Back of the Book
India has produced some of the world's greatest religious leaders, sages, saints, philosophers, and spiritual thinkers. They were monks, nuns, and renunciates, nationalists, and reformers. No one religion had a monopoly on them. They range from Mahavira and Buddha, who lived over 2,500 years ago, to medieval saints like Chishti, Avvaiyar, and Guru Nanak, to more recent philosophers and religious icons such as Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Saint Teresa, and many others. The spiritual and philosophical heritage they left behind is India's gift to all Indians and the world.
In the 'Life Lessons' series we publish the essential teachings of some of India's best-known spiritual teachers, along with commentaries and biographical notes. Each book will be a handy companion to help the reader along the difficult pathways of life.
Liberate Your Mind' contains the core messages of Sri Ramakrishna, a nineteenth-century philosopher and saint.
About the Book
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-1886) was an Indian saint who was born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay in a village in Bengal.
Ramakrishna began having spiritual experiences at a young age and yearned for a spiritual awakening. A devotee of Mother Kali, the Divine Mother, Ramakrishna preached that all paths are equally true and capable of leading one to God. As an adult, he lived in the famous temple dedicated to Goddess Kali in Dakshineswar on the outskirts of Kolkata.
Ramakrishna believed in the unity of religions and taught that God was immanent in the world and everyone (householder or renunciate) could achieve God-realization through pure devotion. Ramakrishna was diagnosed with throat cancer and on 16 August 1886, at the age of fifty, he died. He was survived by a band of dedicated young disciples, a handful of householder devotees, and his consort, Sri Sarada Devi. Chief among his disciples was Swami Vivekananda, who instituted the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission to further Ramakrishna's teachings. In an intensely materialistic age, Ramakrishna demonstrated that God can be attained by simple, unconditional devotion of the heart alone.
Edited by Arpita Mitra, Liberate Your Mind brings together Sri Ramakrishna's core teachings that are followed by people all over the world.
About the Editor
Arpita Mitra is Assistant Professor at the Department of History, Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol. She has a PhD in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, from 2015 to 2017. Her areas of interest are Indian intellectual history, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Studies, Vedanta, the history of Hinduism, history writing in colonial India, Sister Nivedita, Indian nationalist thought, and Indian national movement.
Introduction
India has produced some of the world's greatest religious leaders, sages, saints, philosophers, and spiritual thinkers. They were monks, nuns, and renunciates, nationalists and reformers. No one religion had a monopoly on them. They range from Mahavira and Buddha, who lived over 2,500 years ago, to medieval saints like Chishti, Avvaiyar, and Guru Nanak, to more recent philosophers and religious icons such as Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Saint Teresa, and many others. Each of them touched the lives of the people they lived among and the generations that followed.
