SELF, SILENCE AND MAHARISHI RAMANA - Ashok Vohra

“I did not eat, so they say I was fasting; I did not speak, so they say I was a mauni”. Ramana

“We have two mahaans in India today. One is Ramana Maharshi who gives us peace. The other is Mahatma Gandhi, who will not let us rest one moment in peace. But each one does what he is doing with the same end in view, namely, the spiritual regeneration of India”. Sarojini Naidu

Reflecting on human life Adi Shankracharya in his Bhajagovindam 7, asserts that “One is interested in play when he is a child. He is interested in women when he is young. And, when he grows old, he is lost in thoughts. No one is interested in inquiring into what is truly real”. The nature of the ‘truly real’ can be discovered only by pondering over the questions: “Who are you? Who am I? Where have I come from? Who is my mother? Who is my father?” He cajoles one to “Contemplate on the changing nature of life which is almost like a dream and give up extreme attachment”. The ‘truly real’, according to him is not situated in the outer world but is internal to human beings. According to him, one has to make a conscious and diligent effort to look within because “We are created with the sense organs facing outward and hence one sees the outer world and not the inner self. Someone who is wise, desiring immortality, sees the inner self, by turning the eyes inward”. 

Ramana Maharishi learnt this hard truth during his two ‘death experiences’. The first death experience happened about six weeks before he left his home for Arunachalam in 1886. Narrating this experience, he says:

I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle's house. I seldom had any sickness and, on that day, there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigour mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word 'I' nor any word could be uttered. 'Well then,' I said to myself, 'this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So, I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.' All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was cantered on that I. From that moment onwards, the ‘I’ or Self-focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but the I continued like the fundamental sruti note (‘that which is heard’ i.e., the Vedas and Upanishads) a note which underlies and blends with all other notes.

The second ‘death experience’ happened in 1912, when he was 33 years old. At that time Ramana Maharishi was living in the Virupaksha Cave on the Arunachalam hill. His companion Vasudeva Shastri felt that Ramana had passed away and started weeping and lamenting. The death experience was felt in quick succession thrice. He felt as if a white curtain was drawn and darkness and faintness descended on his vision. As a result, he could not stand and had to sit down on the rock. His skin turned blue. His breathing and blood circulation stopped. Describing his experience he says, “I could distinctly see the gradual process. There was a stage when I could still see a part of the landscape clearly while the rest was covered by the advancing curtain. It was just like drawing a slide across one's view in a stereoscope. On experiencing this I stopped walking lest I should fall. When it cleared, I walked on. When darkness and faintness came over me a second time I leaned against a rock until it cleared. The third time it happened I felt it safer to sit, so I sat down near the rock. Then the bright white curtain completely shut off my vision, my head was swimming and my circulation and breathing stopped. The skin turned a livid blue. It was the regular death hue and it got darker and darker”. He narrates the second ‘death experience, thus:

“My usual current of awareness still continued in that state also. I was not in the least afraid and felt no sickness at the condition of the body. I had sat down near the rock in my usual posture, closed my eyes and was not leaning against the rock. The body, left without circulation or breathing, still maintaining that position. This state continued for some ten or fifteen minutes. Then a shock passed suddenly through the body and circulation revived with enormous force and breathing as well, while the body perspired from every pore. The colour of life reappeared on the skin. I then opened my eyes, got up and said; ‘Let’s go’. We reached Virupaksa cave without further trouble. That was the only fit I had in which both circulation and breathing stopped”.

Unlike the first death experience which was the experience of a juvenile, the second was the experience of a mature person. Ramana was conscious throughout the period he was undergoing this ‘death experience’ is clear from his saying, that he “could distinctly feel (Vasudeva Sastri’s) clasp and his shivering and hear his words of lamentation and understand their meaning. I also saw the discolouration of my skin and felt the stoppage of my circulation and breathing and the increased chilliness of the extremities of my body. My usual current of awareness still continued in that state also. I was not in the least afraid and felt no sadness at the condition of the body”. According to him, “This was the only fit I had in which both circulation and respiration stopped. I did not bring on the fit purposely, nor did I wish to see what this body would look like after death, nor did I say that I will not leave this body without warning others. It was one of those fits that I used to get occasionally, only this time it took a very serious form”.

It is worth noting that unlike the first death experience in which there was no stopping of breathing and circulation, discolouration of the skin, etc. there was fear of death, of leaving the body. In the second ‘death experience’ there was no fear, no anxiety. Ramana was fully aware of the difference between, ‘fits’ and ‘death experience’, so one cannot conclude as many sceptics do, that Ramana had really the common experience of a fit.

