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Swami Rama Tirtha

"God is not distant or separate from us. He is the life force that animates us, the intelligence that guides us, and the love that embraces us. Seek God within yourself, and you will find Him in every aspect of your existence.

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Realize your divine nature. Shake off the delusion that you are mortal, weak, and helpless. Assert your divine birthright. Stand up, be bold, be strong. You are the Self, the God of the universe."

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From - In the Woods of God-Realization & The Pathway to God

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A Practical Vedanti

Swami Rama Tirtha (1873 – 1906) was born Tirath Ram in a village called Murariwala in the Gujranwala district of West Punjab, now in Pakistan. By all accounts, Tirath Ram was a bright and loveable child with an extraordinary love of learning. From an early age, he devoured the literature of his own and other cultures. As he grew, his interests expanded to include philosophy, psychology, poetry, physics and mathematics. He had a particular talent for discursive reasoning and excelled in math.

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In 1888, despite his father’s insistence that he go to work to support the family, he enrolled, at the age of 15, in the Forman Christian College at Lahore, specializing in Mathematics. Braving stark poverty, even missing meals for days and living on very little money, Swami Rama Tirtha continued his studies, undeterred and unabated, and in 1893, he received his bachelor’s degree. In April of 1895, he earned his M.A. degree in mathematics with high marks, and soon secured a teaching position at a Mission College in the town of Sialkot.

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A chance meeting with Swami Vivekananda in 1897 in Lahore, inspired him to take up the life of a renunciate by rejecting all worldly attractions. He soon left his job as a professor and moved to the Himalayas. His wife and two children and a few others accompanied him to the hills. Owing to ill-health, his wife later returned with one of her sons. The other was left at Tehri for his schooling there.

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His passion for the vision of the all-pervading Lord began to grow more and more. He longed and pined for oneness with God. Indifferent to food and clothes, he was always filled with ecstatic joy. Tears would often flow in a limpid stream down his cheeks. It was not long before he had the vision he yearned for, and thereafter he lived, moved and had his being in God.

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Swami Rama was a living Vedantin. He saw and felt God in all names and forms. His beautiful words are often addressed to the trees, rivers and mountains.

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Intoxicated in the glory of Self-realisation, he travelled far and wide, without keeping a single cent with him and enchanted the people of Japan, the United States, Egypt and other nations, not so much by his learning but by feeling and throbbing as one with them. His oneness with All was his trait which prevailed all through. He was among the first notable teachers of Hinduism to lecture in the United States, travelling there in 1902. He spoke frequently on the concept of practical Vedanta.

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On his return to India, Swami Rama continued to lecture in the plains, but his health began to break down. He went back to the Himalayas and settled at Vasishtha Ashram. He gave up his body in the Ganges on 17 October, 1906, when he was only thirty-three.

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Swami Rama Tirtha writings were a great source of inspiration to Mahatma Gandhi, among many others, and Ramana Maharshi cited him during talks in Tiruvannamalai. H.W.L. Poonja, Swami Rama Tirtha's nephew, often spoke of him and read many of his poems during talks in Lucknow.

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