Favorite Stories of Sri Bhagavan

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Stories of Ramana Maharshi

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>From a Great Darkness

What does Sri Bhagavan mean to me? After many years of experiencing

his grace I can now reply, "He is everything to me. He is my Guru and

my God." I can say this with confidence because, had I not had the

good fortune of seeing him and thereafter getting into closer contact

with him, I would have been still groping in the dark. I would still

have been a doubting Thomas.How did it all begin? When I was eighteen

I read a lot of books by Swami Vivekananda and Swami Rama Tirtha. This

reading generated a desire in me that I should also become a

sannyasin, like the authors of these books. Their writings also

implanted in me the ideal of plain living, high thinking, and a life

dedicated to spiritual matters. Somehow, my desire to become a

sannyasin was never fulfilled, but the ideal of a dedicated life made

a deeper and deeper impression on my mind. At the age of twenty I had

the good fortune of contacting Mahatma Gandhi. His ideals won my

heart and for several years I faithfully tried to put them into

practice.I was doing my duty to the best of my ability and leading,

as best I could, a pure and dedicated life until the age of

thirty-eight. Around that time skepticism began to assail me and my

mind became a home for all kinds of doubts. I began to doubt the

ideals of Gandhiji; I began to doubt sadhus and sannyasins; I doubted

religion, and I even began to doubt the existence of God.It was in

this darkest period of my life that I first heard of Sri Ramana

Maharshi. At that time I seemed to be heading swiftly towards total

skepticism. The world appeared to me to be full of injustice,

cruelty, greed, hate and other evils, the existence of which

logically led me to a strong disbelief in God. For, I argued, did He

truly exist, could anything dark or evil ever have flourished? Doubt

upon doubt assailed me like dark shadows which dogged my footsteps. I

had, as a consequence, lost whatever little reverence I might have had

for sadhus and sannyasins. I found myself slowly but surely losing my

interest in religion. The very word itself eventually became a

synonym in my mind for a clever ruse to delude the credulity of the

world. In short, I began to live a life lacking optimism and faith. I

was not happy in my disbelief, for my mind took on the aspect of

turbulent waters, and I felt that all around me there was raging a

scorching fire which seemed to burn up my very entrails.

It was about that time that Chhaganlal Yogi met an old friend on the

train who had recently visited Ramanashram. His friend described his

visit with great enthusiasm and tried his best to convince Chhaganlal

that Ramana Maharshi was an authentic sage. Then his friend gave him a

pinch of vibhutti, holy ash from Ramana Maharshi's ashram, but such

was his skepticism and cynicism that he let the precious ashes fall

from his fingers onto the floor of the train. But in parting his

friend gave him a book about the Maharshi which Chhaganlal read and

was intrigued by, yet he still felt a great skepticism. Despite his

cynicism, he could not get the Maharshi out of his mind. Finally

after reading other books and repeatedly writing to the ashram, he

decided to visit and find out for himself.