From these ‘death experiences,’ Ramana existentially realised the temporality of the body and the permanence of the self. He says, “In the vision of death, though all the senses were benumbed, the aham sphurana (Self-awareness) was clearly evident, and so I realised that it was that awareness that we call ‘I’, and not the body. This Self-awareness never decays. It is unrelated to anything. It is Self-luminous. Even if this body is burnt, it will not be affected. Hence, I realised on that very day so clearly that that was ‘I’. The reflection on the ‘I’ experience led Ramana to investigate the true nature of ‘I’. Ramana's written works contain terse descriptions of self-enquiry. In Verse thirty of Ulladu Narpadu he says:

Questioning 'Who am I?' within one's mind, when one reaches the Heart, the individual 'I' sinks crestfallen, and at once reality manifests itself as ‘I-I’. Though it reveals itself thus, it is not the ego ‘I’ but the perfect being the Self Absolute. Verses nineteen and twenty of Upadesa Undiyar describe the same process in almost identical terms:

19. ‘Whence does the ‘I’ arise?’ Seek this within. The ‘I’ then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom.

20. Where the ‘I’ vanished, there appears an ‘I-I’ by itself. This is the infinite.

So, a realisation of the self, the ‘I’ is the realisation not of the individual ‘I’ or self but the universal non-dual self or ‘I’. As a consequence of this realisation, there is no ‘other’. The ‘other’ becomes a mental construction. Ramana asserts, “The real Self or real ‘I’ is, contrary to perceptible experience, not an experience of individuality but a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness. It is not to be confused with the individual self which (Ramana) said was essentially non-existent, being a fabrication of the mind, which obscures the true experience of the real Self. He maintained that the real Self is always present and always experienced but he emphasized that one is only consciously aware of it as it really is when the self-limiting tendencies of the mind have ceased. Permanent and continuous Self-awareness is known as Self-realization. In his poem, Ekatma Panckam written in 1947 Ramana uses the allegory of ornament and gold to explain the essence of the Self and the nature of the ‘I-I’ relationship. He says, “As the ornament is not apart from the gold, the body is not apart from the Self. The ignorant ones mistake the body for the Self; the sage knows that the Self alone is real”. It alone is real because “The Self is the true nature of one’s self. This cannot and does not change; all the rest changes and passes, and therefore, unnatural”.

Ramana throughout led a simple life. He was averse to pomp, and ostentation. He never allowed anyone to garland him. Whenever on some ceremonial occasions he had to participate and listen to eulogies and hymns of praise, he participated in them as a witness to what was going on and listened to the acclamations not as their subject but only as one in the audience, as a third person. For example, he did not like the special significance attached to his birthday and its celebration by his devotees. On the first-ever celebration of his birthday in the year 1912 by the devotees he expressed his displeasure thus:

You, who would celebrate the birthday grandly, seek first whence is your birth. The day of true birth is the one on which one is born in that Reality which is one and is without birth and death.

Without mourning for one’s birthday, observing the day as a festival is like decorating a corpse. The part of wisdom lies in realising one’s Self and merging in it.

He was against all kinds of discrimination and special or differential treatment. He had no preferences and prejudices, no likes and dislikes. He treated all – the rich and powerful and the poor peasants and the ordinary folks alike. In doing this Ramana was practising advaita – non-dualism in his day-to-day life; he saw the same Self dwelling in all. He was equanimous towards everyone and had an attitude of indifference in all situations and circumstances; “sitting behind locked doors or out in the open was the same to him. To him, there was no body seated, no doors were locked and no temple served as a shelter. He had no outer home (aniketah); his wisdom had become steady in the immutable reality (sthiramatih)”. Irrespective of his surroundings and the lifestyle that he led that is, whether he was living a normal way of life following regular habits of eating, moving, speaking etc., or leading an ascetic life, that is abstaining from eating food, keeping silent, etc., “Ramana always remained fixed in the supreme Self; this was his natural state (sahaja-sthitih)”. For him, there were no rules to be followed. It was perfectly in order. Explaining this exception, he said for an enlightened being “there are no rules to observe and no vows to keep. After reaching the end, what use has he for the means – however remote they may be? All that one can say about this mode is that it is in accordance with the prarbdha”. Even the arousal of the ego in a realised being “does not affect him. The ego, in his case, is harmless like a burnt rope which cannot be used to tie anything”.  

