Ramana Smrti
RAMANA SMRTISri Ramana MaharshiBirth Centenary Offering1980SRI RAMANASRAMAMTiruvannamalai1999
Sri Ramanasramam, 1980All rights reservedPublished byV.S. RamananPresident, Board of TrusteesSri RamanasramamTiruvannamalaiTypeset atSri RamanasramamPrinted byKartik Offset PrintersChennai 600 015
CONTENTSTitleAuthorPageHis Life and TeachingsHe Opened My HeartBhagavan RamanaIdentityTrudging AlongThe GistBhagavan and Bhagavad GitaSat-Cit-Ananda GuruThe Sage of ArunachalaSome RecollectionsThe Silent InitiationWhat I OweWhat Does He Mean to Me?1947-Tiruvannamalai-1977Ramana: Amana and SumanaUnique MessiahBhagavan’s Boyhood DaysSvaraatA Vedic SeerArunachala RamanaMaharshi and the MotherMy ReminiscencesThe Path and the GoalThe Herald of a New EraKavyakanthaPradakshinaA TributeSadhana with BhagavanWhy Ramana?Celebrating the BirthdayMercies of BhagavanThe CallBoundless LoveDevaraja MudaliarShuddananda BharatiDilip Kumar RoyLucy CornelssenA. B. BhagavataK. PadmanabhanG.V. KulkarniPurnima SircarRatna NavaratnaC.R. Pattabhi RamanMaha Krishna SwamiDouglas E. HardingWolter E. KeersHenri HartungRa. GanapatiS. RamakrishnaN.R. Krishnamurti AiyerK. Sivaraj& Vimala SivarajPatrick LebailT.M.P. MahadevanA.R. NatarajanSwami ChidbhavanandaDoris WilliamsonRobert FuchsbergerK. NatesanCharles ReederJack DawsonUrsula MullerKumari SaradaJean DunnS. SivaI.S. VargheseGladys de 105108111115117119122124126127131
RemembranceBarbara RoseEmbodiment of PurityRobin E. LagemannHow Bhagavan CameInto My LifeKarin StegemannWhere Has Bhagavan Gone?Swami VirajanandaArunachala and RamanaK. SubrahmanianBeloved BhagavanSwami RamdasYears of GraceR. Narayana IyerEternal BhagavanShantammaSri RamanasramamLokammalGlimpses of Sri RamanaRaja IyerBhagavan’s CookingSundaramA Day with BhagavanP. L. N. SharmaShri Bhagavan’s GraceGouriammalA Lifetime with BhagavanT. K. Sundaresa IyerMaharshi’s Teaching andModern Scientific ThoughtK. K. NambairBhagavan in the KitchenSampurnammaHealing GraceM. V. Ramanaswami IyerMy Life My LightV. SubhalakshmiammaThe Bhagavan I KnowVoruganti KrishnayyaTales of BhagavanChalamPoosalarVisitor’s GuideK. PadmanabhanThe Path to SurrenderRamana MaharshiTransliteration of the Sarangathi SongTranslation of the Sarangathi Song into 85188193195200205214216226228229
1SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI:HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGSBy A. Devaraja MudaliarSRI Ramana Maharshi, as he is now known, was born on the30 December, 1879, the day of the Ardra Darshan, held to besacred and auspicious since it commemorates the occasionwhen Lord Shiva appeared before great saints like Gautamaand Patanjali. His father was one Sundaram Iyer of Tiruchuzhi,a village about thirty miles South-East of Madurai. Sundaram,a pleader of respectable status held in high esteem and loveby all alike, was married to Alagammal, a pious Hindu, devoutwife and generous hostess. The child was namedVenkataraman. After a few years of schooling at Tiruchuzhiitself, Venkataraman studied for his first form at Dindigul andfor the higher forms at Madurai. He does not seem to haveattained any special distinction at school and is reputed tohave been given more to sports than to studies. Bhagavanonce told me, “They have been writing like that, but I wasreally indifferent to studies and sports alike”. He wasphysically stronger than most of his companions at school.There is nothing particular to record in his life tillNovember 1895. When one of his relatives spoke of his havingreturned from Arunachala (another name for Tiruvannamalai),the name for some unaccountable reason had a strange andprofound effect on him, evoking in him awe, reverence andlove combined — though this was not the first time that hehad heard it. Bhagavan has told me, “From my earliest years,the name Arunachala was ‘shining and sounding’ within me.There was sphurana of that name”. I asked Bhagavan whatsphurana was and he said it conveyed the idea of both soundand sight, a sound and sight not perceptible to the ears and
