Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

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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)