The Debate Over the Relevance and Truthfulness of KALI'S CHILD
How to interpret Sri Ramakishna? I find the debate fascinating, but I know how I interpret him, and it’s a bit different from the ways of both the academic devotees and the disciples of the “witch doctor of Vienna”:
‘"Interpreting Ramakrishna" is grounds for sadness and tremendous hope.
Let's get the sadness out of the way, since this book is a tour de force. Swami Tyagananda had already written about Kali's Child in "'Kali's Child' Revisited - or -Didn't Anyone Check the Documentation." At the heart of this second book is an examination of the primary source documents in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. All of them had been available, unexpurgated, in their original language (Bengali), for about a century. Kripal asserted that there was a secret teaching, exposed for the first time in his books. His sources for this claim? Those very same Bengali documents, most of which lie next to the bed of every monk and nun of the Ramakrishna and Sarada Orders, not to mention many lay devotees.
Ridiculous as his claim might sound when laid out this way, fellow academic practitioners swallowed it hook, line and sinker. A big source of readers' sadness in the book will stem from the comprehensive, painstaking account of exactly how the book became popular and "authoritative."
The story told in "Interpreting Ramakrishna" is horrifying to anyone who has been associated with a major research university: a young man was able to get a doctoral dissertation approved at the University of Chicago, one of America's foremost research universities, without having scholarly proficiency in the language that the key documents of his dissertation were written in. His dissertation advisors, the first line of defense against the publishing of fraudulent work, failed to notice.
But what came after was much worse, albeit predictable in retrospect: a domino effect. For once Kripal's dissertation received the stamp of approval from a prestigious university and its gatekeeping professors, it would, naturally, find an equally prestigious publisher. Then the reviews started coming in. A handful of scholars (particularly the one or two who actually knew Bengali) raised serious concerns about the work. But others, unaware that the texts had been inaccurately, often deceptively, translated, were ecstatic at the publication of a provocative work whose discoveries regarding Sri Ramakrishna's life were heretofore beyond imagining.
But imagined Kripal's stories were. And a large section of the book is devoted to a refutation of every false claim in Kripal's book. It is exhaustive, and exhausting, mostly because the authors, one senses, feel it must be. It's almost as if they fear that, like a monster in a horror film, any detail left unattended might regenerate, forcing them into the unpleasant task of writing a sequel.
One of the simplest and most important contributions of the authors is a stake through the heart of the "hidden teachings of Sri Ramakrishna" meme. This portion of their project, incidentally, has been made available, for free, at InterpretingRamakrishna.com: a full translation of the few pages in the original Bengali Kathamrita that weren't translated into English in 1942.
The excisions, it turns out, stemmed from original translator Swami Nikhilananda's awareness that they were either too culturally alien or would offend *American* sensibilities, still puritanical at the time. The truth, in other words, was the precise *opposite* of Kripal's claim. For how could Indians be too squeamish to handle texts that had been printed and reprinted in Indian languages, unedited, decades before the British left?
And indeed, one of the key purposes of the book is to reclaim not only Sri Ramakrishna but the entire academic discipline of Hindu studies from the Orientalism that has been foisted upon it by many scholars, even well intentioned ones.
But there are grounds for great hope here as well. Obvious scholars themselves, the authors' beef isn't against honest, fearless, rigorous academic examination of Sri Ramakrishna and his life. Bring it on, they argue. Use a Freudian lens if you want to. Just be fair, and for God's sake, know the language that you're writing about. That kind of attitude is refreshing, and all too rare. Hinduism is hardly the only religion whose practitioners would benefit from this kind of openness to rigorous scholarship.
Many of the attacks on "Kali's Child" by actual scholars of and believers in Sri Ramakrishna's life were based on genuine outrage. However, many of the most vocal protagonists in the drama that ensued its popularization in India were people who had read neither Kripal nor Sri Ramakrishna. They knew only that a Hindu saint had been unfairly maligned. True! But underlying their own claims was a deep homophobia, founded on an ahistorical Victorianism that has permeated Hinduism (and large parts of Islam) since the days of British colonization.
