for himself, he left every religion undisturbed because he had realised that, in reality, they are all part and parcel of one Eternal Religion. Sri Ramakrishna taught that lovers of God do not belong to any caste. He said, “Never get into your head that your faith alone is true and every other is false.”
Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy of dharma-samanvaya was not derived from books or intellectual reasoning. It was derived from his own direct mystical experience. Religion, for him, was direct experience, and not rituals or dogmas. He believed that one who follows his religion with faith, sincerity and purity of mind, is sure to attain direct spiritual experience.
About the value and limitations of holy books, Sri Ramakrishna humorously says in one of his parables: “The Vedas, the Bible, the Koran and other sacred books of religions do not contain truth or God; they contain only information about truth or God. Man has to use that information to find out Truth or God for himself or herself. The Hindu almanac often contains forecasts of the rainfall for the year. But if you squeeze the almanac, you will not get a drop of water! Similarly, you will have to ‘squeeze’, not the scriptures, but your own

experience, to get Truth, or God.” (Qtd. in Swami Ranganathananda Eternal Values for a Changing Society. Vol. I. Philosophy & Spirituality, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).
About the value of Sri Ramakrishna’s utterances on Godrealisation, Max Muller, wellknown German philologist and orientalist says, “The fervent love of God, nay, the sense of complete absorption in Godhead, has nowhere found a stronger and more eloquent expression than in the utterances of Ramakrishna. They show the exalted nature of his faith.

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