In honour of this day, celebrating the Birth of Jesus Christ, we are offering the following excerpt from a 2008 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.
