“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.
