Disciples of Ramakrishna

Swami Brahmananda (1863–1922), whose original name was Rakhal Chandra Ghosh, was son of a zemindar in the Basirhat area.

[2] Prior to that, the Master (Ramakrishna Paramahamsa) had a vision in which he saw the Divine Mother showing him a child who would be his son.

Two years later he left Baranagar Math and was a wandering monk for some time, living an intensely contemplative life at Varanasi, Omkarnath, Vrindaban, Hardwar and other places.

During this period he is said to have scaled the highest peak of non-dualistic experience and used to remain absorbed in Samadhi for days together.

During his tenure as President, the Ramakrishna Order underwent great expansion, and several new branch centres were opened in India and abroad.

The Ramakrishna Mission, which had been founded by Swami Vivekananda as an Association, was revived and registered during his time.

When he was about 17 years old he visited Sri Ramakrishna at Dakshineswar for the first time in the ancestral home of Kalinath Bose in Baghbazar, and after that he started going to the Master frequently.

After the Master's death, Hari joined Baranagar Math and underwent sannyasa ordination, assuming the name Turiyananda.

After three years he left the monastery and spent his time doing tapasya at different places, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of his brother monks.

Turiyananda spent the next several years practicing intense contemplation in Vrindavan, in different places in the Himalayas, in Dehra Dun, Kankhal, Almora, etc.

This was radically different from the orthodox 'Brahma Satyam Jagad Mithya' meaning God is Truth and the World is false.

These unorthodox last words, which were spoken impromptu, has generally been taken as the vision seen by an illumined sage who sees God everywhere.

[6][7] Adbhutananda (died 1920), born Rakhturam, was a direct monastic disciple of Ramakrishna, a Yogi of nineteenth century Bengal.

While most of Ramakrishna's direct disciples came from the Bengali intelligentsia, Adbhutananda's lack of formal education made him unique amongst them.

As a boy he performed strict spiritual disciplines, bathing four times a day in the Ganges, he cooked his own vegetarian food and practiced so much pranayama (breathing exercise) that his body perspired and shook.

At the age of twelve he was given the sacred thread and afterwards repeated the Gayatri Mantra three times per day, and often made a clay image of Lord Shiva and worship him.

Gangadhar and his friend Harinath met Sri Ramakrishna at Dinanath Basu's house in Baghbazar in 1877.

Later he observed that Ramakrishna had said most of his habits - eating only food cooked by himself, vegetarianism, practicing austerities - were for old people.

But later Ramakrishna explained to some visitors that it was due to his habits in previous lives that he acted so, after which Gangadhar maintained his practices.

Ramakrishna called Gangadhar and told him to give the beggar some coins, but to wash his hands in Ganges water afterwards.

Once Ramakrishna moved to Cossipore for treatment of his throat cancer, Gangadhar would spend as much time as possible helping there, otherwise meditating on the banks of the Ganges with his friend Harinath.

After Ramakrishna gave up his body Gangadhar went, on Christmas Eve 1886 to Antpur, and took vows of renunciation, just a few weeks later, in February 1887, he took the ochre cloth that the Master had previously given him and left the Math without telling the other monks and traveled around the Himalayas and into Tibet several times only returning after three years to the Baranagore Monastery in June 1890.

Soon after, Swami Vivekananda took him back to the Himalayas as his guide, so he could fulfill his own longing to travel and practice there.

In Sargachi his work for the poor created unhappiness amongst some wealthy villagers who wrote letters of complaint to Vivekananda against him.

He raised money and built an ashram and orphanage instead, often discarding his ocher monk robes and wearing the clothes of a poor farmer to till the land and grow food for the orphans.

Gradually, over many years, the ashram and orphanage grew, and he bought more land and increased the scope, adding an industrial school which taught many skills and crafts.

He belonged to the family of Shankar Ghosh, who owned the famous Kali Temple at Thanthania, in Kolkata and had tremendous power of meditation even in his younger days and that improved since he met Paramahamsadev in 1884.

Swami Vijnanananda (1869–1938), whose original name was Hari Prasanna Chaterjee, was an engineer and had met Paramahamsadev early in life, but family commitments kept him away.

However, due to the sudden demise of Swamiji and lack of funds, the project had to wait for a long time to be taken up.

He played a key role during the early days of Ramakrishna Mission as he managed the whole affairs of Belur Math from 1902 to 1916.