I had heard of Sri Rama Devi several years back and had occasionally met Her; but then I did not know Her greatness and so each time I met Her I did nothing more than saluting Her which She answered, every time, with Her usual divine smile. Once when some devotees requested Sri Rama Devi to sing devotional songs, She sang Ram Nam and slowly went into Samadhi. Then in 1948, in Bombay, a high officer of the then Imperial Bank of India spoke to me about the greatness of Sri Rama Devi and Her Samadhi , which by long study, he knew to be of a very high order. I was not only deeply impressed, but felt humiliated, because, the bank officer did not belong to Mangalore or South Kanara, while I was living in the same town where Sri Rama Devi was born, but never knew or realized Her greatness and never cared to go and even to see Her. Naturally, I was eager to meet Her. But two years passed before I could do so.
Then in 1950, my friend and the great and sincere devotee Sri Madiman Shankaranarayan Rau took me to see mother, as many devotees devoutly call Sri Ramadevi. From early in life whenever I met a good and pious man who as a devotee of Sri Rama; I used to ask “Is there any person, now living, who has seen Sri Rama face to face?” No one till then had given me a definite reply. I put the same question to Sri Rama Devi and without any hesitation she said “Yes, I have seen Him” and then went into deep Samadhi. She emerged out of it after some time and with Her usual cheerfulness began to answer questions some people around me put to Her about this unusual experience of Hers. Some asked Her, rather tauntingly, whether the Sri Rama she had seen resembled any of the pictures of Sri Rama She had seen and meditated on; others asked Her, whether it was not Her imagination which made Her think that She had seen Sri Rama and that He had talked to Her. Without getting ruffled in the least, Sri Rama Devi most cheerfully answered: “No, If my seeing you and your talking to me is imagination, then my experience was imagination; but my seeing Sri Rama in His physical form and His talking to me was more real than my seeing you now, and you talking to me.” Sometime, after this, at my request, She was so good as to specially come to Mangalore from Tellicherry, where She was then living, and She delivered a discourse and She and Her disciples sang bhajan songs in the Ganapathy High School Hall in Mangalore. The hall was overpacked. Her discourse and bhajans were listened to with rapt attention and among others, a retired District Judge and an eminent Doctor, both of them highly educated and great social workers, said that they had never listened to a better or more inspiring speech which was in English, a language with which Sri Rama Devi is not well conversant. She studied only up to the fourth standard in school. Sri Rama Devi delivered this speech after She came out of along period in Samadhi.
Sri Rama Devi’s mystic experiences were not a case of ‘sudden conversion’ nor did She, so to speak, stumble upon them, as in the case of some people. They came to Her as a result of twelve years’ hard, strenuous and continued sadhana.
She practiced Karma Yoga by way of wholehearted devotion to and service of Her husband whom ever since Her marriage, She has considered as Her lord and God. She also maintained an ideal home for Her husband and attended to the needs and comforts of all guests, a duty which is considered to be one of the Mahapanchayajnas according to Hindu dharma. She never once shrank from any work of Her duties at Her home. She practiced Bhakthi Yoga by way of constant and ardent japa of RAMANAM. Her trials and sufferings all these years were very great and any other person would have collapsed under the strain. But She withstood everything. Finally She attained ‘Nirvikalpa Samadhi’ and God Sri Rama appeared before Her in the bodily form.
From that day onwards Sadguru Sri Rama Devi has been preaching incessantly, asking people to do japa and practice virtue. To women, particularly, She teaches and preaches, over and over again, asking them to practice Pathivratha Dharma, which is their highest duty, without which all other Sadhanas are of little or no use. This is exactly the advice given by Sri Rama to His Mother Kaushalya when she wanted to follow him into the forest during his exile for fourteen years.
Thousands of people have accepted Her as their Parama Guru and most of them consider Her as an Avatar. Among these are ladies and gentlemen of the highest educational qualifications, who have held with great distinction eminent position in government and other services, and who have done distinguished humanitarian and social services to the public. Some of these were brought up in the lap of luxury and were rank atheists or agnostics; they are completely changed under Sadguru Sri Rama Devi’s teachings and blessings. An eminent personality, who has moved in all ranks of society, once told me, that one great service among others which Sri Rama Devi has done to society is that She has brought peace and joy in several homes where there was unpleasantness and strife before. Sri Rama Devi cured people from incurable diseases by Her blessings and prayers.
May the message of DIVINE MOTHER Sri Rama Devi, spread in every nook and corner of India and raise India and Her people to the highest spiritual and moral height.
– Sri U. Maruthi Rau
Tags: GJS#61
Charanam saranam ramabike