RAMANA MAHARSHI OF ARUNACHALA , THE LAST OF THE SEERS - CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL
Swami Chinmayananda , the great Indian spiritual leader , was once asked how he became a swami.
He said –
QUOTE
Soon after my high school final exams were over, I embarked on a tour of South India with a package tour railway ticket.
When the steam train passed the Tiruvannamalai Temple most of my fellow travellers in the compartment, bowed towards it with great reverence and talk in the carriage turned to the personage of Ramana Maharshi.
Although at that time in his I was a "a convinced atheist", the word Maharshi conjured up in my mind ancient forest retreats and glowing superhuman divine beings and I became intrigued enough to take the next available train to Tiruvannamalai to see the Rishi.
At the Ashram I was told that the Maharshi was in the hall and anybody was free to walk in and see him. As I entered, I saw on the couch an elderly man, wearing but a loincloth, reclining against a round bolster.
I sat down at the very foot of the couch. The Maharshi suddenly opened his eyes and looked straight into mine: I looked into his. A mere look, that was all. I felt that the Maharshi was, in that split moment, looking deep into me – and I was sure that he saw all my shallowness, confusions, faithlessness, imperfections, and fears.
I cannot explain what happened in that one split moment. I felt opened, cleaned, healed, and emptied! A whirl of confusions: my atheism dropping away, but scepticism flooding in to question, wonder, and search. My reason gave me strength and I said to myself, ‘It is all mesmerism, my own foolishness.’ Thus assuring myself, I got up and walked away.
But the boy who left the hall was not the boy who had gone in some ten minutes before. After my college days, my political work, and after my years of stay at Uttarkashi at the feet of my master, Tapovanam I knew that what I gained on the Ganges banks was that which had been given to me years before by the saint of Tiruvannamalai on that hot summer day –
-- by a mere look. (Somerset Maugham who wrote the Razor's edge is too DAFT to talk about this , as he would NOT even know what a changing human aura is )
UNQUOTE
Check out the video below, and you can see that Sigmund Freud would have done well to listen to this.
Arunachala refers to the holy hill at Thiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu. The hill is also known by the names Arunagiri, Annamalai Hill or Arunachalam.
It is one of the five main shaivite holy places in South India. The Arunachaleswara temple, a temple of Lord Shiva is located at the base of the hill. Every year in the Tamil month of Karthigai (October–November), the Karthigai Deepam (Light) is lit atop the hill.
It is also an important place for devotees of Sri Ramana Maharshi, with Sri Ramana Ashram situated at its foothills.
Every year, on the tenth day of the celebration of Karthikai, devotees take embers in pots from the sacred fire lit in the Arunachaleswara temple and carry them to the top of Arunachala, along with cloth wicks. An enormous cauldron is placed on the highest of Arunachala's five peaks and filled with hundreds of gallons of ghee mixed with camphor.
At precisely six o'clock, as the sun sets and the full moon rises, lights are lit on the top of the Hill, on a flagstaff in the temple, and at Sri Ramanasramam, accompanied by chants of Arunachala Siva by the vast crowds.
The fire on top of Arunachala can be seen for miles around. Sri Ramana Maharshi described the meaning of this event in this way: “ To turn the intellect inwards and have it fixed in the Heart, thereby merging it with the indweller of the Heart”
Carl Gustav Jung said this of Ramana Maharshi:-- “ Sri Ramana is a true son of the Indian earth. He is genuine and, in addition to that, something quite phenomenal. In India he is the whitest spot in a white space. What we find in the life and teachings of Sri Ramana is the purest of India; with its breath of world-liberated and liberating humanity, it is a chant of millenniums...”
Here is a piece of advise to Jung.
Western psychology has not asked a basic question -- who am I? ( Nan Yar ? like Ramana Maharshi ) -- because that question will destroy the false ego. And to ask that question means you are entering into the world of meditation, and meditation in other words is a state of no-mind.
Ramana Maharshi is responsible for the renaissance of Adi Shankaracharya’s, four millineums old Advaita movement – at one of the darkest times of humanity, totally hijacked and vitriol blinded by big brother ( of the banking cartel cum British East India Company ), who home grew their own psychoanalysts and John Galts .
He walked this planet with the brilliant light that was needed to restore the Sanatana Dharma of truth and righteousness.
Ramana Maharshi’s simple method of self enquiry and self surrender did away with all the confusing spiritual practices and bizarre Western theories which have muddled the path to enlightenment for hundreds of years.
Psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung , who wrote volumes about ego without a dang clue, must know that only meditation can help them discover something beyond mind. It is impossible to dip out of Vedic philosophy otherwise, the way they did .
The ego exists between the mind and the body. It is a false creation. The self exists not between body and mind, but beyond mind. And to reach to the self you have to learn the ways how the mind can be silenced, so its constant chattering is not there. Because the real self is absolute silence.
Meditation is a state of no-mind. And big brother’s pet psychoanalysts have worked overtime to deny any such state as no-mind . They have tried to bury the 11000 year long history of the Indian Vedic seers. The whole of western psychology is just a bullshit one century old pseudo science, born out of big brother’s vested compulsions .
The greatest psychoanalyst in the west is still prone to the same kind of sicknesses as any ordinary man, to the same schizophrenia. As far as his expertise is concerned he is well- trained, but as far as his humanity is concerned, he is just as ordinary as anybody else.
There is no transformation in him nor can he create one. Has any western psychoanalyst ever shown a bit of calm or certainty or authority or bliss , ever ? Other than big brother’s monopolized books and media , whoever prints them or reads them?
Every psychoanalyst has been afraid to talk with a Indian mystic. For they will be soon totally exposed.
When Carl Gustav Jung came to India he went to see the Taj Mahal, and the sex temples of Khajuraho though everybody kept reminding him and asking him, when he will visit Ramana Maharshi.
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The meeting never took place.
For to curious western onlookers , who would have covered this public event, it would have been like the tiny stone gaping at a huge majestic mountain.
When Carl Gustav Jung came to India he went to see the Taj Mahal, and the sex temples of Khajuraho though everybody kept reminding him and asking him, when he will visit Ramana Maharshi.
Do you require 3 months to see the dang Taj Mahal?
PRAY? PRITHEE !!
You guessed it right!
Our man Jung was foraging and scrounging around for Indian philosophical thought on the quiet in the major Indian libraries. Unlike Jew Sigmund Freud who had a special rapport with Jewish Big Brother, where he got all ZE masala back home itself..
The meeting never took place.
For to curious western onlookers , who would have covered this public event, it would have been like the tiny stone gaping at a huge majestic mountain.
The western authors kept needling him "You being one of the topmost psychoanalysts in the west, you should not miss this golden opportunity of meeting an eastern mystic who has come to his full flowering."
He was in the state of Tamil Nadu and , within two hours distance he could have reached Ramana Maharshi. For three months he was in India, but he avoided Ramana Maharshi like the plague .
This was pure nonsense.
One western thinker gave him egg on his face “ The west don’t need to follow Ramana Maharshi, who himself says every time , that you don’t have to follow him or use his methods . The real reason is that all your psychoanalysis and philosophy is weak and fragile and you are afraid to meet this uneducated man who ran away to be a saint at the age of 16“
The western psychoanalyst is afraid of meeting an eastern sage , because shallow western philosophy , other than what is lifted from the ancient Vedic thought and stitched together in a clumsy manner , is based on shifting sands , and has no foundation.
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Or perhaps our man Carl Jung was trying to convey a superiority complex as an evolved human in a natty three piece suit , while Ramana Maharishi just wore a strip of cloth to cover his loins?
The Indian civilization put down their lofty philosophical thoughts in the Vedas and Upanishads as early as 5000 BC, when the west were doing grunt grunt for language. The Indians had lived all its glories that the west thinks it is attaining now 7000 year ago.
Look at our literature, sculptures, music, poetry. Could Jung ever think that the ancient Indian people who had such creativity could be looked down upon just like that –just because after 800 years of slavery the entire glory got hijacked, in as much as the white blonde blue eyed man called himself an Aryan and claimed that he wore our Vedas?
See Sigmund Freud's shallow thought above-- TEE HEEEE !!
George Bush also had such PROFOUND thoughts.
In 1995, Rice University Professor of Religious Studies Jeffrey Kripal's book Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was released, a highly controversial psychoanalytic study of Ramakrishna.
It won great acclaim among Christians and Jews and secured the American Academy of Religion's Best First Book in the History of Religions Prize in 1996.
Jeffrey portrayed , Ramakrishna as a she-male, cross dresser, gay, a pedophile .
So much for Freudian psychoanalysis of Eastern spirituality.
Hindu mysticism is not about only intellectual understanding and splitting hairs in a way nobody will understand , and hence ask no questions , but is based on transformation of the man himself.
The whole personality of the western psychoanalyst is not involved in his work, only his education. No Indian sage will ever commit suicide like western psychoanalysts.
