Ramana Maharshi
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The Making of a saint
From Venkataraman to sainthood
VS Krishnan, October 31, 2020: The Times of India
While walking through the streets of Madurai, the young Venkataraman happened to meet an elderly relation. When asked why he was not being seen around and where he had been, the relative replied: “Arunachalam”. The very name Arunachlam made a profound impact on Venkataraman. A few days later, while at home, suddenly, he was struck by fear of death. This prompted him to inquire all about death. He soon realised that death happens only to the body and not to the Self. Transformed with this knowledge, he proceeded to Tiruvannamalai. He went straight inside and said, “Oh Lord, obedient to Thy call, I have come.” On September 1, 1896, the one who came out of the temple was not Venkataraman, the young school student but an enlightened soul. He soon moved to Virupaksha cave, up the hill where he remained in samadhi most of the time. He was unaware of his body and its needs and remained unresponsive to external matters. Though he studied sacred books, he said they were analysing what he had already felt intuitively.
Seekers, scholars and pundits came to him to get his grace and advice. Some, like Paul Brunton, went back to tell the world about a saint who is totally impersonal and detached. Some came to him and stayed with him like Muruganar and Kunju Swamy to imbibe the nectar of knowledge that flowed from the saint. It was Ganapati Muni, a renowned Sanskrit scholar who described this saint as ‘Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi’.
Though many sought his upadesa, rarely did Maharshi give any specific advice. According to him, the Self, the reflection of Brahmn, is the eternal Guru. It is enough if one looks within and contemplates. But, since the mind has an outgoing tendency, it would respond more actively to external factors than to internal factors. So, in order to bring the outgoing mind to the source, Guru appears externally in the form of a human, so that the mind responds. Guru then holds the attention of the extroverted mind and redirects it to its source, the Self. “The greatest service the disciple can give to the Guru is to engage himself in Self-inquiry sincerely,” he said. Once, a visitor to Ramanashram asked Maharshi which path he should follow. The saint replied: “Before you speak of a path, first find out where are you now. Know first where you are and what you are and then the path will be visible. In fact, there is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are.”
Self is Consciousness by which one is able to experience existence in all stages of life like youth, middle age and old age and in all states like deep sleep, dream and waking. Though Consciousness reveals itself at all times, the individual is not able to realise it because he falsely identifies himself with the mind and body. The false notion of ‘i’ the ego continues to delude the individual. As he grows, it becomes a conviction; with the result he forgets svarupa, his innate, real and essential nature. To rescue the individual from delusion, Maharshi advised him to inquire: “Who Am I?” When he negates those elements like mind and body which do not constitute his nature, the pure ‘I’ alone remains, leading to Self-realisation.
Philosophy
Ajativad
Vijay Vancheswar, April 5, 2022: The Times of India
Creation, its origin, is a perpetual riddle. Science and rational analysis present the theory of natural evolution. Spiritual masters beseech us to ignore the mind and inquire within. Ramana Maharshi’s answer is that ‘if you want to go to the fundamentals, the only way out is to seek the questioner’. Maharshi explains this through three postulates of creation, each of which is tailored to suit the temperament of an individual. At the ultimate level is the Advaitic principle: ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ – the Biblical statement in the Book of Exodus, mentions this as ‘I am That I Am’ , more directly as the name Jehovah indicates ‘ I Am’ . This postulate is termed ‘Ajativada’. The ultimate truth is that there is neither creation, birth nor death.
The ever-present state is perpetual, the state of being. Interestingly, quantum physics arrives at the conclusion of only one underlying reality akin to Vedanta, a state which transcends space and time. The difference is that while science arrives at this by seeking externally, Vedanta promotes the inner quest.
The second postulate called ‘Drishti Srishti’ appeals to those who are unable to accept the ‘Ajativada’ philosophy. Here, it is explained that the world appears alongside our perception of it. It is absent in deep sleep. Yet, we can recall that we slept well. The ever-present consciousness in us enables us to recollect this. Thus, the world as we see is not real. It is the creation of the mind. A dream that appears to be real. A good analogy is the illusion of sunrise and sunset. Does the sun really rise and set? Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionised astronomy with his discovery that it is the earth that moves around the sun. The illusion of rising and setting of the sun can be termed as the play of ‘Divine Hypnosis’.
The third postulate termed ‘Srishti Drishti’ seeks to address the needs of a larger section of people, who are unable to comprehend the earlier two postulates. It is proposed that ‘Srishti’, the world, exists and we perceive it through our senses. Accordingly, the world is seen to be a result of evolution spanning creation, preservation and destruction. This cycle is repeated. Here one accepts the individual as an entity in evolution culminating in God as the supremo.
