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"Yato vaacho nivartante APRAAYA manasaa sa:" - "Where from words retum, unable to be reached by the mind" - This is how the ancient sages have spoken about the Ultimate Reality "from which everything arises, by which everything is sustained and into which everything merges." To seek and realize the reality is the meaning and purpose of life according to the seers who proclaimed the Truth. Echoing the wisdom of the ancients, the great Acharya Shankara declares in Viveka Chudaamani:
"Three things are rare indeed and caused by the Divine Grace - a human birth, the longing for libera- tion and the protecting care of a great preceptor." One who obtains all the three is elevated to the status of the Divine and he becomes a tirthankara - one who enables other souls in bondage to cross over the ocean of samsaara.
Avataras do not descend from other planets or from the sky. They are human beings who raise themselves to that state through their sadhana in human life. Aatmaanam maanusham manye dasarataatmajam - "Know that I am a man, son of Dasaratha", proclaimed Sri Rama whom we adore as the maiyaadaa purushottama - the Ideal Man.
We live in the age of reason. Belief in God based on fear or urge for favour must today give way to the right understanding of the Ultimate Truth of all existence through one's probe into the physical and then from there into the metaphysical realms of existence. What the modem science has discovered today through its probe into the external world - that the Ultimate Reality is nothing but a Consciousness Force - was realized in their intuitive vision by the Vedic seers who gave us the Upanishads- their findings in their probe into their intuitive realm. But mere intellectual understanding of the Upanishadic Wisdom is not the goal of life. It must become everyone's experience in his or her intuitive consciousness. Thus the human reason starts its journey through the path of sadhana to seek the truth and that is mumukshatva.
Years ago, this sadhu asked his sikshaa guru, Swami Chinmayananda,
a simple question to get a clarification on a sloka from Maandukya
Kaarika. The Swami burst out.- "Enough of reading Upanishads.
Throw your Upanishad books into a ditch and start doing sadhana."
The great Advaitacharya, the noted exponent of Gita and Upanishads,
did not mean any insult to the texts, but drilled into the mind
of this student the truth that knowledge should lead to sadhana.
Revered Rajaji also says: "Knowledge, when it becomes
fully matured becomes Bhakti. If it does not get transformed into
Bhakti, such Knowledge is useless tinsel."
Thus came Mother Mayamma, an apparently illiterate, dirty, beggar
woman, who was sitting on the shores of the Indian Ocean at Kanyakumari
into the life of this sadhu. The intellectual vanity which in
the beginning stood in the way of prostrating before an apparently
ugly, unclean, mad, beggar woman adored by many faithful devotees
as Divine Mother, soon gave way under the irresistible spell of
the Mother, impelled him to sit at her feet and pour out the feelings
of his intense devotion to her. She then sent this sadhu to yet
another 'mad beggar' sitting in the precincts of Lord Arunachaleswara
at Tiruvannamalai. That evening when this sadhu presented himself
before his Master who at the first sight appeared to be an "awe-inspiring
eccentric beggar", the last vestiges of egoistic pride in
the study and scholarship of philosophy started falling like dilapidated
scaffoldings on the advent of a whirlwind. Little did this sadhu
realize at that time that this Socrates-like personality was going
to become his dikshaaguru soon.
As long as ego and ego-centric desires reside in the heart, the
grace of the Guru will never enter. The Master held the hands
of this humble disciple for hours together, the vibrations created
by His divine touch sweeping and cleaning the inner cavities of
the heart of all the vaasanaas that had accumulated through several
births. That day was an unforgettable day in 1984.
The inaugural issue of TATTVA DARSANA, a quarterly edited by this sadhu, which came out on Feb 28, 1984, carried a picture of Sri Aurobindo, my Master's master and the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram with a short note under a titre "FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION" and a subtitle "February 29, 1956, Wednesday, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondy". After making this sadhu read it thrice, my Master asked: "Did the First Supramental Manifestation occur only in 1956?" While this sadhu got startled, the Master burst into a hearty laughter. What a whipping revelation!
My Master used to sing often that this great land of Bharatavarsha is the land where kings and emperors have done their great yagas. This land is the Karma bhumi, Tapo bhumi, Moksha bhumi of the souls wending their way godward. Since times immemorial, this land bas been blessed by the advent of great sages and seers, sadhaks and savants of humanity. They have been the beacons guiding the ships of human lives on the vast ocean of samsara.
