CASTLE SPRINGS, CAL., June 11, 1903
MY DEAREST BELOVED SELF,
Need there be anything written or said. Rama knows everything, that is, you know everything, but in spite of that Rama will tell you of some things that transpired here lately, bringing great happiness to Rama everything brings pleasure to Rama.
On May 19, while Rama was stretched on a boulder by the river side, there was brought to Rama by the Manager of Dr. Hiller’s place here a very lovely hammock sent unexpectedly by a friend from Seattle. It was immediately suspended between a green oak and a red fir tree, high up in the air. With bubbling joy and overflowing laughter Rama rolled himself up into the hanging bed. The fragrant, gentle breezes began to rock Rama to and fro, the river went on with its OM melody. Rama laughed and laughed and laughed. Did you hear him? A chirping robin was watching overhead when Rama was swaying back and forth. Perhaps he was envious of Rama. Was he? No, that cannot be, every robin, sparrow, or nightingale knows Rama to be its own. At any rate when Rama left the hammock for a while to let out the uncontrolled inner pleasure in frisking about and dancing, the pretty robin stole the sweet opportunity to try a swing in the hammock. Say, are not Rama’s little birdies and flowers frolicsome, merry and free?
May 20, noon. The President of the United States, on his way to the North, stopped at the Springs awhile. The representative lady of the Springs Company presented him with a basket full of lovely flowers, and immediately after that he accepted from Rama most gracefully, lovingly, and cheerfully the Appeal on behalf of India. He kept the book in his right hand all the time and while responding with his right hand to the salutations of the crowds, the book naturally and spontaneously rose up to his forehead at least a hundred times. When the train started he was seen reading it attentively in his carriage, and once more he waved thanks to Rama from the leaving train.
But lo! Rama never invited the President to the luxury of enjoying a swing in the poetic hammock.
Could you guess, why not? Do guess, please. Well, as you don’t speak, Rama will tell you. The reason is plain enough. The President of the so-called free Americans is not a thousandth part as free as Rama’s birdies and air.
Never mind the President. You can be free, even free as Rama, and have air and light as your faithful servants. Be Rama, and Rama will give you all—suns, stars, air, ocean, clouds, forests, mountains, and what not. Everything will belong to you. Is not that a lovely bargain.? Isn’t it, dear? Do have everything, please.
At four in the morning, waked by the kisses of Aurora and tickled to laughter by free zephyrs, welcomed by the sweet songs of carolling birds, Rama goes out walking on the tops of mountains and the river side.
Come, let us laugh together, laugh, laugh, laugh, Come Sun, my child, look into the fearless smiling eyes of Rama and live close to nature and Rama. The ecstasy itself is I.
Your Self,
Rama
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A LETTER FROM THE HIMALAYAN JUNGLES
Day passes into night, and night again turns into day, and here is your Rama having no time to do anything, busy, very busy in doing nothing. Tears keep pouring, vieing well with the continuous rains of this the most rainy district; the hairs stand on ends, the eyes wide open seeing nothing of the things before them. Talk stopped, work stopped unfortunately (?) No, most fortunately. Oh, leave me alone.
This continuous wave after wave of inarticulate ecstasy. O Love!
Let it go on. O the
Most delicious pain.
Away with writing,
Off with lecturing.
Out with fame and name.
Honours? Nonsense.
Disgrace meaningless.
Are these toys the end of Life? Logic and Science Poor Bunglers, let them see me and have cured their blindness.
In dreams a sacred current flows,
In wakefulness, it grows and grows.
At times, it overflows the banks
Of senses and the mortal frame.
It spreads in all the world and flows,
It inundates in wild repose.
For this the sun, he daily rose,
For this the universe did roll.
All births and deaths for this.
Here conies rolling, surging wonder,
undulating Bliss,
Here comes rolling laughter, silence.
WHAT IS PRACTICAL VEDANTA?
Pushing, marching Labour and no stagnant Indolence;
Enjoyment of work as against tedious drudgery; Peace of
mind and no canker of Suspicion;
Organization and no disaggregation;
Appropriate reform and no conservatistic custom;
Solid real feeling as against flowery talk;
The poetry of facts as against Speculative fiction;
The logic of events as against the authority
of departed authors;
Living realization and no mere dead quotations;
CONSTITUTE PRACTICAL VEDANTA
Meditation and concentration on the Maha vakya (great saying) Aham brahmasmi (I am That), and no diffusion and confusion on personalities and parties, naturally translates itself into force, freedom and love. This Infinite Godhead vibrating in every hair on the body, this muscular advaita— non-dualism, this dynamical devotion, this flaming light is what the Shastras call the unerring Brahmashar.
O ye wavering, fickle, dubious minds, no more of lukewarm orthodoxy and heterodoxy! Scorch out all doubt and hesitations, oil doxies are your creation. The Sun might be shown to be a disc of quicksilver, the Earth might be proved to be a concave sphere, the Vedas might be demonstrated as not inspired, but ye can be nothing, nothing but God. A single note issuing from your Godhead must be taken up by the blades of grass, the grains of sand, the particles of dust, the whiffs of wind, the drops of rain, by birds, beasts, gods, and men. It must be thundered over caves and forests, pealed over hamlets and huts, it must reverberate over streets and towns, pass from cities to cities, and fill and thrill the whole world! O Freedom! Liberty!
Fill the mountain-fountains of a river with immense treasures of golden glaciers, and all its branches, streams, canals must flow full, feeding the fields to flourish free. Let the source of life, the Origin of love and Spring of delight and light, the infinite Power and Purity, Divinity, embrace and displace the little self, saturate the feelings, fill the mind, and necessarily must be hands, feet, eyes, nay every fibre of the frame, even the environments must work a heaven of harmony and irradiate a flood of energy.
The King’s very presence on his royal throne establishes order throughout the durbar, so doth a man’s resting on his Godhead (native glory, swaaraajya) establish order and life through the whole race.
O ye of little faith! Wake up! Wake up to your holy majesty! And a single glance from your royal indifference, a side-wind from your divine recklessness is enough to convert the direst hells into charming heavens.
Come Home, Come Home,
O wanderer, Home! Om! Om!
Blow O breezes, mingle O winds, with these words whose purpose is the same as yours.
O laughter! Laughter!
Inextinguishable joy and laughter I
“After long ages resuming the broken thread coming back after a long but necessary parenthesis — To the call of the peacock in the woods, Up with the bracken uncurling from the midst of dead fronds of past selves, Seeing the sun rise new upon the world as lovers see it after their first night, All changed and glorified the least thing trembling with beauty, all old sights become new, everything vivified and bathed in divinity.
Now, having learned the lesson which it was necessary to learn of the intellect and of civilization, having duly taken in and assimilated and again duly excreted its results, once more to the great road with the animals and the trees and the stars, travelling to return.
To other nights and days undreamt of in the vocabularies of all dictionaries.”
O kisses of the sun and winds!
O joy of the liberated Soul (finished purpose and
acquittal of conventionality),
Daring all things, light steps, life held in the palm of the
hand!
At length the Wanderer returns Home,
All those things which have vainly tried to detain
him.
When he comes who looks neither to the right nor to the
left for any of them.
Not being deluded by them but rather threatening to
pass by and leave them all in their places just as
they are,
Then rise up and follow him,
Through thorns and briars before—in his path, they
now become fruits and flowers.
Not till he has put them from him does he learn the
love and faithfulness that is in them.
Faithful forever, more are they his Servants!
And this world is paradise!!!
WHO AM I?
Take up a mirror and see me reflected on it. Enter into inner solitude and feel me as the Power of Silence. Look up at the Sun and behold my likeness. “Verily, know me, this is the highest gain for man. Know me; whoever knows me by no deed soever is his future bliss marred, never will depart the bloom from the face of one who knows me.” – Upanishad
Blessed art Thou whosoever from whose eyes the scales are dropped to see me! Blessed is the place where Thou walkest, for it must be turned into paradise by your Rama glances. Everywhere my home is.
Beating in thy breast, seeing in thy eyes, throbbing in thy pulse, smiling in the flowers, laughing in the lightning, roaring in the rivers, and silent in the mountains is Rama. Fling aside Brahmanhood, burn up Swamiship, throw overboard the alienating titles and honours, Rama is one with you, darling I Whoever you be, learned or ignorant, rich or poor, man or woman, saint or sinner, Christ or Judas, Krishna or Gopi, Rama is your own self. I am determined to thunder out in your bosom my Godhead, your Godhead, and proclaim it through every deed and movement.
Germany, England, America, India, and all, I must shake them to freedom. I am tired of the old game.
Dream-walker! dost Thou hear the Himalayan Peal? Dost Thou feel the Thundering Dawn? Freedom? Freedom!
No flimsy phantom this. So wills Rama, yourself of
self, and Rama’s order is absolute.
Freedom! Freedom!!
Not to produce millions of followers like Buddha, Mohammad, Christ and other prophets or incarnations but to produce, evoke, or express Rama himself in every man, woman, and child is Rama’s mission. Trample over the body, eat up this personality, grind, digest, and assimilate me, then and then alone you do justice to Rama.
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TO SWAMI SHIVGANACHARYA
Kishangarh
NARAYANA,
Doctors say unless we feel appetite from within we should take no food, however delicious and wholesome it may be and however much our dear friends and relatives might coax us to eat it. All that you have written is quite true. If I start at once there is a very good opportunity of enjoying the company of both yourself and the worthy Prime Minister of Kishangarh State, and of being benefitted by your wise counsels. But my inner voice bids me to wait, with the foreboding that even better opportunities shall present themselves when I am fully equipped. Nothing daunted by my former failures -if failures they can be called -I have every hope that abundant success shall attend my future career. What I am doing here is exactly what must have been the result of our thought of friendly consultation at Kishangarh. We should, no doubt, be always on the alert to avail ourselves of favourable opportunities. But we should not be impatient either. Work is all that is wanted. In order that I may be able to inspire working power or energy into our countrymen, I must start with a vast store of accumulated energy myself. Let the time come, you shall most certainly be with me.
If I have not to go about making fuss about trifles but have to render some real and lasting service to the Motherland, and if I have to prove truly useful to our country, I feel I require a little more preparation in order to make myself equal to the stupendous task.
I am here making a thorough study of the Shastras and of the highest Western thought and am at the same time pursuing my own independent researches. I have not to spend my lifetime over this work. I shall soon be imparting to or rather carrying into the business and bosom of humanity what I have been acquiring at the cost of incessant labour. I have full conviction that I could if I would long since have caused a tremendous stir in the country but I have a conscience and for no personal glory, no gain, no threats, no imminent danger, not for fear of death even shall I preach what I have not realised to be the Truth.
If Truth has any power as certainly it is Infinite Power -the Rajas as well as the Sadhoos, the nobility and the populace will all ultimately have to bow before and yield homage to the standard of Righteousness to be set up by Rama Tirtha Swami. I have an aptitude for this work, and it will be throwing away of my powers if through haste or impatience I harness myself for a lesser work.
I have to preach, else why did I fondly-cherish that desire from my very childhood. I have to preach, else what for did I renounce my parents, wife, children, worldly position and the bright prospects. Filled with the divine fire I have to preach -boldly, fearlessly, even in the face of all sorts of persecution and opposition -what I am realising here.
Thankfully I accept your advice of keeping the money for my future use.
Regular exercise taken. Health good. Climate most excellent.
Wishing you and the Baboo Sahib
Shanti! Shiinti!! Shiinti!!!
RAM TIRTHA SWAMI
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TO BRIJ LAL GOSWAMI
Qanungo, Jamrnoo State.
Swami Rama’a nephew
DEAR,
Glad to know you are employed. Be always honest and upright. Discharge your duties most faithfully. Devote some portion of your time to the study of Bhagavad Gita and Yog Vasishth every day. Never neglect.
By your conduct prove yourself worthy of the high family you belong to.
Never yield to temptations.
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SHASTA SPRINGS, CALIF,
July, 9th ’03.
OM! DEAR BLESSED SELF,
Your letter to hand. It is Truth and Truth alone that is one’s real friend, relative, nay, Self.
Abide by truth, tread the path of righteousness and not an hair of your body will ever be injured.
Read Yog Vasishth and Bhagavad Gitd over and over again.
Yours in Self,
RAM SO AM I.
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TO PANDIT RAM DHAN SAHIB,
Asstt. Settlement officer, Bhimbar,
Jammoo State
DEAREST RAMA,
Ram Badshah lives in these days on the summit of a high mountain commanding a most picturesque view of the glaciers of Jumnotri, Gangotri, Kedar and Badri. Gangi lying at a distance of seven or eight miles is visible from this place. Two days, journey from the Railway Station Dehra Doon on the road to Tihri, brings one to these exquisitely delightful landscapes.
DEAREST,
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days
Estate, good-fame,
Plans, credit, and the Muse,
Nothing refuse.
Give all to love.
Rai Baij Nath is coining again here in the middle of
April.
Address:—RAM BADSHAH,
The Darbar, Kaudiya hill, P. O. Tehri Garhwal.
April 9th, 1902.
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(2)
Advocate Office, LUCKNOW
The Steamer for Japan leaves Calcutta on about August 20th, 1902.
It is not known when Rama returns to India. Even the landing place will not be foretold.
Ever with you, RAMA
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(3)
August 10, 1903
Under the canopy of starlit heaven,
in a Natural garden
on the bank of a Mountain Stream
DEAR BLESSED SELF,
Your letter along with some other mail received just after coming back from a most pleasant trip to the top of Mt. Shasta (14444 ft. altitude).
Dear, Thou shalt absolutely do nothing. Set well thy house in order, open thy doors, let them stand wide for all to enter -thy treasures, let the poorest take of them; then come thou forth to where I wait for Thee.
Pass out -free -O Joy! Free flow on, swim across in the Sea of Equality. At one jerk snap asunder, break off all ties and duties, and stand glorious in Thy Godhead?
The people of Portland (Oregon) write Ram in a long poem which partly runs as follows:—
“Dear little Lotus Flower,
Nestling in thy cozy bower,
Mid the leaves so cool and green
By happy eyes alone Thou’rt seen.
Smiling, resting, billing, cooing
The soft Zephyrs gently wooing
Lifting up thy star-lit eyes
To the heavenly blissful skies
Thou dost rest so gently on —
Silent, laughing, wondrous, calm
All the world is to Thee
Thyself; and nothing
More or less
The flowers smile and nod with glee,
Soon, soon thou wilt be here.
The clouds let down their dewy tears
To welcome thee so dear I
Thy message, lo! the wind doth blow
Where does the sound come from?
Above, below, behind, before
“I come, I come, I come.”
No more letters to Ram. If Ram please, he may drop a line or so, but letters addressed to Ram will not reach him.
Look within, search within, you will always get the answers. Yourself is Rama.
Invitations come from all quarters (Here Swami Rama Tirtha quotes a text in Urdu or Arabic).
BUSINESS PAGE
- 21 Pages of article (?) were sent the other day. If Babu Harlal be willing to publish that, well and good, otherwise you may see it through the Press with his consent.
- You may correspond with Babu Ram Narayan, C/o. RAI CHANDOO LAL, Deputy Collector and Magistrate, AGRA in regard to the above; and other Urdu lectures if they have printed any.
- 8 pages of English poetry are sent herewith.
- The “Appeal” was handed to the President of the United States in a personal interview by Ram. The whole matter is for the present laid in the hands of a committee of San Francisco nobility.
- The four lectures sent from San Francisco were to be reprinted in India. You can get any number of copies there. For further particulars write please to Babu Harlal
- OM! OM! to Pandit Udai Chandra and all. OM! OM!! OM!!!