There is a big difference between the teacher and the pupil. The psychoanalyst is NOT even a teacher. He pretends to know everything about the mind, but the poor guy does not know how to change his own mind, leave alone the pupil's.
What does a psychoanalyst do? He makes the patient lie down on a couch , three times a week, and tells them to talk about their dreams and themselves. What can he extract out of this session other than money for himself. None of them even knew what REM sleep is all about. The eastern mystic does NOT charge fees and hence he cares.
Venkatraman Iyer later called Ramana Maharshi was born on Dec 30, 1879 at Thiruchuzhi near Sivakasi, south of Madurai, India.
He was friendly and open-minded by nature and was loved by everyone in the village. He was a lively boy who liked to play pranks, more interested in sports like wrestling , soccer and atheletics than studies. He was stronger than the rest and he would win easily.
He attended the local vernacular primary school in Tiruchuli for three years before going to the English medium secondary school in Dindigul when he was eleven.
His family was aware of an old family legend, about how a Hindu ascetic came to the house begging for food, but, against all Hindu tradition, he was not treated with the proper respect and was not given a meal. The ascetic promptly issued a curse, stating that henceforth one member of each generation of the family would wander about begging as an ascetic like himself.
This ‘curse’ had its effect, because in each generation one member renounced worldly life to become a wandering ascetic. Sundaram Iyer was Venkatramana’s father . One Sundaram Iyer’s uncles on his father’s side had taken the saffron robe, the staff and the lota of a sannyasin and had left to live life as a wandering renunciant .
His own elder brother Venkatesa also disappeared from the village one fine day, no doubt to embark upon the same path. He was never heard of again and since that time Sundaram had been the head of the joint family. There are no indications that Sundaram Iyer ever thought that one of his sons would one day also leave home.
And no doubt the thought never crossed the mind of the young Ramana either.
He did not study Sanskrit or the sacred traditions of Hinduism such as the Vedas or the Upanishads. In both the missionary run schools he attended he was taught Christianity, but Hindu boys generally showed little interest in such bible classes – and Ramana was no exception in this respect.
Although he was very much like any other boy, he did have one peculiar trait. His sleep used to be exceptionally deep and most of the time he had to be beaten awake.
One day he had failed to study properly some lesson on English grammar. As punishment for this , the English teacher gave him a punishment of copying out the lesson three times. When he came to the third copy his mind revolted against this soulless mechanical exercise. He pushed the work aside, sat upright in yoga posture, closed his eyes and started to meditate. His elder brother Nagaswami, who had been watching him all the time, cried out ill-temperedly, “Why should one, who behaves thus, retain all this?”
The shot went home.
So, in I896 this sixteen-year-old schoolboy quietly walked out on his family and, driven by an inner compulsion, slowly made his determined way to Arunachala, a holy mountain and pilgrimage centre in Tamil Nadu , South India.
His parting letter which he left behind for his mother and brothers read, “I have, in search of my Father and in obedience to his command, started from here. This is only for embarking on a virtuous enterprise. therefore none need grieve over this affair. To trace THIS out, no money need be spent. Your college fee has not yet been paid. Rupees two are enclosed herewith”
The letter changes from the personal “I” to the impersonal “THIS” and ends with a long line instead of a signature.
From this day on he never signed with his name again.
When he was asked later why he did not sign his letter, he answered, “There was nothing deliberate or conscious about it. Simply that the ego did not rise up to sign it.”
So, at around twelve noon on this fateful Saturday, Ramana left his family and Madurai and set off to take the train to Tiruvannamalai which was approximately 250 miles away.
He was never to return.
On the way he sold his gold earrings set with rubies (such earrings are worn by Brahmins) for a song , to eat food and to buy a train ticket . He arrived at Tiruvannamalai railway station from where he foot slogged to the holy mountain of Arunachala.
He was to remain there for the rest of his life.
The famous Arunachaleswara temple at the foot of the hill is one of the largest temple complexes in Southern India. The temple is 3000 years old, but the current imposing structure dates back to the early Chola dynasty ( 871-953 AD). Inside the temple compound there are numerous shrines to various gods. The impressive hall has exactly 1,000 richly decorated pillars, numerous open pillared halls , gardens, inner courtyards and two temple ponds.
Overflowing with joy he hastened to this temple at the foot of Arunachala mountain , walked straight to the inner shrine hugged the lingam with hot tears flowing , and stayed there some time in the ecstasy of complete surrender.
