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. ------ “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 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism