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(Adapted from the book “Yogi Ramsuratkumar as
I understood him” written by Haragopal Sepuri)
Yogi
Ramsuratkumar was born on December 1, 1918, in a village
near Banares, along the banks of the Ganga, in a righteous
and devoutly religious family. From the very early age,
he developed an inexplicable affinity for the river Ganga.
It enchanted his heart and soul. He felt happy while playing
along its shores. Often in the nights he wandered down
the river. Sometimes he fell asleep on the banks. He would
awaken before dawn and after bathing in the river would
sit in stillness as the monks chanted prayers at the riverfront.
Though his parents scolded him in the beginning for his
overnight ventures, as the time passed they relented to
his wandering tendency.
 As
a boy, he was befriended by a number of holy men living
on the river’s shore. He developed a child’s
love and affection for all the religious mendicants. Only
after he was enrolled in the school, he began for the
first time to be with the children of his own age. His
mother was relieved to see him playing the usual games
of childhood. However he continued his visits to certain
Yogis and monks. After the school hours, he often strolled
along the riverbank until he met one of his saintly companions.
They would sometimes talk for hours. He loved very much
to meet these men at night. He was spellbound by the myths,
tales and the legends narrated by the mendicants of the
Ganga. The association with these men living simple and
religious life evoked happiness, wonder and inspiration
in his heart. Seeing them begging for food, he would
lead them to his home or to a neighbour’s house
where he knew a meal could be found. He would sometimes
give away his own food to satisfy another man’s
hunger. When he and his schoolmates sat for lunch under
the trees, if he saw a monk begging food, he would run
to him, give him the lunch and scurry back to his school
mates.
In his youth he
had certain experiences, which revealed to him his spiritual
nature and began to make him conscious of his destiny.
At the age of twelve, one evening his mother sent him
to draw water from the well. As he lowered the pail into
the well, a small bird perched opposite him on the wall
and started chirping loudly, engaging his attention. The
Destiny always works in a strange way. He gazed at this
scene strangely and after bringing the pail of water to
the well’s edge, he impulsively flung the loose
end of the rope at the bird. The bird fell lifeless. He
held it in his palm and placed droops of water in its
beak to no avail. Finally he took the bird and consigned
it to the flowing waters of Ganga. As he lay on his back
on the river’s bank, tears came again and again
until he fell asleep. This incident was a changing point
in his life, his childhood innocence being replaced by
a deeper emotion. His sorrow led to introspection. His
heart began to feel for all life. The suffering he endured,
sowed the seeds of spiritual growth.
The next significant
incident in his life occurred in his sixteenth year. One
day he wandered away from home without any thought of
money or food. He came near a railway station. A man there
served him a meal and paid his train fare to Banares.
Late in the morning he reached the destination, and set
off walking. He felt a presence leading him into the heart
of the city and to the holy temple of Lord Viswanatha.
When he entered the sanctum sanctorum he was engulfed
in a spiritual aura. He stood before the idol the Lord
for nearly an hour absorbed in the blissful presence of
the Divine. There were no external signs of communion
from the Divine, like a thundering voice from the skies
or a luminous vision, but he had an inward experience
of unerring quality of realness. It kindled a spirit of
renunciation, purity and constant devotion to God.
For a week, he
moved in the temple compound and around the bathing ghats
of the riverfront. The presence remained with him during
this period. It moved him twice again. In both the instances,
he was taken to Saranath, which was five miles from Banares
and which is the most hollowed place for the Buddhists.
It was here that Buddha preached his first sermon (sixth
century B.C). He felt a great exaltation whenever he sat
near the great Stupa. The wonderful solitude of the area,
its meaningful association, the quietitude of the evening
hours, and the solemnity of his thoughts created a wonderful
peace and stillness in his mind.
In 1937, he finished
his secondary school education. Later he completed his
higher education. In his childhood he listened attentively
to the tales of the Ramayana and Mahabharata related by
his father. Now as a young man in his early twenties,
he visited the holy men near the riverside to discuss
the same scriptural texts that he had listened as a child.
He started having mystical experiences and began to investigate
the nature and significance of the transformation that
he was undergoing. The influence of the wandering monks
of the Ganga and of his religious experiences began to
work a spiritual awakening in him.
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