"Tributes to and Remembrances of Gurudev R. D. Ranade, The Saint of Nimbal", (2º p), by Rajendra Chauan and Deepak V. Apte. A spiritual review.

Let us enter in a second approach to the so laudable book Tributes to and Remembrances of Gurudev R. D. Ranade, The Saint of Nimbal, by Rajendra Chauan and Deepak V. Apte, just released, and we shall begin with the motto that Rajendra Chauan has transcribed from his teacher, the recognized specialist of gurudev Ranade, V. H. Date: «Gurudev R. D. Ranade was a unique coalescence of the universal compassion of the Buddha, the catholic love of Jesus, the penetrating intellect of Kant and the profound wisdom of Shankaracharya», and choose from the second half of testimonies some of the more substancial teachings. 

 After the beautiful 50º tribute of Shri K. D. Sangoram, already approached in a separated article, we find  the 56º, 

                                                      

from Dr. Modak, the Registrar of the Nagpur University, with good explanations on the gunas or types of energies present and shared by gurudev Ranade: «He used to speak with haste, as his thought current had a high speed. Hence, to reap the full benefit of his lecture, completely concentrated attention was absolutely necessary. His students attended his lectures with onepointed rapt attention, on account of a wide awareness that they were in the presence of a highly learned professor. Prof. Rambhau was not a mere professor of philosophy. His students could readily realize that he was a great man of realisation, who had found the path for the realisation of Reality and had merged in its meditation.»
This last sentence is interesting as it seems to point that gurudev Ranade had attained a so strong and clear vision of the path of love and wisdom for realizing the Divine as the Reality  that in his meditations he would be so much atracted to the, or by the, Divine that  would merge in Him. We can interpret also that as meaning that Ranades's meditations were so deep that he could attain the higher, divine and infinite levels of Reality.

                                                     
The testimony nº 64 of the professor of Philosopy Georges Bosworth Burch show us also how prema bhakti was the strongest aspect of gurudev Ranade, «a frankly and friendly person», «eager to talk to me, to learn as well as to teach, to discuss both his intelectual interests and mine», recognizing that «To love your family and your friends and, above all, God was Ranade's doctrine and Ranade's life. 

Spiritual meditation and mystical contemplation were the central activity of his daily life. He was a mystic in the perennial tradition of the mystic saints. Much as I appreciate Ranade's spiritual and intellectual achievements, it is his loving personality which I remember best. Surely for many, as for me, he was a friend never to be forgotten. For his disciples, he was much more. For India, he was one of her great men.
In India, as also in other countries, there are many great scholars engaged in various researches, many great philosophers with deep insight into reality, many great mystics with ineffable visions, many great teachers who inspire their pupils, many great souls, whose integrity and personality are radiant. But we seldom see one person who is all of these at once. Such a one was Ranade, one of those rare spirits who show us how fine human nature can be. »
Very significant these divisions, first: "spiritual meditation and mystical contemplation" and second: researching, having deep insights on the Cosmos,  having subtle and sublime visions, and living in such a harmonious or inspired way that the inner light is shinning to all coming in contact with him, and so becoming more complete human beings or even disciples, sthita bhaktas and jnanis...
                                                        
Prof. Vinayaka Krishna Gopaka, a scholar in Kannada literature,  gives us also a testimony of his powerful soul and tapasya: «Dr. Ranade was an illustrious son of the Indian Renaissance and he did a great deal, constructively, intellectually and spiritually, to promote it further towards its own fulfillment. The frail body of Dr. Ranade housed a great soul. He was a great builder, teacher and scholar and a serene philosopher and mystic. For several years he hardly lived on any other nourishment but tea. But he needed no other food: for he on honeydew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise», indeed a higher and difficult realization but attained by gurudev Ranade and helping him in his long meditations in grounds and solitary places..

Shri V. S. Page, Chairman, the Maharashtra State Khadi and Village Industries Board,  in the tribute 68º, remembers some unusual capacity of Gurudev, from his own interaction with him, and reflects on his so conscious and expanded soul, indeed one of a mahatma: “Though Shri Gurudev behaved like an ordinary man in this world, his every action was purposeful, and the purpose was purely spiritual one. Without a shred of doubt, he read the thought in my mind and gave proper answer to me. This is not possible for an ordinary Yogi. It is only those, who have identified themselves with universal consciousness, who can read correctly the minds of others and give proper answers. It has left an indelible impression on my mind of the grandeur of Shri Gurudev’s spiritual height.”
His understanding of gurudev Ranade picking his thoughts, sugests us also to be more detached from our ego limitations and expand our heart and consciousness to the infinite, ananta, so near the true ananda, and that through love, compassion and unity with the others, and for the goodness of all the sentient beings and the fulfilment of the Divine Will..

                                                             
Shri Basappa Danappa Jatti, acting President for six months in 1977, and also 5th Vice President of India, remembers from his association with Gurudev Ranade that since «Gurudev built an Ashram near Nimbal Railway Station, his followers began to flock into the Ashram where they took initiation either from Gurudev himself or from his recognized disciple, Kaka Karkhanis of Bijapur.»  

