Fwd: Frank H. Humphreys - #2

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ThePowerOfSilence, "viorica" <viorica@z...>

wrote:

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

I do not like to stand between the earnest reader and this

interesting piece of religious literature. But weak as I am, I shall

do what little I can, being asked to do it. This is an impressive

and instructive description by a young man (eager in search of

Mahatmas for enlightenment) of his visit to, and experiences with

Mahatma Sri Ramana Maharshi, a living Saint of South India who is

known and revered as having attained the goal of the Vedantic

religion, and who is the fountainhead of the soul-force to humanity

in these days of rampant materialism.

 

The description is concise and vivid and needs, in my opinion, no

preface or introduction. In the Master's presence, what a great

vibration there is in the body, and how elevated the mind and

invigorated the spirit are, a man can only feel but cannot express.

The Master's teaching is just what is needed in these times, when

men are short in life, weak in body, and feeble in spirit, their

entire attention being drawn to things material — apparent and

temporal —in preference to what is spiritual — real and eternal. The

whole teaching of Mahatma Sri Ramana Maharshi turns on the only

pivot: "Knowest thou thyself, thou wilt know everything and wilt

have no more to know." He advocates a very simple process of

enquiry, viz. "Who am I?" A pure and constant thought of Atman —

devoid of form, name and attribute —takes the thinker to the source

of all thoughts — the heart, where the enquirer and the enquired are

merged, or in a way lost in the enquiry, which is Mukti, liberation

or Self-realization. This realization is the real worship of Atman —

God within and without. The author of this attractive booklet seems

to have gathered information about Sri Ramana Maharshi from various

sources and at different times.

 

 

A word or two as to how it was that Mr Frank H. Humphreys chanced to

hear of our Maharshi and visit him and be brought into the roll of

his admirers, may interest the reader. F.H. Humphreys came to

India as Assistant Super intendent of Police in January 1911. When

he reached Bombay he was so bad in health that he had to be taken to

the Bombay hospital where he remained up to the middle of March. He

arrived at Vellore on the 18th of that month. When I went to him

that day to begin Telugu alphabets, the first question he put me

was: "Munshi! Do you know astrology?" I said I did not. The next

question was: "Can you get me an English translation of some book on

astrology?" I complied with his request by getting him a copy from

the George Union Club, Vellore. On the morning of the next day, the

19th, while returning the book to me, he asked me: "Do you know any

Mahatmas here?" I feigned not to know any sage and denied the

knowledge of any such great men. On the morning of the third day,

the 20th, he came upon me with a searching and vehement

question: "Munshi! You said yesterday you did not know any Mahatma.

I saw your Guru this morning in my sleep. He sat by my side. He told

me something which I did not understand nor did he, what I said to

him. The first man in Vellore whom I met in Bombay was you." When I

questioned him how it was that he saw me in Bombay, though I had

never travelled beyond Guntakal, he said that when he was lying with

high fever in the hospital at Bombay, he, in order to be free from

pain for a while, diverted and directed his mind (attention) to

Vellore and, in his astral body, the first man he met there was I.

I left him saying I knew not anything about the astral body or

anybody for that matter save the physical one.

 