Let mankind all over the world learn the meaning and purpose
of their lives from the preceptors of this holy land." This
was the call of the great rishis. My Master, Yogi Ramsuratkumar,
has also come in the lineage of those great masters. And, like
the great preceptor of preceptors who sits under a big banyan
tree and imparts the greatest wisdom through the language of silence,
my Master also speaks through his eyes and kindles wisdom and
devotion in the hearts of those who throng to Him. "Mount
Arunachala never moves", He says whenever someone approaches
Him to visit his or her place to confer grace on devotees. And
He never gave discourses nor did He write books or articles. A
couple from South Africa came to Him a decade ago and prayed that
He grace the Indian's settled in their distant land by His presence
and impart spiritual knowledge to them who were far away from
their Motherland. My Master laughed aloud and uttered jovially:
"This beggar is no teacher. His Master has taught him only
one line - AUM SRI RAM JAI RAM JAI JAI RAM and said that is enough
for him." Casting a glance at this sadhu sitting by His side,
he remarked with an apparent sarcasm - "You take Professor
Rangaraja. He will give lectures". This sadhu took it as
a joke. But, to our utter surprise, it did materialize. This sadhu
left the shores of this land the very next year to spend three
months in South Africa to give lectures and discourses under various
institutions and organisations, and to edit the Yoga Lessons for
Children, a prestigious publication of the Divine Life Society
of South Africa, brought out to commemorate the Centenary of Swami
Sivananda. This visit abroad enabled this sadhu to realize the
superiority of sadhana and bhakti over sheer intellectual knowledge.
The poor and illiterate people who went to the distant lands like
South Africa, Mauritius, Trinidad and Fiji, as indentured labour,
carried with them only Ramnam, Shivanam and Hanuman Chalisa with
which they were familiar through ages, and their simple methods
of devotional worship have transformed their lives tremendously
not only materially, but also spiritually and enabled them to
keep up the glorious cultural heritage of the ancient Bharat which
they carried to their colonies in the distant lands.
The right mission in the life of this sadhu was pointed out by
the great Master on the auspicious occasion of the birthday celebrations
of Papa Ramdas in the Banyan Tree Cave on Mount Arunachala on
April 26, 1988. This sadhu was invited to be a speaker on the
occasion, but that day's celebration sprang a great surprise and
thrill to the devotees who had gathered there in the Cave Ashram.
It was the sudden and most unexpected appearance of Yogi Ramsuratkumar
there. He announced the purpose of His sudden visit as to spend
sometime with the 'Professor'. Little did this 'Professor' imagine
that there was something most unexpected to happen in his life
in the next few hours. The Master coolly told the organizers that
there were so many others who could speak and he virtually dragged
this sadhu from the meeting place to the cave. And then happened
the greatest 'nuclear explosion', in the life of this sadhu. The
Master initiated him into the sacred mantra - Aum Sri Ram Jai
Ram Jai Jai Ram whieh He himself received from Papa Ramdas who
had sat and meditated in the very cave where we were sitting.
What else other than the punya accumulated in the past births
could bring in such a great fortune! Mahapurusha samsmya is not
merely sitting in the presence of a great preceptor. To transform
oneself into a humble and effective instrument for the Master's
work is the summum bonum of this contact. This humble servant
got the blessings of the Master for that transformation that day
when He declared him as a sadhu' and an instrument for His Fathers
work. The timing of this event was also most significant. It happened
hardly ten months prior to the Mahasamadhi of Mataji Krishnabai
of Anandashram in February 1989. After the initiation while taking
leave of Him, this sadhu was told by the Master-. "My Father
will guide you. Now you can go back and continue to do what you
have been doing all these days. Renunciation is not giving up
anything. It is just changing your attitude towards the world.
My Father alone exists, nothing else, nobody else." My Master
used to say: "It is not easy to get a Guru, a spiritual master.
It may take sometimes many births to get a spiritual master."
But the Master Himself comes into the life of the disciple when
the appointed hour comes, or, in other words, when the instrument
is ready for His work.
After the Mahasamadhi of Pujya Mataji Krishnabai on Feruary 12,
1989, my Master pointed out the great mission in this sadhu's
life to which his whole lifetime was to be dedicated. Mataji had
started the massive japa yajna of chanting 15,500 crores of the
Ramnam Taraka, Aum Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Rwn for World Peace,
of which 1757 crores had been completed before Her departure from
the physical body. My Master suggested to this sadhu to take up
the task of spreading Her mission of the nama japa-yajna all over
the country and abroad, for the completion of the astronomical
target fixed by Her.
