“God is everywhere but he is most manifest in Man. So serve Man as God. That is as good as worshipping God”– said Sri Ramakrishna, a 19th century saint from India (1836 to 1886). By the term ‘man’ he meant all humans – not just man and woman. After going through 12 long years of intense spiritual practice, Sri Ramakrishna gained firsthand knowledge about the different aspects of God or the Divine.
Sri Ramakrishna was not an ordinary spiritual practitioner- he was one who dived deep into the core of the path that he followed. For example, he experimented with different aspects of Hinduism – the aspect of personal God (loving and worshipping God as one’s father, mother, friend and lover), the aspect of the Non-dual Brahman (Absolute Reality) which does not posit any name or attributes of God but realizes the Divine as the all-pervading reality – as also the aspect of the Divine in the Islamic religion (Sufi), the concept of the holy Trinity in Christianity and so on.
These varieties of religious experiences took Sri Ramakrishna to the conclusion that God is One, even though worshipped by many in different ways. Further, he experienced that the best manifestation of the Divine in the world can be had in humans. Hence, he preached that serving beings as manifestations of the Divine is equal to worshipping God, nay, even better than mere formal worship.
Sri Ramakrishna further proclaimed:- “The person who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to oneself”. Unselfishness is an essential nature of the Divine, hence if we can sacrifice our little comforts and serve or work for others, devoid of any personal agenda or motive, we will do a great service to ourselves. Because, by being unselfish, devoid of egotism, we will become happy beings.
