Uniqueness of Sri Bhagavan

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was a phenomenon of this century. Venkataraman (Sri Maharshi’s original name) was born in December, 1879 at Tiruchuzhi in Tamil Nadu. He was a keen sportsman but an indifferent student. One day when a relative of his said that he was returning from Arunachala, he was thrilled at the mention of the word ‘Arunachala’. It cast a spell over him. Later on in a poem, he said: “Without other’s knowledge, you completely robbed my mind, O Arunachala.”

In his sixteenth year, when he was in Madurai, he had the experience of death. One day, he felt that he was about to die. He did not shout, nor did he send for a doctor. He tried to find out for himself then and there what death was. He realised that death was to his body and not to the ever-shining Self in the hearts of all. Later he said of this experience: “It was about six weeks before I left Madurai for good that the great change in life took place. It was quite sudden. 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, and I did not try to account for it or to find out whether there was any reason for the fear.

I just felt ‘I am going to die’ and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends; I felt that 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? The body dies’. And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give great reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ nor any other 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 this 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 the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends 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 truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process; ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.”

After this experience, Venkataraman lost interest in worldly affairs. He became indifferent to his studies and surroundings. He would go to the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai and stand before Lord Nataraja and shed tears of joy: “I would stand before Iswara, the Controller of the Universe and the destinies of all, the Omniscient and Omnipresent, and occasionally pray for the descent of His grace upon me so that my devotion might increase and become perpetual like that of the sixty-three saints. Mostly I would not pray at all, but let the deep within flow into the deep without.

Tears would mark this overflow of the soul and not betoken any particular feeling of pleasure or pain.”

He spent much of his time in meditation. His brother was very annoyed at this and one day scolded him. Venkataraman took it to heart and left home for Tiruvan- namalai leaving a letter behind saying that he was going in search of his Father: “I am leaving in search of my Father in obedience to His Command. This is only embarking on a good mission. Therefore, nobody need grieve over this. To trace this out, no money need be spent. Your college fee has not been paid. Two rupees are enclosed.” It is interesting to note that the letter begins with ‘I’ which becomes ‘this’ in the middle and ends unsigned.

When Venkataraman arrived in Tiruvannamalai on 1 September, 1896, he was only sixteen. When Sri Bhagavan left Madurai for Tiruvannamalai, he took with him Rs. 3 out of Rs. 5 that had been given by his brother to remit his (brother’s) college fee. Sri Bhagavan took just the amount that he thought was the train fare from Madurai to Tindivanam. He never worried about how he would reach Tiruvannamalai from Tindivanam. He had surrendered himself totally to Arunachala and left everything to Him. Anyone of us would have taken the entire amount thinking that if conditions were not favourable, we must have some money to return home. Sri Bhagavan did not have even a trace of doubt that Arunachala would not accept him. On arriving in Tiruvannamalai, Sri Bhagavan went straight to the temple and reported his arrival to Arunachaleswara. Later he went to the Ayyankulam tank and threw away the sweets that had been given to him by the sister of Muthukrishna Bhagavatar of Kilur. He did not know when, where, or whether he would get his next meal, but he did not worry about it as he had surrendered himself totally to Arunachala and felt that He would do what was necessary. Again, he tore off from his dhoti just the amount of cloth that was necessary for a kaupina and threw away the rest. He was not interested in an extra kaupina, nor did he think of using the remaining cloth as a towel. He took only the absolute minimum. The sixteen-year-old boy took a leap from here to eternity and shook off the dust of the world. This is vairagya, this is renunciation, this is total surrender.

The Maharshi embodied all that is best and finest in our Vedas and Upanishads. He came of the line of our ancient rishis. He was totally free and gave this freedom to others. He never asked for anything. He didn’t ask anyone to do anything for him. He was silent much of the time and communicated a peace that passeth understanding. He was extraordinary in every way but lived an ordinary life. He did not advise people to give up this or that. He wanted them to give up the sense of ‘doership’. He de-emphasised miracles, clairvoyance, etc. To him, Self-realisation was the most important thing. Self-realisation is not the acquisition of anything new but only the removal of all camouflage.

