Through the ages Vedanta has produced many great Indian saints, some of whom have restated the principles of Vedanta for their own era, giving them fresh impetus and power. In recent times the best known of these saints and teachers is Sri Ramakrishna (1836−1886), who lived and taught in a state of continual God-consciousness. His main teaching was that religion is not a matter of doctrine or belief but of realization. He fully verified through his own experiences that all conceptions of God represent different aspects of the same Supreme Being and that expressed the quintessence of his spiritual realizations in a simple dictum: Yato mat, tato path “As many faiths, so many paths.”