2eyes but only to the heart, the psychic heart. A little later hecame across the work Peria Puranam in Tamil, which recountsthe lives of a number of Tamil saints, and was deeply movedby a perusal of it.In June 1896, when he was sixteen years old, the mostimportant event in his life took place. A sudden and great fearcame over him that he was going to die, though he was thenin normal bodily health and strength. The shock of this suddenand overwhelming fear of death led him to a very unusualexperience which is succinctly described by the Maharshihimself thus:The shock made me at once introspective or introverted. Isaid to myself mentally, ‘Now death has come. What does itmean? What is it that is dying? This body dies’. I at oncedramatized the scene of death. I extended my limbs and heldthem rigid as though rigor mortis had set in. ‘Well then’, saidI to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried to the burningground and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body,am ‘I’ dead? Is the body ‘I’? This body is silent and inert butI feel the full force of my personality and even the sound ‘I’within myself, apart from my body, so ‘I’ am spirit, a thingtranscending the body’. All this was not a mere intellectualprocess. It flashed before me vividly as living truth.This experience, which might have lasted perhaps half anhour, changed the boy completely for ever afterwards. He lostinterest in his studies, friends and relatives and even his food.He would go frequently to the shrines of Meenakshi andSundareswara in the great temple in Madurai and spend longhours in adoration before the images. He would occasionallypray for the Lord’s grace to flow into him and make him likeone of the sixtythree saints in Peria Puranam. But, for themost part he would be lost in the divine bliss within him whiletears flowed from his eyes.
3Observing this change in the boy, his worldly-minded eldersand especially his elder brother would rebuke him now and then.Finally on 29 August 1896, when he was studying in the sixthform, things came to a head. The elder brother burst out, “To onelike this (i.e., one lost in contemplation), why this sort of life(i.e., books, school and home)”? This touched youngVenkataraman’s heart and he said to himself, “Yes, that is quitetrue. What business have I here and with all these things”? andhe decided at once to leave his home and go to Arunachala. Hetold his elder brother, “I must go to school now to attend a specialclass”. The elder brother replied, “Then take five rupees fromthe box downstairs and pay my college fees”. The young aspiranttook this as God’s provision for his train fare to Arunachala. Hesearched for Tiruvannamalai in an old Atlas and spotting theplace, thought that three rupees should be enough to take himthere. So he took only this sum and started for the railway station,leaving in a prominent place a note in Tamil, which ran:In search of my Father and in obedience to His command,I have left this place. This (i.e., myself) is only enteringon a good enterprise; so none need feel grieved over thisevent, nor need one spend any money in search of this.Two rupees left herewith.He arrived at the station much later than the hour the trainwas due to leave. But providentially the train too was late andso the boy was able to catch it. He had taken a ticket only toTindivanam, for according to the old Atlas Tiruvannamalai wasnot on the railway line and the railway station nearest to it wasTindivanam. But an aged Moulvi sitting in the compartmentenquired of the bright youngster where he was going and toldhim of the recently opened Villupuram-Katpadi link line passingthrough Tiruvannamalai. The Maharshi could not rememberhaving seen the Moulvi in the compartment at Madurai railwaystation nor his entering it at any subsequent station. Anyhowthere he was to guide him. And following this Moulvi’s advice
