I may also mention here that two of Sri Ramakrishna's disciples were apostles of Jesus Christ in their previous birth. The two disciples were Swami Saradananda and Swami Ramakrishnananda, also known by their pre-monastic names of Sarat and Shashi respectively. Swami Saradananda was the first General Secretary of the Ramakrishna Order and Swami Ramakrishnananda established the Ramakrishna Order in South India, both at the behest of Swami Vivekananda. With regards to Swami Saradananda, I quote what his biographer Swami Aseshananda Ji has to say in this regard:
"One day an attendant of Swami Saradananda worked up the courage to ask him if he had experienced nirvikalpa samadhi.
'Did I waste my time cutting grass when I lived in the company of Sri Ramakrishna?' he asked in reply.
When the attendant pressed him for details, the swami said, 'Read the chapter on samadhi in Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master. I have not written anything about samadhi without experiencing it myself.'
He rarely mentioned his personal spiritual experiences and never described them in detail as Sri Ramakrishna had instructed his disciples not to reveal the secrets of their sadhana to anyone but their guru.
One of the few about which anything is known occurred in 1896 when the swami visited Rome on his way to London. The elaborate mass in St. Peter's Cathedral interested him but did not affect his mood. On his way out, he saw a statue of the Virgin Mary and stood in front of it for a long minute, then sat quietly nearby, meditating. He lost all outer consciousness: the world disappeared for him. His mind was filled with joy, and the radiance of love enveloped his being. In a vision, he saw the cathedral being supported, not by pillars, but by figures of saints shining with effulgent rays which penetrated to every corner of the building, filling it with holiness and spirituality. In the midst of the saints stood the Virgin Mary holding her divine Child in her arms. And as he looked at the Mother and Child, the swami felt the presence of Christ in his heart.
Once when Sri Ramakrishna had been talking to his devotees about Christ, the Messenger of Light, he went into an exalted state of consciousness. When he could speak, he said, 'Sarat and Sashi(later Ramakrishnananda) in a former incarnation were disciples of Jesus Christ. They belonged to his very close and intimate family.'
It is difficult for me to interpret the precise meaning of Sri Ramakrishna's words as I never asked Swami Saradananda about his relationship to Christ: We never asked certain questions of the direct disciples of the master. The Bengali phrase that Sri Ramakrishna used was Rishikrishna daler lok. Daler lok can be translated as follower, but Swami Saradananda's experience in St. Peter's Cathedral suggests that he was very close to Christ because that experience was not of an ordinary type.
Ordinary love breaks because it is fastened to a finite soul, but when love is attached to the Infinite Spirit, it endures forever. Time and birth cannot sever that connection. Kalidas, the famous poet, said, 'Love and friendship never die. They are renewed again and again from life to life. Such is the power of impression forged by love that time cannot change it and death cannot erase it. Perfect love is therefore established not in time but in eternity: deep calling unto the deep...' Holy Mother put it more simply: 'Je yar Se Tar' -- he who belongs to Him will stay with Him from birth to birth.
It is interesting to note that, when Sri Ramakrishna met Swami Saradananda for the first time and wanted to call forth his spirit of renunciation, he quoted not from Hindu scriptures but from the Christian Bible."

I also quote from a letter of Swami Saradananda to his English disciple Mrs. Beatrice Cook, in this regard:

"My dear Beatrice:
Your kind letter of May 9 has arrived. The question that you have asked is a very subtle one. I do not pretend to know everything and what I give you below are suggestions only. You are free to accept or reject them partially or wholly.
The Puranas, which discuss the various incarnations of God, such as Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Chaitanya, and others, say that these Godmen with their followers form, as it were, different families, each having its own family type or form. So Rama with his followers had a distinct, separate form from Buddha or Jesus with each of their followers. And every individual of one of these families, when perfectly developed, will become one with the Godman who started that family type or form.
From that form, the individual will, in time, attain the Formless One. THe Godman of the present age, Sri Ramakrishna, has started a family type that gathers all the former family types into it. What the Master saw in his disciples was their family types or forms attached to their subtle bodies, and so he could immediately recognize from which family type each of them came. He saw that Swami Vivekananda belonged to a rare type of those who had become almost one with the Formless One, and were residing in a place high above the realm of the Gods, in short of all duality. He saw that Swami Brahmananda was the playmate of Sri Krishna, and so on. The disciples of the Master who formely belonged to different family types have attained an even higher type or form by their acceptance of the present Godman and from that they will reach the Formless One.
..."

With regards,

Ankur

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Replying to:

NOTE: From Nahabat Web Admin:

In honour of this day, celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ, we are offering the following excerpt from a recent article, from the Tines of India entitled: "Christmas eve at the Ramakrishna Mission" :

Sri Ramakrishna spent time understanding other religions. The image and teachings of Jesus Christ attracted him in particular and a strong spiritual connection between Christ and the monastic order of Ramakrishna exists. He had one of his followers explain the New Testament in Bengali to him and one day, he studied a picture of the Madonna and Child for such a long time that it suddenly became a living effulgent image.

It absorbed him into a mystical experience which he described later to an astounded group of listeners. In that vision, he said, he saw a church in which devotees were burning incense and lighting candles before Jesus. Ramakrishna spent three days in this state.

On the fourth day he emerged from his experience. He was in a grove at Dakshineshwar, when a serene looking person walked purposefully towards the Swami, eyes fixed on him. Ramakrishna's realisation was instantaneous. "This is Jesus who poured out his heart's blood for the redemption of mankind. This is none other than Christ, the embodiment of love."

A biographical account of the Sage of Dakshineshwar says that in that marvellous face-to-face which all spiritualist aspirants long for, the Son of God embraced Ramakrishna. They merged and the Swami who called Jesus "Isha" went into a state of transcendental consciousness or samadhi.

A few days after Ramakrishna's death nine of his young disciples were preparing to take their vows of renunciation when their leader - the future Swami Vivekananda - told his brothers the story of Jesus Christ. He asked them to be like Christ, to pledge themselves to help in the redemption of the world and to deny themselves - like Jesus had done - for a greater good.

The monks, accustomed to following only the Hindu calendar, later found out that that same evening had been December 24, Christmas Eve - an auspicious occasion for their vows.

Christ has been greatly honoured and revered by the Ramakrishna Mission with Christmas observed joyfully in all the Mission centres and schools and many monks quoting Christ's words to explain and illustrate spiritual truths, seeing an essential oneness between his messages and that of Hindu acharyas.

Profound truths break down walls and replace them with love and understanding. Every universal thinker has said that the mind is the centre; a powerhouse that produces energy for change, both within and without.

This truth has always been freely available in India, home and host to all religions where the maximum number of diverse sorts of prayers are said to the same sense of the Sacred.

Location: Guwahati