Realisation came to the Maharshi unsought. He had no knowledge of the Vedas, the Upanishads, etc. when he got realisation. He had read only the Periapurāṇam, a Tamil work about the lives of the sixty-three saivite saints. The treasure of Self-knowledge came to him when he faced death squarely at the age of sixteen. He experienced Brahman without knowing the word or its meaning. We all know a great deal about it, but do not know it.

He lived in the Arunachala Temple precincts first and later on around the Arunachala Hill. He was completely oblivious of his surroundings. He appeared to be doing tapas. But he was not. He had attained Self-realisation. There was nothing to seek after this and hence there was no need for tapas to attain anything. He himself said later: “I did not eat, so they said I was fasting. I did not speak, so they said I was a mouni.”

His fame as a silent sage spread. People from different parts of India and abroad flocked to him for spiritual solace. The Maharshi was open to all at all times of the day and night. He had no private life of his own.

A tumour developed on his left shoulder in 1948 and he was totally indifferent to it. He was operated on three times at the request of his devotees. The doctors were amazed at his calm and total indifference to his body.

The doctor who attended on him said: “The variety of tumour that Sri Bhagavan had was spindle-shaped sarcoma, probably arising from the sheath of ulnar nerve. This is a very painful tumour with its characteristic shooting pain. In medical language, we call it lancinating pain. But Sri Bhagavan described it as something like insects creeping up and down the arm! And Sri Maharshi bore with this pain as though the body did not belong to him. Whenever I asked him whether there was pain, Sri Bhagavan said that it was nothing.”

When devotees were sorrow-stricken at seeing blood oozing out of the tumour, he said laughingly: “Why worry? Let the blood flow out. It is a ruby, you see. Like the ‘Syamanthakamani’, this is also producing gold every day. The only difference is, in that case, the gold that was produced was yellow while in this case it is red. See how much is oozing out.” When any devotee prayed to him to heal himself, he used to say “What have I to do with this?” or “What can I do?”.

Whenever any devotee implored the Maharshi to will his recovery, he said, “Who is there to will this?” He also added, “They say that I am going but where could I go? I am here.”

When the Maharshi merged in Arunachala at 8.47 p.m. on 14 April, 1950, a meteor flashed across the sky and it was seen in different parts of the country. The Maharshi’s presence is powerfully felt even now at his Ashram in Tiruvannamalai and in the hearts of his sincere devotees. To all who seek him, he is as easily available now as before. He has become a centre without circumference.

The most extraordinary thing about the Maharshi was his twenty-four-hour accessibility. No permission was needed to see him and there were no special darshan hours. Everyone of us insists on privacy every few hours. We don’t want to be disturbed. We had a Maharshi who was ‘disturbed’ all the time, but he never felt disturbed.

In the early years, people used to sleep around him. When he had to go out at night, sometimes he had to pick his way carefully through the sleepers. When someone offered to give him a torch, the Maharshi said there was no need for it. At the insistence of devotees, he accepted it. He used it in such a way that nobody was disturbed. Whenever he had to go out at night, he would flash the torch on his stomach and by the reflected light find his way out. He would not flash the torch on the ground as it might disturb those who were sleeping. Such was his concern for others.

But this concern was not limited to human beings. It was extended to birds, animals and plants. Occasionally, when dogs chose to sleep in the hall, some people used to murmur that dogs would mess up the place. The Maharshi would take the dogs out around midnight so that they could answer the calls of nature. Dogs, sparrows, peacocks, squirrels, monkeys and cows used to go to him. He would talk to them and they would obey his instructions. He would never let any one kill a snake or scorpions. “We have come to their place. We should give them protection.” In his presence, even monkeys were quiet. A monkey tried to go near him when he was in the meditation hall in the Ashram. People who got a little anxious tried to drive away the monkey. The monkey went near him and showed her baby to him. The Maharshi said, “You all tried to drive her away. She has come to show her baby. You bring your children and grandchildren. Why don’t you let her do the same thing?” The monkey stayed for a while and left shrieking with delight. Squirrels had their feast of nuts when they clambered up his couch and ate them off his palm. He radiated love to all beings.