My greatest fear about this project wasn't that it wouldn't set the record straight--I had no doubt that the authors, both well known for the rigor and lucidity of their writing, would acquit themselves well. It was, rather, whether they could walk a different kind of razor's edge: defending Sri Ramakrishna from Kripal's craftily politicized scholarship without hitting sociological landmines.
And this is where Sister Vrajaprana, a monastic disciple of the monk who was Christopher Isherwood's own spiritual guide, and Tyagananda, a chaplain to students at Harvard University, truly rise to the challenge. They do justice to Ramakrishna's breadth and universality by discussing not only the issue of homosexuality but by recognizing the existence and experience of gay devotees of Sri Ramakrishna, including onetime biographer Isherwood and Ashok Row Kavi. And never, even once, do they resort to the homophobia that would have sullied the book in the eyes of today's Western intelligentsia... and tomorrow's India.
We owe Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana a debt of gratitude. They have held academic scholars of Hinduism to a higher standard. They have blown a hole through a book founded on a dissertation that should never have passed muster. And they have done so in a way that upholds the highest, most hopeful principles of a religion that is, at its best, the world's broadest and most tolerant.’
http://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Ramakrishna-Kalis-Child-Revisited/product-reviews/8120834992/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
‘There is a gigantic gulf in Ramakrishna studies. The religious studies published by the Ramakrishna Mission portray an ascetic, conventionally spiritual mystic and teacher of Vedanta. The academic studies of Ramakrishna reveal a completely different (and arguably more interesting) figure --- an often vulgar and obscene rural guru who delighted in using socially outrageous words and borderline psychotic behavior to conflate philosophical, ethical, religious and social distinctions, especially between the spiritual and the sensual.
The authors of _Interpreting Ramakrishna_ strenuously insist that the former is the only legitimate interpretation of Ramakrishna. In his ill-tempered and ill-advised foreword, Huston Smith charges that proponents of the latter interpretation are driven by a Westernizing, imperialistic, liberal political agenda. The unfortunately dogmatic approach of Tyagananda and Vrajaprana, characterized by constant denial, clever evasion, and confident assurances that their opponents are obviously incompetent, is not a lasting way to resolve the current interpretive double-bind in Ramakrishna studies.
The authors' task is apparently only to demolish the work of others rather than to make any positive statement about Ramakrishna's psychology or sexuality. However, the highly implausible, unstated implication of _Interpreting Ramakrishna_ appears to be that there is no sensual or sexual material in Ramakrishna's biographical documents. Even when Ramakrishna is worshipping the penises of young boys (Kathamrita IV, XXIII, 9; suppressed in Nikhilananda's Mission-endorsed so-called "literal" translation), or worshipping his own penis as the shiva-linga (Kathamrita IV, XV, 2; also suppressed by Nikhilananda), or a devotee is sucking on his breasts (Sil 2010, 40), the authors deny that this is evidence of a sexual or sensual dimension to Ramakrishna's behavior. This is because on their view, Ramakrishna, being a spiritual being, was *by definition* beyond sensuality and sexuality. It is the authors' presupposition that sexuality and spirituality are mutually exclusive categories --- a presupposition which flies in the face of Ramakrishna's words and behavior --- which forces them to interpret clearly sexual behavior as non-sexual. This presupposition also forces the Ramakrishna Mission to continually highlight certain of Ramakrishna's words and behavior and to de-emphasize, suppress, and deny others. It is the Ramakrishna Mission's continued falsification of the historical record which has created the gigantic gulf in Ramakrishna studies. It does have something to do with Western cultural imperialism, but not on the part of Neeval, McLean, Sil, Kakar, Kripal, Olsen, Radice, Hawley, Parsons, Hatcher, Patton, and the rest of the academic interpreters. The aggressive insistence that only one interpretation is legitimate is made by Tyagananda, Vrajaprana, Huston Smith, Rajiv Malhotra, Jeffrey Long, the Ramakrishna Mission, and the rest of the reactionary, hagiographical interpreters, who have struck a curious but highly effective alliance between Victorian prudery and Hindutva resentment.