He then left the inner temple compound and threw a packet of sweets , which he had , into the Ayyankulam temple tank. A man saw him do this and approached him and asked if he would like to have his tuft of hair removed. Ramana agreed. One of the barbers who practised his trade at the Ayyankulam tank, cut off his beautiful black locks and shaved his head.
He gave the barber some money and threw the rest of the 3 rupees eight annas away. Then he tore up the white cotton dhoti he was wearing and kept only one small piece as a loincloth. A loincloth (konam) would be his only clothing from now until the end of his life.
Cutting off the tuft of hair, which orthodox Iyer Brahmins have on the back of their heads as a sign of their caste, and shaving the head are signs of renunciation. From this day on he never touched money again and never had any possessions. Finally, he removed his Brahmin poonulu thread, the sign of his high caste status.
He then abandoned himself to a newly-discovered awareness that his real nature was formless, immanent consciousness.
His absorption in this awareness was so intense that he was completely oblivious of his body and the world.
Ramana had first settled down in the thousand-pillared hall in the temple compound, which is on the right when entering the temple through the eastern tower. The hall, with its thousand richly carved stone pillars, is a raised stone platform, open on all sides.
Exposed to the gaze of the general public in a place of pilgrimage the strange youth soon roused the curiosity of the pilgrims. Street urchins started to pester him. No doubt they felt provoked by a youth sitting motionless like a statue . They started taking verbal potshots at him in sarcasm.
One day, while Ramana was sitting absorbed in meditation in the thousand-pillared hall, he was pelted with a stone from behind, rudely disturbing him. In order to escape such troubles in future, he decided to withdraw to a dark windowless underground vault under the thousand-pillared hall, known as the Patala Lingam. The urchins would not dare to come in because of the extreme darkness that prevailed in the pit called Patala or hell.
There was a Shiva lingam, behind which he sat down, leaning his back against the wall. The cellar was never used or visited and therefore never cleaned. No ray of sunlight ever penetrated here. It was also damp and overrun with vermin and mosquitoes.
Young Ramana sat unmoved in yoga posture with legs crossed, impervious to the world and the mosquitoes which fed on his blood. Insects and rodents chewed away portions of his legs, his body wasted away because he was rarely conscious enough to eat and his hair and fingernails grew to unmanageable lengths. His thighs, where they met the ground, were soon covered with sores and ulcers, from which blood and pus oozed.
These scars were to remain visible till he died.
A pious woman named Ratnammal found him there, and used to give him something to drink and eat. She laid a clean piece of cloth beside him and bade him to use it as a bed or to sit on to keep at least some of the vermin away, but he took no notice and did not even touch it.
Ramana neither spoke nor moved. People who saw him like this thought he was practising a severe tapasya. Because he was silent, though that he had taken a maun vrit.
But for Ramana this was no spiritual exercise at all, it was merely something that happened to him ( Kundalini raising from the wrong pingala nadi ). In his own words “I have never done any sadhana. I did not even know what sadhana was. Only long afterwards I came to know what sadhana was and how many different kinds of it there were. Only if there was a goal to attain, I should have made sadhana to attain that goal. There was nothing which I wanted to obtain. I am now sitting with my eyes open. I was then sitting with my eyes closed. That was all the difference. I was not doing any sadhana even then. As I sat with my eyes closed, people said I was in samadhi. As I was not talking, they said I was in mauna. The fact is, I did nothing. Some Higher Power took hold of me and I was entirely in Its hand.”
Ramana was in this dark pit for a couple of months . One Venkatachala Mudali, a visitor to the temple, finally brought him out of there, being told of a boy meditating in the dark pit.
Venkatachala Mudali reports, “One day, going near the thousand-pillared hall, I found a group of Muslim boys, hurling stones in the direction of the pit entrance. Enraged at the sight I broke a stick from a shrub and seized a twig, and ran towards the young scamps who fled promptly. Proceeding inside the dark vault , I could make out nothing for a while, as I was coming from the glare into the darkness. In a few minutes, the faint outlines of a young face became discernible in that pit.
Somewhat frightened, I ran out to the adjoining flower-garden where a sadhu was working with his disciples. Mentioning the facts to them I took some of them with me. Even then the youthful figure sat motionless and with closed eyes, despite the noise of our footsteps. Then we lifted the Swami from the pit, carried him from the hall up a flight of steps and deposited him in front of a shrine of Subrahmanya. The Swami still remained unconscious, his eyes closed; evidently he was in deep samadhi.
