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who came as close to being Gandhi's guru as anybody ever did ..... In fact, this young man and his precepts were to become the anchor of young Gandhi's religious imagination during the very period of his life when he felt most lost....."....... . ......
i Bhagvān Ramkrishna, one of the greatest prophets of India, by adopting the path of devotion as laid down in Hindu tradition, attained self-realization like Srimad Rajchandra and Yogi Arobindo. He was a man of experiments, hence after his spiritual realization, he experimented with various sādhanās laid down by great religions of the world such as Buddhism, Christianity, Mohammedanism etc. and other branches of Hindu religion such as Advaita Vedānta, Tantra etc. and came to the conclusion that all religious practices lead to the same goal of self-realization. He followed the great values of satya, brahmacarya, aparigraha, Ahimsā etc., to the utmost as Srimad aspired and tried to follow. In short, the basis of his philosophy and spirituality was the doctrine of anekānta (i.e. the docrine of relativity of truth). Śrímad and Bhagavān Ramkrishna were contemporaries, who breathed in the same atmosphere of pre-independence era. The householder Ramkrishna became 'guru' of 'saninyāsīs' like Vivekananda. The
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