On Tyagananda's and Vrajaprana's view, it is not merely wrong but it is also insensitive and offensive to interpret the lingam/yoni as an expression of sexuality or sensuality. Tyagananda and Vrajaprana apply the same interpretive framework like a coarse scouring brush to remove the offending dirt from the image of the earthy, sensual, rustic Ramakrishna which is undeniably well documented by the academic scholars.’
http://www.amazon.com/Interpreting-Ramakrishna-Kalis-Child-Revisited/product-reviews/8120834992/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
‘I have been interacting with Ramakrishna Mission devotees for years on Wikipedia. I have caught these characters lying outright many times. Misrepresentation of sources, deception, obviously bad arguments, outrageous accusations are their daily modus operandi. Thus your earlier invocation of Fox News is actually quite ironic.
My interactions with the Mission itself --- and my reading of Tyagananda's book --- tells me that this sickness goes all the way to the top. The Mission was built on lies, as Sil's academic work on Vivekananda has shown quite clearly, and has been since the time of Vivekananda dedicated to covering up the truth about their ostensible guru, whose very interesting behavior they don't actually like at all.
They have dominated the Wikipedia article through deception, the misrepresentation of sources, and sheer numbers. The Wikipedia article on Ramakrishna now shows only the Mission-propagated myths about Ramakrishna. The academic scholars are represented at the end of the article, under a special, ghettoized section, so it can be more easily dismissed by devotees. And now we have Tyagananda's book, so that devotees can more easily dismiss the work of secular scholars. Due to the success of this group of editors, only sources which uphold the Mission hagiography can be used in Ramakrishna's Wikipedia biography, and discussion of Ramakrishna's sexuality in his biography is verboten. I have tried for years to balance out this group's attacks on Kripal, but I have been outnumbered and over-ruled. What happened on Wikipedia should be a disgrace to any organization with a basic sense of propriety.
I am angry about the total lack of honesty and basic ethics that I have experienced among Ramakrishna devotees, and that they have been so spectacularly successful in spreading their lies.
To back to one of the points in my review of Tyagananda's book, the great gulf in Ramakrishna studies remains between the hagiography of religious scholars and the work of secular scholars. Tyagananda would place the blame on the use of psychoanalysis by secular scholars (although --- as he knows very well --- some, like McLean, don't use psychoanalysis at all, and although psychoanalytic criticism is a perfectly appropriate methodology in certain cases and doesn't raise an eyebrow in literature departments --- points Tyagananda elides skillfully).
And then the Mission has Jeffery Long, a reliable devotee in academia to fawningly review Tyagananda's book in Ramakrishna Mission newsletters. And then the devotees can use Tyagananda's book as a source in the Wikipedia articles. And if they are successful, no one will hear the views of secular scholars. Hagiography will completely cover up scholarship. This is the agenda, and it has been quite successful. And it doesn't happen by accident.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg2?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=2&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘First, a trivial point--my name is spelled Jeffery, not Jeffrey. (You've done this twice. No sweat--people misspell my name all the time.)
Since you have very nicely and clearly outlined how you perceive me--as part of a grand, century-old conspiracy--I will certainly not take your tone or your anger personally. Your anger is directed at the conspiracy that you perceive and which you see me as supporting. And given this perception, I think your anger and frustration are entirely appropriate. I would probably react in exactly the same way, if I shared your perception. (Jeff Kripal himself initially perceived me in the same way until we began a one-on-one correspondence. Whatever our disagreements may be, we recognize each other as sincere seekers for truth.)