We noted the large number of open sores caused by rodent bites on the nether side of his thighs and legs, with blood and pus flowing from some of them, and wondered how any one could remain unconscious of the body amidst such torture. Regarding it as irreverence, nay impertinence, to make any further noise in such presence, we bowed and came away.”
At the shrine of Subrahmanya there lived a Mauni Yogi and a group of mendicant ascetics, who had settled down in the nearby garden. Sri Ramana was cared for occasionally but not regularly. At noon each day the Yogi used to bring him a glass of milk collected from a stone basin after the sacrifice to the statue of Goddess Uma. This was no pure milk, but a murky mixture of various food offerings - milk, water and sugar mixed with turmeric powder, raw and ripe pieces of plantains and other sacrificial remains, which the priest had poured over the devotional image. Indifferently Ramana swallowed it all.
During this time any food had still to be put into his mouth, as he would not eat what was merely placed in front of him. Without the care of others the Swami would probably not have survived for long.
He also often did not know whether it was day or night. Ramana recall “When I closed my eyes, deeply absorbed in meditation I hardly knew whether it was day or night. If at any time I opened my eyes I used to wonder whether it was night or day. I had no food and no sleep. … If there is no movement, you do not need sleep. Very little food is enough to sustain life. That used to be my experience. Somebody or other used to offer me a tumblerful of some liquid diet whenever I opened my eyes. That was all.”
Some people, who saw the young ascetic sitting motionless like that thought, “He is sitting like a Jada (dull-witted person), he must be a mad fellow.” Ramana later said that he found such remarks amusing.
He had discarded his konam because of the sores and was sitting nude those days.
Ramana recounts “ After I had been nude for about a month, this old Gurukkal told me one day, ‘Boy, the Kartikai Deepam is approaching. People from all the 24 districts will be flocking here. Police from all the districts will also be here. They will arrest you and put you into jail if you are nude like this. So you must have a cod-piece.’ So saying, he got Ramana a new piece of cloth, made four people lift me up and tied a konam around me.”
At the following Kartikai festival Sri Ramana’s first disciple, Uddandi Nayinar, arrived and became a permanent companion. He had a bullock cart which he used to transport people and goods from one town to another. Like so many other pilgrims he too had come to Tiruvannamalai for the Kartikai festival and saw the young Swami sitting under the Illupai tree absorbed in deep samadhi. In search of Self Realization and peace of mind he recognized in the young swami the living embodiment of the holy scriptures and said to himself, “Here indeed is realization and peace, and here must I seek it”
From then on he did not leave Ramana’s side. He took care of his bodily needs and prevented him from being disturbed or bothered. He settled down at a short distance from him, observed the crowds of visitors for hours at a time and drove away the urchins who found it amusing to cause trouble for the young ascetic. He also cooked simple meals, which he shared with him.
Uddandi was a learned man. In Sri Ramana’s presence he recited sacred Yoga and Vedanta texts such as Yoga Vasistha and Kaivalya Navaneeta. He longed to hear some words of instruction from his new guru, which would help him on the way to self realization and help him find peace, but the swami kept silent and he, in his turn, did not dare to speak to him.
After two or three years in this state he began a slow return to physical normality, a process that was not finally completed for several years.
After his enlightenment at age 17 he led a simple life on the sacred Hill Arunachala, in Southern India, for over 50 years, until his death in 1950.
People whose Kundalini rises from the wrong nadi, ( Pingala rather than the correct Sushumna ) undergo this type of terrible pain and ordeal.
Punch into Google search AWAKENING AND RAISING KUNDALINI VADAKAYIL.
One day one of his devotees named Tambiran due to his excessive veneration, was making preparations to do render homage to his new guru, like to one of the idols of the gods in the temple (abhishekam). He obtained flowers, oil, sandal paste, milk and other ingredients and actually wanted to pour this over the head of his “living god”.
Ramana was filthy, his hair had grown very long and had become a dishevelled and matted mass and his fingernails had grown so long and crooked, that he was unable to use his hands for any useful purpose.
Ramana was filthy, his hair had grown very long and had become a dishevelled and matted mass and his fingernails had grown so long and crooked, that he was unable to use his hands for any useful purpose.
To prevent this, Ramana took a piece of charcoal and the next day, before Tambiran arrived, wrote on the wall in Tamil, “ This [food] alone is the service [needed] for this [body].” Only then people came to know that this silent drifter was educated and able to read and write. And that made people even more curious.