The Hitopadesa gives the story of a little tittiba bird which
tried to empty the ocean with the help of a blade of grass, to
recover its lost eggs carried by the waves. When all other members
of the feathered race laughed at her or pitied the poor bird,
the mighty Garuda, seeing the plight of a member of his own ilk,
spread his wings and threatened the King of the seas who at once
surrendered the eggs to the bird. This story flashed in the mind
of this sadhu when the Master asked him to take up this 15,500
crore japa yajna as a mission in life. This little tittiba bird
started the work of spreading Ramnam for achieving the Divine
Mothers target, with the mighty Garuda in the form of the Master
standing by his side, waiting for the appropriate moment to spread
His wings and see the completion of the target. By His grace and
blessings, the World Ramnam Movement has spread all over the globe,
though we have yet to go a long way to reach the goal. But Master
is there and He now conducts this sadhu again to the distant lands
for spreading His work.
No one can intellectually comprehend the power and greatness
of the Ramnam Taraka Mantra. But the significance that Master
attaches to the Japa sadhana has been manifest many a times in
His actions and expressions. Referring to the initiation of my
Master by Papa Ramdas into the Mantra, my Master has uttered many
times, "Papa gave this madness to this beggar" and "This
beggar died at the feet of Papa Ramdas in 1952". Shastras
say that one becomes what one thinks intensely and constantly.
Immersed in the japa sadhana right from the moment of His initiation,
my Master has become 'That'. The 'death' that He speaks of is
the cessation of the subject or individuality in Him and its merger
into the object of His meditation. The salt doll merged into the
ocean. Yogi Ramsuratkumar became Rama. "Yogi Ramsuratkumar
is the name of my Father", says my Master often. And in the
Nama japa yajna also, the name of Yogi Ramsuratkumar is considered
to be carrying the same 'sphota' or potency of the Ramanama Taraka
mantra and is taken for the japa counts. On the occasion of the
Upanayanam of the son of a devotee, my Master declared in the
presence of many of his devotees: "This beggar initiated
this mantra to Rangaraja and He suggested to him to spread the
mantra to help fulfilment of 15,500 crore Nama Japa Yajna of Mataji
Krishnabai. Rangaraja took it seriously and he is doing Papa's
work."
Once Ma Devaki, the spiritual sister of this sadhu, wanted to
record Master's discourse to this sadhu on the greatness of Ramnam.
Master prevented her, telling that He wanted His message to go
into this human instrument of Sadhu Rangaraja and come out through
him and not through the tape recorder. He is very particular that
this Ramnam work should on no account be disturbed and should
continue incessantly. On the day He commanded this sadhu to introduce
Ma Devaki, His 'Etemal Slave' to the devotees through TATTVA DARSANA,
He declared: "Papa Ramdas gave initiation to this beggar
and then He wanted this beggar to go away to spread this Ranmam.
When this beggar gave initiation to Rangaraja, He also expected
Rangaraja to go away from Him and spread Papa's work. But this
beggar is always with Rangaraja." To one who revels in God-consciousness
no idol is needed. So also to one who feels the presence of the
Master in his bosom ail the time, the physical presence or proximity
of the Master is hardly needed. Therefore this sadhu had no hesitation
to accept gladly the Master's command. However, the Master called
this sadhu to His abode again at the time of the laying of the
foundation stone of Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram at Tiruvannamalai
in the presence of Swami Satchidananda, on February 26, 1994.
Then certain developments made the Master ask this sadhu to take
over as a Trustee of the Ashram. He wanted some more persons as
trustees to carry on the work and three more were chosen. He wanted
the presence of this sadhu in Tiravannamalai for some days and
retained him there for about a month. However, he was very clear
as to the prime purpose of this instrument and declared that the
Ramnam work which is the work of His Master, Papa Ramdas is much
more important than construction of ashram and temple. He wanted
that His Father's work should not be affected by any diversion
of attention of this sadhu and He made this clear to other devotees
involved in the work of construction of the ashram.
Rama Nama Taraka Japa and the Japa of Yogi Ramsuratkumar nama
will provide immense solace, inspiration and strength to all those
involved in the work of setting up the Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram
and make the Ashram a haven of divinity, peace and bliss, attracting
the spiritually hungry souls from all over the world. It is certainly
the Divine Power of the Master that works the miracle of setting
up of such a mighty and glorious temple in the modem times, but
the role and importance of the dedicated devotees fully surrendered
to Him and sincerely pursuing the path of sadhana shown by Him
is no less important. Let the Divine Master guide us in moulding
ourselves into His fittest instruments!
Salutations to my diksha guru!
Vande Mataram
Aum Namo Bhagavate Yogi. Ramsuratkumaraya! Aum Sri Ram Jai Ram
Jai Jai Ram!