There
is no greater mystery than this -that being the Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality. We think that there is something binding
our reality and
that it must be destroyed
before the reality is gained.
It is ridiculous!
A day will dawn when you will
yourself
laugh at your effort.
That which is on the day of laughter
is also now.
Meditation is
thus a part of the search for the one you already are and the Wo am I is Ramanasgift to the world - a simple antidote to all technical
attitudes seeking to
"body build" the Spirit.
Like with Faqir Baba and
Sunyata, I never met Ramana Maharshi in person—he
passed away four years before I was born. Yet, he was the spiritual mentor
to Sunyata, Papaji, and Bharadwaj, and his spiritual legacy was palpably
transmitted through these remarkable individuals.
Long before meeting Papaji and Bharadwaj, Ramana became my first literary
inspiration. In my early twenties, filled with spiritual enthusiasm, I would
visit the library to devour every book by
Paul Brunton
I could find, enchanted by the mystical depths of India he portrayed. The
unexplainable joy that overpowered me reading these books in my youth to day
reminds me of a quotation from Meister Eckhart:
When a man delights to read or hear about God,
that comes of divine grace and is lordly entertainment for the soul.
To entertain God in one's thoughts is sweeter than honey.
Paul Brunton was the
first to introduce Ramana Maharshi to a Western audience through his
writings. Brunton visited Ramana Maharshi in the early 1930s and wrote about
his experiences in his influential book, A Search in Secret India,
published in 1934. This book played a significant role in bringing Ramana
Maharshi to the attention of people outside India. After Brunton's books
were published, Westerners began to arrive in larger numbers, and others,
like Arthur Osborne, started writing about Ramana.Osborne even moved
to India and settled at Ramana Maharshi's ashram in the late 1940s.
"The Greatest Impersonality" became one of his names in the West. The
psychologist C.G. Jung was fascinated by Ramana and planned to visit, but he
ultimately decided against it at the last minute, choosing instead to write
a foreword to European books about him. Here is what he wrote as foreword to Heinrich Zimmer´s
"The Path to the Self".
"The Goal of eastern practices is the same as
that of Western mysticism: The focus shifted from the "I" to the self, from man to God... The wisdom and mysticism of the East have, therefore, a very great deal to tell
us,
provided
they speak in their own inimitable speech.
They should remind us of what we posses in our
own culture of similar things and have already forgotten, and direct our attention to that which
we put
aside as unimportant, namely the destiny
of our inner man."
My impression is that Jung was somewhat
intimidated by what he might encounter in Ramana's presence and was probably
conscious of this trepidation. He maintained an intellectual distance and
used Western mystics as a shield, rationalizing his abrupt cancellation of
the planned visit to Ramana's ashram. I recognize this behavior very well
from my own life,
where I've done
the same, and I deeply appreciate Jung for his significant contributions
to psychology.
Ramaswami Pillay - a
Devotee still Alive In 1989, I embarked on a
5,000 km motorcycle journey around South India, which included a visit to Ramana's ashram in Tiruvannamalai.
Shortly after my visit
in Ramana Ashram I wrote this chapter in my diary:
۞
"Sweeping through a dry and flat landscape on my way to Tiruvannamalai,
trails of dust chase every wheel on the road. Large, soft, almost blue
stones, some several hundred meters high, pull rain from a yellowed paper
sky to small, thirsty palm groves. Stone-walled wells lie like conquered
fortresses in the warm sand. In the distance, a futile, drought-green giant
stone gathers all the random stones in the landscape.
Mount Arunachala, geologically one of the world's oldest mountains, is
considered by Indians as one of the world’s most sacred. I wander around a
drowsy, peaceful and beautiful ashram at the foot of the mountain. A young
Indian man approaches
me and shares:
'Venkataraman, a boy of 16, was suddenly overwhelmed one morning by an
intense fear of death, certain his final hour had come. He lay down to
experience what it feels like to die. His body's life functions ceased, but
the Self, the ocean of consciousness, continued beyond the body's confines.
The all-pervasive Self—unbound by body, space, and time.
When the body revived, the young Venkataraman had vanished as an ego-entity. Without a plan
or money for more than a couple of days, what later would be known as Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi left his family and home without notice for a
mountain that, for reasons unknown to him, was deeply sacred: Mount
Arunachala. For years, he lived here in a yogic trance, unnoticed by most
except for the village children who amused themselves by throwing stones at
his immobile body. For a few hours a day, he begged for food in
Tiruvannamalai, just enough to sustain life; other times, he was so
ecstatically lost in the Self that he maintained life only because he was
fed by a few people who had recognized his exalted state of being.
Sometimes the sun rose, other times it was setting, he said of his early
years at the foot of the mountain. Gradually, the body's death-like state
ceased, and it began to lead a "normal" life—as a swing still moves back and
forth, even though the one who was swinging has gone, Ramana himself
explained. Slowly, an ashram grew around him. People from all places came to
look into the eyes of a man who was nothing and could do nothing.'
The young monk bows with folded hands towards the holy mountain:
Tat twam asi: You are that supreme truth.
The Ashram Hall We enter the spacious, cool meditation hall. It was built in the last
years of Ramana's life.
