SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI'S WAY

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SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI'S WAY

Ivan Frimmel

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi was born on 29 December 1879 in Tiruchuli, Tamil

Nadu, South India, the son of a country lawyer Shundaram Ayyar, and

given the name Venkataraman, abreviated as Ramana. The titles Sri and

Maharshi (Great Sage) were given to him much later by his followers.

 

As a schoolboy, Ramana was quite interested in and influenced by the

Hindu religious beliefs and practices of his family and neighbours,

and fascinated to hear stories about a holy mountain Arunachala in

Southern India, which, according to some Hindus, is the abode or

manifestation of Lord Siva.

 

One day, at the age of seventeen, Ramana had a mystical pre-

experience of death, consisting of a temporary but terrifying

physical paralysis, intense fear, confusion and questioning... This

experience completely changed his outlook on life – and his future.

It was during this time that he started asking himself questions

like `Who is it that dies?' and `Who am I?' that later became the

core of his teaching method.

 

As a result of this experience, fear of death vanished once and for

all for young Ramana – and `absorption in the Self continued unbroken

from that time on`.

 

Shortly after this experience Ramana walked out of his family and –

driven by a powerful spiritual force – slowly made his way to

Arunachala. On his arrival he threw away all his money, possessions

and the future his parents planned for him, and abandoned himself to

his newly-found awareness.

 

His absorption in this awareness was so complete that for about three

years he became almost totally oblivious to the needs of his body and

to the world around him. Living in a tiny, dark basement room under a

Hindu temple in Tiruvanamalai, near Arunachala, his body was wasting

away because he scarcely cared for it and rarely ate. Only after

about three years, with the help of some caring friends and family

members, he started the slow process of returning to physical

normalcy, and later teaching others about the state of Self/God-

realization, in which he was by then firmly established.

 

An ashram was built at the foot of Arunachala, where Ramana Maharshi

spent the rest of his life. Thousands of people from all over India

and other parts of the world started visiting the ashram, and

gradually many other ashrams and teaching centres sprung-up all over

the world in his name.

 

Over the years, many people reported that their lives were enriched

or transformed just by meeting this remarkable man, by sitting with

him in silence, by his gaze, his talks (sometimes recorded onto

tapes, or transcribed into books), or by practicing his way of

enquiry, consisting primarily of asking and answering the question

Who am I?

 

According to Sri Ramana Maharshi, asking this question is the basis

of all spiritual seeking and the answering of this question for

oneself will lead to the ultimate goal of religions: the realization

of one's true identity and unity with God. Maharshi usually used the

term Self (or Atman) for one's true identity but often also the term

God (or Brahman) – and he would frequently emphasise their ultimate

unity, nonduality.

 

Many people visiting Ramana Maharshi's ashram would ask him to answer

the question for them... On one such occasion he answered

sharply, "If you don't know who you are, who else can tell you?" -

but usually he would answer patiently and politely, by asking further

helpful questions, or making statements that would encourage the

questioner to continue seeking the answer for himself or herself...

 

He would often give his questioners clues by making it very clear

that one's true identity, true "I", cannot be found in one's body,

sensations, emotions or mind, i.e. as an object of one's

consciousness (as a feeling, idea, image, concept…), only through a

sincere and persistent enquiry into the question Who am I?

culminating in the unshakeable non-conceptual and nondual realization

of one's true identity as Pure Awareness, Consciousness, God,

Atman/Brahman, Self...

 

"The essence of the mind," he said, "is Awareness, Consciousness,

God, Self... However, when the ego overclouds it, it functions as

reasoning, thinking or perceiving. The Universal Mind, Self, God,

Consciousness, not being limited by the ego, has nothing outside

itself and is therefore only aware. This is what the Bible means

by `I am that I am' ".

 

To people who found the path of Self-enquiry hard to follow, he would

advise the way of surrender to God: longing for God's will to be

done, giving up the feeling that `I am the doer', until the

realization occurs that there is no God's will AND my will, only ONE

universal will.

 

"Reality is only one and that is the Self," says Ramana

Maharshi, "all the rest are mere phenomena in it, of it and by it...

The seer, the objects seen and the seeing, all are the Self only… If

you surrender your self, all is well."

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi was one of the greatest spiritual teachers and

mystics of modern-day India, whose teaching and personal example

influenced the minds and lives of many great and ordinary people in

this century – and will undoubtedly continue to do so for many

centuries to come.

 

Love,

 

Ivan.