Ramakrishna was a messiah, the prophet of the modern age, but no scholar, only a man of faith. From him came the authentic proclamation to the entire world that what lies behind the various religions of the world is a Single Reality. Without any sophisticated education, he was able to influence the greatest intellectuals of his time, even the most westernized in their thought processes. Coming in the direct line of Chaitanya, he would frequently pass into ecstacy, even at the mention of God's name by somebody in the neighbourhood. What is most important for all of us is the inexhaustible fund of conversation which his disciples have preserved for us, through which , by suitable parables and allegories, he explains the most abstruse truths of the complex religion that is Hinduism and its central unity with other faiths, of which he had personal experience through his own experimentation. He represented all the facets of Hindu religion in his own person. His life itself was a unique synthesis of all higher thinking in the spiritual levels of the world. He is the gift of Hinduism to posterity.