One can advance spiritually to the first level by seeking and dwelling in the substratum of one’s Presence, the state of‘ I Am’ . Interestingly, the Bhagwad Gita begins with the statement that there is no birth, no death, no present, or future. Reality is changeless. As Arjun is unable to disengage his involvement with the gross body, Krishn descends and speaks to him, adopting the third perspective of ‘Srishti Drishti’.
To enable us to mature and progress spiritually, sages and scriptures recommend the process of Shravana, Manana and Nidhidhyasana – learning, reflecting and establishing oneself in the Truth that ‘That Art Thou’.
Deciphering the mystery of creation could help us live our daily life in peace, strengthening our acceptance of the wise dictum ‘Thy Will be Done’.
The writer is visiting faculty, International Management Institute, Delhi
Finding the ‘womb-source’ of the mind
Pranav Khullar, Tracing The Mind Back To Its Womb, March 19, 2019: The Times of India
Ramana Maharshi’s benevolent gaze was said to trigger awareness of the higher Self within the earnest seeker, drawing the aspirant into an inner state of reality beyond the mind, and putting him on the path of Self-inquiry. This intense state of awareness of the Self, in which he found himself after a near-death experience at the age of 16 and which prompted his journey to Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai, is at the heart of Ramana’s message to the modern world.
In his seminal work, ‘Who Am I?’, Ramana talks about the path of inquiry which is essential to understand the nature of mind. In a style reminiscent of Shankara, he talks about the ‘i’ which arises in the physical sheath – this is the mind. He then exhorts the seeker to inquire as to where this notion of ‘i’ first arises. This enquiry is critical, Ramana says, because the thought ‘i’ is the first thought that arises in the mind. Without this first personal pronoun, so to say, no other thought can arise. This is real tapas, to stick with the thought, ‘Who am I?’ Thoughts will arise incessantly, but if one focusses on the inquiry, “...as to whom have these thoughts occurred”, the answer would also naturally arise, “...to me”.
Then if one keeps the focus on ‘Who am I?’, the mind will show the way to its source, and the mind will become still and lapse back into the hridayam, the heart, not the physical heart but the heart of Self. Constant practice of this one thought will help the mind abide at its source.
When the mind finds its wombsource, the ‘I’ thought, the root thought of the mind will be erased and with that erasure the state of the Self will emerge. This state of silence will be more eloquent than words, much like Ramana’s own state of being. This taking back of the mind through inquiry into the Self, is the real jnana, true knowledge, for the Maharshi. Everything else – whether knowing the thoughts of others or knowing the past, present and future, and knowing events beforehand – for Ramana, are temporary states, where the mind has not yet subsided permanently in the Self, and is still active at a subtle level.
This path of inquiry, vichara, Ramana stated, alone could destroy the mind as we know it, its restlessness and its continual thoughtprocess. But like Shankara, Ramana Maharshi was aware that a vast majority of people may find this path to liberation arduous, and so in the Upadesha Undiyar/ Saram – Essence of Spiritual Instructions – he talks of selfless, as other valid means of attaining this state of the Self. Ramana believed that on these paths, the Grace of the guru and a nishkama bhava, a selfless approach to life were prerequisites. But all such seekers too will also finally be led on to this path of jnana-vichara.
His silent method of teaching led Ramana to be regarded as a modern-day Dakshinamurti, imparting wisdom, through silence. Ramana himself regarded silence as the perfect upadesha, where no words are required to explain the truth.
A luminous shooting star was seen across the sky from Arunachala at the moment of Ramana’s passing away. As Ramana would say, “Who is the seer? I saw the seer also disappears. Leaving That alone which stands forever, the Self.”
The World has no independent existence
Anup Taneja, Dec 30, 2016: The Times of India
According to Ramana Maharshi, an exponent of the path of Self enquiry, the thought, `The body is i', is the fundamental error. The body does not say `i am'; it is the individual who says `i am the body'. Similarly , the world never proclaims its existence by saying `Here i am, the world'; if it did so, it would be constantly experienced in the three states of consciousness waking, dream and deep sleep.
Since the world is not cognized in deep sleep, the continuity of its existence is broken which effectually means that the world has no absolute or independent existence. The world has only relative existence because it only exists in relation to the ego or i-thought, the `perceiver'.
For the world to exist, there has to be the perceiver or the ego to experience the world and talk about it. The world is perceived both in the waking and dream states, though at different levels. While in the former, the physical world is experienced through the physical body , in the latter, the subtle dream world is experienced through the astral body . In the deep sleep state, the perceiver is missing; therefore the world does not appear in this state.
