Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Guest guest]

Dear Group:

Please don't give me credit for posting all this great Ramana stuff,

because I am getting it from Viorica's group and reposting it here.

Although she is not on the list for a while, she still lives here

though her dedication to Ramana,

Aloha,

Alton

MillionPaths/

 

 

RamanaMaharshi, "lostnfoundation" <leenalton@h...> wrote:

>

> Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) was one of the greatest spiritual

> teachers of modern-day India. At the age of seventeen he attained a

> profound experience of the true Self without the guidance or need

of

> a Guru and thereafter remained conscious of his identity with the

> Absolute (Brahman) at all times. After some years of silent

seclusion

> he finally began to reply to the questions put to him by spiritual

> seekers all over the world. He followed no particular traditional

> system of teaching, but rather spoke directly from his own

experience

> of non-duality. Ramana Maharshi wrote very little on his own

> volition, but was prompted by his closest devotees. His teaching

was

> primarily in the Silence, by the unspoken influence he had on the

> consciousness of those in his Presence. It also ocasionally took

the

> form of conversations with visitors and devotees seeking his

guidance

> (as transcribed by followers), the brief instructions he left with

> his followers, and a few devotional songs to the Holy Hill,

> Arunachala, which he considered to be his guru. His main method of

> instruction was to direct the questioner again and again to his

true

> self and to recommend, as a path to realization, a tireless form of

> self-inquiry featuring the question "Who am I?" as ones own inner

> quest. The transcribed conversations of Ramana Maharshi are known

> among spiritual seekers the world over as the purest and most

> effective spiritual guidance, and prized for their great

> inspirational power, which transcends all religious differences.

>

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

Tamil

> Nadu (South India), the son of Shundaram Ayyar, a scribe and

country

> lawyer; he was given the name Venkataraman, abbreviated as Ramana.

At

> the age of seventeen he suddenly one day had an unexpected fear of

> immanent death, in which he underwent the death experience and

> realized that the body dies but the consciousness is not touched by

> death. He realized, that 'I' am immortal consciousness.All

this",

> he later reported, "were not idle speculations. It went through me

> like a powerful, living truth that I experienced directly, almost

> without thinking. 'I' (i.e. the true I or Self) was reality, the

only

> reality in this momentary state. All conscious activity that was

> related to my body flowed into this 'I'. From that moment, all

> attention was drawn as if by a powerful magic to the 'I' or

> the 'Self'. The fear of death was permanently extinguished. From

this

> time on I remained fully absorbed in the 'Self'."

>

> After this experience, Venkataraman lost all interest in things of

> the world and ultimately left home leaving only a note (without

> anyone's permission), to find his way to the holy mountain,

> Arunachala. There he remained for remainder of his life. He spent

> several years in silent Self-absorption, first in a dark corner of

a

> temple in Tiruvannamali at the foot of the mountain, and later in

> various caves on the mountain itself. During this period of deep

> silence he totally neglected all care of the body and at one point

> was virtually chewed up by insects. Even when his mother sought him

> out and attempted to get him to return home, he did not break his

> silence but rather acted as though he did not see her. When his

> followers begged him to make some response to his mother's

desperate

> pleas, he wrote the following impersonal words on a scrap of

> paper: "The fate of the soul is determined in accordance with its

> parabdha- karma (destiny for this lifetime). What is not meant to

> happen will not happen, however much you wish it. What is meant to

> happen will happen, no matter what you do to prevent it. This is

> certain. Therefore, the best path is to remain silent."

>

> When Ramana Maharshi later ended his silence and began to respond

to

> questions about the path to the Self, more followers gathered. One

> devotee named Scanda personnally built him an Ashram, by his own

> efforts for him and his mother (who had come to live by her son),

and

> all his close devotees. When his mother died, he soon moved to a

> location near her gravesite and there, near the town of

> Tiruvannamalai, another ashram grew up around him. There in 1950,

ill

> with cancer, Ramana Maharshi passed into maha samadhi, a yogi

sage's

> final conscious exit from the body. The site is still visited today

> by spiritual seekers of every nationality as a place of pilgrimage

> where the presence of the great saint can still be felt.

>

>

> partially adapted from the entry "Ramana Maharshi" by Kurt

> Friedrichs, in the Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion

> (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1988)