Just a few points from my side, in case you're interested in what motivates me, personally, as part of this whole thing:
First, I cannot and do not take responsibility for the misdeeds of particular Ramakrishna devotees that you may have encountered in your experience with Wikipedia. I can only vouch for the integrity of my own work. "Fawning" or not, every word I have ever written is as accurate a representation as words can be of my thoughts and feelings at the time of writing. I have engaged in no deliberate deception in my scholarly work or in my teaching. Please do not tar me with the brush of guilt by association (the Fox News tactic to which I alluded earlier--though, again, understandable given what you have said).
Secondly, my experience with the Ramakrishna Mission/Vedanta Society has been very different from yours. I do not come to this tradition as someone with an ax to grind about Ramakrishna's sexuality. Vedanta is a worldview, a conceptual framework, that both rings true to me intuitively and has much to recommend it in terms of its internal logic. It has helped me to find meaning in my life--particularly in pivotal events such as the death of my father when I was twelve years old--and its practice has had profoundly positive transformative effects upon my character and consciousness. I have found the Vedanta Society as a community and its swamis and pravrajikas in particular to be warm, supportive repositories of wisdom who have been invaluable guides in my spiritual life. Most of all--and this is the part that you are likely to find most incredible--I have found them wonderfully open to critical questioning. I am a very independent-minded person, and the Vedanta tradition has been far more appealing to me than other Hindu-inspired movements precisely because of its openness and the freedom of thought that it encourages and inspires. Believe it or not, we in the Ramakrishna tradition do not spend most of our time conspiring about how to hide Ramakrishna's sexuality. In my experience, we spend our time talking about God, meditation, karma, rebirth, and how to make sense of our lives in this crazy material world. We are really quite boring people!
Thirdly, I know dozens of native speakers of Bengali in this tradition (including my wife). While none of them are scholars of religion, many read the Kathamrta on a daily basis as part of their devotional practice and are intimately familiar with it, some being able to quote long passages from memory. If there was a deep, dark secret contained in this text that had been hidden from the world by Swami Nikhilananda's allegedly bowdlerized English translation, they would surely have known about it long ago. Unless, of course, this "secret" is only available through the lens of Freudian analysis (a perfectly legitimate interpretive lens, in my opinion, though not the most comprehensively revealing one). And this is what I find most interesting about this entire debate--and is the central issue of the book I have "fawningly" reviewed--namely, the fact that different epistemic lenses can yield starkly different perceptions of the same phenomenon (in this case, a text and the life of the person it narrates). Native speakers of Bengali who have grown up with this text are baffled that Jeff Kripal can see what he does in it--just as he is equally baffled when others do not see it.
Fourthly, and as I mentioned earlier, I am a pluralist. Let a thousand flowers bloom! I wish the Ramakrishna tradition would engage more deeply with scholarship pursued from outside the tradition (secular scholarship). My current project is a theology of divine incarnation that reflects, as its central issue, on what it means to affirm the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Ramakrishna in a way that does not diminish either. Looking at the sexuality of the human side of this equation will certainly be part of this project. My problem with Kripal's work is not in principle, but is based largely on the rather serious translation issues that plague it, and on which key arguments often seem to hinge (which Sil and others have pointed out, and not only Swami Tyagananda).
Fifthly, and finally, the one major principled, theoretical issue that I have relates, again, not to sexuality. (I am neither a prude nor a homophobe, and the most moving parts of Kripal's work are when he argues, rightly, that the tradition has nothing to fear from a homoerotically inclined Ramakrishna--were that the case.) It is a metaphysical issue. Though Kripal claims in his introduction that he intends to pursue a non-reductive approach to Ramakrishna (and I believe he is sincere in his desire to do so), his work, and that of most secular scholars, presumes that one can fully "explain" the phenomenon of Ramakrishna in psycho-sexual terms. While a perfectly fine interpretive lens, from my perspective, this is an incomplete--and indeed superficial--approach. The whole point of Vedanta is that we are not this limited, finite physical form, but are rather manifestations of an infinite consciousness. To me, the life of Ramakrishna, however it is interpreted, points to this profound truth (which others are free to accept or reject). And yes, I do aspire to be a reliable devotee of this truth.
