Ramakrishna’s One-fourth

 

The refrain, ‘He who is Brahman is also Śakti’,

appears throughout the

Kathāmrita

with consistency and

regularity and constitutes an important element in shaping

Ramakrishna’s faith. His inspiration is the poet Ramprasad Sen, a mystic-poet and Tantrik of the eighteenth century. Take, for instance, this poem of Ramprasad, one which was a particular favourite of Ramakrishna:

How are you trying, O my mind, to know the

nature of God?You are groping like a madman locked in a dark

room.

He is grasped through ecstatic love; how can you fathom Him without it?Only through afrmation, never negation, can you know Him;

Neither through Veda nor through Tantra nor the

six darśanas.