At the Feet of God

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After receiving initiation of the Ram Mantra from his father, Swami Ramdas, who was then known as Vittal Rao, renounced the worldly life in 1922 and wandered as a mendicant Sadhu all over India and in the Himalayas, in a frenzy of God-intoxication, with the holy and holy and all-powerful Ram Mantra ever on his tongue and with God as his only refuge and guide. His was the completest surrender to the Will of God.

Many years of wandering life brought him finally back to South Kanara. Having attained spiritual liberation and God-vision, he started his mission to guide and serve mankind in order to awaken it to the awareness of God. He founded an Ashram – named Anadashram – near Kanhangad, North Kerala, which is fostered by love and care by Mother Krishnabai, his foremost disciple and a Self – realised soul.

Swami Ramdas’ writings come from the depth of Reality and therefore go straight to the heart. In 1954, he and Mother Krishnabai went on a world tour and hundreds of their devotees, friends, and admirers, who had loved and venerated them from a distance, had a chance to come into close contact with them. Since the last EIGHT decades Anandashram have been a powerful spiritual beacon, and thousands have been constantly visiting it, carrying home with them the torch of Light, Love and Service lit at the feet of the great Master.

Ramdas himself has honoured me by asking me to write a preface to his book. If one were asked what the whole world, to a man, was seeking, one could answer truthfully- HAPPINESS.

Ramdas has found that happiness; that intense, never-fading joy; that perfect bliss which comes from God-realization. I have watched him sunk in this bliss. I know it is no pose. I see the wonder, and have listened to the secret. It lies in these fragments he has written; but it lies more in the pure human heart if it will open itself out to GOD.

Ramdas stands out in our desert of life like those little white flowers that grow in isolated clumps in sandy deserts, and we too would wish to know from what unknown source comes the sweetness; that we may also drink, from that deep, hidden nourishment.

The source is devotion to God by whatever name you choose to call Him: Devotion to Him and His Glorious Name. This is Ramdas’ creed; he has no other. Hindu, Mohammedan and Christian have stood abashed before his gentleness. He is loved alike by one and all. He loves equally.

Still I hear the refrain of his voice singing, always singing 4 SHRI RAM! JAI RAM! JAI JAI RAM! and the silent hills of MT. Abu seem to take up the refrain Simple, child-like Ramdas! Of such is truly the Kingdom of Heaven.