For thise who don't know, Ramakrishna is said to have followed christianity and islam for some time. He even said to have eat beef during his time as muslim which I discussed here in my question,Did Ramakrishna eat beef during his time as amuslim
Now coming to my question.
In his article by Belgian Hindu scholar Konoraed Elst titled :
Did Ramakrishna also practice other religions? -Part 1
And
Did Ramakrishna also practice other religions: Part 2 .
Alternatively, the first article is also available on IndiaDivine site if the Hindu Human Rights site is down or something.
In this article, Konoerad Elst argues how Ramakrishna Mission trying to proclaim themselves legally different religion from Hinduism back in 1980s(which I discuss in my other question,Does Ramakrishna Mission consider themselves as Hindu organization?, while listing out philosophical differences from Hinduism, is not a new thing. As the incidents of Ramakrishna practicing christianity and islam both seem a later addition much later after Ramakrishna's death. He base this assumption on Ram Swarup, one of the post prominent Hindu scholar of our times, analysis of Ramakrishna. I am quoting from Konoraed Elst's article now.
But is the story true? Author Ram Swarup finds that it is absent in the earliest recordings of Ramakrishna’s own talks. It first appears in a biography written 25 years after Ramakrishna’s death by Swami Saradananda (Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master), who had known the Master only in the last two years of his life. Even then, mention (on just one page in a 1050-page volume) is only made of a vision of a luminous figure. The next biographer, Swami Nikhilananda, ventures to guess that the figure was ‘perhaps Mohammed’. In subsequent versions, this guess became a dead certainty, and that ‘vision of Mohammed’ became the basis of the doctrine that he spent some time as a Muslim, and likewise as a Christian, and that he ‘proved the truth’ of those religions by attaining the highest yogic state on those occasions
Elst then elaborated how this is negatively affecting Hindu community.
This doctrine is propagated by many English-speaking gurus, and one of its practical effects is that Hindu girls in westernized circles (including those in overseas Hindu communities) who fall in love with Muslims, feel justified in disobeying their unpleasantly surprised parents, and often taunt them: ‘What is the matter if I marry a Muslim and your grandchildren become Muslims? Don’t these Babas to whom you give your devotion and money always say that all religions teach the same thing, that Islam is as good as Hinduism, that Allah and Shiva are one and the same?‘
When such marriages last (many end in early divorce), a Hindu or Western environment often leads to the ineffectiveness of the formal conversion of the Hindu partner to Islam, so that the children are not raised as Muslims. Yet, Islamic law imposes on the Muslim partner the duty to see to this, and in a Muslim environment there is no escape from this islamizing pressure. Thus, after the Meenakshipuram mass conversion to Islam in 1981, non-converted villagers reported: ‘Of course, there have been marriages between Hindu harijans and the converts. Whether it is the bride or the groom, the Hindu is expected to convert to Islam.‘
Further he writes about christianity
The second claim is that Ramakrishna “practiced a Christian discipline”, and that as a result, he found that Christianity is equally true and yields the same results that he had already reached through his Hindu sadhana. Now, “being a Christian” or “being a Muslim” has a precise definition, which RK did not fulfil. He was not recognized as one of theirs by any known mullah or padre. The missionaries sent bulletins home in which they reported the conversions they wrought; surely they would not have neglected reporting the Christianization of a leading Hindu saint? And the RKM has had more than a century to get and show the document that proved their case, viz. that Ramakrishna turned his back on “narrow Hinduism”.
Even in the different sects of Hinduism, you only become a member by going through a formal ceremony, you are given a yajnopavit (sacred thread) or you get diksha(initiation) or shaktipat (transmission of energy). Ramakrishna never went through the formal ceremonies making him a Christian or a Muslim. He was not circumcised and never uttered the Islamic creed. He was not baptized and never uttered the Christian creed. No matter what vision he had, it did not make him either Christian or Muslim.
Elst further points out how Ramakrishna doesn't fulfil the criteria of islam and christianity and both of these religions rules out against Ramakrishna's realization as blasphemy with one imam even laughing it off. Which I think should be part of another question.
My question is, is Ramakrishna practicing other religion a later addition in his biographies, specifically Ramakrishna,The Great Master, which was written 25 years after his death.
