Synthesis of Vedanta

Revered Swami Tapasyananda Maharaj, who was a scholar-monk of great eminence and one of the Vice-presidents of the Ramakrishna Order, had dealt with Sri Ramakrishna’s synthetic and comprehensive Vedanta in an erudite yet lucid way in his well-ac-claimed works. This book incorporates his analysis of the subject culled from his books Sri Ramakrishna Life and Teachings and Bhakti Schools of Vedanta.

The Vedanta preached by Sri Ramakrishna has always been an enigma to many. Some hold that he preached the Advaita Vedanta of Sri Shankaracharya. Some others aver that he adapted the Vishishtadvaita Vedanta of Sri Ramanujacharya. Still others assert that he combined the Dvaita of Sri Madhvacharya, Vishishtadvaita of Sri Ramanujacharya and Advaita of Sri Shankaracharya. While Sri Ramakrishna incarnated on this earth to preach sythesis and harmony, there has been dissessions among the students of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature regarding the Master's and the disciple's elucidation of Vedanta.

Revered Swami Tapasyananda Maharaj, who was a scholar-monk of great eminence and one of the Vice-presidents of the Ramakrishna Order, had dealt with this subject in an erudite yet lucid way in his well-acclaimed works.

For the convenience of readers who might not have read his books, we have ventured to compile his analysis on this subject from his book Sri Ramakrishna Life and Teachings and his magnus opus philosophical treatise Bhakti Schools of Vedanta. We have also included in the appendix a rational and scientific article written by Swami Atmapriyananda, which has been published as an appendix in the above book. Some relevant extracts on Sri Ramakrishna in bhava-mukha from Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master and Sri Ramakrishna's sayings on vijnana and vijnani from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna have been compiled and appended for the convenience of the readers who have not read the original sourcebooks.

For easier reading, we have removed the diacritical marks in this book and have applied the styles in tune with the current trend. We have slightly edited the contents to suit to the presentation of the present book.

We hope this book will serve its purpose of giving its readers an insight into a new synthetic and comprehensive Vedanta that the Lord had preached for the modern age in the form of Sri Ramakrishna and his Vibhuti, Swami Vivekananda.

**Contents and Page Samples**