Amongst the admirers who had started to visit Ramana regularly, was a highly-placed official called Venkataramana Iyer. When he realized that the Swami was able to write, he told Ramana that unless he tells him where he isfrom, he wont go to attent office or even eat even if it means that he may be dismissed from his job.
This moved the young Swami and he wrote down the words on the wall with charcoal , “Venkataraman, Tiruchuli”. This would help his mother and brother to meet him later.
This moved the young Swami and he wrote down the words on the wall with charcoal , “Venkataraman, Tiruchuli”. This would help his mother and brother to meet him later.
One day his devotees got together , and forcibly gave him a bath, cut off his matted locks and cut his long nails. As long as he was dirty and disheveled people were afraid to touch him. So now the devotees built a bamboo fence around him for his protection. Ramana recalls “ When my head was shaven clean, I began to wonder whether I had a head or not, it felt so light. I shook my head this way and that to assure myself that it was there. That showed the amount of burden I had been carrying on my head.”
Ramana owed a lot to a Malayali from Kerala by the name of Palaniswami. He was at least 20 years older than Ramana. He was a Ganesha devotee . One day someone told him “What is the use of spending your lifetime with this stone ? There is a young Swami in flesh and blood at Gurumurtam. He is steeped in austerities (tapas) like the youthful Dhruva mentioned in the puranas. If you go and serve him, and adhere to him, your life would serve its purpose.”
Others also drew his attention to the fact that the Swami was without a personal attendant at the time and that it would be a blessing to serve such a great liberated soul. Spurred on in this way Palaniswami went to Gurumurtam. When he saw the young Swami, he recognized that he had found his master. He became a devoted companion of Sri Ramana following him everywhere like a shadow.
If he had to leave he used to lock the door at Gurumurtam, so that nobody could pester the Swami while he was away, and he would always return as quickly as he could. Nobody was allowed to see Ramana without his permission. He would accept the various food offerings from visitors, mix them up into a paste and at noon give Ramana a cupful of it to eat. The rest he gave back as prasad to the visitors.
Some time in May 1898, after a little over one year spent at Gurumurtam, Ramana and Palaniswami moved to the adjoining mango grove. Ramana remembers, “Under a mango tree they erected something overhead to prevent rain from falling on me. There was, however, not enough space under it even to stretch my legs fully while sleeping. So I used to sit almost all the time like a bird in its nest. Opposite my shelter Palaniswami also had a small shed. In the huge garden, only two of us used to stay.”
Palaniswami, who had access to a library in town, brought back a number of books in Tamil on Vedanta, such as Kaivalya Navaneeta, Yoga Vasistha and Shankaras Vivekachudamani. Ramana read each of the books, immediately grasped the meaning, remembered everything and imparted the essence of it to Palaniswami.
Palaniswami would die in Maharshi Ramana’s arms. Ramana placed on hand on his spiritual heart ( right side of chest ) and one on the left side of his head when he was dying, to make him Jivan Mulkt. But after he removed his hands Palaniswami opened his eyes and then died -- and hence it was not a success. He would always regret this incident.
Ramana would do the same thing to him own mother much later. He was able to liberate her from the endless cycle of births and hence she was buried in a meditative pose – NOT cremated as is Hindu custom.
Ramana would do the same thing to him own mother much later. He was able to liberate her from the endless cycle of births and hence she was buried in a meditative pose – NOT cremated as is Hindu custom.
At a funeral Ramana’s uncle heard the news and he came to visit him, and take him back home . He tried talking to him , but Ramana would not talk or even show a sign of recognition. The uncle finally had no alternative but to give up.
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From that moment on the Swami became known as the Maharshi Bhagavan. Ganapati Muni and his followers made Sri Ramana known to a wide circle in India.
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In Dec 1898 his mother Alagammal came to visit him for the first time, accompanied by his eldest brother Nagaswami. Ramana would not talk to them. Bitterly she complained about his neglected bodily condition and implored him to come home with her, but he did not react. Day after day they came up to see him, brought him sweets and entreated him tirelessly, but all to no avail. Ramana remained silent.
Alagammal tried everything. One day when she broke down in tears, he was unable to bear it any longer and simply went away. Once she despairingly turned to the others present and asked for their support. Then one of them said to Ramana, “Your mother is weeping and praying. Why do you not answer her? Whether it is ‘yes’ or ‘no’, why not give her a reply? Swami need not break his vow of silence. Here is pencil and paper. Swami may at least write out what he has to say.”
So Ramana wrote down, “The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their past deeds – their prarabdhakarma. Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, - try how hard you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to stop it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is for one to be silent.”
