In Rama Tirtha’s Woods of God-Realisation
By
Pranav Khullar
October 17,
2022
Iqbal Evocatively Captures This Moment Of Rama
Tirtha Where The Poet And His Poetry Are In Complete Synchronicity, In This
Line: ‘Aah, Khola Kis Ada Se Tune Raaz-E-Rang-O-Bu.’ Ah, How Beautifully You
Have Unearthed The Secrets Of Life – Where Vedanta Is Not Just A Philosophical
Abstract But A Living Experience In Which The Small ‘I’ Fades Away In This
Expansion Of Love For All.
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“I call my
religion Vedantic humanism, that man himself is divine,” stated Swami Rama
Tirtha, whose unique call of a practical Vedanta, as a means of becoming and
being, transcended the traditional way of looking at Vedanta as a means of
knowing and realising.
Swamiji
reignited the core Upanishadic postulate that they alone live who experience
and realise the universal harmony of love. Vedanta is not just an intellectual
grasp of its philosophy but a total offering of body and mind at the altar of
love.
He captured
the essence of this spiritual law in a composition called ‘The Faith’: “What
care I for caste or creed? It is the deed, it is the deed/ What for class or
clan? / It is the man, it is the man/… What for crown or crest? It is the
heart, within the breast.”
In
expounding Vedanta as the supreme art of living, Rama Tirtha saw the empirical
world as a beautiful manifestation of the Self itself. And in not negating the
material world, he was able to see beauty and joy in each object, as a
manifestation of the divine. The body and mind can be practically renounced
only when the flame of love is lit, the ability to see each one as part of your
own self. And this flame of love alone can light up the fire of freedom.
The
affirmation of this physical world enables us to view the modern ideals of
democracy and socialism as spiritual manifestations, as well of the ideals of
Vedanta, believed Rama Tirtha.
The concept
of Vedanta as a practical, practising religion was the cornerstone of his
thinking – it had to be practised before it could be spread. “If Vedanta is not
practised in everyday life, what is the use of it? … Vedanta is the whole
truth; it is killed if the whole of it is not lived.” Swamiji’s use of the term
Vedanta was not merely referring to a particular philosophy or speculative thought,
but it was to find the source of happiness in the expansion of the Self. This
whole wide world is a magnificent forest, an expansion of the Self, he would
often state, and only a narrow-necked brain/intellect of yours is preventing
you from seeing the Whole.
His vision
of a new practical Vedanta was a call to see all things in one’s Self, and
one’s Self in all things: “Vedantic realisation is hard because a vast majority
of people think they have to change themselves into god … but you are already god,
nothing but god … realise the truth and be free … have the brain and eye to see
One god and one humanity.” Rama Tirtha’s clarion call redefined the notion of
the material world as the manifestation of the divine itself.
Iqbal
evocatively captures this moment of Rama Tirtha where the poet and his poetry
are in complete synchronicity, in this line: ‘Aah, Khola Kis Ada Se Tune
Raaz-e-Rang-o-Bu.’ Ah, how beautifully you have unearthed the secrets of
life – where Vedanta is not just a philosophical abstract but a living
experience in which the small ‘i’ fades away in this expansion of love for all.
-----
Views
expressed above are the author's own.
Source: In Rama Tirtha’s Woods Of
God-Realisation
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/rama-tirtha-woods-god-realisation/d/128203
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