Rating: 
Summary: Preconceived notions
Review: I have problem giving even one star rating to this filty book. There is no level of intellectual in the writings.Who gave this writer Phd ? \...
Rating: 
Summary: Different slant
Review: I just reread Yoganada's "Autobiography" along with this work. M., who seems to be the most referenced biographer of Ramakrishna, had a boys school in Y's old house after his family moved out. M. also brought Y to the Kali Temple at Dashineswar N of Calcutta for the first time.
This biography may have been closer to the biography that Christopher Isherwood might had written if he was not working directly for the Ramakrishna Organization.
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Summary: Wonder how many births the author will need
Review: I really wonder how many births the author will need to wash off the sin of writing this book. Ramakrishna will surely forgive him as he was Lord himself. But what about the wrath of so many devotees.
Dont even attempt to look at this book. Its blasphemy. As somebody said rightly that the author is like a vulture soaring high, but is looking at filth (also one of Ramakrishna's saying).
Rating: 
Summary: A westerner taking Tantra by the horns
Review: It's safe to say nobody's perfect. Not Jeffrey Kripal or his book, not even Ramakrishna. But in Kripal's obvious service of relativizing the one-sided treatment (mainly by Vivekenanda and other monks) of Ramakrishna's great power and energy, reader's should exercise some magnanimity towards the author. He did a lot of academic research that in effect exposed how spiritual organisations all over the world form their own limited political and cultural agendas. Kripal took the controversial subject of tantra by the horns, explained it to westerners in terms that do not mask its sometimes wild erotic and earthy essence, and that is probably the book's most important contribution. He brings us closer to powerful Kali, in ways that the monks in an order cannot risk attempting. And I can imagine Hindus and yogis with a sense of cultural identity have been provoked by the irreverent young western (academic). In a final analysis Kripal's Freudian speculations about Ramakrishna's sexuality, or his claim that Ramakrishna was unconscious of his own true nature, may be far-fetched or untrue. They may ultimately be more about the author's own subconscious, rather than the Paramahamsa's. But Kripal has partly jarred open a door that still needs further opening. Truth, said Ramakrishna, is the sadhana of our age. And if Kali's Child leads people to consider how an enlightened person looks at life, approaching as Ramakrishna did this great mystery in which we live and have our being - both as feminine and masculine - then it will have served a good purpose.
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Summary: A Controversial Project, but Well Worth the Effort
Review: Jeffrey Kripal's "Kali's Child" is bound to elicit strong responses from those who know Ramakrishna through the accepted textual and institutional lenses. His project, moreover, involves the use of Western hermeneutics in dialogue with indigenous (in this case, Indian) interpretations. This can and does often lead to a great deal of cultural tension if the conclusions reached are not identical with the orthodox perspectives present in the indigenous tradition. However, to suggest that Kripal does this out of spite or from some illicit purpose is to ignore the experimental nature of his enterprise, which he admits in the Introduction. He knew this would engender rejection, but he also was interested, as a Historian of Religion (trained by Wendy Doniger at the University of Chicago), in examining comparativism and psychoanalysis as a way to approach religion. It is interesting to note that similar controversies were waged over the publication of Paul B. Courtright's "Ganesa: Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings," and that the reader reviews here on Amazon reflect largely the same dichotomies as those for Kripal's book. In both instances, conclusions that are not stricly laudatory, and analyses that include what some view as "scandalous" or "pornographic" elements, are castigated as biased and unfair. The fact that Kripal's book, like Courtright's, was refereed by academically vetted readers before publication, and that the arguments against it largely consist of personal denunciation, suggest that the difficulty lies not in authorial fabrication but in the nature of the examination. However, just because an inquiry is unsettling does not mean that it is slanderous or factually incorrect. Kripal does a masterful job of integrating different perspectives to give a new way of thinking about the incorrigible human individuality of Ramakrishna, and in so doing also interrogates the social dynamics that have come into play in the bowlderization of this seminal figure in the development of modern Hinduism. While many may not agree with him, it would be useful for them to argue on the level of method, or present contrary evidence, rather than simply resort to polemic and ad hominem attacks.
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Summary: Biased Thesis , Flawed Scholarship
Review: Jeffrey Kripal, starts with the intention of showing Ramakrsihna to be a homsexual. Several of his arguments are flawed because of his lacking of Bengali and because of his over eagerness to bring down the spirituality of Ramakrishna to suppressed sexuality. 1. The supposed difference between Tantra and Vedanta is fictitious and exists only in the western author's minds and not in practicing Hinduism. Millions of South Indian followers of the Vedantic Shankara use Tantric pujas and practice Sri Vidya Upasana a Tantric ritual. In the monasteries associated with the Advaiatic Sankara Tantric pujas are very common. The author should investigate the Smarta sect of Brahmins to discover this. They have often been clubbed with Saivas but this is not true. 2. The strong association between Tantra and sexuality is false. Western authors have a prurient interest in degrading indigenous religious practices to sexual orgies. Yes, Sex is seen as one of the ways to seek divine bliss, but only in one of the tantric sects the left hand path. Tantra in South India and Kashmir is Kaula and part of the righ hand path. Not that there is anything wrong with Sex but Tantra does not necessarily involve sexual connotations. 3. It is a tradition in Hinduism and some other mystical religions for the spiritual seeker whether male or female to approach God as the only maleand himself as female. Several saints including Maniccka Vachagar, Ramalinga Adigal, Arunagirinathar have sung hymns in Nayaki Bhava where they implore the lord to marry them. This does not mean all of these men are homo sexuals. The reason they use this Bhava is the medeival and (biological reality) , female as the receptive and relatively passive element in the Universe. The devotee remains passive and receptive to god. The problem of such biased scholarship is the suspicion that it creates about genuine scholars and seekers from the west as to their intentions. Several European intellectuals made it a practice to denigrate India and what she represents during colonical rule to seek justification and reassurance of European imeprialism. The Ramakrsihna Math is a neo-Hindu institution and one of the earliest reinterpreters of Hinduism in the face of modernity and on which much of the pride of the modern Hindu rests. Striking at it root , though masked as scholarship and apparent concern for truth, is easily recognizable by any intelligent observer as something less inoccuous.