Whether this message convinced his deeply religious mother or not, there was nothing left for her to do but to leave him to the life he had embarked upon. Furthermore Nagaswami’s holidays were coming to an end and he had to return to his office for work . Without having achieved what they had set out to achieve and with a heavy heart, they returned to Manamadurai.
Gradually more followers came to live with Ramana and Palaniswami. When Ramana’s mother joined the community in 1916 she instigated regular housekeeping chores and regular cooking. But Ramana made it clear in several remarks that he preferred the simplicity of the years when they lived from hand to mouth.
Ganapati Sastri, also called Ganapati Muni – Muni means the wise, the scholar, the saint – was the most famous and erudite of Sri Ramana’s disciples. He was a Telugu Brahmin.
One day he asked Ramana “ Pray enlighten me about the nature of tapas.”
For 15 minutes the Swami kept silent and looked at Ganapati, who sat at his feet full of expectation. Then he answered, “If one watches whence this notion of ‘I’ springs, the mind will be absorbed into that. That is tapas. If a mantra is repeated, and attention directed to the source whence the mantra-sound is produced, the mind will be absorbed in that. That is tapas.”
This was the first time that Sri Ramana gave a verbal answer to a question.
Until then he had kept silent and had always written the answers down. For Ganapati Muni this was a real revelation. His heart was filled with ecstatic joy and he meditated at the feet of his new master until the evening.
The following day Ganapati Muni wrote full of enthusiasm to his family and his disciples, “I have found my Master, my Guru. He is the Sage of Arunachala known as Brahmanaswami. He is no ordinary Swami. He is a great Seer, a mighty spiritual personality. To me and to you all he is Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi [elevated great Seer Ramana]. Let the whole world know him as such.”
From that moment on the Swami became known as the Maharshi Bhagavan. Ganapati Muni and his followers made Sri Ramana known to a wide circle in India.
The Englishman Frank H. Humphreys was the first western disciple who came to Ramana, in January 1911. He reports about his visit, “For half an hour I looked Him in the eyes which never changed their expression of deep contemplation. I began to realize somewhat that the body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost – I could only feel His body was not the man, it was the instrument of God, merely a sitting motionless corpse from which God was radiating terrifically. My own sensations were indescribable.”
Ramana became relatively well known in and out of India after 1934 when Paul Brunton, having first visited Ramana in January 1931, published the book A Search in Secret India. In this book he described his meeting with Ramana Maharshi, and the effect this meeting had on him. Brunton also describes how Ramana's fame had spread, "so that pilgrims to the temple were often induced to go up the hill and see him before they returned home", and the talks Ramana had with a great variety of visitors and devotees.
Brunton calls Ramana "one of the last of India's spiritual supermen", and describes his affection toward Ramana:--
“ I like him greatly because he is so simple and modest, when an atmosphere of authentic greatness lies so palpably around him; because he makes no claims to occult powers and hierophantic knowledge to impress the mystery loving nature of his countrymen; and because he is so totally without any traces of pretension that he strongly resists every effort to canonize him during his lifetime”
While staying at Sri Ramanasramam, Brunton had an experience of a "sublimely all-embracing" awareness, a "Moment of Illumination".
The book was a bestseller, and introduced Ramana Maharshi to a wider audience in the west.
Till his death in 1950 Ramana lived in Sri Ramanashramam, the ashram that developed around the mother's tomb. Ramana often walked from Skandashram to mother's tomb. In December 1922 he didn't return to Skandashram, and settled at the base of the Hill, and Sri Ramanasramam started to develop.
In November 1948, a tiny cancerous lump was found on Ramana's arm and was removed in February 1949 by the ashram's doctor. Soon, another growth appeared and another operation was done by an eminent surgeon in March 1949 with radium applied. The doctor told Ramana that a complete amputation of the arm to the shoulder was required to save his life, but he refused. A third and fourth operation were performed in August and December 1949, but only weakened him. Other systems of medicine were then tried; all proved fruitless and were stopped by the end of March when devotees gave up all hope.
To devotees who begged him to cure himself for the sake of his followers, Ramana is said to have replied, "Why are you so attached to this body? Let it go" and "Where can I go? I am here."
By April 1950, Ramana was too weak to go to the hall and visiting hours were limited. Visitors would file past the small room where he spent his final days to get one final glimpse.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, the legendary French photographer and master of the "decisive moment", arrived at the ashram in the first week of April 1950, just ten days earlier, as the Maharshi lay terminally ill in his ashram.