At first I was terribly disappointed because nothing seemed to strike

me in the way I had expected. I found Sri Bhagavan seated on a couch,

as quiet and unmoving as a statue. His presence did not seem to

emanate anything unusual, and I was very disappointed to discover

that he displayed no interest in me at all. I had expected warmth and

intimacy, but unfortunately I seemed to be in the presence of someone

who lacked both.From morning till evening I sat waiting to catch a

glimpse of his grace, of his interest in me, a stranger who had come

all the way from Bombay, but I evoked no response. Sri Bhagavan

merely seemed cold and unaffected. After pinning such hopes on him,

his apparent lack of interest nearly broke my heart. Eventually, I

decided to leave the ashram, knowing full well that if I did, I would

be more skeptical and hard-headed that before.The Veda parayana was

chanted every evening in Sri Bhagavan's presence. It was considered

to be one of the most attractive items in the daily program of the

ashram, but in my depressed state it fell flat on my ears. It was the

evening of the day that I had decided to leave. The sun was setting

like a sad farewell, spreading a darkness over both the hill and my

heart. The gloom deepened until the neighborhood disappeared into the

blackness of the night. In my sensitive state the electric light which

was switched on in the hall seemed like a living wound on the body of

the darkness. My mind, which was deeply tormented, felt that the

psychic atmosphere in the hall was stuffy and choking. Unable to bear

it any longer, I walked outside to get a breath of fresh air. A young

man called Gopalan came up to me and asked me where I had come

from."Bombay," I replied.He asked me if I had been introduced to the

Master, and when I replied that I had not, he was most surprised. He

immediately led me to the office, introduced me to the Sarvadhikari

and then proceeded with me to the hall where he introduced me to Sri

Bhagavan. When he heard my name Sri Bhagavan's eyes turned to me,

looked straight into mine and twinkled like stars. With a smile

beaming with grace he asked me if I were a Gujerati. I replied that I

was. Immediately he sent for a copy of the Gujerati translation by Sri

Kishorelal Mashruwala of Upadesa Saram, a few copies of which had only

just arrived. He then asked me to chant the Gujerati verses from the

book."But I am not a singer," I answered, hesitating to begin. But

when it became clear that I was expected to perform, I got over my

initial hesitation and began to chant verses from the book. I had

sung about fifteen when the bell for the evening meal rang. All the

time I was chanting I could feel Sri Bhagavan keenly observing me. It

seemed that the light of his eyes was suffusing my consciousness, even

without my being conscious of it. His silent gaze brought about a

subtle but definite transformation in me. The darkness, which a few

minutes before had seemed heavy and unbearable, gradually lightened

and melted into a glow of well-being. My erstwhile sadness completely

disappeared, leaving in my heart an inexplicable emotion of joy. My

limbs appeared to have been washed in an ocean-tide of freedom.That

evening I sat close to Sri Bhagavan in the dining room. In my exalted

state the food I ate seemed to have an unusual and unearthly taste. I

quite literally felt that I was participating in some heavenly meal

in the direct presence of God. After having such an experience I, of

course, abandoned all thought of leaving the ashram that night. I

stayed on for three days longer in order to widen the sacred and

extraordinary experience which had already begun, an experience of

divine grace which I felt would lead me in the direction of spiritual

liberation.During the three days of my stay in the proximity of the

Divine Master, I found my whole outlook entirely changed. After that

short period I could find little evidence of my old self, a self

which had been tied down with all kinds of preconceptions and

prejudices. I felt that I had lost the chains which bind the eyes of

true vision. I became aware that the whole texture of my mind had

undergone a change. The colors of the world seemed different, and

even the ordinary daylight took on an ethereal aspect. I began to see

the foolishness and the futility of turning my gaze only on the dark

side of life.In those few days Sri Bhagavan, the divine magician,

opened up for me a strange new world of illumination, hope and joy. I

felt that his presence on earth alone constituted sufficient proof

that humanity, suffering and wounded because of its obstinate

ignorance, could be uplifted and saved. For the first time I fully

understood the significance of 'darshan'.While I lay in bed in the

guest room of the ashram, the encounter which had taken place on the

train in Bombay replayed itself in my mind. I recalled the blind

audacity which had prompted me to drop the thrice-holy vibhuti in

contempt onto the floor of the railway carriage. Today, even one

speck of such vibhuti is a treasure to me."O Master," I thought to

myself, "what a miracle of transformation! Why did it take half a

lifetime before I could meet you? Half a lifetime of blundering, of

failing and falling. But I suppose, my Master, that you would say

that time is a mental concept. For I feel that in your sight your

bhaktas have, throughout all time, always been with you and near

you.As these thoughts were passing through my mind, I slowly fell

into a deep sleep. The next morning I arose in a rejuvenated state;

there was a new vigor in my limbs and an awareness that my heart was

permeated with light. On the third day of my visit I sadly took leave

of Sri Bhagavan. I was still human enough, still caught in the sense

of time and space, for the parting to leave me with a feeling of

aching and emptiness in the heart. But there was no despair.

Something assured me that I would be returning to the feet of the

Master sooner than I could imagine.Chhaganlal V. Yogi

Now, here following this marvelous and wonderful story of Sri

Bhagavan, I offer my own tale of what Sri Ramana means to me.

I was twelve years old and my life was one spent moving between the

library, my bed, school, the forests and rivers, the doctor's medical

experiments, the hospitals and the dive into the mundane and divine

that made up my daily routine.

In the library I was always drawn to the metaphysical section of

literature dissecting the heart. If not there, I was hanging about in

the mystery-murder section dissecting the psychology of the mind. Time

and again I would take down books that were about Sri Ramana Maharshi,

or reincarnation, Yoga, the ancient texts, The Vedas and the

Upanishads, all was fodder for this head and heart seeker seeking to

get a peek of what they were all trying to tell me. Swell. I was

living a hell life in a body that was burning alive with dying daily

and all the while I was also living in a heaven body that was

bursting with the light of the living, the Living Word.

Who am I was something that I actually seriously asked me. Lots.

What I got from Sri Bhagavan was much like the author-devotee above

got, I got God in the form of a glance that I chanced to have of

Bhagavan's Bhava-Jnana Eyes looking throuhg me to me and smiling,

waving and saying not one word. What was heard was heard from the

Heart. Sri Ramana imparted to me early on in my sadhana, Grace, the

same Grace that he has always said we are drowning in.

In my drowning in the delusion and (ill)you's n, Grace suddenly had a

face. It was the face of Love that hovered about me in my dreams, in

my schemes and in my deepest depths of Understanding the

Un-Understandable. It had the Face of Sri Bhagavan. It had the

Fragrance of Arunachala's rugged beauty, wild blessed beauty.

This meeting with Sri Ramana via the books that took me to his chair,

to his ashram in the Heart, it left and indelible inking of I Am

tender Wisdom-written into Being, this Being Who I Am. Who Am I?

LoveAlways,

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