I find it wonderful but Ramana disliked it and the
commotion it attracted. He also disliked his status as Guru for the
growing and ever-more organized ashram. Several times he tried to flee from
the ashram but was
each time caught by disciples, who on their tearful knees persuaded him to
return.
Four Brahmin priests sit chanting sacred texts from the Rigveda, who surely
would have fled again if he hadn't already left his
body in 1950.
I go to the ashram
library and open one of Brunton's books at random. I land on a chapter about
an English soldier who knew nothing about spirituality or Ramana Maharshi
and happened to come to the foot of the mountain.
There, sitting on a
stone, Ramana looked directly at him. The soldier met Ramana's gaze and
found himself unable to move, rooted to the spot for several hours.
Observing a large
colored photograph of Ramana in the hall I understand the English soldier.
Although Ramana died many years back, he remains oddly alive,
photographically captured in the unguarded moment that was his entire life.
With me from the ashram I
got
a large, hand-colored
photo
of Ramana. It still adorns the wall of my meditation room.
With endless eyes right now,
Ramana
looks at me from that foto-painting, and that is enough. The silence he sat
in is the same silence that emerges between the letters in the book and the
water still flows in nameless rivers.
Teetering on the edge of infinity...
Yes! Ramana is still infectious, 40 years after his death.
Here in Tiruvannamalai at the foot of Arunachala, everything is very simple.
Ramaswamy Pillai.
Talking with many open smiles. Asks if they personally knew Ramana. They did
not. Asks if there are still people here who knew Ramana alive. A young boy
leads me away from the ashram to a sort of retirement home. In an extremely
spartan but clean cell of no more than 6 square meters sits a large,
athletic old man. The boy leaves me alone with the old man. We do not speak
a word to each other. He sits nodding his head. We do not greet each other.
Suddenly after several minutes of silence, he speaks to me in fluent
English. His name is Ramaswamy Pillai. Asks where I come from, what I do,
etc. I also ask and he is maybe 96, he is not so sure. Ramaswamy Pillai
met Ramana in 1917 and was with him every day until Ramana's death in 1950.
He vividly remembers the day he as a young man arrived at Arunachala. Yes,
that day he sat at the feet of Ramana. When Ramana's famous gaze fell upon
him, he was immobilized, rooted to the spot as if turned to stone.
From that day, there was no turning back.
Imperceptibly, surprisingly but astoundingly undramatically—silently,
consciousness gently grows out of the body, filling the entire room and
infinitely much more.
The body, crucified in a vise—inside the chest, it awakens—slowly curling me
into itself. No time—we do not exist in time and space—but time and space
exist in IT.
In the horizon, a confused voice asks:
Excuse me, Sir—are You enlightened?
Only your eyes will know. It depends on your eyes.
Someone knocks on the door. Ramaswamy is served warm milk and far away and
yet incredibly close, I see that he shares it with me. Two lives sit
opposite each other in silence, drinking warm powdered milk. He looks at the
many small photographs of Ramana that I bought in the ashram—blessing each
of the pictures with tiny, infinitely tender caresses.
Then he says several times very intensely:
You will make it...You will make it—You will realize the soul without
effort. You cannot do that, but Ramana, that say God has chosen you. You
will stop identifying with your body. You ask continuously: Who am I? and
your “I” will realize that it is not the body, but the pure eternal Self
full of bliss.
Sir!—It is, here—in your presence.
Have there been other women in your life than your mother?
Yes, I answer.
Desire for sex binds
the “I” to the body. Sex and body belong together.
Be very careful... but you will make it! Very soon. In this life.
- Is desire bad?
Everything is perfect. It is perfect not to be the self. Because
you are already the self. Only you look in the wrong direction. You think
there is something to improve.
Sitting at the foot of a mountain. What is there, is everywhere.
How could it be possible to forget it?
We sit in silence—time goes and stands still.
Then Ramaswamy says:
The self is in everything—no need to improve the world. An evil man tried
to harm Ramana for many years. He even dragged Ramana into court. When this
man became old, he became very weak and lost all his friends. With bowed
head, he went to Ramana and said: “I will go to hell for what I did to You.”
Ramana replied: “In Hell—there I am also.”
But when I return to the hell of the Indian roads I will forget that,
I answer—suddenly back in a 6 square meter room.
Dear Sir! Please show me how to be the Self even in the winter of life.
Help me not to forget. I know tomorrow my meeting with you will be like a
faint dream and then again I waste time driving around in circles.
Dear friend!—the Self does not care if you forget or not. You just relax
and listen.
Ramaswami reads from a little book with quotes from Ramana:
There is no greater mystery than this—that being the Reality ourselves,
we seek to gain Reality. We think that there is something binding our
Reality and that it must be destroyed before the Reality is gained. It is
ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your effort.
That which is on the day of laughter is also now.
I bow and touch his feet.
Ramana, that say the Self has chosen you as It has chosen every human
being—don’t you worry—now go back to the Indian roads. They are good
teachers for the time being. Go from well to well—from river to river—and
you will meet many holy persons. But in fact, you will only see your Self.
Yes! Dear Sir
Singing, I depart on my bike from Tiruvannamalai... "
۞
(And I forget... and even forget that I had forgotten.)
