At that critical time, his father, noticing his son's waning interest in secular pursuits and his waxing love for and devotion to God, initiated him into the Ram mantram and assured him that by repeating it unstintingly he would, in due time, find the true peace and happiness he was thirsting for. As the Mantram took hold of him, he found his life filled with Ram. It was then that he renounced the samsaric life and went forth in quest of God as a mendicant sadhu. This first year of his new life is described by him in his autobiography, In Quest of God.
It was thus that on one morning in December 1922 he left home by train. He did not know where he was going, nor was he anxious about it. He only knew that he was obeying the divine command of his beloved Ram, and was therefore sure that He would guide him unerringly. The mantram "OM SRI RAM JAI RAM JAI JAI RAM" was ever on his lips and in his heart. Besides chanting the divine Name, his practice was to look upon everything in the world as forms of Ram--God--and to accept everything that happened as happening by the will of Ram alone.
Eventually he was directed to Srirangam. Here he bathed in the holy Cauvery and, after offering up his old white clothes to the sacred river, donned the ochre robes of a sannyasin and underwent spiritual rebirth. It was at this time, prompted by Ram Himself, Vittal Rao assumed the new name of Ramdas (servant of Ram) and took the inviolable vows of sannyasa, renunciation. Ramdas never referred to himself in the first person again.
With the name of God constantly on his lips, he continued his travels in the company of itinerant sadhus. The journey took him to Tiruvannamalai, where he met with Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and prayed for his grace.
Sri Ramana had just moved out of the caves he had spent twenty-two years in on the holy mountain Arunachala and taken up residency at his newly constructed ashram at the base of the mountain along with his longtime attendant Palaniswami. In those days the ashram was not much more than a thatched shed or hut and, as Ramdas entered the ashram, seeing the saint for the first time, fell prostrate at his feet. Ramdas was told that the young swami knew English, so he addressed him thus: "Maharaj, here stands before thee a humble slave. Have pity on him. His only prayer to thee is to give him thy blessing."
About this experience Ramdas has said, "The Maharshi, turning his beautiful eyes towards Ramdas, and looking intently for a few minutes into his eyes as though he was pouring into Ramdas his blessings through those orbs, nodded his head to say he had blessed. A thrill of inexpressible joy coursed through the frame of Ramdas, his whole body quivering like a leaf in the breeze."
In that ecstatic state he left Maharshi's presence and went to spend nearly a month in a cave on the slopes of Arunachala in constant chanting of Ramnam. This was the first occasion that he went into solitude and during this period of solitude he never bathed, shaved, or cut his hair. When he ate, he only ate very little. After twenty-one days, when he came out of the cave he saw a strange, all-pervasive light: everything was Ram and only Ram.
Following his experience in the caves of Arunachala, Ramdas continued his travels for nearly eight years, travels which took him to many parts of India many times, including the caves of Elephanta, the southern temple city of Madura, the sacred shrines of the Himalayas, the city of Bombay, as well as Mangalore, where he spent three months in the Panch-Pandava Caves at Kadri. It was here that he had his first experience of nirvikalpa samadhi.
He continued his travels around the breadth and width of India the next few years, finally settling down in a small ashram built by one of his devotees at Kasaragod, Kerala. Eventually God's will caused him to leave Kasaragod and settle down in Kanhangad, where the present Anandashram was founded in the year 1931. This Ashram became a field to put into practice the universal love he gained as a result of his universal vision.
As Ramdas had attained realization by taking to uninterrupted chanting of the divine name Ram, coupled with contemplation of the attributes of God, he always extolled the virtue of nama-japa in Sadhana. Based upon his personal experience, Ramdas assured all seekers that nama-japa would lead them to the supreme heights of realisation of one's oneness with the Almighty.
Ramdas attained mahasamadhi in 1963.
1 -[Ramdas]
2 -[Ramdas : Life]
Source : Angelfire.com/r
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