Curiosity however tempted me to test him, and in the afternoon, I

took to him a bundle of photographs of great men including those of

our Maharshi and Ganapathi Muni. I silently placed the bundle before

him on his table and quietly went to Mr L. Clift, another police

gentleman whom I was then teaching. When I returned to the writer of

this booklet an hour later, he invited me with the words: "There is

the likeness of your Guru. Is he not your preceptor? Tell me." Thus

saying, he pointed to me the photograph of our Ganapathi Sastriar,

separated from others.This act of his surprised me. I was caught and

I could not hide me or my master. I had regarded (and I do still

regard) Ganapathi Sastriar as my Guru. In 1906 he taught me how to

concentrate and directed me to divert and fix my attention on

Paramatma, known as Sri Ramana, a name dear to my heart. Sastriar's

instruction is not different from that of our Maharshi. Mr Humphreys

again became ill and was advised by a doctor to go to Ootacamund

which he did on 1st April 1911. While there, he wrote to me about

his meeting a strange person, poorly clad but well-built, with

bright eyes, matted hair and along beard. The gentleman with whom Mr

Humphreys was staying on the hills said to him that he had never

seen that strange man, though he had been living there for several

years. Mr Humphreys asked me who that man could be. I simply

answered that, judging by the description he gave me, I thought he

ought to be a siddha. His second letter from that hill-station was a

request to teach him hatapranayama. Considering the weak state of

his health, I did not think it right to speak to him about the

voluntary and forced restraint of breath but simply told him that

constant and pure thought of Paramatma in our heart would bring

about the natural kumbhakam, absorption of mind in the heart — the

ultimate stage and state which sages long for.

 

His third question from the Nilgiris was: "Will flesh-eating be a

help or hindrance to the progress of meditation?"

In answer to this, I wrote to him some five or six pages on "Ahimsa

paramo dharma" explaining that harmlessness or non-killing is the

greatest of the virtues and concluded the letter with words: ""Flesh-

eating does not help the meditator in meditation." He replied that

what he saw in a dream that morning was confirmed by what was

written in my letter received a few hours later, that it would be

hard for him to give up at once his long accustomed habit of flesh-

eating and that he would slowly do it. In one of his letters from

England during later years I remember he wrote to me that he had

become a vegetarian.

 

His fourth letter from that cool and salubrious health resort sought

my advice as to whether he could join a mystic society, as he was

then about to complete 21 years of age. He added that the members of

that society had the privilege of meeting and talking with Mahatmas

face to face and that, in one of his former births he had been

connected with that society. As I am neither a believer nor a non-

believer in mysticism and as what I wanted was a simple shanthi —

peace of mind and oneness with the Atman within — and a sit was my

conviction that pure, simple and ceaseless thought of Brahman,

with no form, no name and no attribute would secure me this sublime

state — a blessing — I only wrote to him that things would be done

according to one's own prarabdha and if it was his karma that he

should become again a member of that mystic society nothing could

prevent him and for that reason I could give him no advice. About

the end of 1911, he returned from the hills. One day, when I was

teaching him Telugu in Vellore, he asked me for paper and pencil

and drew a picture of a mountain cave with some sage standing at its

entrance and a stream gently flowing down the hill in front of the

cave. He said he saw this in his sleep and asked me what it would

be.

 

 

Immediately the thought of our Maharshi, then dwelling in the

Virupaksha cave came to my mind and I told him about Sri Ramana

Paramatma. From the day he saw Ganapathi Sastrigal in his dream,

he had been asking and urging me to take him to the Sastriar. How

he happened to meet Ganapathi Sastriar and how he was taken to the

Maharshi, he has himself clearly explained in his book.

Subsequently he took several independent trips to our Master

whenever there was a doubt to be cleared or a question to be asked.

 

Now I shall relate what transpired in the presence of the Maharshi

during his first visit to him. He saluted the Mahatma and remained

in silent prayer and meditation for a few minutes. When permitted to

talk, the first question he asked was, "

"Master, will I be helpful to the world?" The Mahatma's answer

was,

"Help yourself, you will help the world."

The same question repeated had the same reply with observation that

he was in the world but not different (separate) from it, nor was it

different from him, and that therefore by helping himself, he

would help the world — (meaning thereby the oneness of jiva with

Atman). The next and the last question was:

""Master, can I perform miracles as Sri Krishna and Jesus did?"

This question was met by a counter question: ""Were they, at the

time when they performed miracles, aware that they were performing

miracles?"

Mr. Humphreys, after a minute's silence, replied: "No, Master.

They were only the media through which God'spower did its work."

How much importance can be attached to things mystic in nature is

vividly explained in this book.

 

Dear Brethren! When a man is lost in God, he becomes a mere tool

in the hand of God, and is one with God, having become a part and

parcel of God; he gets that peace and happiness (unaffected by

joys and sorrows) which can only be enjoyed but never described.

May we aim at this state of mind's rest and peace in heart which the

holy ones are ever after!

 

Madanapalle, 2-3-1925.

S. NARASIMHAYYA

 

from

GLIMPSES OF THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

As described by FRANK H. HUMPHREYS

 

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