4the lad got down at Villupuram and after a few incidents of nospecial interest reached a place called Arayaninalloor (Tirukoilurrailway station) on his way to Tiruvannamalai. Finding atemple, viz. that of Atulyanatha Iswara, he entered it and sat indhyana (meditation) in a mantapa dimly lit by a flickering lamp.While he was absorbed in dhyana he suddenly found the entireplace filled with a bright light. In wonder the young devoteelooked in the direction of the garbhagriha (the innermostshrine), to see if the light proceeded thence. But he found nosuch source for the light which in any case, disappeared soon.The place where this vision was vouchsafed to the young swamiwas the very spot where the celebrated saivite saintTirugnanasambandar had a vision of Lord Arunachala, also inthe form of light. The saint had installed a linga of LordArunachala which is still being worshipped.From Arayaninalloor, the young boy eventually reachedTiruvannamalai on the morning of 1st September, 1896 andwent straight to Lord Arunachala at the temple. Though hearrived at the temple at this unusual hour after the morningpuja, all the doors leading to the innermost shrine were open1and he walked straight up and said, “Father, I have comeaccording to Thy command, Thy will be done”. The burningsensation in the body which he had been feeling for somedays also ceased after he had thus reported his arrival. Afterspending some time in dhyana there he came out. Leavingthe temple he went into the town, returned with his hair shavedoff and only a cod piece for cloth.He originally took up residence in the temple’s thousandpillared hall. To avoid disturbance from crowds who wereattracted by the unusual spectacle of so young a person sittingin such deep meditation, he had to shift from place to placeboth inside and outside the temple. Not less than three years1M.G. Shanmugan and others believe that the doors wereshut, but as Bhagavan approached, each door flew open.
5were passed in maintaining absolute silence and in deep andall-absorbing meditation during which the young ascetic hadlost all consciousness of the body. When he was sitting in theshrine of Pathala Lingam in a dark corner of the thousandpillared hall, it was discovered that his seat and thighs hadbeen badly bitten by insects, that blood and pus were issuingfrom the wounds, and yet he sat in meditation, unaware ofwhat was happening to the body.Admirers gathered round and managed to keep the physicalbody alive. One such admirer, Annamalai Thambiran, beganto worship the young swami, as if he were an image in atemple, with offerings of fruit and flowers and burning ofcamphor. The first day of this strange worship passed withouta protest. But when the man came there again the followingday bringing food as usual and intending to repeat his worship,he found on the wall nearby the following words in Tamilwritten in charcoal, “This (food) is service enough for this(body)”. It thus became clear that the youthful swami wasliterate. This knowledge was utilised later by another admirer,a taluk head accountant of the place, who did satyagraha andforced the swami to put down in writing that his name wasVenkataraman and that he hailed from Tiruchuzhi.The news eventually reached his relations and uncle NelliappaIyer came and sought to take the swami back to his place. Therewas absolutely no response. Later, the mother and elder brothercame and tried their best to take the swami back home. Againthere was no response of any sort. But finally on the entreaty ofa devotee the swami wrote in Tamil on a piece of paper:The Ruler of all controls the fate of souls, in accordancewith their past deeds, their prarabdha karma. What isdestined not to happen will not happen. Whatever isordained will happen do what one may to prevent it. Thisis certain. Stillness then is best.