Thank you for your patience in engaging in this discussion with me. I hope it can be constructive and not just another case of internet anger-venting.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg2?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=2&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘I guess that it's just a weird coincidence then that Nikhilananda just happened to omit the passages which are in tension with the Mission's preferred image of Ramakrishna, like the ones that I referred to in my Amazon review.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘Or not. It might have been quite intentional. But this may be less of a "cover up" and more a matter of judging one's audience. As Tyagananda and Vrajaprana point out, Nikhilananda was at least in part concerned about AMERICAN prudery at the time. (Remember, this was the 1940s, even before the era of Elvis above the waist and the Stones singing "Let's Spend Some Time Together" on the Ed Sullivan Show.) Bengalis had been reading the unexpurgated original for decades (as they have continued to do). But Americans, already leery of "foreign" religions (note the NYC mosque controversy of our own era), would most certainly be turned away from the deeper truths of Vedanta if they thought that the founder of the tradition was "perverted."’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘Exactly. And how did Nikhilananda describe this expurgating process in his preface?
"I have made a literal translation, omitting only a few pages of no particular interest to English-speaking readers. Often literary grace has been sacrificed for the sake of literal translation."
Well, that's just a fresh breath of honesty, isn't it? Especially considering that Nikhilananda has completely rearranged the text of the Kathamrita. Without, of course, alerting his readers.
The Mission was apparently quite pleased with Nikhlananda's omissions: his expurgated translation, carefully crafted so as not to offend what Nikhilananda assumed to be the prejudices of 1940s Americans, remains the standard English edition of the Kathamrita 69 years later. So much so that it is still quite difficult to get one's hands on a more accurate translation. Malcolm McLean translated the entire Kathamrita in 1983, but rather than getting the rights to reprint McLean's accurate and complete translation (or translating it themselves rather than authoring dozens of books on various other subjects every year), the Mission is happy to reprint and promote Nikhilananda's 1942 expurgated 'translation', complete with Nikhilananda's claims that it is a literal translation.
Sadly, this ends-justify-the-means approach is about par for the course when dealing with the Ramakrishna Mission swamis and devotees, and has been since the time of Vivekananda, as Sil's academic work shows.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘I am all in favor of a new, complete, critical English edition of the Kathamrta. Unfortunately, amar bangla khub bhalo na, or else I would take it on myself. It might be something my wife and I could do jointly, though she has her hands full with her own scholarship (in the area of Japanese studies).
So maybe we don't disagree all that much on this particular topic.
In terms of tone, though, every one of your postings veritably drips with venom. This does not serve the cause of dialogue well. It may be understandable, and even justifiable, given your experiences. But it does not make this conversation at all pleasant. In your mind, it seems, I am a member of an execrable tribe of liars and hypocrites, and I doubt anything I could say would change that. Again, this is very different from my correspondence with Jeff Kripal himself, who is a model of openness and scholarly cordiality.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘I'd like to thank Jeffery Long for his contribution here. I'm not a devotee of tantra or Ramakrishna at all, just wandered into this end of Kripal's work by accident. I must say this statement hits it for me:
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There is just no way Kripal gets mysticism. Whatever one thinks of Sri his statement that you can't be both enlightened and sexually conflicted goes right to the point. I just don't think Kripal understands on a basic level what's involved in transcendence. I don't care if Ramakrishna was gay or not, have no interest in propping up a stereotypical sainthood, and know that the highly achieved are often highly sexed. But I also don't see any actual spirituality in the portrait Kripal lays out. It's written as if sexual conflict *is* spirituality, which is leftover Freudian gunk. There's *so* much else one could pick psychologically to get a handle on RK, whether it's Maslow or Jung or Grof or whoever. In Freud *all* spirituality is a coverup for repression. A Freud-based bio of *any* mystic would be reductionist and trying to stir up sexual guilt. It's what Freudians do -- and it's pure dogma btw.
