Question
Shri Ramakrishna was from which school of thought?
Answer
The great mystic & Saint, Sri Ramakrishnan Paramahamsa, born in Bengal, started his journey with unflinching devotion to Maa KAli which later also took him towards the Advaita School of Vedanta, after the incident - " when he cut Maa Kali into two pieces using the sword of jnana (knowledge) ".
His Wikipedia Page quotes as follows
Sri Ramakrishna experienced spiritual ecstasies from a young age, and was influenced by several religious traditions, including devotion toward the Goddess Kali, Tantra, Bhakti and Advaita Vedanta.
Vivekananda portrayed Ramakrishna as an Advaita Vedantin.
Further as per this and this official source:
The message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world, which he gave through his life and through his recorded conversations, may be briefly stated as follows:
The goal of human life is the realization of the Ultimate Reality which alone can give man supreme fulfilment and everlasting peace. This is the essence of all religions.
The Ultimate Reality is one; but it is personal as well as impersonal, and is indicated by different names (such as God, Ishvar, etc) in different religions.
Further, in his Book - "Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: Sadhaka of Dakshineswar" ,
Amiya P Sen observes:
It is difficult to be precise or categorical while placing Sri Paramahamsa within the complex range of Vedantic thoughts. There is good reason to believe that he was dissatisfied with the advaitic tendency to collapse the distinction between God and man. To illustrate this, he would employ a metaphor attributed to the Sakta-Tantric poet, Ramoprasad Sen. It is said that Ramoprasad was keen to taste the sweetness of sugar, without turning into sugar; that is, he preferred to remain in a state of dualistic bhakti rather than be drawn into a state of abstraction without identity. Sri Ramakrishnan's ecstatic attachment to the goddess KAli, his recurrent and potent use of devotional songs, his visions of various gods and goddesses, when in saadhnaa, all point to the nature of a bhakta (devotee).
On the other hand, after being initiated into sanayaasa, by a monk of Sankarite Dasanami order, he also chose to stay in a non-dualist bhava (mood) for a period of six months. Importantly too, his reading a text like Bhagavad Gita suggest not bhakti (devotion) but tyaga (renunciation), an attitude more easily identifiable with a practitioner of Jnan Marga (the Knowledge path).
Some people also give terms like "neo-vedantin", but I personally don't understand or comprehend it, whatever it might connotes.
To conclude , with this QnA discussion, and a brief reference from here and what we have discussed above, one may be able to arrive at some conclusion that - it's really not feasible nor tenable to limit Sri Ramakrishnan Paramahansa with any particular or specific ideology systems or School of thought. He was a great Hindu saint, that too, a Paramahamsa at that, whose teachings, may be accommodated and understood as jewels of universal prajna (wisdom) of truth and reconciliation with the Universal Reality we call Brahman.
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