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Summary: A daring dissection of the myth that spirituality is sexless
Review: Naturally, those in need to "worship" Ramakrishna (RK) as a "pure" saint will simply hate and slander this excellent publication of an honest and daring inquiry into the life and psychology of a celebrated icon of spirituality and religion. However, anyone not being a fundamentalist about the modern and decidedly Western dichotomy between body and spirit, sexual energy and religio - is provided here with unique insights into a psyche and mind torn apart by this very concept. The author not only unveils how RK struggles with his sexual preference for young men while being fully dedicated to an ancient and seductive Goddess, but also how he tries to combine libido-employing Tantra with libido-denying mainstream Hinduism. Truly a fascinating book that not only shows RK as a human being but which illustrates the damage that is being wrought in East and West by all systems that deny the natural and healthy union between spirituality and sexuality.
Rating:
Summary: Shallow and completely off base
Review: One of the Shabbiest pieces of research I've seen in my life. It is full of so much misrepresentation and frankly dishonesty that one can conclude only one of the two outcomes, either Prof. Kripal has no insight into Indian thought or he is working towards his own agenda of looking at world from his own Freudian lens.
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Summary: titilating but totally flawed scholarship
Review: The author presupposes first and then manufactures evidence.
A classic example of the pursuit of the exotic under the guise of scholarship that has come to personify much of work in the West regarding Hinduism. However, it makes "interesting" reading for someone (like myself) who many many years ago spent 8 years as a student in Ramkrishna Mission educational institutions. This book is worthless to anyone seeking an introduction to Ramakrishna's life or his ideas.
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Summary: A white cloth looks green through green eyeglasses
Review: The author uses (misuses) freudian psychoanalysis, which reduces all emotions to sexuality, to formulate his opinions. This is highly reductionist (to say the least). The other problem is that a superficial look at something as complex as culture can yield absurd conclusions. For example, using (misusing) freudian principles, one can say the following thing about chistianity. Jesus was a filthy, unclean man dressed in rags. He learned some magic tricks from the visiting Persian merchants. The Romans often invited him to perform at their parties, and in exchange, they offered him wine. So he routinely got drunk, tried to be "a notorious womanizer," and was a hobo all his life. Since Jesus' mother was a prostitute, fearing social retribution, she did not want to announce the true identity of his father, and had to make up a fantastic story for the illiterate nomads. Therefore, Mary claimed that Jesus was born without physical intercourse. So all his life, Jesus guarded the myth of his mother's virginity and hid the immoral activities of his father and other customers who visited his mother for sex. When Jesus become politically strong, the Roman commanders got rid of him and played a joke upon Jesus by crucifying him using the cross, symbolizing that the cross was the phallus and dildo which his mother must have used for her sexual gratification when customers weren't available. Thus, his followers today carry a cross as the phallic symbol of his immaculate conception. Jesus was a hopeless drunkard, to escape public scorn for his vice, he started a bizzare and revolting cannibalistic ritual of symbolically sharing wine and said that it was his blood. This revolting ritual is followed even today by mindless christians. It is safe to say that the obsession of the west with sex and alchoholism is a direct result of such prurient beliefs and immorality which pass as religious ritual. No wonder christia countries suffer from teen pregnancies, and drug and alchohol abuse.
How would the above be considered if it were written by a non-Christian academic scholar from a non-chistian culture? Who claims he has "found the true meaning of the christian beliefs?" The problem with people analysing a culture without being part of it is that only the superficial is visible. And even that is perceived through a conditioning process that is outside the culture. A person not aware of christianity is likely to wonder how come these christians worship a bag of bones nailed to a piece of wood and call it divine? Perhaps their obsession with world domination is linked to their innate sense of shame at the inability of this emaciated, begraggled, bag of bones to face up to his tormentors. Maybe the whole of the west needs to be psychoanlyzed. Perhaps this explains how ruthlessly they treated the trusting and friendly american indians. The christians tranfered their own crisis of self-identity on to the Indians and massacred them. A christian at a church is not thinking, look how indecent Jesus is, he hardly has any clothes on. Look I can count 4 no 8 bones in his ribs. Gosh! he must stink what with all the blood and sweat. Not to mention the fact that he probably didn't have a bath for days. The fact that christians worship this person surely means that they have no sense of shame, who knows perhaps they are all perverts who wouldn't think twice about torturing and killing people. After all, their senses are dulled by the appalling suffering of the figure they call god. Do you see how absurd it sounds? This, then is the problem with reductionist thinking. You see everything colored by what preconceptions you have...
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