Ramakrishna and the measure of a teacher

Sri Ramakrishna held no post, published nothing and travelled almost nowhere. He served at Dakshineswar and spoke in parables drawn from fishermen, sweets and household quarrels.

What he demonstrated, rather than argued, was that the paths do not compete. He kept Islamic and Christian practice for periods and reported arriving at the same place. Coming from a temple priest in nineteenth-century Bengal, this was not diplomacy — it was fieldwork.

The measure of a teacher, in his own phrase, was whether the student's greed and anger reduced. Not whether the student could quote.