We have heard of disciples serving gurus. Here was a unique guru who served his disciples. He used to go into the kitchen every day around 2 o’clock in the morning, cut vegetables, grind chutney, etc. Whatever he prepared was most delicious. He wasn’t interested in tasty dishes but he prepared them out of love for the devotees. Sampurnamma, who helped Sri Bhagavan in the kitchen says: “In the kitchen he was the Master Cook, aiming at perfection in taste and appearance. One would think that he liked good food and enjoyed a hearty meal. Not at all; at dinner time he would mix up the little food he would allow to be put on his leaf, the sweet, the sour and the savoury, everything together and gulp it down carelessly as if he had no taste in his mouth. When we would tell him that it was not right to mix such nicely made up dishes, he would say: ‘Enough of multi- plicity. Let us have some unity.’ It was obvious that all the extraordinary care he gave to cooking was for our sake. He wanted us to keep good health and to those who worked in the kitchen, cooking became a deep spiritual experience. ‘You must cover your vegetables when you cook them,’ he used to say. ‘Then only will they keep their flavour and be fit for food. It is the same with the mind. You must put a lid over it and let it simmer quietly. Then only does a man become food fit for God to eat.’ He would allow nothing to go to waste. Even a grain of rice or a mustard seed lying on the ground would be picked up, dusted carefully, taken to the kitchen and put in the proper tin. I asked him why he gave himself so much trouble for a grain of rice. He said: ‘Yes, this is my way. Everything is in my care and I let nothing go to waste. In these matters I am quite strict. Were I married, no woman could have lived with me. She would have run away.’

“On some other day he said: ‘This is the property of my Father Arunachala. I have to preserve it and pass it on to His children.’ He would use for food things we would not even dream of as edible; wild plants, bitter roots and pungent leaves were turned under his guidance into delicious dishes.”

Once when the Maharshi’s hands were full of blisters, a devotee, Viswanatha Swami, offered to do his work. The Maharshi said that he wasn’t bothered by the blisters and continued to do hard manual work. The devotee could not bear this and one day quietly went into the kitchen much earlier than the Maharshi and finished all the work normally done by the Maharshi. When the Maharshi went into the kitchen, he found that there was no work for him. When he asked what had happened, he was told that Viswanatha Swami had done all the work. The Maharshi did not say anything. When he met Viswanatha Swami, he asked him why he had done it. Viswanatha Swami said he could not bear to see the Maharshi grinding chutney with blisters on his hand. The Maharshi said, “In the early years I had to beg for food. Now I am being given free food. Shouldn’t I do some service to deserve this? You have done my work today. I haven’t done any service today. Please give me your ‘dhoti’. I will wash it for you.” Viswanatha Swami was moved to tears. He never interfered in Sri Maharshi’s work afterwards.

Around 1940, some devotees felt that the Maharshi shouldn’t be disturbed at least for two hours between 12 noon and 2 p.m. every day. Devotees were asked to leave the Maharshi alone during this period. The Maharshi wasn’t consulted about this. When he didn’t find any visitors in the afternoon, the Maharshi asked the attendant what had happened. He was told that it had been decided not to allow visitors between 12 noon and 2 p.m. The Maharshi came out and sat outside the hall saying, “People come to me at all hours. Some of them cannot afford to wait. If you prevent them from seeing me, I shall go to meet them. You may keep the doors closed, but you cannot lock me in.” He didn’t want to break the rule, but he wouldn’t inconvenience the visitors either. Such was his consideration for others.

Once an American lady visited the Ashram. She found it difficult to squat on the floor and so stretched her legs towards the Maharshi. She wasn’t aware that in the Indian tradition it was disrespectful to do so. A devotee went up to her and asked her to fold her legs and sit like others. Noticing this, the Maharshi said that the lady should not be asked to squat like others as she found it difficult to do it. When an attendant said it was disrespectful, the Maharshi said, “Oh, is that so? Then I am also being disrespectful to you all by stretching my legs. What you say applies to me also.” So saying, he sat cross-legged for one whole day. It took a lot of persuading on the part of devotees to make him stretch his legs again.

Once when the Maharshi saw some ‘special’ food being prepared separately in the kitchen, he asked why it was being prepared. When told that it was for a widow who was having her period, he said, “Why should she eat food cooked separately? Why can’t she be given the food served to everyone else? Is it a sin to have a period? Serve her from the food prepared for all.” He emphasised the need for compassion and consideration for others. With him concern for others was the basis of spirituality.

