1884 - 1963 · Kanhangad, Kerala
The pilgrim of Ram nam
Vittal Rao was a struggling householder when the mantra Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram, received through his father, took hold of his life entirely. He renounced everything, wandered India as a penniless pilgrim seeing Ram in every person who fed or cheated him — a journey told in his classic In Quest of God — and settled at last into Anandashram, the abode of bliss, where the chant continues around the clock to this day.
His teaching was surrender through the name: repeat it, and the name itself does everything — purifies, protects, and finally reveals that only Ram is. His radiant cheerfulness was itself an argument no philosophy could match.
The practice he gave, and gave to Yogi Ramsuratkumar among thousands: constant japa of Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram — aloud, whispered, or mental — combined with the attitude that everything that happens is Ram's doing. Nothing else, he insisted, is needed.
