Thakur--Sri Ramakrishna

The story of Sri Ramakrishna, one of the most beloved Hindu spiritual leaders

"All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. One should not think, 'My religion alone is the right path, and other religions are false.' I had to practice each religion for a time—Hinduism, Islam, Christianity. Infinite are the paths and infinite are opinions." —Sri Ramakrishna.

In Thakur Sri Ramakrishna: A Biography, Rajiv Mehrotra explores the "challenge and the riddle" presented by the great mystic who, more than a century after his death, continues to dominate secular Hindu consciousness. Sri Ramakrishna brought a new vitality not only to the practices, rituals, and symbols of the Hindu heritage, but also to the celebration of divinity in diverse forms, and reinforced the underlying possibility of a real harmony between all religions. It is this vision that makes him one of the great religious teachers of all time and so profoundly relevant today. This illuminating and intimate biography is most reader-friendly and comprehensive, revealing this boundless power and magnetism of Sri Ramakrishna, as well as the Order that was inspired by his spiritual quest. Mehrotra's narrative gift is remarkably precise and richly evocative, integrating all details of an aspect into a visual and verbal complex of significance.