The Maharshi hasn’t uttered a single word against women. He never said at any time that their company would be a hindrance to sadhana. He never encouraged anyone to give up family life and take to sannyas. He once said, “Sannyasa means renouncing one’s individuality, not shaving one’s head and putting on an ochre robe. A man may be a householder but if he does not think he is one, he is a sannyasin. On the other hand, he may wear ochre robes and wander about, but so long as he thinks he is a sannyasin, he is not one.” When he was asked how to root out sex, the Maharshi answered: “By rooting out the false idea of the body being the Self. There is no sex in the Self. Because you think you are the body, you see another as a body and the difference in sex arises. But you are not the body. Be the real Self. Then there is no sex.” The Maharshi said that the path of Self-enquiry could be pursued by women too. In fact, he said that liberated women should be buried like liberated men.

He ate with others and took only that much that was served to others and not a bit more. He did not tolerate any preferential treatment. Once when a devotee sent chyvanapraash specially prepared for the Maharshi, the Maharshi took it for a day or two out of consideration for the devotee and later had it distributed to all. He did not consent to have any special diet even when he was very ill. He insisted on everything being distributed equally to all. He would say, “If it is good for me, it is good for all.”

His simplicity was extraordinary. Dilip Kumar Roy wrote of him thus: “His self-obliviousness was enchanting for me, anyway... There was nothing forced about any of his movements; no straining after effect, disguised or sublime. Greatness sat easily on him as beauty on a sunset cloud, albeit with a devastating effect, as often as not. For all our ideas as to how the great should act seemed to be dismissed by him with a smile of simple disavowal.”

He was not a scholar but scholars went to him to have their doubts clarified. He never wrote anything of his own accord. What he wrote at the request of others fills a book. His mother-tongue was Tamil. But he wrote enchanting poetry not only in Tamil but also in Sanskrit, Malayalam and Telugu, the three languages he had picked up from his devotees. Scholars in these languages are astonished at the beauty of his poetry.

The Maharshi wasn’t a killjoy. He had a delightful sense of humour. When a teacher of his came to see him at Tiruvannamalai, the Maharshi gave him one of his compositions. The teacher who was very impressed with it asked him a couple of questions about the verses in that work. The Maharshi said to the others, “Look! I left Madurai scared of answering questions in the school. He has come all the way to ask questions again!”

The Maharshi was extraordinarily frugal. He would use the margin of newspapers for writing verses. He wouldn’t allow anyone to pick too many flowers or leaves even for puja. Once when his kaupina got torn, he went to a nearby bush, took out a thorn, made a hole into it and used it as a needle. He took a thread from the torn kaupina and sewed up the hole with the improvised thread and needle.

He was silent much of the time and dispelled others’ doubts through his silence. His was the silence of the mind, his was the language of pure consciousness. Duncan Greenlees who had met the Maharshi several times wrote: “I know no other man whose mere presence has thus enabled me to make the personality drop down into the abyss of nothingness where it belongs. I have found no other human being who so emanates his grace that it can plunge him deep in the ecstasy of timeless omnipresent being.”

At the beginning of any composition, it is customary to write a mangala sloka, an invocatory verse. The blessings of God are invoked for the successful completion of the work. Mangala means ‘auspicious’. Normally only one mangala sloka is written. The Maharshi wrote two mangala slokas to ‘Ulladu Narpadu’, ‘Reality in Forty Verses’. The first verse begins with the word ‘ulladu’, which means ‘that which is’. The second one begins with the word ‘marana’, which means ‘death’. The first sloka deals with ‘that which is’ and the second with ‘that which is not’. The word death is generally considered ‘amangala or inauspicious’. The Maharshi perhaps was the first person to use ‘marana’ in a mangala sloka because it was the death experience that made him realise himself. Death to others is merely the death of the body. But his death experience resulted in the death of body-consciousness, death of the ego. To him death was auspicious. It did him good. No wonder he chose to write about it in his mangala sloka. It is also interesting to note that the word ‘Ramana’ is in the word ‘marana’. When we think of marana, we should also think of Ramana. This will drive away the fear of death.

