Passages from "Meditation and Spiritual Life" - 1068 17th-October-2021
Satwik Joglekar
17-October-2021 (Sunday)
Passages from "Meditation and Spiritual Life" – 1068
PART III SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Chapter 34 – FOOTPRINTS OF THE SAND OF TIME – 28
Saints of North India – 10
We now come to the great saint of the sixteenth century, Tulsidas, whose work, the Ramcharitamanas, is the most popular and influential book in the whole of North and Central India. There is hardly a home in this part of the country which does not preserve a copy of this great work. For the last three hundred years it has shaped the moral and spiritual lives of millions and millions of people in India. It is a common sight all over North India to see groups of people listening in rapt attention to the exposition of this book by village teachers or wandering sadhus.
Tulsidas was born in A.D. 1532 in a Brahmin family in an obscure village in Uttar Pradesh. It is said that the boy uttered the name ‘Rama’ as soon as he was born. Considering this as an ill omen, the ignorant parents abandoned the boy! He was then picked up by a saint named Naraharidas at the command of the Lord Himself. Later, Tulsi paid his heart’s tribute to this guru and foster-parent:
I salute the lotus feet of my guru
The ocean of compassion, and Hari (God)
in the form of nara (man)
Whose words like rays of the sun
Dispel the heavy darkness of overpowering delusion.
He studied under another sadhu — Sesa Sanatana — for fifteen years mastering the Vedas and the Vedanta.
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SWAMI YATISWARANANDA – Meditation and Spiritual Life – Ramakrishna Math, Bangalore India. Fourth Edition. 1998 p: 621-622
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