What differentiates the waking state from the deep sleep state is the emergence of bodyconsciousness. While the body is experienced in the waking state, the deep sleep state is devoid of body-consciousness. It is only because `i-am-the-body' thought is predominant in the waking state, that the external world of myriad diversities is perceived. Since the body is experienced in one state waking and not in the other, that is, deep sleep, one can say that the body arose at a particular time with both an origin and an end.
Both body and body-consciousness emerge and sink simultaneously . While no limitations are experienced in deep sleep, the waking state is the state of bondage characterised by limitations. It becomes clear that the physical body was not in existence before it was born; is made up of five ele ments; does not appear in the deep sleep state; has both a beginning and an end; and is reduced to a corpse when pra na, life-force, departs from it.
So the inert, perishable body cannot shine as the eternal `I-Consciousness' that both pre-exists and survives the body . There is continuity of the Being, the eternal Self, in all three states, while the body and the worlds that appear in the waking and dream states are ephemeral.
The question is: How to realise or get connected with eternal `I-consciousness'? Ramana Maharshi emphasised that realisation consists in eradicating the idea that one is not realised; it is not something that is to be attained anew; it is only the elimination of ego, the false `i', through constant Self-enquiry . When an earnest inquiry is made into the ego's identity and source, it vanishes, making the eternal Self shine forth by itself.
The jnani who succeeds in eliminating the `i-am-the-body thought' through sustained inquiry , remains firmly and continually entrenched in the lofty state of natural samadhi wherein he perceives the ephemeral world as a blissful play of the eternal Self which derives its reality from pure awareness, the sole ground of Being. Therefore the world has no independent existence apart from the Self.
Renunciation
Anup Taneja, What True Renunciation Is All About, April 14, 2020: The Times of India
Ramana Maharshi was often confronted with questions like: Should not a man renounce everything in order that he might get liberation? Should i resign from my job and live like a recluse to attain Self-realisation? Is it possible for a grihastha, householder, to pursue the path of Self-inquiry and attain moksha, liberation?
In response to these questions, Ramana Maharshi asserted that to realise the Self, it is neither necessary to resign from one’s job nor leave home. Why do you think you are a grihastha? If you go out as a sanyasi, ascetic, the thought – of your being a sanyasi – will haunt you. Whether you continue to lead the worldly life of a householder or renounce it and go to the forest, your mind always accompanies you. Renunciation of the world will only substitute the thought of being a sanyasi with that of being a grihastha; the mental obstacles, however, will continue to remain the same. In fact, they become more pronounced in new surroundings and make it difficult for the seeker to pursue his meditation in a peaceful frame of mind. The change of environment, thus, is not of much help.
Drawing a distinction between internal and external renunciation, the Maharshi pointed out that the former implied renunciation of the ego-mind, the i-thought, while the latter meant giving up worldly possessions. Together, they meant renunciation of ‘i’ and ‘mine’; it is the former that bestows upon the seeker Brahmn jnana, Self-realisation. Thus, for a seeker who succeeds in attaining mastery over internal renunciation, external renunciation becomes redundant and meaningless. Such a seeker is blessed with the power of discrimination and is able to attain Brahmn jnana even while leading a normal, worldly life, typical of a householder.
The Maharshi illustrated the superiority of internal renunciation by referring to the story of King Sikhidhwaja and his wife Queen Chudala. The former, with the purpose of attaining Brahmn jnana, renounced all his possessions and retired to a forest to do penance. But even after having done rigorous penance for eighteen years, Brahmn jnana eluded him. His wife Chudala, on the other hand, succeeded in attaining Self-realisation despite being engaged in worldly activities. This is because she had, through constant Self-inquiry and meditation on her own Self, acquired the understanding, that without annihilation of the ego-mind, Self-realisation was impossible. She advised her husband also to focus on elimination of ego, the i-am-the-body thought, by delving (deep) within himself, instead of doing rigorous penance at the external level. Sikhidhwaja followed her advice and attained Brahmn jnana.
The Maharshi said that better than the man who constantly thinks, ‘I have renounced everything,’ is the one who does his duty with an attitude of complete surrender to the higher power and is devoid of the thought, ‘I am the doer.’ He advised seekers that instead of ruining themselves by clinging – as their refuge – to the illusory world that appeared as a conjuring trick, it is prudent to renounce it in the mind and remain detached from it, like the ripe tamarind fruit that, despite remaining inside its pod, stays separate from it.
The Maharshi said, “For those who have, with great difficulty, accomplished renunciation of ego, there is nothing else to renounce. That which is worth taking up is Self-inquiry that reveals jnana; that which is worth enjoying is the grandeur of the Self; that which is worth renouncing is the ego-mind.” (Ramana Maharshi entered mahasamadhi on April 14, 1950)
