Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa often spoke of Mother māyā and combined deep Hindu allegory with the idea that māyā is a lesser reality that must be overcome so that one is able to realize his or her true Self.

Bhava samadhi has been experienced by notable figures in Indian spiritual history, including Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and some of his disciples, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his chief disciple Nityananda, Mirabai and numerous saints in the bhakti tradition.

* Ramakrishna Paramahamsa describes of several visions including Kali, Sita, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed.

* Sarada Devi or Sarada Ma ( 1853 – 1920 ), wife and spiritual counterpart of Hindu mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

On Swami Vivekananda's guru, Ramakrishna, Rabindranath Tagore wrote a poem: " To the Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Ramakrishna Deva ".

The Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission are the two key organizations that direct the work of the Ramakrishna movement, a socio-religious movement influenced by 19th century saint Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and shaped by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ( 1836 – 1886 ), a 19th century saint was the founder of the Ramakrishna Order of monks and is regarded as the spiritual founder of the Ramakrishna Movement.

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna describes several visions of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ( 1836 – 1886 ), describes including Kali, Sita, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, as does Mother Reveals Herself, an account of the early life of saint Anandamayi Ma ( 1896-1982 ).

Sarada Devi (; ) ( 22 December 1853 – 20 July 1920 ), born Saradamani Mukhopadhyaya (), was the wife and spiritual counterpart of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a nineteenth century mystic of Bengal.

Rajaram Mohan Roy, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Dayananda Saraswati, Vivekanand etc were Ayyankali's contemporaries.

Swami Akhandananda ( 1864 – 1937 ) was a direct disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a 19th century mystic.

* Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Sometimes during kirtan, he would go into a trance, something common with the earlier Purushottams Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

He became a disciple of Swami Akhandananda, a direct disciple of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and gurubandhu of Swami Vivekananda, at the Saragachi ashram.

Since Gemini Ganesan ’ s aunt Muthulakshmi was an ardent follower of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, she later decided to enroll him into Ramakrishna Mission Home.

During this period, Vivekananda returned to Baranagar Math a few times, because of ill health and to arrange for monetary funds after Balaram Bose and Suresh Chandra Mitra, the disciples of Ramakrishna who sponsored the Math had died.

He had a walk with Swami Premananda, a brother-disciple, and gave him instructions on the future of the Ramakrishna Math.

On the other bank of the river, Ramakrishna had been cremated sixteen years before.

Ramakrishna had reserved ochre cloths for 12, including Girish Ghosh.

Several of the monks had only seen Ramakrishna a few times.

Ramakrishna reportedly had experiences of similar nature a few other times in his childhood — while worshipping the goddess Vishalakshi, and portraying god Shiva in a drama during Shivaratri festival.

Ramakrishna reportedly had a vision of the goddess Kali as the universal Mother, which he described as "... houses, doors, temples and everything else vanished altogether ; as if there was nothing anywhere!

Rumors spread to Kamarpukur that Ramakrishna had become unstable as a result of his spiritual exercises at Dakshineswar.

By the time his bride joined him, Ramakrishna had already embraced the monastic life of a sannyasi ; as a result, the marriage was never consummated.

According to the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna was experiencing phenomena that accompany mahabhava — the supreme attitude of loving devotion towards the divine – and quoting from the bhakti shastras, she said that other religious figures like Radha and Chaitanya had similar experiences.

Ramakrishna acknowledged the left-hand tantric path, though it had " undesirable features ", as one of the " valid roads to God-realization ", he consistently cautioned his devotees and disciples against associating with it.

According to Ramakrishna, towards the end of this sadhana, he had a vision of Sita, the consort of Rama, merging into his body.

According to Ramakrishna, he had an intense vision of two young boys merging into his body.

Ramakrishna said that he " devoutly repeated the name of Allah, wore a cloth like the Arab Moslems, said their prayer five times daily, and felt disinclined even to see images of the Hindu gods and goddesses, much less worship them — for the Hindu way of thinking had disappeared altogether from my mind.

" According to Ramakrishna, after three days of practice he had a vision of a " radiant personage with grave countenance and white beard resembling the Prophet and merging with his body ".

Ramakrishna describes of a vision in which the picture of Madonna and Child Jesus became alive and had a vision in which Jesus merged with his body.

In 1875, Ramakrishna met the influential Brahmo Samaj leader Keshab Chandra Sen. Keshab had accepted Christianity, and had separated from the Adi Brahmo Samaj.

Formerly, Keshab had rejected idolatry, but under the influence of Ramakrishna he accepted Hindu polytheism and established the " New Dispensation " ( Nava Vidhan ) religious movement, based on Ramakrishna's principles —" Worship of God as Mother ", " All religions as true " and " Assimilation of Hindu polytheism into Brahmoism ".

Newspapers reported that Ramakrishna was spreading " Love " and " Devotion " among the educated classes of Calcutta and that he had succeeded in reforming the character of some youths whose morals had been corrupt.

Ramakrishna also had interactions with Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath Tagore, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a renowned social worker.

Ramakrishna was skilled with words and had an extraordinary style of preaching and instructing, which may have helped convey his ideas to even the most skeptical temple visitors.

* God lived with them: Life stories of sixteen monastic disciples, by Swami Chetanananda, published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, ISBN 81-7505-189-1

During Ramakrishna's last days, Narendra and some of the other disciples received the ochre monastic robes from Ramakrishna, forming the first monastic order of Ramakrishna.

" During his final days, Ramakrishna asked Narendra Nath to take care of other monastic disciples and in turn asked them to look upon Vivekananda as their leader.

Swami Vivekananda and other disciples of Ramakrishna in Baranagar Math, in 1887

After the death of Ramakrishna, many of his disciples returned home and were inclined towards a Grihastha ( family-oriented ) life.

From Madurai, he visited Rameswaram, Pondicherry and Madras and there he met some his most devoted disciples, who played important roles in collecting funds for his voyage to America and later in establishing the Ramakrishna Mission in Madras.

Ramakrishna regarded Sarada as the Divine Mother in person, addressing her as the Holy Mother, and it was by this name that she was known to Ramakrishna's disciples.

* Monastic disciples who renounced their family and became the earliest monks of the Ramakrishna order — Narendranath Dutta ( Swami Vivekananda ), Rakhal Chandra Ghosh ( Swami Brahmananda ), Kaliprasad Chandra ( Swami Abhedananda ), Taraknath Ghoshal ( Swami Shivananda ), Sashibhushan Chakravarty ( Swami Ramakrishnananda ), Saratchandra Chakravarty ( Swami Saradananda ), Tulasi Charan Dutta ( Swami Nirmalananda ), Gangadhar Ghatak ( Swami Akhandananda ), Hari Prasana ( Swami Vijnanananda ) and others.

In preparation for monastic life, Ramakrishna ordered his monastic disciples to beg their food from door to door without distinction of caste.

Ramakrishna asked Vivekananda to look after the welfare of the disciples, saying, " keep my boys together " and asked him to " teach them ".

Ramakrishna also asked other monastic disciples to look upon Vivekananda as their leader.

This became the first Math or monastery of the disciples who constituted the first Ramakrishna Order.

" Ramakrishna also cautioned his women disciples against purusa-kanchana (" man and gold ") and Tyagananda writes that Ramakrishna used Kamini-Kanchana as " cautionary words " instructing his disciples to conquer the " lust inside the mind.

The scope of the Administration follows the detailed rules dictated by Swami Vivekananda to Swami Suddhananda, between 1898 to 1899, which has been accepted as the consensus of the opinion of all the monks of the Ramakrishna Mission then, consisting of all the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and their disciples.