An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Mystical Experience within All Religions
This is the view that all traditions are a response to the same ultimate 
reality.
Sri Ramakrishna
(1836–1886) was an almost illiterate Hindu who 
lived near Calcutta. As a child he had trance-like experiences, completely 
carried away by the beauty of nature.
One day as a child, Ramakrishna was crossing a paddy field holding a 
large bowl of rice; when some cranes flew across a black storm cloud, 
the sense of beauty was so overwhelming that he fainted, and the rice 

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Religious and Spiritual Experience
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flew all over the place. Later in life, Ramakrishna became subject to 
moods of ‘God-intoxication’ – ‘samadhi’ – in which he was over-
whelmed by ecstasy, and would lose consciousness.
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He was initially a priest at the temple of Kali in Dakshineswar, 
where he had an ecstatic revelation of Kali in and as everything. This 
took place during a period of intense absorption known as 
nirvikalpa 
Samadhi
which lasted for six months. He was kept alive during that time 
by a monk.
When he ‘came down’ from his prolonged ecstasy, he was transfigured 
and visibly divinely empowered. The Mother herself, it is said, asked 
him to remain in 
bhavamukha
– at the threshold of relative and abso-
lute consciousness – so as to be able to teach, embody and witness her 
reality.
It was in this extraordinary state of unity that Ramakrishna then pro-
ceeded on what remains the most revolutionary aspect of his journey: 
his diving first into the depths of Islam . . . with the help of a Sufi adept 
he realized union with Allah; and then eight years later . . . his plunging 
into Christianity. After three days absorption in Christ, he met and 
merged with him in the garden of Dakshineswar.
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He concluded that the mystical experience at the heart of all religions 
was the same and thus the different religions are paths to the same 
ultimate truth, that of God-consciousness. He drew followers of many 
religious traditions, as all were able to relate to the guru’s experiences, 
those of a pluralist:
The substance is one under different names, and everyone is seeing 
the same substance: only climate, temperament and name create 
differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and 
ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him, he will surely realize 
him.
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