Ramana was averse to calling himself a guru much less an avatara – the incarnation of Dakshinamurti or that of Kumarila Bhatta. He did not claim possession of any occult power and hierophantic knowledge.  He had no pretensions and resisted every effort to canonize him during his lifetime. He did not initiate a new cult or school of thought. Though many were influenced by him and claimed to have attained liberation because of their association with him, Ramana never claimed to have disciples, or publicly acknowledged them as liberated beings, and never appointed any successors to his heritage and did not promote any lineage. In fact, Ramana tried to show time and again that he was like any other common man. He, for example, said, “People wonder how I speak of Bhagavad Gita, etc. It is due to hearsay. I have not read the Gita nor waded through commentaries for its meaning. When I hear a sloka (verse), I think its meaning is clear and I say it. That is all and nothing more”.

In fact, Ramana was quite perturbed by the constant flow of an increasing number of devotees who came to the Ashrama to have his darsana and blessings as his normal activities in the Ashrama got restricted because of them. He according to his own confession tried to flee thrice from the Ashrama to return to a life of solitude. But that was not to be. Ramana was not very distressed by his failure as he was firmly committed to the doctrine of prarabdha. According to him, life goes on “In accordance with the prarabdha (destiny to be worked out in current life) of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom, therefore, is to stay quiet in Sahaja Samadhi”.

He taught, lived and practised the age-old philosophy of Vedanta by remaining silent about it because he believed that “Silence is the true upadesa. It is the perfect upadesa. It is suited only for the most advanced seeker. The others are unable to draw full inspiration from it. Therefore, they require words to explain the truth. But the truth is beyond words; it does not warrant explanation. All that is possible is to indicate It.” He taught a new method – the method of self-enquiry by practising which one can undergo the advaitic experience. This method can be adopted by one and all, irrespective of their class, caste and place in the society, or their being an atheist, theist, agnostic or sceptic. It may however be noted that Ramana did not use Dvaita and Advaita as absolute categories. He clearly stated this in the following words, “Dvaita and advaita are relative terms. They are based on the sense of duality. The Self is as it is. There is neither dvaita nor advaita. “I Am that I Am.” Simple Being is the Self. Any other way of expression for example, ‘I am X’, ‘I am Y’ ‘I am Z’ etc. gives rise to ego and not self-knowledge. That is why one has to say, “(Aham, aham) ‘I-I’ is the Self; (Aham idam) ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that” is the ego’. The Self has no location, no periphery and no centre. It is “unlimited and formless, and so is the spiritual centre. There is only one such centre. Whether in the West or the East, the centre cannot be different. It has no locality. Being unlimited, it includes leaders, the world, forces of destruction and construction. You speak of contact because you are thinking of embodied beings as leaders. Spiritual people are not bodies; they are not aware of their bodies. They are spirit: limitless and formless. There is always unity among them. These questions (questions like whether India is a spiritual centre of the universe; whether Indian spiritual tradition and Mahatmas can play a role in uniting the leaders of different religions etc.) cannot arise if the Self is realized”. For the realised beings there is no diversity but only unity; there is no individuality but collectivity and universality.

Though Ramana did not criticise other schools or teachers’ methods, he asserted that his technique of ‘Self-enquiry’, Who am I? is different from the techniques of meditation taught by the traditional Advaitins, that is ‘I am Siva’ or ‘I am He’. He distinguished between the two in the following words:

The quest for the self of which I speak is a direct method and is superior to it (the traditional Advatin’s method). For the moment you get into the quest for the Self and begin to go deeper, the real Self is waiting there to receive you, and then whatever is to be done is done by something else and you, as an individual, have no hand in it. In this process, all doubts and discussions are automatically given up, just as one who sleeps forgets all his cares for the time being.

Elaborating the distinction between his and others’ teaching he told the famous orientalist Oliver Lacombe, “Maharishi’s teaching is only an expression of his own experience and realisation” and about the articulation of his personal experience, he said, “A realised person will use his own language. Silence is the best language.” Ramana chose the medium of silence for communication and imparted his teachings through silence.

The other major difference between traditional Advaitic school and Ramana’s teachings is that while the Advaita has a negationist neti, neti - ‘not this’, ‘not this’, attitude to describe the ultimate reality, and it also affirmatively teaches the mental affirmations that the Self was the only reality, such as ‘I am Brahman’ or ‘I am He’, Ramana emphasises on the enquiry ‘Nan Yar’ – ‘Who am I?’.

Though Ramana did not claim gurudom, many scholars became his devotees and rushed to him for becoming his disciples. While the common man wanted to meet him for material gains, the scholars from all over the globe became his disciples to learn nature and practice of spirituality from him. They felt that “Ramana could give this initiatory push by touch or by a glance. Seated in silence, he would suddenly turn, fix one with an intense gaze, and the person would become directly aware of the right-hand Heart (the spiritual centre of one's awareness) and its vibrant current of primal awareness. Those who experienced the power of Ramana's gaze have reported that the initiation was so clear and vivid that they could never again seriously doubt that the Guru was none other than their own primal conscious being”. 

