WHEN HOLY MEN WALKED , NOT PREACHED FROM PULPITS

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WHEN HOLY MEN WALKED , NOT PREACHED FROM  PULPITS

The  Ramta Jogi or the wandering ascetic  was once the engine of India’s spiritual life.For the wandering ascetics , distance was devotion. No fixed address meant no attachment. Today, many gurus sit in AC halls. The contrast is stark.

Hindu Sadhus, Buddhist Bhikkhus, Shramanas, Ajivikas , Jain Munis, Sikh Gurus  and Sufi  Faqirs treated travel as  Tapas. Adi Shankara travelled to all four corners of India :  from Kalady in Kerala to Kashmir, Dwarka to Puri, Kedarnath to Kanchi : meeting common people, staying under trees, and preaching simplicity. He debated scholars yet ate with villagers, establishing Mathas while owning nothing but a  Danda and Kamandalu. Xuanzang crossed deserts to bring sutras from India to China.

Most of the Sufi Faquirs who came to India from Iran ,  travelled on foot . And Kashmiri Buddhist savants  crossed Himalayas and Pamirs on foot to spread the message of Tathagata. Guru Nanak Dev Ji turned the Ramta Jogi model into revolution. Five Udasis, 26 years, and 28,000 km. He walked to Mecca, Baghdad, Tibet, Sri Lanka and Assam with Bhai Mardana, challenging Pandits, Qazis and  Siddhas  alike.

Many Christian saints lived as wanderers. St Francis walked barefoot across Italy, St Paul crossed the Roman Empire on foot, and Irish saints like Columba and Brendan roamed without fixed destination. In the desert, St Anthony moved cave to cave. For them, walking kept the soul unburdened and free from worldly attachment.

For the old ascetics, travel was renunciation. Hunger, blisters and bandits were part of the spiritual ledger. They sought solitude in Himalayan caves, merit at  Teerthas,  and dialogue in Bazaars. The point wasn’t followers. It was to burn ego by refusing comfort, and to test truth against every school of thought they met on the road.

The long road, walked in faith, was itself a quiet philosophy. Each step stripped something away ; comfort fell first, then pride, until only the bare self remained. In that bareness the *soul was purified*, because there was nothing left to hide behind. The *ego died not by force, but by starvation: when you beg for your bread and sleep on bare earth, the “I” that demands status has nowhere to live. And as the pilgrim passed through village after village, a gentler truth revealed itself: every stranger’s eyes held the same hunger, the same hope, the same fear of death. In recognising himself in them, his compassion widened* beyond kin and creed. The road did not just lead to a temple , it taught that the divine is met in the moment we see our likeness in another, and choose to hold it.

Contrast that with many of today’s religious leaders. Sermons stream from air-conditioned studios. Darshan is ticketed. World tours mean private jets, five-star hotels and cordoned stages. The  Ramta Jogi begged for Bhiksha and slept under trees. The modern Guru often manages trusts, commands media empires and rarely meets a critic unscripted.

The Ramta Jogi earned authority through vulnerability.  They earned  it barefoot, one village at a time. When leaders sit in rooms, faith risks becoming property ;  guarded, curated, monetised. The road made saints listen. Rooms make them speak.

And Kabir also believes it :

"Behta paani nirmala, para gandila hoye  

Sadhu te ramta bhala, dagi na lage koye..."...Kabir 

(बहता पानी निर्मला, पड़ा गंदीला होय  

साधु ते रमता भला, दागी न लागे कोय)

(Flowing water stays pure; 

stagnant water gets dirty  

A wandering  Sadhu is best ,

No stain sticks to him.)

(Avtar Mota)

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.