6So, the mother and brother went back. And BrahmanaSwami, as he had come to be called, stayed on beside the hill,though shifting from one spot to another there.In 1907, Kavyakantha Ganapathi Muni, a renownedSanskrit poet and scholar who had been strenuously carryingon spiritual sadhana for some years, became a devout followerof Brahmana Swami; and it was he and his disciples whostarted the vogue of referring to the youthful swami asBhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.Bhagavan Ramana lived in and around the big temple forabout a year, in a suburb about a mile to the east of the templefor about two years, and then around and in Virupaksha caveon the hill of the holy beacon for nearly fifteen years. Afterthat he stayed for six years in an Ashram called Skandasrambuilt for him by a band of enthusiastic devotees led by oneKandaswami. The place was rocky and covered with pricklypear bushes. No one could have imagined it was possible toraise a house there. But such was the ardent love and tirelesslabour of the devotees that the impossible became possible.Bhagavan has told me that it was after this Kandaswami thatthe place came to be called Skandasram.While Bhagavan was living in Virupaksha cave, he wasjoined by his mother, who began cooking. Till then Bhagavan’sdevotees used to beg in the streets for food and whatever wasreceived was divided by all those who happened to be at theAshram at that moment. Bhagavan’s residence changed toSkandasram in 1916. The mother was with him there and passedaway in May 1922. Her body was buried at the spot where theshrine of Matrubhuteswara stands now. Bhagavan used to gonow and then to visit the Samadhi. One day in December 1922,he went there as usual but had no urge at all to return toSkandasram. So Bhagavan lived there for more thantwentyseven years till his Mahasamadhi in April 1950. Aroundthe Samadhi of the mother have come up the cluster of buildings
7which we call Sri Ramanasramam. He was accessible to all,and lived, moved and talked like any of us. He seemed to livein the world and yet his real being was not in it. He lived withoutany sort of attachment to his surroundings. This state of beinghas been compared in the books to the state of a man who issound asleep in a cart. Whether the cart moves or rests or hasthe bullocks changed, it is all the same to the man who issleeping within. The jnani, whose ‘I’ has been annihilated,whose mind or ego has been killed and who has gone to sleepin his self, i.e. who has merged in the Self, is not affected bywhat he may or may not do in this life.It is a priceless privilege to have been a contemporary ofsuch a great saint and seer. It would indeed be a great tragedyif earnest seekers failed to take advantage of this presence inour midst while people from distant lands, almost from theends of the earth, have gained much from association withhim and a study of his life and teachings. It has been laiddown in our books that immeasurable spiritual gain awaitsthose who practise in the presence of a Self-realized Being.Book learning, observances, rites and rituals, japa, tapas oryoga, pilgrimages to sacred shrines and holy waters — noneof these can equal the association with a real jnani in helpingone’s progress in the spiritual path.We may now proceed to the central and the only teachingwhich the Maharshi imparted for all seekers to try and learnand experience for themselves.That which shines within each one of us as ‘I am’ is theSelf. This is the sole reality and all else is simply anappearance. In the Bible too it is said clearly and emphaticallythat God told Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM’. Verses thirteen andfourteen of Exodus, Chapter III sum up the message of theMaharshi, viz. that ‘I am’ is the name of God and theconsciousness ‘I am’ which each has within himself is thevoice of God or the Self.
8The Maharshi tells all earnest seekers of the truth:At every stage and for everything you say ‘I’, ‘I’; you say, ‘Iwant to know this’, ‘I feel this’, ‘I think this’, and so on. Askyourself who this ‘I’ is, whence this ‘I’ thought proceeds, whatis its source; keep your mind firmly fixed on this thought to theexclusion of all other thoughts, and the process will lead yousooner or later to the realisation of your Self.The method is simply this: you ask yourself ‘Who am I?’and try to keep your whole mind concentrated on getting ananswer to that question. True, various thoughts will ariseunbidden within you and assault you and try to divert yourattention. For all these thoughts, however, the ‘I’ thought is thesource and sustenance. So, as each thought arises, withoutallowing it to go on developing itself, ask who gets this thought.The answer will be ‘I’. Then ask yourself, “Who is this ‘I’ andwhence”? The Maharshi says, “Don’t be discouraged by thevariety and multitude of the thoughts which seek to distractyou. Follow the above method with faith and hope and youwill surely succeed”. And he gives an illustration:You besiege a fort. As one soldier after another comes out,you cut each down with your sword. When you have thus killedthe last soldier, you capture the fort. Till all thoughts aredestroyed they will keep coming out. But kill them all with thesword, ‘Who am I?’, and finally the fortress will be yours. It isnot by simply muttering the words ‘Who am I?’ to oneself thatone can gain the end. A keen effort of the mind, completeintroversion of all the faculties, total absorption in the questwherefrom the ‘I’ springs — all this is needed for success.In one of his verses the Maharshi says:Plunge deep into yourself, in the inner most depths of yourheart, as the pearl diver holding speech and breath plungesdeep into the waters and so secure with mind alert thetreasure of the Self within.