Some of the disciples felt that “Ramana also initiated people in dreams by gazing intently into their eyes, and he would sometimes travel in the subtle body to visit people. He would appear to a disciple hundreds of miles away as a luminous figure, and the person would recognize his appearance in that form. He noted that one's waking life and one's dream life were both a kind of dream each with different qualities of awareness. He referred to them as ‘dream 1’ and ‘dream 2’. He, therefore, did not make a big distinction between appearing to a waking disciple and a dreaming disciple since he considered both spheres of existence to be dreams”. In fact, Ramana himself admitted this to a devotee who wanted to see his real form and who had such an experience. When the devotee told Ramana about his experience, Ramana said, “You wanted to see my form; you saw my disappearance; I am formless. So, that experience might be the real truth”.

F. H. Humphreys was the first European to meet Ramana. Humphreys claimed that he had a vision of Ramana in Bombay and Vellore. He learnt Telugu to meet Ramana. He drew a picture of the person whose vision he had before his Telugu teacher Ganapati Sastri. Sastri told that it was his guru Ramana in front of the Virupaksa cave, and arranged a meeting of Humphreys with Ramana. Humphreys met Ramana in November 1911. The Englishman was impressed by his experience of meeting Ramana. He recorded the details of his meeting in a letter which was published in the International Psychic Gazette in the following words:

At two o’clock in the afternoon, we went up the hill to see him. On reaching the cave we sat before him, at his feet, and said nothing. We sat thus for a long time and I felt lifted out of myself. For half an hour I looked into the Maharishi’s eyes, which never changed their expression of deep contemplation. I began to realise somewhat that the body is the temple of Holy Ghost; I could only feel that 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 feelings were indescribable.

The Maharishi is a man beyond description in his expression of dignity, gentleness, self-control and calm strength of conviction.

Humphreys met Ramana several times later on. His ideas on spirituality were changed fundamentally as a result of his meetings with Ramana. He recorded in the Gazette his impressions of these meetings. ‘You can imagine nothing more beautiful than his smile’ in one of such minutes; the other minute records, ‘it is strange what a change it makes to one to have been in his presence!’. Brunton a well-known journalist too recorded that he had an experience of a ‘sublimely all-embracing’ awareness, a ‘Moment of Illumination’ while staying in Ramanasrama. Murgnor narrated the experience that he had in the presence of Ramana in the following words, “In the same way that wax melts on encountering fire, on seeing his feet, my mind dissolved and lost its form. Like the calf finding its mother, my heart melted and rejoiced in his feet. The hairs on my body stood on end. Devotion surged in me like an ocean that has seen the full moon. Through the grace of chitsakti [the power inherent in consciousness], my soul was in ecstasy”. Most of the people who saw Ramana felt that “to sit before him was itself a deep spiritual education. To look at him was to have one’s mind stilled. To fall within the sphere of his beatific vision was to be inwardly elevated”. Brunton gave expression to what most of the visitors and devotees felt on seeing Ramana, thus:

His expression is modest and mild, the large dark eyes being extraordinarily tranquil and beautiful. The nose is short, straight and classically regular. There is a rugged little beard on the chin, and the gravity of his mouth is most noticeable. Such a face might have belonged to one of the saints who graced the Christian Church during the middle ages, except that this one possesses the added quality of intellectuality. . . . He has the eyes of a dreamer . . . there is something more than mere dreams behind those heavy lids”.

The visitors and devotees came with questions about spiritual as well as other matters faced by them in their lives with the intention of seeking answers from Ramana. But their questions and queries dissolved as soon as they were in his presence. The questions which they thought were very significant and crucial for them ‘seemed silly and puerile’. In the presence of Ramana, they were “so filled with joy and peace that the desire to ask (questions) disappeared”. Most of the devotees and visitors in his presence, as Brunton recorded, “felt security and inward peace. The spiritual radiations which emanated from him were all-penetrating. I learnt to recognise in his person the sublime truths which he taught, while I was no less hushed into reverence by his incredibly sainted atmosphere. He possessed a deific personality that defies description. One could not forget the wonderful pregnant smile of his, with its hint of wisdom and peace won from suffering and experience. He was the most understanding man I have ever known; you could be sure always of some words from him that would smooth your way a little, and that word always verified what your deepest feeling had told you already”.   

