Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s Philosophy of Vijñāna Vedānta

Abstract

The philosophical teachings of the nineteenth-century Bengali mystic Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa have been a source of lively interpretive controversy. Numerous commentators have interpreted Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s views in terms of a particular philosophical sect, such as Tantra, Advaita, or Viśiṣṭādvaita. Militating against this sectarian approach, this article argues that Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s philosophy is best characterized as “Vijñāna Vedānta,” a resolutely nonsectarian philosophy—rooted in the spiritual experience of what Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa calls “vijñāna”—that harmonizes various apparently conflicting religious faiths, sectarian philosophies, and spiritual disciplines. From Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s expansive spiritual standpoint of vijñāna, God is both personal and impersonal, both with and without form, both immanent in the universe and beyond it. Part One of this article outlines five interpretive principles that should govern any attempt to determine Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s philosophical views on the basis of his recorded teachings. With this hermeneutic groundwork in place, Part Two reconstructs from Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s philosophical teachings the six main tenets of his Vijñāna Vedānta. This article demonstrates that the concept of vijñāna provides the unifying framework for interpreting and synthesizing Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s philosophical views on the scope of reason, the nature of God, the relationship between Brahman and Śakti, the ontological status of the universe, the different stages in spiritual experience, and the harmony of religious and spiritual paths. Part Three begins to explore how Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s teachings on religious pluralism can be brought into dialogue with John Hick’s influential theory of religious pluralism.