9Sri Bhagavan is, however, not at all opposed to any of theother well-known methods, such as the karma, bhakti or rajayogas, or to mantra japa, ceremonial worship, temple-going,observance of rituals, or any of the different ways chosen bydevotees to attain God. He advises each to follow the methodwhich appeals to him best, or which he finds the easiest. Heassures us that all pilgrims treading different paths will reachthe same goal, which he insists is the realisation of Sat-ChitAnanda, the One without a second. All learned discussionsabout advaita, dvaita or visishtadvaita he regards as futileand unprofitable. For his view is that if the mind’s activity isreally reduced to nothing it will then get merged in the Selfand the Self will take charge thereafter.Let us all learn and practice this straight and simple MahaYoga and attain peace and bliss!Control of the Mind“Other than inquiry, there are no adequate means for mindcontrol. If through other means it is attempted the mind willappear to be controlled, but will again rise up. Through thecontrol of breath also, the mind will become quiescent, butonly so long as the breath remains controlled; and with themovement of breath, the mind also will start moving and willwander as impelled by residual impressions. The source issame for both mind and breath. Thought, indeed, is the natureof the mind. The thought ‘I’ is the first thought of the mind;and that is egoity. It is from that whence egoity originatesthat breath also originates. Therefore, when the mind becomesquiescent, the breath is controlled, and when the breath iscontrolled, the mind becomes quiescent. But in deep sleep,although the mind becomes quiescent, the breath does notstop. This is because of the will of God, so that the body may
10be preserved and others may not take it as dead. In the stateof waking and in samadhi, when the mind becomes quiescentthe breath is also so. Breath is the gross form of mind. Till thetime of death, the mind keeps the breath in the body; whenthe body dies the mind takes the breath (prana) along with it.Therefore, breath-control is only an aid for mind-control(manonigraha); it will not bring about annihilation of the mind(manonasa). Like breath-control, meditation on some formof God, repetition of mantras, diet-regulation, etc., are butaids for rendering the mind quiescent for the time-being”.— Sri Bhagavan in WHO AM I?
11HE OPENED MY HEARTBy Kavi Yogi Shuddhananda BharatiDURING my dynamic silence of thirty years, about five yearswere spent in going from saint to saint, ashram to ashram.Even samadhi was not the summum bonum of realisation. Myheart wanted something which I did not find anywhere duringmy long journey from Mt. Kailas to Kanyakumari. I stood insilence at the feet of the gigantic Gomateswara up the hill ofShravana Belagola when I was living among the DigambariJain sadhus, wearing just a codpiece. At midnight a brightface rose like the sun in the crimson dawn, and a hymn fromthe Vedas came to my mind, ‘There he rises, the brilliant sunspreading a thousand rays, the cosmic form of the effulgentsplendour, unique light, life of beings’! The crimson gloryopened two lotus eyes, then coral lips emitted pearly smiles.I quickly remembered Ramana Maharshi and felt his innercall. I put a semicolon to my spiritual pilgrimage and wentquickly to Arunagiri. I went up the hill, took a bath in thewaterfalls, meditated in the Virupaksha cave and came down.Accidentally Seshadri Swami met me and smiled at me. I wentnear him