Universal Religion in the Life and Thought of Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṁsa (1836–86)

Abstract

The meaning usually associated with the term ‘universal religion’ is that of ‘one religion to which everybody subscribes’.1 Similarly, a meaning often ascribed to universalism is ‘the belief that all men will ultimately be saved’.2 In Ramakrsna we encounter the paradox of a person who did not believe in a universal religion, but who, at the same time, was a religious universalist – who believed that all human beings will be saved!3 But then, the position of Ramakrsna on the question of universal religion, in its broadest connotation, is replete with such subtleties. The phenomenon of Ramakrsna is perhaps the most significant in the context of the concept of universal religion in modern Hindu thought. And this significance is manifold.