Despite the simple joys of sheltering in place, I do miss traveling—the momentum, the uncertainties, the inevitable breakdowns and breakthroughs, the unexpected encounters in the big, wide, beautiful world. Traveling gives me a certain edge that awakens my senses, jostles me into vigilance, brings fresh perspectives. When traveling I have to pay attention in ways that I can forget in the comforts and rhythms of home, where I might be more likely to just hum along in a zone.

It’s the lure of the unknown. The journey has a way of opening the heart to a profound love of the world and all its beauty and horror. Wayfarers across cultures from ancient times have been inspired by their journeys, giving rise to countless poems, epics, and mythic stories. Gypsies, wandering sadhus, mendicants, and nomadic people all seek the deeper dimensions of the wandering life—the open road with its endless horizons.

Swami Ramdas

Yogi Ramsuratkumar

Wandering in this way, as the groundless ground of personal transformation, brings the story of Yogi Ramsuratkumar’s life to mind. When his guru, Swami Ramdas, initiated him into the mantra, Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram, within a week of chanting “all the twenty-four hours” Ramsurat Kunwer was taken by a divine madness. Spontaneous bhavas pulled him this way and that…he danced and sang in ecstasy, often disturbing those around him. He threw himself at the feet of Swami Ramdas and Mother Krishnabai, disturbing the peace and status quo and earning the wrath of the other devotees. Eventually he was thrown out of the ashram.

Returning to his home in Bihar, Ramsurat Kunwar was unable to fulfill his normal functions in life. Within a year, he returned with his wife, Ramaranjini, and their two youngest children to Anandashram and begged Ramdas to allow him to live there with his family, saying, “Papa, you have killed Ramsurat. The madness comes over me unexpected, and I can no longer fulfill my functions in life. Let me take refuge here, at Anandashram with you and Mataji Krishnabai, with my wife and youngest children.”

Ramdas responded, “No, you cannot stay here. Under a big tree, a small tree cannot grow. You must leave.”

“But Swami, what will I do? How will I live, I cannot work!” Ramsurat cried out in shock and disbelief.

His guru responded, “Go, and beg.”

Wow. That seems pretty heartless. He turned his devotee, standing there with wife and children, out on the street. In fact, Ramsuratkumar took Ramaranjini and the children to the train station in Kananghad, where he begged for the fares for their passage home by train to Bihar, where their two elder children waited with their grandparents. Decades later, when the family of Ramsurat Kunwer finally saw him again, he was changed beyond recognition. He had become Yogi Ramsuratkumar, the Godchild of Tiruvannamalai.

It is difficult and maybe even impossible for modern westerners to comprehend the ancient, honorable way to God found in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, in which the mendicant beggar, monk, or sadhu lives out his or her divine purpose and svadharma, or personal truth in resonance with the cosmos.

Ramsuratkumar followed the call of the unknown, and following in his guru’s footsteps, gave up family, home, and the life of a school master in Bihar to become a mendicant beggar. Facing daily uncertainty as to where he would eat, if he would eat, where he would sleep, if it would be safe or not, he wandered the dusty roads of India on foot for seven years before he “landed” at holy Mt. Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai—the place where Swami Ramdas had his own enlightenment experience. In the hidden temples and caves and trees upon the mountains flanks, Ramsurat Kumar took refuge.

Very little is known about where Yogi Ramsuratkuma went or how his inner transformation occurred during those years of wandering. Yogi Ramsuratkumar himself gave most of the credit to the holy mountain, Arunachala, where legend says Lord Shiva himself dwells. The man who arrived in Tiruvannamalai soon became known as a mahasiddhia and divine beggar who lived on the streets and slept on the ground under a punnai tree. He was reclusive and avoided people, and yet all who came near him were blessed, and the devotees began to crowd around him. Today the Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram thrives not far from Arunachala, a pilgrimage site for countless seekers.

There is much to learn from studying the lives of saints, yogis and yoginis, and those great-hearted beings who have been called to the spiritual path and, along the way, braved extraordinary hardship and uncertainty. Even when an ordinary pilgrim takes to the highways or byways, mystery beckons, stretches out before us with a magnetism that is pure magic.

Traveling or not, we are all on a journey, seeking, finding, and walking the pathway that will lead us home. Whether we realize it or not, our longing is not for a home of sentiment, nostalgia, and comfort. It is a deep cellular memory, an archaic mystery of mystic remembrance—a home that is remembered only in the free and pure awareness that is unbounded and unfettered by concepts, creeds, and social conventions. The home we long for, in our deepest heart, is not of this world but of the beyond—a golden place of wise innocence, goodness, auspiciousness, wholeness, of complete and fully-present being. It has always been and will always be. It is the place where we are received, known and loved fully by the Divine Intelligence, the Mother Light, the Beloved of the Heart, the Supreme Being that creates all.