Cartier-Bresson had the knack of being at the right place at the right time.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, recounted the event:
"It is a most astonishing experience. I was in the open space in front of my house, when my friends drew my attention to the sky, where I saw a vividly-luminous shooting star with a luminous tail, unlike any shooting star I had before seen, coming from the South, moving slowly across the sky and, reaching the top of Arunachala, disappeared behind it. Because of its singularity we all guessed its import and immediately looked at our watches – it was 8:47 – and then raced to the Ashram only to find that our premonition had been only too sadly true: the Master had passed into parinirvana at that very minute."
Ramana Maharshi was 71 years old at the time of his death.
Cartier-Bresson took some of the last photographs of Ramana on April 4, 1950, and went on to take pictures of the mahasamadhi preparations.
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" In his notes, Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote, "The Maharshi was the most accomplished human being I have ever met."
Here in India, where thousands of so-called holy men claim close tune with the infinite, it is said that the most remarkable thing about Ramana Maharshi was that he never claimed anything remarkable for himself, yet became one of the most loved and respected of all.
Objects being touched or used by him were highly valued by his devotees, "as they considered it to be prasad and that it passed on some of the power and blessing of the Guru to them". Also the water which he used to wash his hands was valued. The bathing-water he used became an object for achamaniyam, "sipping drops of water for religious purpose".Sri Ramana strongly discouraged this and constantly reminded people to turn within.
He charged no money, and was adamant that no one ever ask for money (or anything else) in his name;
He never promoted or called attention to himself. Instead, Ramana remained in one place for 54 years, offering spiritual guidance to anyone of any background who came to him, and asking nothing in return.
He considered humility to be the highest quality.
He said the deep sense of peace one felt around a jnani was the surest indicator of their spiritual state, that equality towards all was a true sign of liberation, and that what a true jnani did was always for others, not themselves.
Ramana never promoted any lineage.
His awareness of himself as consciousness was unaffected by this physical transition and it remained continuous and undimmed for the rest of his life. In Hindu parlance he had `realized the Self', that is to say, he had realized by direct experience that nothing existed apart from an indivisible and universal consciousness which was experienced in its unmanifest form as beingness or awareness and in its manifest form as the appearance of the universe.
He shared in the communal work and for many years he rose at 3 a.m. in order to prepare food for the residents of the ashram. His sense of equality was legendary. When visitors came to see him - it made no difference whether they were VIPs, peasants or animals - they would all be treated with equal respect and consideration.
His egalitarian concern even extended to the local trees; he discouraged his followers from picking flowers or leaves off them and he tried to ensure that whenever fruit was taken from the ashram trees it was always done in such a way that the tree only suffered a minimum amount of pain.
Throughout this period ( 1925-50) the centre of ashram life was the small hall where Sri Ramana lived, slept and held court. He spent most of his day sitting in one corner radiating his silent power and simultaneously fielding questions from the constant flow of visitors who descended on him from every corner of the globe. He rarely committed his ideas to paper and so the verbal replies given out during this period (by far the most well documented of his life) represent the largest surviving source of his teachings.
These verbal teachings flowed authoritatively from his direct knowledge that consciousness was the only existing reality. Consequently, all his explanations and instructions were geared to convincing his followers that this was their true and natural state.
Few of his followers were capable of assimilating this truth in its highest and most undiluted form and so he often adapted his teachings to conform to the limited understanding of the people who came to him for advice. Because of this tendency it is possible to distinguish many different levels of his teachings.
At the highest level that could be expressed in words he would say that consciousness alone exists. If this was received with skepticism he would say that awareness of this truth is obscured by the self-limiting ideas of the mind and that if these ideas were abandoned then the reality of consciousness would be revealed.
Most of his followers found this high-level approach a little too theoretical - they were so immersed in the self-limiting ideas that Sri Ramana was encouraging them to drop that they felt that the truth about consciousness would only be revealed to them if they underwent a long period of spiritual practice.
To satisfy such people Sri Ramana prescribed an innovative method of self-attention which he called self-enquiry. He recommended this technique so often and so vigorously that it was regarded by many people as the most distinctive motif in his teachings.
Sri Ramana Maharshi, who has opened up the path of advaita Hindusim of Adi Shankaracharya ( 2000 BC ) to all people, is one of the most remarkable sages of the modern era.
He is the last of the great seers.
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Grace and peace!
He is the last of the great seers.
Grace and peace!
CAPT AJIT VADAKAYIL
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