Of course, all of the visitors felt a perceptible change in them after meeting Ramana. The meeting, most of them reported, was a turning point in their life. UG Krishnamurti (popularly known as UG), then 21 years of age, met Ramana in the year 1939. U.G. related that he asked Ramana, ‘This thing called moksha, can you give it to me?’ - to which Ramana Maharshi purportedly replied, ‘I can give it, but can you take it?’ This answer completely altered UG's perceptions of the ‘spiritual path’ and its practitioners, and he never again sought the counsel of ‘those religious people’. Later U.G. would say that Maharshi's answer - which he had originally perceived as ‘arrogant’ - put him ‘back on track’. “That Ramana was a real McCoy” said UG.

Mahatma Gandhi too advised people, in search of peace, to visit Ramanashrama. He, for example, advised Rajendra Prasad who for sometime wished to be away from the hectic life of a freedom fighter, in quest of peace “if you want peace, go to Sri Ramanasramam and remain for a few days in the presence of Sri Ramana Maharshi, without talking or asking any question”. Rajendra Prasad did accordingly and spent a few days in the ashrama under the benign shadow of Ramana. On the day of his departure Rajendra Prasad while taking leave of Ramana told him that he had come to Ramansarama on Mahatma Gandhi’s advice and was now returning to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram and requested Ramana to give him any message to be delivered to Mahatma Gandhi. To this Ramana graciously answered: “The same Power which works here is working there also! Where is the need for words when the heart speaks to heart?” Ramana held Mahatma Gandhi in great esteem and supported Swaraj movement headed by him. He considered Gandhi as a godly figure. He was quite disturbed on hearing the news of Gandhi’s assassination. On the death of Gandhi, he consoled himself as well as his audience by narrating the episode of the dialogue between Yama and Rama from Uttara Ramayana.  In this narrative after Ramarajya is established, Yama tells Rama that the work for which Rama had come on the earth had been completed and that it was time for him to return to heaven. Taking this narrative as an illustration Ramana said, “This is similar, swaraj has been obtained; your work is over; why are you still here? Shouldn’t you go back?”  

When the devotees grieved over the suffering of Ramana because of the cancerous tumour just before his passing away from the ephemeral worldly life which began on December 30, 1879, to the eternal and immortal life at the age of 71 years at 8.47 PM on April 14, 1950, he who was indifferent to his pain and suffering comforted the devotees by saying, “They take this body for Bhagavan and attribute suffering to him. What a pity! They are despondent that Bhagvana is going to leave them and go away, but where can he go and how?” He reassured them, “I shall be there where I am always.”  He left the body sitting in a lotus position. The final word that passed from his lips was the sacred syllable OM.

Millions of Indians continue to see Ramana as the ‘sources of authentication and validation of Hinduism in the modern world’; ‘a sage without the least touch of worldliness, a saint of matchless purity, a witness to the eternal truth of Vedanta’; a sage who acts as ‘a symbol that continues to inspire them to preserve their distinctive national culture and identity’; a sage whose ‘teachings have an air of timeless, the classic structure which seem as appropriate to twentieth-century Hinduism as they do to first-century Hinduism’.

 

REFERENCES

Bhajagovindam, 24.

Kathopanishad.

Day to Day with Bhagvanaa, November 22, 1945.

Quoted in TMP Mahadevan, Ramana Maharishi: The Stage of Arunachala, Mandala Books, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1977

Op. cit., p. 43.

The Mountain Path, 1982, p. 98.

“Letters from Ramanashrama”, November 22, 1945.

TMP Mahadevan, op. cit., p. 35.

Ibid, p. 67.

Ibid, p. 33.

Ibid, p. 35.

Ibid, p.35.

Ibid, p. 35.

The Teachings of Bhagvana Sri Ramana Maharishiin His Own Words, Sri Ramanashrama, 1971, p. 20.

Quoted in TMP Mahadevan, op. cit., p. 128.

Lex Hixon, Jeremy P. Tarcher, Coming Home, The Experience of Enlightenment in Sacred Traditions, Martin's Press, New York, 1989, p. 46

TMP Mahadevan, op. cit., p. 42.

Quoted in Ibid, p. 48.

Power of the Presence, Part II,

Ramana Maharishi and His Philosophy of Existence, Ramanastrama, 1967, p. 153.

A Search in Secret of India, Rider & Company, London, 1934, p. 90.

Banning Richardson, Golden Jubilee Souvenir, Ramanasrama, 1949, p. 25.  

The Maharishi and His Message, Ramanaasramam, missing year of publication, pp. 19-20.

Arunachala’s Ramana, vol. III, p. 370-71.