and in his silvery voice he declared, “Go on and on,Shuddhananda, until you go deep in and in”. He accompaniedme a few yards and ran away saying, “Run, run, Ramana waitsfor you. Go in and in”.I reached Ramanasramam and entered the small shrine of theMother. There was a square room adjoining it and Nayana stoodup exclaiming, “Welcome, Welcome! Swagatam”! Ramana’sgentle voice said, “Let Bharati come in. Bharati varattum”.I saw no human form. I felt dazed. An effulgenceenveloped me. My mind disappeared into silence. I sat down,closed my eyes and entered the inner cave — nihitamguhayam. An hour passed like five minutes. I came back to
12myself, opened my eyes and saw Ramana’s lotus eyes rivetedon mine. He appeared like a linga spreading rays of burnishedgold. “Now you have felt That’, the cave is open! the ‘I’ isthe Self-nectar!’. After all these years of sadhana, here Iexperienced a delightful inner reality which is beyond wordand thought — Yato vaacho nivartante aprapya manassasaha. I caught hold of his feet and shed tears of delightsinging with Saint Manickavachakar, who sang, “TodayThou hast risen in my heart a Sun destroying darkness”.Blaze on, O Light DivineSwallowing I and mine.The Self rose like the SunThe many merged into the ONE.Behold the beacon of IInner Light of every Eye,Towering above He, She and it,A new dawn of inner delight.(All songs that I dedicated to Bhagavan are contained inmy book Arul Aruvi, Torrents of Grace.)Nayana, whom I already knew in the Gurukulamcongratulated me saying, “Like myself, you have found theright guru in the right place! Now the cave is ready for you”.Sri B.V. Narasimha Swami entered the room and said joyfully,“Happy, Happy! Bhagavan has touched your heart”!Then Niranjanananda Swami called me to the dining room.I opened my bag and brought out ground nuts and plantainsand gave them to Bhagavan. He took one fruit and a few nuts,and I took the rest as his prasad. That has been my diet formany years.The next morning after my bath I was meditating whenRamana came and we spoke for half an hour about practicalSelf-realisation. We had plenty of meetings during the nights.Maharshi is the beacon light of hope to seekers. He kept me
13in the Virupaksha cave silent. Only Nayana, Seshadri Swamiand B.V. Narasimha Swami (who wanted to know about SaiBaba), used to visit now and then. Ramana gave a finishingtouch to Shankara’s “Brahma Satyam, or Brahman is theunique reality”. Bhagavan located that Brahman in the heartand called it Heart itself:I, I shine the Truth in the heart’s core.That’s Brahman; be That; seek no more.Deepam crowds disturbed my cave life in Tiruvannamalai.Ramana made me live with Nayana in a mud cottage near theashram. I had the joy of hearing Vedic hymns and Nayana’sverses all day long as I remained silent and self-immersed,and prepared myself for the future fulfilment of my life.The last day was fully spent at the feet of Bhagavan andthat was my golden day. What he taught me on that daysustained me for twenty-five years:The egoless ‘I am’ is realisation. The experience of ‘I am’ ispeace. The meaning of ‘I’ is ‘God’. The outgoing mind isbondage, the in-going mind is freedom. The heartward mindbrings bliss. The restless worldly mind brings bondage andmisery. The triads of knower, known and knowledge areone. You go to a cinema. Observe the projector light. If theprojector light fails the whole show stops. Be Self-centeredand finish your work in silence and come out. The world isnothing but the objectified mind.
14BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHIBy Dilip Kumar RoyIN Pondicherry I happened at the time to be deeply dejected. Iyearned for peace, strained to meditate for hours, studied thescriptures, appealed to Gurudev, Sri Aurobindo. . . but all to noavail. I then recalled the joy I had enjoyed on my first visit tothe Maharshi and decided that I must try again to reach peaceof mind with the magic touch of his blessing. But there were afew brother disciples who warned me that it would be a fauxpas to seek from an outside saint or sage what I could not getfrom my own guru. Their arguments were powerful, the moreso as they stemmed from the love-lit gospel of guruvad (theguru principle). But after a sleepless night I resolved to takemy chance and repair to the Maharshi’s sanctuary.This time I was the guest of a Parsi lady, one of his ardentdevotees. She led me straight to the sage and told him, “Doyou know Bhagavan, Dilip says you have a beautiful laugh”.He laughed and we all swelled the chorus.But my doubts still gave me no respite. In the end I arguedthat my friends in Pondicherry were right, that in all crises oneshould appeal, first and last, to one’s own guru and to no other.I sat down in this distraught frame of mind and kept askingmyself how I could possibly come to port if I declined to acceptmy great guru’s lead. And so when I closed my eyes to meditate,I felt miserable. Meditate on what? To pray? To pray to whom?,and so on till, lo, after just five minutes, the three weeks’ incubusof gloom was lifted as though by magic and an exquisite peacedescended into me, entailing an ineffable ecstasy.The next morning I went to him and made my obeisance.His eyes shone like twin stars as he smiled kindly. I told himwhat had come to pass — a veritable miracle — peace settlingin the heart of a storm! He nodded, pleased, but made no
15comment. I then asked him if it was true what people saidthat he advocated jnana and disparaged bhakti. He smiled,“The old misconception! I have always said that bhakti isjnana mata (that is, bhakti, or love, is the mother of jnana,knowledge)”. When I heard this I was thrilled and understoodat once why I had felt in him not merely a great guru, comewith his kindly light to lead us back home, but a human friendand divine helper rolled into one.I asked him to explain what the writer of Maha Yoga quotesas his considered opinion that no authentic sage evercontradicted another, all illuminates being essentially one.He answered me this time at some length, contending thatthe paths may seem diverse, but when the pilgrims reach thegoal, the perspective changes and one sees clearly, that onlythose who have lagged behind quarrel about the relative meritsof different roads, and that only the goal matters. “So it is utterfolly,” he added, “to go on wrangling among ourselves, becausewe were one in the beginning and shall be one again in the end.Also, this oneness is so thrillingly real that one may say, if Xwants anything from Y then Y can hardly decline because ingiving to X, Y only gives to himself in the last analysis”.“But Maharshi,” I asked after a hesitant pause, “why is itthat the bhakta so often turns away from the jnani, even afterthey have both attained the goal?” He smiled, “But your premiseis wrong, to start with”, he said. “For, as soon as the bhaktaarrives he finds he is at one with the jnani. For then the bhaktabecomes bhakti swarupa (the essence of bhakti) even as thejnani becomes jnana swarupa (the essence of jnana) and thetwo are one, identical, although pseudo-bhaktas and pseudojnanis may dub the idea ‘crazy’ and start pitching into oneanother”. Then he added after a pause, “But such strifes breakout only among the followers of the illuminates. The Mastersalways stay above the battle. I was reminded of SriRamakrishna’s joke about Rama and Shiva: “Even when they
16fight”, he said, “the duel ends in perfect harmony, peace andlove. But Rama’s soldiers, the monkeys, and Shiva’s henchmen,the ghouls, go ever on clashing and snarling and calling names”.On my second visit I asked the Maharshi if he was againstguruvad. On this point many an exegete has written and improveda great deal. So I wanted to have his final verdict. He said:I have spoken about it many a time. To some the One revealsHimself as an outer guru, to others, as an inner one. Butthe function of either is identical, in the last analysis. Forthe outer guru pushes you inside whereas the inner gurudraws you inside, so the two are not incompatible. Whythen all this bother about His reality one way or the other?Many a time have I been helped by his compassion andwonderful parables. Here are two I have savoured most.The Maharshi often says with an amused smile that wecan hardly afford to be vain of our so called knowledge whenwe don’t know even our own self, the self in whom we havehomed from our cradle. An authentic guru G told his discipleD many a time about the tragicomedy of this humanfoolhardiness. But D forgot and grew vain after ripening intoa resplendent savant. So the guru came disguised as a ne’erdo-well and watched with him a royal procession. The kingwas riding a grand caparisoned elephant and a seething crowdflanking him on both sides, hailed and acclaimed him alongwith D, entranced and proud to have been appointed the privatetutor of such an august king. G nudged him and asked himwhat
SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI: HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS By A. Devaraja Mudaliar SRI Ramana Maharshi, as he is now known, was born on the 30 December, 1879, the day of the Ardra Darshan, held to be sacred and auspicious since it commemorates the occasion when Lord Shiva appeared before great saints like Gautama and Patanjali.