And in  «one occasion when Prof. Ranade was in a particularly happy mood, he narrated to me his belief in the presence of a spiritual current, which like rain-water is percolated in the soil. This current is found in different volumes and at different depths. Sometimes the spiritual current is near to the surface of the ground. In such a case, any person with high spiritual power walking over such ground will immediately feel that some force underground is exerting a pull on his feet. Such spots are said to be sacred spots and are selected by saints as places for erecting ashrams and temples. So long as the spiritual current in such spots flows strongly, crowds are attracted to visit those temples and ashrams. Sometimes the current will disappear and flow in another direction. Spots once sacred where the spiritual current is not flowing anymore are abandoned and become deserts. Gurudev said that he had seen three such spots in his life; Allahabad where he was working as Vice-Chancellor of the Allahabad University, Nimbal and Jamkhandi. He told me that the spiritual current at Jamkhandi was comparatively more powerful than at Allahabad and Nimbal»
This clairvoyant intuition about spiritual teluric currents of energies and how they affect people is quite original, specially that «this current is found in different volumes and at different depths» as many times people tend to identify them as homogeneous lay lines. And shows us also some subtle reasons for pilgrimages to the sacred spots...

                                                                    
In the tribute 75º we find the revered Dada J. P. Vaswani, the founder of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, in Pune, presenting in a nutshell (may be not knowing that Ramachandra Ranade was already high in the spiritual path from childhood) how he saw gurudev Ranade, and extolling the dwaita vedantic and the bhakta ("meditating in the Divine name and form") as a saint and a prophet, a perennial fountain to Mankind: - «Gurudev Ranade was a great scholar, a gifted author, a highly learned man. In the history of humanity, there have been very few academics, who have attained spiritual illumination. Gurudev Ranade was one of them. He was a man of books who attained divine bliss through spiritual wisdom. He was a scholar, who became saint. He was a professor, who became a prophet.
Acceptance of the Will of God and meditation on His Form and Name: those two things made Gurudev Ranade the great soul that he was. May Gurudev Ranade’s life and teaching be a perennial source of inspiration to us all!»         »                                                                                                          

                                                      Holy Samadhi of Gurudeo at Nimbal

 

                                                          
Prof. Shiva Shankar Roy, head of the Department of Philosophy at Allahabad University, and succeeding Shri Gurudev R. D. Ranade in that position, after pointing the higher philosophical level attained by gurudev Ranade, give us a very detailled and deep understanding of the main caractheristics of  his divine realization, that was pervading his inteligence and words, coming from "the free existence, innately self-shining in its effulgent immediacy", and how his eyes were so much shinning externaly this awareness and comunion with the Divine Presence within and everywhere.
Prof Shiva Shankar Roy affirms that “as an academician in Philosophy his place is as high as that of Radhakrishnan and Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya. In the history of Indian Philosophical thought of the Vedantic tradition Gurudev Ranade, in the manner of the great Acharyas of the Vedanta, has commented on the prasthana-trayi: the Upanishads, the Brahmasutras and the Bhagvadgita», but with such a deep quality «that Gurudev’s utterances are full of spiritual significance. They rise from the depths of a divinized consciousness - from the inexhaustible reservoir of intuitive experience- a cognitive function, divested of its object-oriented stance and from an awareness conjugate with limitation – free existence, innately self-shining in its effulgent immediacy.»
«He appeared to me as the very confluence of the human and the divine, full ofcompassion for the world, yet wholly detached from it. His bodily frame, frail and fragile, looked like the symbol of a transcendent glory and a sign, functioning as a spiritual antenna. Verily could the discerning eye behold in his demeanour the marriage of the numen ineffable and the ratio aeterna. His fast vanishing earthly visage signified his unbroken communion with an Everlasting Presence-knowing which, as the Upanishad tells us, the knower knows all, crosses the river of sorrow,and stands confirmed in immortality»
Also in this paragraph, prof. Shiva has conveyed to us some teachings embodied by gurudev Ranade, like being a spiritual antenna, and having achieved the union of the "Divinity that can not be spoken" with the Logos, Budhi or Ratio eternal, that makes man a knower, a Jnani of  the antaryamin, and of the  omnipresent Brahman.
«Prof. Ranade, every moment of his life was in a state of contemplation, studded to the cradle of THEORIA of TURIYA- living in the world and yet transcendent to it. The joy we used to get in his company was just a dispersal of his beatific existence in an environment circumscribed by space and time and inhabited by creatures most unlike him - creatures, who had not even a tangential contact with his spiritual existence. He scattered joy whenever he sat or stood; and it was only on very rare occasions that I saw him angry, sad or morose. His anger, if there ever used to be one, was the expression of his disappointment with his own self. His sadness and sorrowful moods only reflected a sense of estrangement with himself.»
In this also challenging paragraph we can see how gurudev Ranade could be in inner contemplative state (theoria) of union with his Atman, and so in a state of beatific conscience, and simultaneaseouly radiating that ananda to the ones around him and sometimes suffering from some limitations on that "skill in karma that Gita (II. 50) calls Yoga.
«In November 1941, I went to see him just after the morning sitting of the Music conference had concluded. He asked me about the songs and the performance I liked, and I told him that Pt. Onkar Nath Thakur’s ‘जोगी मत जा’ appealed to me the most. Uttering these words sent a thrill, yhrough his entire being and I could see his eyes assuming a half-open, half-shut mystical appearance. I generally wanted to see his eyes like that, and for all I know, there could hardly be anything more beautiful and expressive in the world than those two eyes, which concealed beneath their dreaming transparency a universe transfused in his Deva, a world submerged in his
Narayana - a being lost in the scintillating Dawn of Atmanic awakening. »
After the so recorrent testimony of the blazzing light passing through the eyes of gurudev Ranade, may be pointing us, as his disciples or devotees. to smile more from the joy of the spirit within, in our daily interactions, prof. Shiva Shankar Rau concludes with a deep explanation, about the transparency and light of the smilling eyes of gurudev Ranade, still a bit misterious: are they originated from his Deva or spiritual Being, or from his Ishtadeva or Dwaita vision of the personal Brahman, may be Narayana, in such a way that his being is so transfused or united with his Atman that the universe, and him and around him, become also transparent to that Divine Presence...

