Dr. V. H. Date is a well-known name in the philosophical world of India. He worked as a teacher of philosophy in the colleges and the universities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Jodhpur, and Jaipur and impressed all those who came in his contact by his profound scholarship and impressive teaching. He was a student and disciple of the great philosopher-saint Professor R. D. Ranade under whose care he had his first to perhaps the last lesson in spiritual life. For Dr. Date, philosophy was subservient to the spiritual Truth realized by him by the grace of his Guru and through life-long meditation on the Name and the contemplation on the forms of God. From his Guru he gained an insight into the mystical type of spiritual life. Naturally his books deal with only those philosophical topics that have a direct bearing on the spiritual life. He was not at all interested in mere theoretical problems or abstract thinking which he used to call “intellectual acrobatics”. It can therefore be said without any exaggeration that whatever he has written in his books has the backing of his own spiritual experiences and is, as he himself says, “an echo of what Professor Ranade intended to say”. There may be works and works on mysticism, but what Dr. Date has done is a precise and accurate language is delineation of the essentials of the mystical life free of any ambiguities, superstitions, and traditional but erroneous beliefs. His various books especially the two volumes of ‘Vedanta Explained’, (Commentary on the Brahma-sutras), ‘Brahma-yoga of the Gita’ (commentary on the Bhagavad Gita), and the ‘Yoga of the Saints’, will bear testimony to our assertion. As the saints are the custodians of the spiritual truth his selective collection of the utterances of the saints of India and his expository notes thereon will prove immensely valuable to the aspirants in spiritual life. A few of his books, for example ‘Truth and Trifles’ and ‘Puzzles of Spiritual Life’, successfully attempt at removing misconceptions about spiritual life and at separating truth from falsehood, and spiritual from non-spiritual.

As Professor Ranade has remarked “Doctor Date is the master of a style, all his own.” Simplicity of language, clarity of thought, and insight into spiritual matter have lent a peculiar charm to his books.