Another extraordinary thing about the Maharshi was that he blessed people neither orally nor by raising his hand. Whenever we go to any ashram, we find the acharya or the guru blessing people or giving some prasadam. Bhagavan did not bless anyone nor did he give any prasadam. He never asked people to come or to go. He never asked people to do this or that and yet people went to see him as they enjoyed great peace in his presence. Sri Bhagavan saw himself in others and others in himself and, therefore, there was no one to bless and there was no one to be blessed. He has also said that he was not a Guru to any one nor was anyone his disciple. In a state of pure Advaita, there is no other and therefore, the question of Guru and sishya does not arise. He not only said it but also lived it every second of his life. He lived in Tiruvannamalai for 54 years. But he did not give instructions to anyone as to how his body should be disposed or where it should be buried; his detachment was total.

Sri Bhagavan was beyond time and space, but he was most punctual. If the dining hall bell rang, Sri Bhagavan would abruptly stop if he was narrating anything. He was anxious that nobody should be kept waiting. He was silent much of the time. But he communicated through his potent silence. Silence, he said, was uninterrupted speech. This communication wasn’t restricted only to those who came to the Ashram nor only to human beings. He was Sri Dakshinamurti who dispelled all doubts through his mouna or silence. Silence, according to Sri Bhagavan, is not silence of the tongue but silence of the mind.

Sri Bhagavan never said that he was either in samadhi or out of it. He never swerved from the Self and was ever in it. He did a variety of things remaining all the time in that state. Samadhi was his natural state.

As a boy and a young man, I went to the Maharshi several times. Every time I went, I felt an indescribable peace. All cravings and questions vanished in his presence. He asked me neither to come nor go. But every time I left him, I left him most reluctantly. I had seen princes and peasants prostrating before him. He treated them all alike.

The Maharshi emphasised Self-knowledge and suggested Self-enquiry as the way towards it. To those who said that Self-enquiry was difficult, the Maharshi suggested ‘total surrender’ to God. Most people, when they surrender, expect that everything will happen according to their liking because they have surrendered. The Maharshi said that total surrender implies accepting good and bad with equanimity. In such surrender, there is no ego to feel happy or unhappy. In fact, in total surrender the ego merges in the Self. There is no will of one’s own.

The Maharshi was beyond religion and rituals. His teachings are the simplest and the most scientific. “Seek the seeker, find out who you are. You are bliss; your suffering is due to your identifying yourself with your body. The source of everything is the Self. Merge your mind in the Self through Self-enquiry. Then you will be able to function in this world happily. When the ego is lost in the Self, the Self will shine in all its splendour and glory.”

Sri Ramana Maharshi did not teach anything new, but he taught Advaita by living it. Gandhiji used to ask anyone who was depressed to go to Sri Ramanasramam and have his spiritual battery charged. To the world-weary, the Maharshi is an invigorating tonic. He has pointed the way to the Self which is pure consciousness. His appeal is to all irrespective of their religion. His method can be practiced by everyone, be he a householder or a sannyasi. It is most scientific and direct without ritual of any kind. He has established through his life and his teachings that one becomes alive to the Self when one is dead to his ego. Seekers of Truth go to the Ashram in Tiruvannamalai where his vibrant presence is felt now as powerfully as when he was alive.

In his foreword to Heinrich Zimmer’s Der Weg Zum Selbst ('The Way to the Self'), the famous psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, says of the 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 ... The life and teachings of Sri Ramana are not only important for the Indian but also for the Westerner. Not only do they form a record of great human interest, but also a warning message to a humanity which threatens to lose itself in the chaos of its unconsciousness and lack of self-control.”

Sri Ramana Maharshi is most relevant to modern times. We are fighting, killing others in the name of religion. Jonathan Swift said: “We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.” We have paid a heavy price for religious fanaticism. The Maharshi asks us not to worry about religion but find out who it is that worries about religion, God, etc. “Seek the seeker and you will realise through sadhana that the seeker is the Self, or God, or pure consciousness. The Self is beyond time, place and religion.

We are all very busy, preoccupied. As someone said our diaries are full of appointments, but we don’t have time to make an appointment with ourselves. The Maharshi wants us to make an appointment with ourselves and find out who we are. The Maharshi’s method is the simplest and the most logical. He beckons us all to a higher, nobler and richer life.