Dr. Shiv Narayan Lal Shrivastava (without photo), Head of Department of Philosophy, Vikram University, Ujjain,  has given us also a very subtle and spiritual approach to gurudev Ranade, extoling his luminous radiations, his deep pratice of dhyana and his so harmonious and pacified being who could be felt as an Angel (or manifesting him...), even a Seraphic one, these ones being the celestials spirits considered to be more near the Divine Being, by their intense love:
«Whoever has come in contact with Dr. R. D. Ranade cannot forget him till the end of his life. He was an angelic personality radiating joy and peace and spiritual light. An electric smile ever played on his lips and his eyes shone with a brightness reflecting his inner illumination. I never found him ruffled or sour or bitter or stooping to petty things. He was above all narrow considerations of caste, creed and community. People felt uplifted in his presence and the more one came in contact with him the more one sought his presence. He was an अजातशत्रु (one who has no enemies) and a friend of everybody, a seraphic soul - with malice toward none and charity for all. 

Ranade was a teacher of teachers. Gurudev Ranade’s life was a life of absorption in meditation. He was a Dhyana-Yogi par excellence. Prof. Ranade’s bungalow at Allahabad was a rendez-vous for all aspiring souls of all ranks in life. In these gatherings sparks from the anvil of his luminous mind would often fly and enkindle spiritual fire in the hearts of the assembled.”  

Also very original is the comparation in his rendez-vous or satsangs of the psyche of gurudev Ranade as an anvil, from where he could blow arrows of spiritual fire into the souls of his disciples and listeneres. It is a nice metaphor of the power of his love, or may be of his aspiration to help the others, or even the conscious intensification of the radiation or sparks coming out intentionally of his Atman.               

 The 99º testimony, from the surgeon N. S. Christian, founder of the Jyoti Mandir Trust, Aurangabad, is also very worty as he shares with us, in a religious comparativism, the universality of gurudev Ranade, initiating him with a name or mantra of the indo-christian tradition, and enduring all the hardships of the body with serenity and detachment, conquering and controling in this way his basic instints and unconscious mind, and achieving such a unification of his animic energies that the Angel in himself, the Atman and even the Ishta devata Divine Being was felt or sensed by many:
"Every time I visited the Ashram at Nimbal, I rejoiced in the sanctity, aura and affection of Gurudev. He graciously initiated me in the supreme Yoga of meditation on God’s Name. He gave me Christa-Name. He was a saint who conquered hunger and thirst. He proved in his life what Christ had said that “Man doth not live by bread alone.” For many years he was sustaining himself on a few cups of tea a day. He defied bodily ailments and refused all medicines and treatment when he happened to be ill. As the Rishis of old, he shunned publicity and lived to perfection the teaching: ‘Let thy light so shine before men that they may see thy good works and glorify thy Father who is in Heaven.’
With the dazzling brilliance of the rising-Sun, the Master’s face reflected the vast Universe. Everytime I sat beside him amidst the devotees at Nimbal with his favourite green shawl covering his body, he appeared to me to have resembled the ancient mystic parrot, reciting the Infallible Vedas. He has been a perfect preceptor after the Ideal of Shri Sankaracarya’s Vivekachudamani description of a Guru, without the slightest taint of human egoism. He was an embodiment of humility. Gurudev Ranade was a self-sustained Angel of The Lord, in brief: “God in flesh and blood.” 

                                         Om shri gurudev Ranade namah!