There also seems to be a pile of fact challenges going unanswered and that's really at the coalface of the argument too. Interesting that Dr Long should say Kripal is sincere... I'll keep it in mind but I really think his overheated imagination misfilled a lot of blanks. His work just is not a reasonable picture. Certainly not the revelation of plain fact it was said to be.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘Hello Prokopton,
Thank you for your appreciative comments. I do think Kripal is sincere (in his desire not to present Ramakrishna in a reductive way). I had a wonderful conversation with him a couple of months ago on this and many other matters as well. The problem, as you point out, is with the Freudian approach, which is highly reductive and therefore hard to square with the more expansive Tantric understanding that Kripal wants to use. Had he either (a) jettisoned the Freud, opting for one of the other approaches that you have mentioned or (b) drawn upon Freud judiciously, as only one theory among many, rather than depending on that model so much, I suspect he would have come up with something less reductive and more true to the profundity of Ramakrishna's mystical experiences. Certainly a mystical experience, like any experience, can be both/and (i.e. have a psycho-physical dimension as well as a transcendent dimension). The Freudian approach seems to allow for the former but not the latter.’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
‘Agreed. Thanks for replying... having thought more I came to certain conclusions here. You're completely right of course that mystical experiences clearly and consistently *are* psycho-physical -- Murphy's magnum opus is pretty conclusive on that to pick only one.
But the problem with Freudian stuff here is not simply that it doesn't allow for the transpersonal -- it's that it doesn't allow for any positive/transcendent aspect to the psycho-physical stuff it treats of at all. You have nowhere to go.
There are certainly "Freudian"-style elements in the human psyche bound up with the transpersonal IMO. (I'll be doing a blog post on schizophrenia in that regard at some point this year.) But the psycho-physical aspects of real transpersonal experience *redeem* those issues and heal them. You likely already know that's an aspect of the human experience that Freud simply couldn't allow -- it caused the break with Jung. An earlier Freudian who suggested something of the kind, Herbert Silberer, was rejected by Freud and committed suicide.
It's somewhat strange that Kripal couldn't come up with a view of his subject that showed a truly redemptive nature to his transpersonal experience! (Which seems to be the point to everyone else. ^_^). In the 20th century academic humanities there was an awful lot of "reflexive Freud", people just trotting it out as if it was gospel, over-reliant on unthinking use of it, and I really think there's a lot of that going on here which is pretty lazy.
I hear you on Kripal's sincerity, but would be interested to know whether in your conversation he showed signs of understanding that this unresolved Freudian stuff as centrepiece of his portrait meant *denying the reality* of RK's transpersonal achievement! It doesn't get much more reductionist than that...
I did see what looks like an interesting anthology of papers on western sexual mysticism under his editorship here on Amazon:
Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism (Aries)
... to which he also contributed a chapter. I sure hope his understanding has improved since this old book, but from the cover I fear not since the angel remains fallen! Ah well... happy new year to you. :)’
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1BS01A72Z35LN/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg3?ie=UTF8&asin=8120834992&cdForum=Fx2NQ9PZBK8VMS5&cdPage=3&cdThread=TxNPCEOY33BUO&store=books#wasThisHelpful
Why would anybody expect an avatar of God to be a “regular citizen”? Kripal is obviously wrong that mystical experience does not transcend human sexuality, but the puritans of the Ramakrishna Mission are ALSO wrong that the physical symptoms of “one-ness with God” cannot INCLUDE same-sex love.
Isherwood is right in his biography of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: comprehension of his particular “phenomenon”-as he calls this incarnation of God-is utterly beyond those incapable of all-consuming love. And another thing that Isherwood makes clearer in his biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples, is that, although Swami Vivekenanda ("Niren" to Ramakrishna, and a thoroughly aristocratic, Westernized and Raj-Victorianized Hindu) was regularly made uncomfortable by his guru's behaviours and habits, he loved him passionately and trusted him completely. Vivekenanda was far less of a prude and a conformist than these modern academics--the "liberal" ones or the dogmatically "conservative" ones.