At the Feet of God

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Swami Ramdas, who was known as P Vittal Rao during ‘—‘his pre-Sannyas days, was leading an ordinary life till God’s grace descended on him in or about the year 1920. Then he was made to think deeply on the futility of worldly pursuits and the necessity of pursuing the divine path and realizing one’s identity with the Supreme Being, which alone can lead one to ‘Peace-eternal’. He placed himself totally at the altar of God. At this time his father initiated him with the holy and all-powerful Name of God - RAM MANTRA. He took to ceaseless chanting of the holy Name. When the prompting came from within to renounce the worldly life he took to a wandering mendicant’s life. Fiery aspiration coupled with intense practice to attain the Highest, hastened his spiritual progress and, in a short time, he could behold his Beloved - God - everywhere, both within and without. He thus showed how absolute surrender to God, arising from His constant remembrance by chanting of His name could lead to ultimate Realization quickly and to getting himself established in unending Bliss.

Having thus attained spiritual liberation and God-vision, he started on his mission to awaken mankind to the awareness of God. In 1931 he and Mother Krishnabai, his foremost disciple and a Self-realized soul, founded Anandashram with the object of propagating the ideal of Universal Love and Service. This spiritual centre offers every kind of facility for spiritual regeneration of the soul so that it may realize its pristine divine nature.

Swami Ramdas attained Mahanirvana in July 1963 and Mother Krishnabai in February 1989.

The books authored by Swami Ramdas which come from the deeps of Reality continue to inspire innumerable devotees both inside and outside India.

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.