to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi by Sri M. Sivaprakasam Pillai, about the year 1902. Sri Pillai, a graduate in philosophy, was at the time employed in the Revenue Department of the South Arcot Collectorate. During his visit to Tiruvannamalai in 1902 on official work, he went to Virupaksha Cave on Arunachala Hill and met the MaharshiFile Size: 539KBPage Count: 40Explore furtherWho Am I? (Nan Yar?) - Sri Ramana Maharshiwww.sriramanamaharshi.orgBe as you are – The teachings of sri Ramana Maharishiwww.sadgurus-saints-sages.comA Light on the Teaching of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshiwww.happinessofbeing.comTeachings of Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words SINGLE PAGEwww.coursnondualite.com(pdf) The Collected Works Of Sri Ramana Maharshi .isitreallyflat.comRecommended to you b
Sri Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Edited by David Godman, Penguin Arkana, 1985. Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, transcribed by Munagala Venkataramiah, Sri Ramanasramam, 2016. Sri Ramana Maharshi, The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, Edited by Arthur Osborne, Weiser Books, 1997.
Lakshmi.) (Arunachala’s Ramana, Vol. II) SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI – THE POET By Dr. S. Ram Mohan* Sri Ramana Maharshi was a non-personality of immense dimensions. He was a great rishi in the glorious traditions of jnanis like Sukha Brahma Rishi. Like Buddha and Nachiketa, at a young age, he met death face to face and awakened to
LEV NIKOLAJEVIČ TOLSTOJ IN PROBLEMI SODOBNE RUSKE KULTURE (Kulturološki zapis z mislijo na stoletnico pisateljeve smrti) Razprava ob misli na stoletnico smrti L. N. Tolstoja posveča pozornost tako odmevom te obletnice kot še posebej prisotnosti pisateljeve osebnosti in ustvarjanja
i Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu [1.2.101]: sruti-smrti-puranadi-pancaratra-vidhim vina aikantiki harer bhaktir utpatayaiva kalpate Man kan ikke blive renset eller virkelig Guds - bevidst uden at referere til både sruti og smrti. Det er derfor ikke noget vilkårligt, når vi udbre - der denne Krishnabevidstheds-bevægelse.
I will set out Sage Ramana’s timeline and then we shall learn of his life as narrated by a few of his contemporaries and devotees at Arunachala as well as his childhood friends. There were some 75 of them who feature in the Ramana Periya Puranam written by Bhagwan’s younger brother’s grandson V Ganesan. I shall draw upon this one gem of a
Ramana Maharshi: His Life 10 1. Birth and Childhood What value has this birth without knowledge born of realization? V enkataraman, later to be known as Ramana Maharshi, was born into an old Brahmin family on 30th December 1879 in Tiruchuli, a village of approximately 500 houses some 30 miles south of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, South India.
Cover illustration: Ballyaghagan Cashel, looking north-east . Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, QUB Data Structure Report: AE/11/110 Ballyaghagan Cashel, County Antrim 3 Contents page List of figures 4 List of plates 4 Summary 5 Introduction General 6 Background 6 Reason for excavation and research objectives 7 Archiving 7 Credits and acknowledgements 7 Excavation Methodology 8 Account of .
