrishna faithfully practiced the spiritual disciplines of different religions and came to the realization that all of them lead to the same goal. Sri Ramakrishna st

Ramakrishna emphasised that God-realisation is the supreme goal of all living beings. God dwells in all people but the manifestation of this inner Divinity varies from person to person. God can be reached by different religions. God is everywhere but he is most manifest in man. God is born on earth as man in every age. God Himself has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. God can be reached by different paths. Religions are like so-many paths leading to the same goal. Sri Ramakrishna lived on earth for 50 years between 1836 and 1886.

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