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Vaishnava Bhakti

The Vaishnava Bhakti traditions speak of five different bhāvas — different attitudes that a devotee can take up in order to express his love for the God. They are śānta — the serene attitude, dāsya — the attitude of a servant, sakhya — the attitude of a friend, vātsalya — the attitude of a mother toward her child, and madhura — the attitude of a woman toward her lover. Ramakrishna is known to have practised some of these bhavas

At some point in the period between his vision of Kali and his marriage, Ramakrishna practiced dāsya bhāva — the attitude of a servant towards his master. He started worshiping Rama in the attitude of Hanuman, the monkey-god, who is considered to be the ideal devotee and servant of Rama. In doing so, Ramakrishna completely identified himself with Hanuman, he ate and walked like a monkey, spent much of his time in trees and his eyes got a restless look like the eyes of a monkey. According to Ramakrishna and his biographers, there was even a small growth in the lower part of his spine resembling the tail of a monkey. As a climax to his dāsya experiment, Ramakrishna had a vision of Sita, the consort of Rama, merging into his body.

In 1864, Ramakrishna practiced vātsalya bhāva, the attitude of a mother towards God. During this period, he worshipped a metal image of Ramlālā (Rama as a child) in the attitude of a mother. As he was doing so, his character became filled with motherly tenderness, and he began to regard himself as a woman. His speech and gestures changed to that of a woman. According to Ramakrishna and his biographers, he could actually feel the presence of child Rama as a living God in the metal image.

Ramakrishna later engaged in the practice of madhura bhāva— the attitude of Gopis and Radha towards their lover, Krishna. Ramakrishna, in order to realise this love, dressed himself in women's attire for several days and regarded himself as one of the Gopis of Vrindavan. At the end of this sadhana, he attained savikalpa samadhi — vision and union with Krishna. Ramakrishna said,

"I spent many days as the handmaid of God. I dressed myself in women's clothes, put on ornaments, and covered the upper part of my body with a scarf, just like a woman...Otherwise, how could I have kept my wife with me for eight months? Both of us behaved as if we were the handmaids of the Divine Mother. I cannot speak of myself as a man."

At some point, Ramakrishna visited Nadia, the home of Chaitanya and Nityananda, the 15th-century founders of Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava bhakti. He had an intense vision of two young boys merging into his body.

Earlier, after his vision of Kali, he is said to have cultivated the Santa bhava — the passive "peaceful" attitude — towards Kali.